How to focus at work/give it your all?

WSO community – how often do you stroll the internet/use your phone during the workday, and how do you limit the usage? It seems like we can get distracted reading every news publication such as Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ, FT etc. or browse WSO threads, reddit, twitter and newsletters etc.

How do you tell yourself to stop reading every article that comes your way and just give your utmost focus on your job? Any tricks or advice? Is there a certain time in the day where you quickly check your phone and have the time to lurk on WSO? Basically, I feel like everything online can hinder our productivity and I want to know how to just WORK without getting FOMO on all the information and news (current events).

Thanks!

7 Comments
 
Most Helpful

It's a very simple 5 Step Program

  1. Find out which section of the industry you are most interested in, it will become easier to focus on that naturally

  2. Work out in the morning, getting through a tough workout helps out mentally to get through a tough part of the day. It also increases your energy.

  3. Make sure to keep your phone on do not disturb or some other place where it does not become overly distracting

  4. You can set limits on most devices for times on anything distracting, this could be helpful to keep you on track

  5. Now that you've really focused in you can effectively quit your job and browse WSO on the exact forum you want. No more Off Topic BS. It's all the specific finance field you want and you can read and post all day, since you hit the gym and will have more energy. That's what I do and why I post so much here.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Posting is my job.

In all seriousness I put my two weeks in and have less work to do now. Switching careers.

I'll elaborate: It's incredibly hard to focus on coding (switching to tech to become a SWE) at my job. I'm learning Javascript so I can just code into the browser itself. If I get interrupted every 10-15 mins it's hard to be effective and practice. Posting here takes very minimal effort and focus. I code when I have long stretches of people leaving me alone, I post on WSO when someone comes to my desk asking for something I've emailed to them two times already.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Answer - It depends. I definitely didn't get this post count by not posting, but I also certainly didn't get to where I am by not working.

When there is a ton of work to do or I'm very engaged in what I'm working on, I generally don't post at all. If I'm bored, disengaged, or otherwise distracted, I post a shit ton while reading twitter, looking at Instagram, reading articles, listening to pod casts, going on walks, etc.

No one works from the time they sit down in the morning to the time they leave at night every single day they're in the office, and frankly, I don't get paid by the hour. If my teams are working hard, and my projects are on schedule, and I'm thinking about the next steps, and everything is generally well-orchestrated, responding to a post on here is no different than responding to an email.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

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