Hey there! We know you're super busy, but we're here to help you find your focus zone. An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload is all about helping you find your focus zone and keep your attention where it needs to be. In the digital age, we're all faced with a lot of information, and it can be tough to stay on track. This book is here to help!

It can be so hard to stay focused in our lives and work, can't it? We've all been there! When we want to get some work done, it's so tempting to get distracted by a game or social media. Or when we want to search for some information online, we are immediately distracted by all kinds of news and shopping offers as soon as we open the page. It's so easy to get sidetracked like that!

The digital age is a fast-changing, information-rich world, and there are so many distractions! It doesn't matter where we are, we're always getting hit with a ton of information! In this state, it's totally normal to feel anxious and to have a shorter attention span. So, how can we keep our focus? I'd like to introduce you to a wonderful book called "Find Your Focus Zone." The lovely book An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload tells us that we all have our own focus zone. The good news is that we can control our state of mind and enter this zone to gain control of our focus through some simple techniques. And the great news is that you can achieve this control in just three simple steps! But there's more! To really make a change, you'll also want to start seeing yourself in a new way. This is an important step to help you focus like a pro!

You might not know who the author of this book is, Lucy Jo Palladino. She's a PhD who has studied the fascinating field of attention for more than 30 years and has also been engaged in advanced training in sports psychology. Her research on attention has also caught the eye of some of the top media outlets out there, including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

All right, now that we've got the lowdown on the book and the author, I'll give you the full scoop on what's inside. This book is all about three main things. The first thing to know is that everyone's attention works a little differently depending on what's going on around them. This variation can be plotted as a curve, and on this curve there is an area in which attention is at its best. Isn't that fascinating? The good news is that we can actually control our attention and enter this area of optimal focus in just three simple steps! And the third thing I want to share with you is that the key to concentration is not control, but having a good, accurate sense of yourself.

Let's dive right in and look at the first key point together: what is the attention curve?

Our clever psychologists have come up with a theory that things can stimulate us and make our bodies secrete adrenaline. Your body releases a little bit of adrenaline when you're excited or bored by something. This level of excitement or boredom is what we call the "stimulus level." And the good news is that you can control your level of concentration by controlling the level of stimulus in your life. Based on how our bodies react to different levels of stimulation, Paradino came up with a handy little curve that shows how our attention changes based on the stimulus level.

This curve looks like an upside-down letter U, which is why Paradiso calls it the inverted U curve. Isn't that a clever name? It's actually more like a pot lid, with the two sides low and the middle high. This curve is drawn in a coordinate system, which is a fancy way of saying that it's made up of two axes. Let's imagine this diagram together in our brains! It's really quite simple! All you have to do is draw a horizontal X-axis, which represents the level of stimulus we receive, and then draw a vertical Y-axis, which represents attention. Now, let's draw a curve like a lid along the horizontal axis, starting from the origin. If you can picture this graph, you probably noticed that at the beginning, when the stimulus level is low, attention is also low. As the stimulus level increases, so does attention. Oh, but the curve is inverted U-shaped, right? So, basically, when attention reaches its highest point, even if the stimulus level keeps going up, attention won't keep going up with it. It'll actually start to go down until it reaches zero. I'd love to know why this is so!

Paradiso explains it like this: when a person is exposed to a particularly low level of stimulation, the secretion of adrenaline is also low, and the person cannot get excited. It's like they're living on the edge of excitement, just barely getting by! Our minds also tend to wander and it can be really hard to focus on one thing. This is the start of the inverted U-shaped curve, where we see low stimulation and low attention. On the other hand, when someone is exposed to a lot of stimulation, their body produces a lot of adrenaline. But when we get overexcited, it can sometimes lead to feelings of tension, anger, and even fear. I'm sure you can relate to this: don't you feel similar emotions before an important exam or when speaking in front of a large group of people for the first time? We've all been there! Your breathing gets heavier, your heart starts racing, and it feels like your mind is racing right along with it. It's so hard to concentrate when you're in that state! And that, my friends, is the end of the inverted U-shaped curve. Even though your brain is getting a lot of stimulation, it's having a hard time focusing.

It's only when the level of stimulation is neither very high nor very low that our bodies and minds can find that happy medium. At this time, your body is relaxed, but your mind is still engaged, which means it's neither too tense nor too relaxed. Attention experts like to call this state the "optimal stimulation state." This is the happy medium of the inverted U-shaped curve! The stimulation level is just right—not too high, not too low—and your attention is really focused. At some point, your attention will reach a peak! This part of the curve is what the wonderful Paradino calls the attention zone. The good news is that we can all find ways to keep ourselves in the attention zone. When we do, our attention will be highly concentrated, and we'll be more productive!

