Your lack of focus is going to negatively impact every single
area of your life in more ways than you might think.
And that statement is not there to scare you.
It's simply there to tell you the truth as to what has already
been happening and what's going to continue to happen if you do
not make a change. Now.
This is off the back of a poll I did yesterday on my socials
asking people what their average screen time was.
And 75% of people voted that they were on their screens for
more than six hours per day, six hours every single day.
And now I'm not here to judge because that was me back in
2022. I would say I was easily in the
high eights, the high nines. And back then I'd always
brownish it as, Oh well, I've got to work.
I run my business off off social media.
I run my business online. So all that time is being spent
doing productive things. I'm I'm, I'm building the
business. But I know now that that is a
complete barefaced line. I even tried to do something
about then to to try and bring it down because I understood the
8 hours is a little bit too much.
So I put a screen time limit on Instagram to stop me at 3 1/2
hours, thinking that that was normal 3 1/2 hours spent on one
application. Now we've got the likes of
TikTok of X Facebook of whatever it is that you're on your phone
that is constantly robbing you of your retention and of your
focus. And I did a little bit of math
and for those people who were on, we're going to say 6 hours
is the lowest. These people could have been on
7. These people could have been on
8-9 tens. But if you were to spend 6 hours
every day in a whole year, you would lose 91 days to your
phone. 91 days of your year will be spent on your phone.
And that is a crazy number. And This is why I've written up
this episode, the this video to talk about how we can start
claiming back some of that time and why we should claim back
some of that time and just some of the areas that is going to
negatively impact from your lack of focus.
So I'm going to show you why this matters.
I'm going to show you why you need to change it.
And then lastly, what you can do to change it.
So we're going to get straight into it.
I've got, I've got some notes I'm going to run with it.
And yeah, let's start claiming back some of that focus.
So we're going to define focus as the ability to be able to 0
in on a task for an extended period of time.
And I believe that to improve anything, to improve in any
single area of your life, you need two things.
You need focus and you need effort.
You need to put in the work and you need to be able to sustain
that amount of work in order to create a change.
If you cannot do those things, then you're not really going to
make much of an impact. And if you're constantly
distracted, you cannot possibly give it your all.
You may be able to make some moves, you may be able to put in
some effort, and you may even be able to see some progress, but
you're never going to reach the absolute limits of your
potential because you're constantly being distracted.
You're always going to be 1 foot in, one foot out.
It's always going to be half assed in a way because you don't
know what's on the other side. If you would just be able to
focus, if you would be able to have concentrated effort on the
thing that you're trying to do. And for a long time, I didn't
think it was a problem. I was like, well, what, what,
what is that like? It's, it's 2 minutes, it's a
minute, It's just a quick scroll.
It's a quick message. It's not going to make that much
difference. I'm still doing the task.
I'm still going to go back into the thing.
And as I was writing this all up, I was doing a bit of bit of
research and I found a thing called distraction recovery,
whereby it takes an average of 23 minutes for the brain to
refocus on the original task. And again, linking back to how I
would say that was pretty harmless was because of the fact
that I was scrolling, still doing the work that I needed to
do and getting straight back into it.
But recently, now that I've relinquished some control over
my phone and over this constant distraction, I find myself
getting into what they call a flow state or, or peak
performance quite often. And whenever I was being
distracted, I was always robbed from that.
It's very hard in the beginning to get into that flow state.
Flow state is not something that you can just do on command.
It's not just something that appears.
And you can do it within 10 minutes if you are, if you're
like me, you do anything creative.
You do some writing, you're doing some editing, you're
trying to think of ideas. There's a little bit of
resistance in the beginning. There's a little bit of, OK,
what am I going to do? There's a lot of thoughts in my
mind, like, OK, I could do it this way.
I could do it that way. And for me, there's a lot of
turmoil, there's a lot of decisions, there's a lot of
different things that I'm trying to focus on before I can
actually get into the main crux of things.
And it takes a little while for me to get into the swing of
things. But when I do, I'm locked in as,
as they say, now, I am locked in on the task.
Ideas seem to flow so naturally and you end up doing your best
work. And if you cannot focus, you are
being robbed of this. If you think that that little
scroll here and there is harmless, is not going to do
anything, then you do not know what it's like to be in the flow
state. You do not know what it's like
to reach your peak performance and your best output and see
some of your best ideas. Because that peak performance,
that flow state is usually when you're doing less thinking.
It's usually when you're less distracted.
It's usually when your mind is calm and social media
distractions, whatever it is, whatever capacity that is for
you, your phone is going to rob you from doing that.
And I will going to make a brash statement here and say that the
uptake or the notion that everyone has ADHD now is it's
just wrong. I just don't believe it.
I honestly would wage a bet that 50% of people who say they have
ADHD just don't have it. They just have a phone problem.
They are just constantly distracted.
Their attention fans are too short.
They have been accustomed to stopping tasks within a couple
of minutes to go and scroll. They cannot hold their focus on
a single task for more than 5 minutes.
And obviously that is in line with being ADHD, Attention
deficit hyperactive disorder I believe.
But I would say that a lot of those people don't actually have
it. They just are being robbed of
their attention because of their phone use, their constant
scrolling, their constant breaking of trying to do one
thing and then quickly doing another, trying to multitask.
Can't even watch ATV episode without checking your phone at
the same time. All of these things are going to
stop you from reaching your potential, are going to stop you
from getting to your to your peak performance.
But I only try and think about a time where you were free from
your phone. Now I've had a couple of these
moments where you just feel like you're in the, you're just in
the zone like, and again, reaching that flow state, the
zone. Some of it's work related, but
some of it's just pure activity and experience.
So there have been times where I, when I was travelling Bali a
couple of years back and the first week I would say of me
being there, I wasn't on my phone.
This is where I had a basically a two week holiday from my
business. So I took that two week holiday
and I was like, I'm doing no, no social media, no posting, no
nothing. I'm just going to be in the
moment. And I always look back on that
time as with fond memories because I was just present.
I was just speaking to people. I was just doing the thing.
I was just relaxing. I was free from checking other
people's lives. I was free from trying to open a
phone to get an answer that was just not there.
And like sometimes I don't even know what the hell I was opening
the phone for, but I just experienced the thing so much
more. And one of the tasks that I'm
going to be sharing with you later on in this video is taking
a phone free weekend, which I've just come off the back of.
We're on Tuesday. So this weekend it's been a full
48 hours without my phone. I use a what is a brick, very
similar to a brick that locked me out of social media and I get
no notifications, I do no scrolling, and I spend a full 48
hours off the phone. And I found that everything that
I did just felt better. Every coffee.
I spent time going to Waterstones because I'm sad.
I went to a comedy show, I met up with my family, I had a rough
dinner. I watched the football.
The weekend seemed to drag in a way, not in a negative way.
The weekend seemed to go so much slower because I was focused on
everything that I was doing. I was focused on the coffee with
a friend. I was focused on the
conversation that I was having. I wasn't thinking, oh, should I
check someone else's phone? Should I be distracted?
Should I rush? Should I fill in this this bit
of time where I'm, I'm a bit bored and try and just keep
myself busy. And I just found that by doing
that, the weekend just seemed to go a lot slower.
And I appreciated every single moment a lot more.
Again, because I was in the present moment and I was in the
flow state. I allowed my brain to get to a,
a space of calm, a space of not OK, what do I need to do next?
What do I need to focus on? And just slow.
And once you get to that point, you, you make so many changes,
which is leading onto why you should want to implement this,
why you should want to take back some of your time, reduce your
screen time and just overall be better.
So all of us could benefit from better focus.
Hopefully moving the 1st 9 minutes of this video, you would
understand that the better focus is going to have a 10X effect on
everything, on your relationships, on your workouts,
on your experience of life, on your productivity, on so many
things. And it is the one skill or trait
that is going to put you ahead of 75% of people who can't get
off their phones, who are constantly distracted, who are
at less than their best, who can't produce the work, who are
less productive, who are not reaching those levels that
you're trying to get to. And if we can focus, like if we
can take down that time, calm our minds a little bit, we'll
have less turmoil, we'll make better decisions, we'll have
better experiences. And subsequently, if it's if
this is your thing, you will make more money.
If you're better at what you do, what you do, if you're having
better ideas, you are going to be able to stand out.
And that is the key thing I want to kind of highlight there is
the standing out part of let's let's talk business in your work
in, in the thing that you're trying to achieve.
If you can stand out because you're having better ideas,
because you can hone in on a task, because you're not being
distracted, because you've got the discipline, your output is
better, your productivity is better, you have more quality.
We are in a, a point in the world where AI has taken over
the world. Like if you don't change within
the next three years, then we're all going to be jobless and
homeless, which is the message that I see online.
But if there is a situation where AI can do your job and
your employer starts seeing, OK, I can actually get someone in to
do this, but they don't want to do it straight away.
Maybe they want to try and keep some of the people on.
They want, they want to keep the people, they want to prioritise
the people over the AI. Let's just say, picture a
scenario and AI can do what you do, but your boss is looking at
you and seeing that you are distracted, you're not producing
great output and everything that you can do can be done by AI.
Then you're making it a given to be replaced.
If you can't create new ideas, if you not thinking outside the
box, if you're not providing any unique value, then you're making
it a given to be replaced because AI can do it for you.
There is a choice as there's two things that can do the same job.
1 is not distracted at all. Then you know what, you're not
distracting AI. Unfortunately in the way that we
can. Then you're going to put
yourself in a very difficult position if that time comes
around because you're not bringing anything different to
the table. So focus now is more valuable
than it's ever been, more valuable than being.
And that's only in one situation.
