Increase Your Focus: Use a Timer

Posted on February 1, 2019 by David Motto

When you need to focus right now to get a task done, review information you’re learning, or practice a specific skill, using a timer is an enormously successful focusing strategy.

Here’s how it works:

STEP 1: Choose one task or skill to work on.

STEP 2: Set a timer for a short amount of time, perhaps 5 or 10 minutes.

STEP 3: Think briefly about what you’re about to accomplish.

STEP 4: Turn on the timer – but make sure you can’t see it as the clock is running down.

STEP 5: Get to work!

This is officially called the Pomodoro Method (named after the tomato-shaped timers used in kitchens). I find that no one can remember that name, so I just call this the “Timer Method.” No matter what you call it, this method is miraculous.

I’m not sure if it’s the anticipation of waiting for the timer to go off, or the idea that you’re in a race against the clock, or if it’s just that you’ve allowed yourself to forget all other items on your to-do list and truly monotask, but having a timer going completely alters most people’s sense of urgency and focus. Having the timer on will push you to intense levels of focus and help you get the job done. True monotasking feels like a miracle because it’s so rare in our lives.

There’s a second aspect of the Timer Method that seems miraculous: Using a timer allows you to forget about the clock. While this is counter-intuitive, timers let you forget about time. You’ve transferred your usual feelings of responsibility around time to the timer itself. You are now free to get your work done instead of giving in to the usual temptation of looking up at a clock to see how long you’ve been working on something.

Every time you check the clock, you get out of your focused zone. With the timer, you can forget all about time and intensely focus on the matter at hand. When the timer goes off, you’re done with this item for today.

Give the Timer Method a try. Here are two other pointers for the Timer Method: (1) It is effective even for extremely short bursts of focused time, like 1 or 2 minutes. (2) Never set the timer for more than 20 minutes. Your brain won’t truly focus on one thing for more than about 17 minutes.

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Motivation, Performance Preparation, Skill Acquisition | Leave a comment

Ten Minute Virtuoso Tip: Take a Single Step Today

Posted on January 31, 2019 by David Motto

Goals, to-do lists, business plans, projects, dreams and desires. It can all seem overwhelming, getting what you truly want in life.

Here’s a Ten Minute Virtuoso tip:

Give yourself permission to take just one step toward your goal today. That’s it. Just do one thing that gets you closer to the goal. Doesn’t matter how small that item is. Just get it done – today!

When it’s done, congratulate yourself and move on. You’ll be one step closer to your goal.

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, Learning Tips, Motivation, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition, Ten Minute Virtuoso | Leave a comment

Venus Williams on Confidence

Posted on January 30, 2019 by David Motto

Do you believe these statements?

  • Confidence is a choice.
  • Confidence can be learned.
  • Confidence is a skill you can acquire.

Or, do you believe these statements?

  • Some people are born confident.
  • Confidence is an innate state of mind.
  • You’re either a confident person or you’re not.

As you can probably guess, I believe the first set of statements. So do most performance coaches and sports psychologists. And, interestingly, so does Venus Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

No matter what your opinion about confidence, you will benefit from reading Venus Williams’s three essential rules for becoming more confident and successful from a recent Opinion piece in the New York Times.

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation, Performance Tips, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition, The Zone | Leave a comment

Make More Time: Use Visualizations

Posted on January 29, 2019 by David Motto

You can practice any skill without actually doing the skill itself. See, hear, and feel yourself doing the skill perfectly. If you can, also taste and smell the process. The more senses the better!

Take mental control of any aspect of performing the skill that you’re struggling with. Go through it in slow motion. See it from many angles.

If you’re practicing for something that will be in front of other people, picture the location. Feel what it’s like to stand in front of those people. Anticipate how you’ll feel strong or how you’ll feel weak. Turn the entire visualization into something positive. Positive outcomes. Positive performance. Weaknesses turned into strengths.

Visualizations can take just a few seconds and still have exceptional influence on hour outcomes. By using visualizations, you can practice your skills whenever and wherever you are, effectively creating more time in your day!

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Motivation, Performance Preparation, Performance Tips, Positive Thinking, Presentations, Public Speaking, Skill Acquisition, Visualization | Leave a comment

Presentation Advice from Harvard Business Review Experts

Posted on January 28, 2019 by David Motto

Some of My Favorite Strategies for Presenters

I spend a lot of time finding the best advice and strategies for my coaching clients. As I review books, websites, blogs, podcasts, articles, and any other source of information I can find, I put together step-by-step processes for my clients to learn more efficiently and perform more effectively.

