Focus can be productive! How to use 'goal thinking' to improve workplace 'focus'

In the workplace, we often complain that our work efficiency is too low to complete the work efficiently;

Or in the process of completing the task, always half-hearted and unable to concentrate;

Or you can't distinguish your priorities, waste too much time on unimportant things, and cause your main tasks to be poorly completed.

In fact, this is the performance of their own lack of concentration.

The main reason for the lack of "focus" is that the sense of goal is not strong and the "goal thinking" is lacking.

Today, let's talk about how to use "goal thinking" to improve your "focus" in the workplace.

What is goal thinking?

Goal thinking refers to the way of thinking that after establishing a goal, step by step to achieve its goal.

Its thinking process has obvious directionality and hierarchy.

To be specific, goal thinking is to start from the goal, and then think about what needs to be done to achieve the goal, what needs to be done, what resources are needed, and what resources are not needed.

So, what are the characteristics of goal thinking?

An expert on the law of thinking from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom concluded that: people who understand goal thinking are all in order to achieve the ultimate goal, while people who do not have goal thinking are most of the time digressing, or even busying themselves.

They even used a maze question specifically to test whether you have goal thinking:

Please look at the picture below carefully, enter from the entrance, and know how long it takes you to walk to the exit.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

mind maze diagram

If people without goal thinking go through this maze, they will always walk for a while and find that there is no exit, and then walk again. This way, they waste a lot of energy but never get to where they really want to go. But if they are goal-minded people, they will first figure out where they are going, and then analyze where they must go, so that they can clearly know which way they should choose each time they encounter multiple roads. , which way to give up. Therefore, in the face of the above maze diagram, as long as the exit is the starting point and the shortest route from the exit to the entrance is found, it will become very simple.

Therefore, people with goal thinking are more purposeful in doing things, less susceptible to external affairs, more focused, and easier to achieve their inherent goals. Of course, they are also more efficient.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

How to use "target thinking" to effectively improve your workplace efficiency, here are 3 methods for you.

First: "start with the end in mind", set reasonable goals, avoid meaningless busywork, and add "direction" to your focus

Stephen Covey first introduced the concept of "begin with the end in mind" in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People":

From now on, use your life goals as the standard to measure everything, and your words and deeds, every move, no matter when it happens, must abide by this principle. That is, everything is determined by the values ​​that the individual values ​​or drives.

Keeping your goal in mind, you can be sure that what you do every day is not the same, and you can work hard towards this goal anytime, anywhere, and dare not slack off.

Starting with the end tells us that before we do anything, we need to know the direction. In this way, you can not only know your current situation well, but also prevent you from going astray and wasting your efforts in the pursuit of your goals.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

In order to "begin with the end in mind", we must adhere to the principle of "secondary creation":

Before we do anything, we go through two creations:

Once is the idea in the head, that is, the intellectual creation or the first creation (Mental/First Creation);

The second time is physical creation or the second creation (Physical/Second Creation).

Taking architectural design as an example, before picking up tools to build, you must have detailed design drawings; and before drawing design drawings, you must now think about every detail in your mind. With the design drawings, then there is the construction plan, so that the construction can be completed step by step. If the design is slightly missing, and the work has already started to make up, it will be twice the result with half the effort. The blueprint represents the vision, and the entire building process is based on it, so it is better to strive for perfection up front than to fix it.

The "begin with the end" approach is widely used. For example, before traveling, you must first think about the destination, and then plan the best route; before building a design, you must draw a blueprint in your mind; before giving a speech, you must write a speech and so on.

In the workplace, there are many fork in the road to achieve goals, and if you are not careful, you will take a wrong road. Many workplace people work hard, but in the end they find that the ladder of success has built the wrong wall, but it is too late, all their efforts are meaningless busywork, the main reason is that they do not insist on "starting with the end in mind".

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

The second: "Be Proactive", change the determinant of completing the goal from the outside to the inside, and improve your inner focus

Frankel discovered the basic principle of human nature "Be Proactive" in prison, and used it to draw an accurate mind map, thus developing a high-performing person in any environment should have, The first and most basic habit is "Be Proactive".

The process of achieving goals is not smooth, and in order to achieve goals efficiently, we must adhere to the principle of "proactive".

"Be Proactive" not only refers to the attitude of doing things, but also means that people must be responsible for their own life. Personal behavior depends on one's own choice, not the external environment. Humans should actively create a favorable external environment and a positive sense of responsibility.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

Responsibility, in terms of word formation, means being able to respond, that is, the ability to choose a response. All proactive people know this well and don't attribute their actions to circumstances, external conditions, or the influence of others. They choose the way they face the environment and people in a planned way according to their own goals, and will not act impulsively because of changes in external factors.

Active people are more rational than impulsive, they can think carefully and regard the selected goal as the inner driving force of their behavior; while passive people are on the contrary, they are emotional and are easily driven by circumstances and conditions to change.

But this does not mean that active people have no sense of the outside world, but they can choose the way to respond to external material, psychological and social stimuli according to their own goals and tasks, so as to achieve the purpose of not affecting their goals.

The ultimate goal of being proactive is to change the decisive factor for completing the goal from the outside to the inside, and to improve the efficiency of completing the goal through continuous self-improvement.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

Third: Adhere to "important things first", make good use of the "prioritization matrix of time management", and focus on distributing your concentration

EMGray, author of The Universal Commons of Success, has been working on the commonalities of all successful people. He found:

The determinants of success are not hard work, extraordinary luck, and good relationships, which, while important, are not as important as the more important factor, "first things first."

Successful people can do what losers cannot, mainly because they can always adhere to the principle of "important things first", and use their main energy to focus on important things.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

In order to achieve "the most important things first", in addition to having a strong willpower, there is also an important factor to learn how to manage time. Here we provide you with a "time management limited matrix" method. .

"Time management priority matrix (Prioritization Matrix)" is a new generation of time management theory, the time according to its urgency and importance is divided into ABCD four categories, forming a time management priority matrix. Urgency refers to something that must be dealt with immediately, without delay.

Focus can be productive! How to use "goal thinking" to improve workplace "focus"

The time management matrix classifies the work we have to do according to the priority, and also provides a quantitative basis for us to reasonably arrange the work.

Before starting the work, we can follow the method shown in the figure to classify our tasks as urgent, not urgent, important and not important, and classify them in the order of A, B, C, and D, and then match them reasonably. time.

Focus 80% of your energy on 20% of the important things, differentiate your concentration in a focused way, and effectively improve your chances of completing your tasks.