It has spill over to so many different things like in your
relationships, being able to focus on your partner, being
able to focus on your friends, being able to water the
relationships you have being to the ability to be where your
feet are to to be in the present and appreciate the moment and
kind of quiet in your mind. All of these things come from
focus. So what can you do to change it?
What are some things you can go and implement right now to start
changing that? I'm not saying you're going to
be able to cut your screen time by half.
Some of you may if you've got the willpower, but some things
you can do analogue activities that slow you down, things that
don't require your phone, obviously things that are not
going to take your attention and that take time.
I mean, actually, I'll caveat that there is one thing that is
not analogue, but things like reading.
I've read. I listened to something the
other day that said someone was asking the question of is there
an audio book? Because I can't sit there and
read a book. I get too antsy.
I can't focus. And the person turned around and
said, if you cannot focus on a book, how the hell are you going
to focus or put the focus required to change your life, to
get that promotion, to build that business, to build that
body to, to build that life that you want?
How the hell are you going to focus on that?
If you cannot focus on reading something so simple as reading,
have a practise. Do short books.
Don't go to anything crazy, but stuff that is going to take
time, stuff that delays the gratification.
You have to sit through it to get to the end, to get through
to the learning. I've written that.
I don't know why I've written down Sudoku here or something,
but I imagine that it's it takes time, it takes thinking, it
takes you actually having to focus on what it is that you're
doing. And again, it's not that short
burst of dopamine and creativity.
And then I put long form content, so switching from reels
and and TikTok to maybe watching longer form YouTube videos like
this one. Some of you or majority of you
are not even going to be here at 13 minutes, which is sad, but it
is a reality. If you can see things through,
if you can listen to to longer podcasts, if you can watch the
longer videos, then you then train the ability to focus and
get to that point where your brain slows down, it quietens
the noise of all the other thoughts, and you take in the
information that you need #2 is create a recognise, release and
refocus routine for when you are being distracted.
So recognise when you are doom scrolling.
Recognise when you spent the last half an hour scrolling
through videos and you don't even know what the last two
videos were that you watched. Then release that recognition.
So OK, I'll go on. I'm doom scrolling now.
I'm going to take a deep breath in.
This sounds very woo woo, but stick with me.
You're going to take a deep breath in and you're going to
focus on one sole object as you're doing that.
So you're going to take your focus away from the screen.
You're going to look at something.
Take a big breath and then you're going to try and change
your state. You're going to refocus.
You're going to go and do something different.
You're going to go move your body.
You're going to go close the phone.
You're going to go wash up. You're going to put your clothes
away. Whatever it is, have that, have
some sort of routine that it's going to allow you to recognise
feeling, release what it is, the tension that you're trying to
get rid of, the distraction and then refocus back on something
different. Another one is sleep without
your phone in your room. So get a alarm clock that is
going to act as something that's going to wake you up, not
straight away going on your phone, seeing your
notifications, already thinking about that Slack message that
you got, that WhatsApp that you've got the messages, the
missed calls, all those kind of things, the Instagrams.
And then on top of that is removing the phone from the
first to the last hour of your day.
So the first hour of your day, you use the alarm clock to wake
up and you don't spend and you don't do no scrolling, no
nothing, no checking emails. You, you, you make some sort of
routine, you go for a walk, you drink your coffee, you have your
breakfast, you get ready for the day.
No phones. OK?
Learn to get away from the focus.
Learn to allow your brain to sort of wake up and understand
what it is that needs to be done today.
And then the same with the last hour a day.
You've had so much stimulation. There's been so many things
going on. You want to make sure that
you're winding down, getting ready for bed.
So the last thing you want to do is be scrolling.
So no phone in the last bit of the day, phone free moments like
I alluded to in the video is spending a weekend spending 24
hours without your phone. And when people say oh, you
haven't got your phone, what if someone what if an emergency
happens? What I mean is social media.
Lock yourself out of social media in some form or another.
There is an app called Focus FOQOS that you can use or you
can use the screen time. The other thing with that is you
can override it. So it's quite easy, but just get
rid of the social media of the emails, the things that are
going to distract you. Leave the phone calls, go see if
there is an emergency. People can phone you but
experience a whole day, 2 days without your phone, without
scrolling and just notice how good it feels.
And then just plan moments of boredom.
Plan times when you're just sitting there and go for a walk
with no headphones, no music, no phone and you're just bored.
You're just taking in what's what's around you.
B if there's if you're standing in the queue, if you're sitting
on a train, no phone, no headphones, just sit there.
Be bored. Train yourself to focus.
Train yourself to to think about your thoughts.
Train yourself to see what it is that's going on around you.
And then the last thing I've written here is don't let the
opportunity. Don't let opportunity and
success pause you by because social media or things alike
have decide have been designed to hold you back and take away
your focus and make you less than your best.
So that is the one skill in 2026 that is going to absolutely
change your life. So go out there and make it
happen.