In the presentation world, one of my favorite sources of ideas is Harvard Business Review (HBR). This source has trusted, successful people who write about the topics they know best. HBR has a wealth of information for presenters and public speakers.

Here are a few of my favorite articles from HBR on giving effective presentations. If you’ve got just a few minutes, read my quick review. If you’ve got more time, click on the links and read the full articles at HBR.org.

6 Ways to Look More Confident During a Presentation

Author: Kasia Wezowski, founder of the Center for Body Language
Summary from David Motto: 1. Stand with your feet shoulder distance apart. 2. Use Wezowski’s 5 hands positions to look more trustworthy, strong, and honest.
Recommendation from David Motto: Read this article if you’ve always wanted to know what to do with your hands while presenting.

A Checklist for More Persuasive Presentations

Author: Dorie Clark, Marketing Strategist and faculty member, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business
Summary from David Motto: 1. Define the problem you’re solving and why now is the time to tackle the problem. 2. Let the audience know your solution has been vetted. 3. Simplify your structure. 4. Include a story. 5. Have a call to action.
Recommendation from David Motto: Read this article if you’ve got a high-stakes presentation that you and your team have spent a lot of time preparing – and where you’re facing an audience of decision makers who can easily reject your idea.

The Best Presentations Are Tailored to the Audience

Author: HBR Staff
Summary from David Motto: Knowing your audience is crucial for an effective presentation. This article offers 9 questions to ask yourself in the early planning phase of your presentation to assure you’re creating the right presentation. I especially like this pair of questions in the article: “What are people likely to assume? Which of those assumptions are correct and which are incorrect?” Thinking about just those 2 questions will make you stand out from most presenters!
Recommendation from David Motto: Read the questions in this article if you’re going to make a presentation to an unfamiliar audience or to an audience who doesn’t know you that well.

Five Presentation Mistakes Everyone Makes

Author: Nancy Duarte, Presentation expert and award-winning author of books on presentations
Summary from David Motto: Duarte warns that most presenters do not (1) engage their audiences emotionally, (2) create appropriate slides, (3) use the best types of visuals, (4) speak in clear language, and (5) stay within the time given them.
Recommendation from David Motto: If you read only one of the 4 articles I include here, this is it. Duarte gives a high-level overview of the items that plague even veteran presenters. Avoiding the 5 items on Duarte’s list will help you immensely. And, she gives you tips on what to better.

Successful Presenters Need More than Strategy

The advice in these HBR articles is insightful, practical, and effective. I highly recommend you follow these authors’ words of wisdom, and I also believe you’ll find a lot more useful information at HBR.org if you take the time to explore the content there.

I have another belief too: All the great strategies in the world need something added to them for your presentation to be great.

You see, there is something missing from all of these articles: the mental and emotional preparation needed to make you the best presenter you can be.

As much as I urge you to follow all of the strategies from HBR experts, you’ll also want to create a mental and emotional state that allows you to be truly great. I’ll be exploring this side of performance preparation in several posts in this blog.

Posted in Achieving Goals, Communication, media training, Performance Preparation, Performance Tips, Presentations, Public Speaking | Leave a comment

Increase Your Focus: Start with the Goal that Scares You

Posted on January 27, 2019 by David Motto

If you follow my advice for increasing your focus for your daily work, you’ve already got just a few goals for today (no more than three), and these goals are written down.

Great. Now what?

If you want to supercharge your focus, choose the goal that scares you the most and tackle it first. You may say, “I’m not scared of any of my goals. What are you talking about?” Okay, fine. Maybe you don’t feel actual fear. It’s likely, though, that you want to avoid one of your goals more than the others. The others seem may seem easier to complete or faster to finish or whatever.

Usually, there’s one goal that you don’t really want to do. That’s exactly the place to start.

You’ll have to brace yourself, pull up courage from deep within, and jump in! Just getting started on this thing you want to avoid will have a powerful affect on your ability to focus.

Face your fears, and you’ll create a heightened sense of awareness for everything you’re doing. Give it a try!

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, Motivation, Performance Preparation, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition | Leave a comment

Make More Time: Be Non-negotiable

Posted on January 26, 2019 by David Motto

What if you told everyone in your life that you were absolutely, positively going to carve out time for yourself every single day, no matter what?

