Pre-gaming for focus
Want to focus better, or get more done? Here’s a suggestion I’ve offered a few clients recently:
It’s easier to focus if your pleasure levels are low, right before.
I call this “pre-gaming for focus” — setting yourself up so that focus is easier, not harder.
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Of course, this goes against what many of us (me included) often do:
I’ll just *quickly* check the news/Instagram/Reddit before I work on that presentation.
I’ll just grab a few chocolate chips/nuts right before I open that doc.
I’ll just respond to six low-priority emails before I get to the important, challenging work of the day.
But I’ve noticed that if I do something pleasurable right before, the last thing I want to do is focus on something cognitively challenging!
Which makes sense, right? It’s all about the contrast.
If we’ve just done something fun (like eat some m&m’s, or go on Reddit), work seems hard and unpleasant, by contrast.
Conversely, if I keep my pleasure low right before a working session, work starts to seem interesting, by contrast.
Before a working session, I will often purposefully do something boring or even hard, to shift the contrast in my favor. Here’s my two favorite options:
Lying on the floor and Doing Nothing for 2-10 minutes.
Doing something physically challenging — even 3 push ups makes a difference (clearly this reveals something about my strength levels). But I’ll also sometimes purposefully do my full workout right before.
After something hard or boring, I notice that doing my cognitively challenging work (like writing a newsletter or a podcast, for me) starts to feel downright fun.
For what it’s worth, I also think this is one reason why doing cognitively challenging work first thing in the morning can be so useful — you haven’t yet “indulged” in treats or screens or other things that “up” your pleasure levels.
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So here’s my suggestion for you for this week: Would you try pre-gaming for focus? Let me know how it goes!
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
p.s. For me, I find that not every boring or hard thing works, when I’m trying to pre-game for focus. It has to be something that I choose, and that I can opt out of at any time (e.g., if I’ve just wrangled my cranky kids for an hour, I don’t find cognitive focus particularly easy).
p.p.s. The theoretical inspiration for this was from Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, which I highly recommend. Lembke talks in a lot of detail about pleasure vs pain in the brain, and the impact on focus and motivation.
p.p.p.s. If you'd like some support to grow, achieve something new, or feel better than you do, I can't recommend working with a life coach enough.
If you’re curious about working with me, here's more about my approach, here's topics life coaching can help with, or you could schedule a short, free call with me to ask any questions you have.
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