7 ways Middle Managers can create Focus Time

The business world didn’t need the COVID-19 pandemic to show that the lines between home and work were blurred. Nor was it needed to show that middle managers – and people at all other levels – were filling their calendars and days with activities that sapped their focus, resulting in decreased productivity and efficiency at work. However, what it did cause was an uptick in the number of complaints and concerns about decreasing focus while working from home.

What is Focus?

Intelligent Change succinctly described Focus as follows:

Simply put, focus means selecting between important and unimportant things in any given moment and eliminating distractors from our attention span. There is no focus without saying “yes” to some stimuli and “no” to others. Every time we want to be productive working on a certain task, we need to say “no” to all the attention-grabbers, and “yes” to the meaningful tasks ahead of us.

Working from home has polarised many office workers around the world. One camp finds renewed vigour in the ability to do things they were not able to do before. Not having to commute to and from the office has given them time to exercise, walk the dog, and even spend more time with family members. The other camp laments lack of time with colleagues, face-to-face discussions, and being overwhelmed by distractions at home such as children, loud noises from family members, or having to walk the dog.

Being in the middle leaves little room for focus

Middle managers are under constant pressure to deftly deal with higher powers as well as junior employees. For them, it’s not just about their own jobs and the tasks ahead of them; it’s also about managers’ requests from above, and employees’ concerns from below. Needless to say, the ability to focus is going to be akin to battling dragons!

Creating Focus Time

Whether you’re working from home or from the office, you need to create Focus Time to be able to get through the pressures of managing your tasks and your team. It is not simply about finding a quiet spot in the office or at home or in a nearby café. Instead, it is about making some fundamental shifts in the way you work.

7 Ways to Create Focus Time

While it’s not as easy as 1-2-3, it’ll get easier with practice.

1. Plan ahead
2. Set up calendar blocks for emails
3. Create calendar blocks for yourself
4. Touch an email? Take action!
5. Don’t rush to accept meetings
6. Remove distractions
7. Use settings to maximum effect

1. Plan ahead

Some people prefer To Do Lists while others are proponents of Timeboxing. We’re not suggesting one over the other, but what we are suggesting is planning your day or week ahead so that you step into it fully prepared. One of the worst things you could do to your self is to begin a workday asking yourself, “What do I need to get done today?”

2. Calendar blocks for emails

The topic of email addiction surfaced many, many years ago. Here’s a Mindhacks article from 2006! Despite a ton of literature on this topic, not much has changed. Email is still one of the leading energy sappers for office workers. Inbox zero is, as this 2016 (yep, 10 years later) Time magazine described, “a Sisyphean effort at best. Just when you think the task is complete—ping!—a new message rolls in. And then another. And another.”  Create a couple (or a few) blocks in your calendar to deal with email, and nothing else. Dive headlong and keep chopping away. Reply to emails, file them, or delete them. Set an alarm, and when the time is up, shut email down and move on to your task list.

3. Calendar blocks for yourself

You’re a caring manager who’s taking care of his employees. Isn’t it time you did the same for yourself? Create at least one slot every day to focus on yourself. It can be whatever you want: sorting out your desktop, cleaning up folders or moving files around, spending some time reading important or work-relevant blogs or news articles, or even thinking time.

4. Touch an email? Take action!

Cyril Peupion, author of Work Smarter: Live Better, advocates the One Touch, One Decision method for emails – and we love it! In his book, Cyril says: “as soon as you touch an email you need to make a decision. Not do it later. That’s procrastination. You decide either you do it now. Less than 5 minutes or anything less than 5 minutes, do it now. More than 5 minutes, decide now when you’re going to do it. So, I receive an email and look at it and say I need half an hour rather than say do it later, open your calendar and say “I’ll do it tomorrow from 10 to 1030 and you book a meeting with yourself in your calendar to do it.”

5. Don’t rush to accept meetings

Have you heard colleagues who proudly talk about how their days are packed with meetings? Or are you guilty of wearing your busy calendar like a badge of honour? There is no joy in jumping from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to… (tired already?) The problem with many middle managers is that they don’t question if they’re really required to participate in those meetings. They accept invitations blindly, because it looks good when they’re talking to their managers as well as their employees. A manager who accepts meetings without questioning them is one who is willing to let others manage her time.

6. Remove distractions

We’ve got our trusty handphones with us at all times. Keep them at a distance and we start to feel a nagging sense of loss. However, we behave the same way with messaging (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, Line, WeChat, etc.) notifications as we do with email. ‘Ping!’, and we drop whatever we’re doing to check the message. When we switch from one task to the other, productivity is impacted.

7. Use settings to maximum effect

Related to #6 – if you’ve shut your inbox, remember to turn off notifications because they can automatically spring up on your desktop. If you’re using an online collaboration platform like Microsoft Teams, you can enable ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode so that messages from colleagues won’t interrupt you while you’re in the midst of focus time or a task that requires your full attention

How do you create Focus Time? Share your tips with us in the Comment Box below.