You know you’ve got something you want to work on. Something new you want to learn. A new skill you want to master.

But, somehow, you never seem to have enough time to actually work on it. You keep getting distracted. Other people pull you away from it. Other things, even unimportant things, seem to take precedence over this thing you really want to be doing.

Enough!

Tell everyone, and I mean everyone, that you are going to take a small part of your day and work on this thing. During this time, you will not allow any disruptions at all. Your time is non-negotiable.

A funny thing will occur: Everyone else will start working around this new reality in your life. You just need to let them know, and then go get some work done.

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation | Leave a comment

Increase Your Focus: Write Down Your Goals

Posted on January 25, 2019 by David Motto

Some strategies are so simple they seem silly, even downright stupid. Here’s one of those:

Write down your goals for today!

As simple and silly as this strategy is, it’s extremely effective in helping you keep your focus.

If you’ve already chosen 1, 2, or 3 goals for today, please do not keep those goals floating in your short-term memory. Just write them down.

Do not trust your brain. Throughout the day, your brain will distract you from your short list of goals. So, you’ve got to have them in writing where you can find them easily.

Write them down anywhere: in a memo on your phone, in a notebook, in your digital calendar, in your paper calendar, in your journal/diary. It does not matter where you write these goals down. Just make sure you do write them down!

If you find yourself spacing out or getting distracted while doing your work, take a look at the goals again. Keep reminding yourself of what’s important to you today. These reminders will help you focus, focus, focus.

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation | Leave a comment

A Mental Shift for Getting into the Zone

Posted on January 24, 2019 by David Motto

Being in the Zone.

There’s nothing like it. Everything works. You stop thinking about time. You don’t worry about your thoughts or actions. Your techniques are on auto-pilot.

It’s everyone’s dream to be in the Zone when it really matters:

  • In high level athletic competition
  • Giving a presentation that can make or break your career
  • At a high-stakes audition
  • Preparing materials to persuade others of your world-changing idea

I encourage you to check out this terrific article from performance psychologist Noa Kageyama on a small change in your mental outlook that can help you get into the Zone for creating a better performance.

What’s great about strategies like the one Kageyama recommends is that these strategies will help you in many different parts of your life. You can pull up these strategies when you need them most.

This particular strategy, of having an external focus, is so helpful. I recommend it to my clients often, and I’ll explore it for specific situations in a future blog post.

Posted in Flow, Music Performance Tips, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation, Performance Tips, Presentations, Public Speaking, The Zone | Leave a comment

Make Learning Enjoyable for Best Results

Posted on January 23, 2019 by David Motto

Whether you’re learning information or mastering skills, how you go about learning is crucial to your success. I’m constantly hunting for new insights into the most efficient and effective ways to learn so I can share those insights with my performance coaching clients.

There is a very engaging TED talk by polyglot Lýdia Machová on “The Secrets to Learning a New Language.” She decided to study other people who speak several languages and discovered a four-part system that all these people were using, whether they were aware of it or not!

Image Credit: TED.com

Image Credit: TED.com

As Machová explained the methods these polyglots were using for learning more and more languages, I realized that she was actually outlining a learning method that can be applied to any type of information or skill. Her method includes these elements:

ENJOYMENT: When you come up with a learning method that you personally think is fun, you’re more motivated to keep learning.

METHODS: Choose a specific method that works for you to learn best. Machová recommends the space-repetition method and the Goldlist method. She also recommends finding apps that will help you learn your chosen subject.

SYSTEM: Plan ahead and schedule your learning method into your day so you give yourself time in your life to actually spend the time you’ll need to learn.

PATIENCE: Learning takes time. It’s important to give yourself enough time to absorb and use new information. (This part of her system exactly matches with my Ten Minute Virtuoso method of learning and practicing skills for a small amount of time every single day rather than trying to cram too much information into your head occasionally.)

In Machová’s method, I find the concept of Enjoyment to be the most intriguing. Even rote learning and repetitive tasks can be made fun if you use your imagination. When you’re happy with the learning method you’re using, you’ll stick with it and want to return to the work over and over again. If you’re having enough fun, the “work” will actually seem like play!

You can check out the entire TED talk here:

Posted in Achieving Goals, Communication, Learning Tips, Memorization, Motivation, Skill Acquisition | Leave a comment