Frantic or Focused? A Brain’s Choices

You start your day with fresh coffee aromas, serotonin spikes a sense of well being in response, and a warm muffin tops off your shot at winning on another day.  Energized by a good sleep,  creativity stoked,  you’re set for career adventures people only dream of attaining. Life is good.

Suddenly stuff hits your path!  No,”hit” is far too mild for the interruptions and counter-plans that attack many of us.  Life smacks you down like the roadrunner flattens the rabbit who’s roaring along in the opposite direction. Did you know that stressed brains rely more on habits and fall faster into ruts.  Maybe you’ve experienced electronic overload, or perhaps you’re part of the 75% of workers who claim to dislike their jobs.

Emails bing, twitter pings, phones ring – each clamoring for your focus at the same time.  All before you rev up the brain’s engines, to tackle over-sized demands jammed into your far-too-full schedule for the day.  Add to that, the relentless interruptions slapping you around, and you’re sure to surge even higher levels of cortisol that shut down creativity in the brain.

Ok, you get the picture. Simply put, you deserve far more. Luckily,  research shows how to rewire your brain  past the ruts of hectic routines,  for the kind of focus that sparks innovation and adds new feet to your best beliefs.

Take a deep breath first,  and consider a few natural chemicals of choice that prepare your brain for focus.  Then rewrite creativity into your day, yes, even when all around you, distractions flatten and overwhelm.

Why not start your day with a two footed question to  rejuvenate curiosity? Ratchet up focus for all that could be yours today.  What question would launch your brain in such a winning direction, and increase your focus for creative choices?

Next list a few top targets for the day, on a small index card.  Number each to sequence its priority, and slip the list in your pocket. Goals, listed in order of their significance,  are a bit like outsourcing your working memory, which is why the list frees your neuron pathways for creative work that follows. Would you agree that a few briefly stated targets can erase the frantic fog that that follows, when too many things fly in at once to threaten wasted time at work?

You may only complete top priorities, but you’ll enjoy the calm that comes from knowing you can add lesser priorities to the next day’s brief list. Some items will still be there in a week, thereby showing they are not as significant as once thought. Check your brief list every couple of hours to ensure that priorities get the lion’s share of your attention. Then clear spaces for creativity, simply by drawing on your full mix of multiple intelligences, in ways that complete those few top targets with renewed zest.

Luckily, each time you manage one creative,  focused day, your brain literally rewires itself for more focus on another day. Watch out to avoid the perils of perfectionism though. A brain on perfect is usually a brain stressed and preparing to procrastinate.

Just as multi-tasking bottlenecks the brain, so focus opens spigots of creativity.  Why not reboot your dendrite brain cells, check out these 25 dynamic facts that rejuvenate your brain, and expect to unleash more of that creative person you’d like others to see in you.

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Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset