Keeping Focus With Your Screen

5 min readAug 30, 2021

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With a pandemic lasting well over a year and remote work becoming commonplace, more and more people are finding themselves staring at a screen for hours or days at a time. I’ve had new (remote) hires complain that hacking away at code in a room by themselves can sometimes introduce difficulty focusing, staying on-task, or maintaining momentum with their work output.

Struggling with focus is absolutely a person-by-person situation. Not everyone struggles, but as more are transitioning to remote work or entering the world of computer science, reading and thinking through complex issues all day can be a drain. It’s up to you as the employee to step up in situations like these and take control of your own success.

Make a list and create structure.

Everyone needs structure throughout their day — not just when we’re young kids in need of a routine, but also as adults facing a seemingly endless series of tasks. Creating a prioritized list allows you to identify your responsibilities for the day and tackle them one by one. The feeling of accomplishment you get by crossing each item off can also increase momentum throughout your day, or at the very least make the day feel shorter. Lists allow you to focus on the job at hand and not worry so much about external issues.

While making your list, sort it so the most important tasks (i.e. tasks with earlier or closer due dates) are at the top. Also, be sure to break down items in your list to be smaller and more achievable. A task titled “Create Presentation” might take you all day and would defeat the purpose of even creating a list, but that same task can be broken into smaller, more achievable, and rewarding chunks like so: “Create presentation introduction”, “Research supporting arguments for topic”, “Create initial presentation draft”, “Revise draft”, “Format presentation and add pictures”, “Write speech”.

It’s also important to create structure throughout your day so that you know what to expect and don’t lose your whole day to staring off in space (or whatever you do while daydreaming). Start and end each workday at the same time. Schedule a time frame where you can typically expect to take a lunch break, every day. Once you set these boundaries for yourself, make it clear to friends and family that although you are home, you are also working and trying to provide for yourself. Stay true to yourself and your commitments, whether they are work or personal.

Create a dedicated workspace.

A dedicated workspace is incredibly important, especially if you are working from home and live with others.

Having this space creates a clear boundary between you and those you live with that you are at work if in your workspace and shouldn’t be bothered (unless important). It also makes turning work “on” and “off” much easier if work is centralized to one area of your home.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I worked out of my living room. When I woke up for the day, I found my supplies and began working from the couch but “turning off” that day became near impossible. It was nothing to just keep working, skipping meals because I didn’t need to get up. When others were done with their day, they just joined me in that “workspace” and before I knew it, it’d be time to turn in for the evening.

When you have a dedicated workspace, you have a place to store all work supplies. Ideally, you have a door you can shut on work for the day. This provides a clear separation between work and personal time, and will overall provide you with a healthier schedule.

Take breaks often.

This is important — when you were working in a physical office space, you took breaks all the time, probably without realizing it. Every time a coworker stopped by to socialize or you got up to use the restroom, get water, check the breakroom for magical snacks to appear in the fridge… you were taking a break. When working from home with fewer distractions, it’s easier to forget that your brain needs a break from work and that you need to step away from the laptop. Doing so will actually help your productivity and leave you less tired/drained by the end of the day.

You can also still be very productive with your breaks, especially if working from home. When choosing a break activity, it’s also important to choose something that won’t steal your attention for too long. This means no surfing social media or striking up a conversation with someone (who isn’t a coworker) in the middle of the day. Here are some ideas on ways to give yourself a brain break:

Go on a short walk around your yard (or block)
Brush a pet
Start a load of laundry
Initiate a friendly conversation with a coworker
Do 10 pushups or some other mild exercise
Make the bed

https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/how-to-take-effective-breaks-and-be-more-productive

Give your eyes a break.

Giving your eyes a break is just as important, if not more, than the breaks mentioned above. When you’re staring at a laptop for hours at a time, it can strain your eyes and vision. In some people, this can lead to headaches and fatigue which only complicate your day further and make it that much harder to keep focus. Remember to blink, occasionally look away from your screen, and adjust settings so fonts are larger and/or screen colors are easier to view. It may also be worth it to invest in blue light glasses if staring at a screen is a large portion of your day.

Stay active.

Staying active is important, regardless of where or how you work. It can also help increase your energy levels throughout the day and improves brain function.

Here is a source with good ideas on how to keep moving throughout your day: https://greatist.com/health/how-to-stay-active-at-home#staying-active-at-home. The linked article does suggest getting a dog to help improve your activity levels, but please only do so if you’re ready for the commitment! Introducing another being into your home, furry or not, can sometimes be too much responsibility and a distraction from work.

If you have suggestions on how to keep focus while working from home, please feel free to send me a message! I’m interested to see how others have been faring during this unprecedented time.

Keeping Focus With Your Screen

Written by Emmali Writes