I'd like to introduce you to the first key point today, which is really quite fascinating. It's all about how the level of our attention changes in response to external stimuli, forming an inverted U-shaped curve. Right in the middle of the curve, when the stimulus is neither very large nor very small, attention is at its best! This is called the attention zone.

Now, let's dive into the second key point together! How can we get ourselves into that sweet spot of attention?

In this book, Paradino suggests a concept he calls the "8 key chains," which are eight sets of strategies. I'm so excited to tell you that each set of strategies is likened to a key chain! And each set of strategies includes three methods, each of which is seen as a key. In other words, there are 24 keys, or 24 ways to help you focus and concentrate better! It's worth noting that the "keys" are really just a concept, and many of these methods are similar. So, I've put them into three categories, and each one can be summed up in one simple step. I know you can do this! Just take these three steps one at a time and you'll be in control of your concentration in no time.

Let's dive right in and start with the first step, which I like to call "assessment."

Paladino says that to improve your concentration, you first need to take a little time for yourself to see if you're in the right frame of mind to concentrate. This assessment is really helpful because it helps you figure out if you need to control your concentration and what methods to use.

As we just chatted about, concentration is really connected to the amount of adrenaline your body is producing. So, to assess your physical and mental state, the first thing you need to do is determine your adrenaline level. Some folks might be wondering, "How do I figure this out?" "Is there an instrument I can use to help me do this?" I'm sorry to say that the answer is no. Paradino says you just need to give an estimate based on how you're feeling. I'm happy to show you how! Just set your most relaxed state as 0 points, your most nervous state as 10 points, and your state of being neither nervous nor on guard as 5 points. Easy-peasy! Then you can compare yourself to see what mood you're in, roughly speaking. If you're feeling a little nervous, you might give yourself a score of 7 or 8. Or, if you're feeling really relaxed, you might give yourself a score of 1 or 2.

Some folks might say, "If I'm feeling really tense, how can I be objective about it?" In response to this situation, Paradino offers a helpful method called "taking a step back." It's like you're an actor in a play, and at this time you can't see what you look like. But don't worry! There's a director outside the venue who can observe you. Then you can try taking a step back, stepping outside the venue, and imagining yourself as the director, watching the actor's performance. You can even change the perspective a bit, like being out of body, and then look at yourself outside the body. Why would you want to do this? This is a great way to calm down quickly, as if it were happening to someone else. As the saying goes, the onlooker sees more clearly. You know, you can see yourself more clearly if you treat yourself as an onlooker.

The good news is that the process of evaluation is actually a process of calming yourself down. Our amazing brains have a lot going on inside them! Did you know that we have a part called the frontal lobe? Our amazing brains are so clever! They help us make decisions, plan, and think in a logical way. All of these fantastic tasks are completed in the frontal lobe, which is where our rationality comes from. Our amazing frontal lobe is always hard at work, keeping us focused and in control. And when you're feeling calm, your frontal lobe can function normally.

When you calm down, it's time to do a little more evaluation. This is where we find out why we're in such a state. It's totally normal to feel a bit out of sorts when you're feeling a little anxious or fearful. Paradino helpfully explained this by quoting a well-known psychologist, Daniel Goldman. Goldman says there's something in our brain called the amygdala. Its job is to keep us safe by detecting danger and responding to it. It's so sensitive! It sees every danger as if it's a matter of life and death. So sometimes it takes over other parts of the brain and makes them go a little crazy with it. If it hijacks the frontal lobe, then reason is lost and only fear or anxiety remains. It's as if our brain is hijacked by this amygdala, and we lose our ability to think clearly. Our bodies produce too much adrenaline, which makes it hard for us to concentrate. This fascinating phenomenon is known as "amygdala hijacking" by the brilliant Dr. Goldman. It takes over and our ability to concentrate is affected. It's often the case that the root cause of this phenomenon is from the distant past. I'd like to look at a case now if you don't mind.

Paradino met a lovely girl named Chris who was already in college and had a bit of a problem with procrastination. Oh, Chris was always putting things off and just couldn't seem to focus. Paradino gently suggested that she take some time to work through her own growth process and see how this procrastination disorder had come about. As a result, Chris made a wonderful discovery: she realized that this mentality had started when she was in elementary school. She felt that school was not at all free, and she just wanted to grow up happily. So, she always fought against school, and the main way she fought was by not handing in her homework and procrastinating. This was especially the case after she had a particularly challenging experience with a teacher in the fourth grade.

After Chris discovered this reason, Paradino suggested that she imagine herself back in the fourth grade and treat the teacher in a different way. So Chris did the imagining, and this time she didn't fail to hand in her homework. She was so proud of herself! Instead, she played a little joke on her teacher, which she found really funny. She managed to outwit her teacher, and her classmates were really happy for her too! Chris realized that she could find dignity and happiness in other ways. She also understood that her teacher couldn't force her to do something she didn't want to do. Chris made a great connection in her mind. She realized that when she was at university, she could still gain respect by showing the university certain abilities. She saw that it was better to gain respect through her actions than to fight against it by procrastinating. Since then, she's made a conscious decision to say goodbye to procrastination.

This example shows us something really important. It shows us that if we develop a fear or anxiety in childhood, that feeling will be stored in our brain and may even stick with us for the rest of our lives. If you want to get rid of this feeling, you can do it! All you have to do is go back to the original situation, connect with the emotions you felt at the time, and take a good look at yourself to make some changes. This is what psychologists call "correcting emotional experiences." If you have attention deficit, this method can help you find the hidden pain in your heart and discover the deep-seated causes of low attention.

Alright, so we've covered the first step in controlling attention, which is called assessment. This is a great way to check in with yourself and see if you're in the zone! It's as simple as assessing your adrenaline secretion level to get a sense of whether you're fully present or not. If you're not there yet, don't worry! Just take a moment to think about what might be causing it. It's totally normal to feel a little anxious or fearful sometimes. If you're feeling this way, it's probably because there's something going on in your subconscious that's causing it.

And now, let's move on to the second step in controlling attention! I like to think of it as temperature control—managing the temperature of your emotions.

I'd love to share an example with you first. Paradino once had a client named Tony, who was a real estate developer. Every time a big project was almost finished, Tony would get a bit anxious and lose his cool. At work, he was able to keep his cool, but at home, he just couldn't help but argue with his wife and son. Once he started arguing, he just couldn't calm down for hours! It was so hard for him to do anything else, let alone handle business matters. Paradino took a close look at Tony and saw that he was struggling with a lot of fear and anxiety. Tony was worried about the possibility of business failure and the psychological burden of not being able to close a big deal. Given these circumstances, it's no surprise that tonsillar occupation occurred, and that arguing with family members became a foregone conclusion.

Paradino suggested a technique called ice application to help Tony regain control. This method is similar to how we treat physical injuries. Let's say our body is hit and a place swells up. We'd probably apply ice to it to reduce the pain, right? So when our feelings get hurt, cooling off can also help us feel better. Tony's ice-therapy method is to not go home when he's feeling angry. Instead, he goes to the driving range and hits a few balls. As he hits, he'll feel his anger start to melt away, and his adrenaline levels will calm down. By the time he gets home, he'll be feeling much more calm and collected, ready to face his wife and children with a smile on his face.

This is what we call temperature control. You might have noticed that I've been talking about temperature control rather than cooling down. I'd love to know why that is! Let's take a moment to recall the inverted U-shaped curve. It's helpful to think of attention as being divided into three zones. The middle part is where our attention is focused. The other two areas are where our attention is less engaged, either because we're feeling overstimulated or understimulated. In other words, we all have our moments! Sometimes we're really excited, and sometimes we're really bored. So, let's think about our state of mind. Sometimes we need to take a little break and cool down, and sometimes we need to get our energy up and warm up! That's why we call it temperature control! The great thing about temperature control is that it helps keep our adrenaline at a nice, steady level, and brings us back to that sweet spot where we can focus and pay attention.

Tony finds that playing golf is a great way to cool down, and it's a personal approach that really works for him. Paradino has two great tips for helping us stay in control of our temperature. Let's start with the wonderful way to cool down, which is called the four-corner breathing method.

I'd love for you to try it with me! All you have to do is find something with four corners in your surroundings. It could be a door, a painting, a window, or anything else! Then, take a deep breath and count to four, looking at the upper left corner. Great! Now, move your gaze to the upper right corner and continue holding your breath and counting to four. There you go! Now, move your gaze to the bottom right corner. This time, don't hold your breath, but just start breathing slowly and count to four. And now, last but not least, let's move our gaze to the bottom left corner. As you do, say to yourself, "Relax, relax, smile." Paradino says to just repeat this process a few times until you've had a chance to adjust your adrenaline levels. You don't have to reduce the value from 9 to 5 all at once. Even if you can reduce it to 8 and feel a little better, that's okay! It would be great if you could find a way to calm down a bit.

Now, let's look at a way to raise your temperature, called the power interruption method. Paradino once met a consultant named Dory, a computer whiz who was always distracted and often delayed in getting things done. As a result, he was really close to losing his job, poor guy. Paradino used the power interruption method to help Dory change his state. Oh, don't we all get distracted sometimes? It's totally okay to get distracted or do idle things sometimes. We all do it! But just make sure you only do it when you really need to, and don't go over ten minutes. After ten minutes, just come back to your work state, OK? Dory gave this method a try. He first made a plan, listing all the fun things he particularly wanted to do. Then, when he wanted to be distracted, he would do the items on the plan, such as playing games for a while and watching comedies for a while. But after ten minutes, he gently encouraged himself to wrap up and get back to work. Little by little, he found that taking a little time to relax now and then was actually really helpful for both work and leisure. He hardly ever got distracted anymore!

