As a software engineer, it is impossible to be productive all the time. I think every true geek aspires to be the paragon of focus, to never be set off track by a seemingly insurmountable problem that makes you want to scream, but it is inevitable that we will from time to time lose our grasp on a reasonable level of productivity.

I’ve read my fair share of articles related to productivity and getting things done. Typically, they focus on two areas: techniques for maintaining organization for thoughts and tasks or techniques for maintaining motivation and morale.

In this article, I’m going to talk about the often overlooked area of regaining focus. The biggest impact to your productivity will be how long it takes to recover your focus.

These are just my suggestions regarding focus:

1. Don’t berate yourself!

It is a given, you will lose your focus. If you allow yourself to feel bad about it, you’ve made it more difficult for yourself to regain it. Accept that your focus is gone and that it’s completely natural to lose it.

2. Relax. Don’t worry about it.

This is the companion to #1. Just let it go. Get a coffee, take a walk, stretch, take a deep breath, but most importantly, don’t get stressed out.

Whether it is in two days, two weeks or two months, the stresses of the current moment won’t seem worth the time you spent worrying about them. Think of a time from last year that you were constantly stressed and ask yourself if the outcome would have been horribly impacted if you just didn’t let yourself get stressed out.

3. Don’t sacrifice your health.

Following up on #2, remember to take time to eat well, exercise and get a good night’s sleep.

You can stay up until the wee hours 5 days a week if you really want to, but the impact of sleep deprivation on your brain will more likely cause you to lose focus and thus productivity. Remember to work healthy hours and set boundaries between work and personal life. Consider this a preventative maintenance suggestion.

I work out of my home office and I have certainly been most guilty of breaking this rule. If you see me online, feel free to remind me to walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes during lunch.

4. Answer someone else’s questions.

When you’ve lost your focus for your own problem, help someone else with a problem they are dealing with. Perhaps you have some unanswered questions in your inbox that could be answered quickly, they don’t even need to be work related.

The goal here is to give yourself a quick success. When dealing with lost focus, it always helps to feel like you can still add a point to the win column. If you can do that while helping another person, it should help your morale and confidence. You may even help the productivity of another person and thus impact your own long term productivity.

5. Talk to someone else.

Your friends and coworkers may have great suggestions if you’re stuck on something. Sometimes you just need a sounding board. Sometimes you just need the break.

Talking to someone else can provide empathy, admiration, inspiration, solutions… the list goes on. The potential benefits of social interaction can always weigh in your favor where focus is concerned and should be exercised whether focus is lost or not.

6. Move to paper.

Your eyes may be stressed from staring at the screen for too long. Your thoughts may be completely jumbled. Get away from the screen and move to paper.

Go to the copier or printer, grab a few blank pages and sit down away from your desk.

Doodle. Make lists. Brain storm. Write complete sections of copy or code.

You don’t have to be in front of the computer to be focused or productive. Anything you create on paper can be entered in to the computer later. Give yourself as much time on paper as you need.

7. Talk priorities.

Sometimes focus is lost in a sea of looming tasks. It certainly helps to get some perspective on your overall priorities.

Maybe it’s with your boss, maybe it’s with your team members, take the time to talk about priorities with someone else. You may have too much on your plate. Your coworkers may have a different mental image of how a project should progress. Your boss may be able to rethink the larger picture.

Conclusion

These are reactive suggestions to the problem of losing focus. You can approach the problem proactively when you start to lose focus as opposed to straining yourself attempting to compensate by over-focusing .

I find this approach more honest than attempting to adhere to rigid techniques for organization or morale to solve your overall productivity. Give it a shot. Let me know how it works for you.