We all get excited from time to time, and that's totally normal! But sometimes, we might get a little carried away. That's when we need to remember the power of the "power interruption" method. It's simple: when you feel yourself getting distracted, take a quick break. Then, when you're ready to get back to work, you'll be refreshed and ready to go! This method is great for folks who are feeling a bit bored. When you get that rush, you can move from feeling bored to feeling excited! However, there is one thing to keep in mind with this method. When you take a break to refresh your mind, it's important to come back within the set time. Just a heads-up, you can't keep playing. That's the only way this method will work.

Alright, now it's time for the second step in controlling your attention: temperature control. It's all about finding that happy medium between feeling too excited or too calm. If you're feeling too excited, try the four-corner breathing method to calm yourself down. It's as simple as that! And if you're feeling a bit low, try the power interruption method to boost your excitement.

And now for the final step in controlling your attention! I like to call it persistence.

There are lots of different types of human attention, but one of the most important is sustained attention. It's all about being able to keep your attention on something for a long time. This is something that can only be developed through long-term training, but don't worry! Take London taxi drivers, for example. They generally need to have been working for more than two years before they can drive around the city without getting lost. It takes a lot of practice to become a great string player! It's been said that it takes at least seven to 17 years of continuous practice to become successful. It's amazing how our brains work! When we repeat something every day, the neurons in our brains form a kind of program, recording our habits and shaping our brain. This is how we develop sustained attention. And this kind of attention can help us become the best at whatever we do!

In her book, Paradiso tells a heartwarming story about a tennis player who, despite their best efforts, lost a championship match because of a backhand error. Afterwards, the player thought back to that moment in the game over and over again, and corrected his mistake in his mind. He didn't just think about the scene again, but also about how strong his wrist was, where he was looking at the ball, and when he was swinging. I think it's also worth mentioning that the tennis player imagined himself in the "attention zone," which is to say, he imagined how he would play the ball if he were calm. And guess what? He learned so much from this experience! The very next year, he finally won the championship in that tournament.

Paradiso calls this process of mental rehearsal, which involves imagining how you would feel, think, and act in a certain situation, a great way to prepare for a competition. Athletes often use it weeks before a big event to imagine how they will feel and act on the day. It's a wonderful way to rehearse and gain control of your attention when the competition starts. It's a kind of simulation training, which is a great way to get ready for anything! Practicing your mind is a great way to help you focus for longer.

It's our desire for success that drives us to mental rehearsal. And success is simply a reflection of what we truly want. Paradiso says that desire is a great way to keep yourself motivated. When we have good desires, our brains release all kinds of wonderful chemicals that help us stay focused.

If you're looking to foster good desires, self-motivation is a great way to go! And there's no better way to motivate yourself than with the "deathbed test." It's just a little thought experiment. Imagine that you are about to die. So, take a moment to think about what you would think and do if you were to return to a significant moment in your life. This is a great way to figure out what you need, what you're missing, and what you should really focus on. This will help you understand your true thoughts and make it easier for you to stay focused on what you want to do. Steve Jobs was a big believer in this too. Every morning, he would ask himself a lovely little question: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" If the answer was no for a lot of days, then he knew he needed to make a little change.

Having a sense of purpose and meaning in your life helps you stay focused, and we all need that! Do you want to stand out in your field? Try doing something consistently. You'll be amazed at how much concentration you can develop! And that's it! The final step in controlling your concentration is consistency.

That's a wrap on today's second key point! Let's quickly go over everything we've talked about so far. I'm so happy to share with you how we can use three simple steps to help ourselves get back into that wonderful concentration zone and enhance our concentration. The first step is evaluation. This is a great way to check in with yourself and see how your adrenaline secretion level is doing. You can even score it to see if it's high or low! Then, you can analyze what might have caused your secretion level to go a little haywire. The second step is all about keeping a cool head! This means regulating your excited or depressed mood to enter a state of calm. When you're feeling excited, try the four-corner breathing method. It's a great way to calm down and center yourself. And when you're feeling down, the power interruption method is there to help you regain your sense of control. The third step is all about making sure we can stick to our goals. It's about setting ourselves up for success by having long-term work and life goals that really inspire us. And as we work towards these goals, we're training our brains to focus for longer.

Part 3

Now, let's dive a little deeper into the last key point, which is that the key to concentration is not actually the use of control techniques, but having the right self-awareness.

Paradino says that we've all been influenced by an idea since childhood. The core of this idea is a sentence: "You should have done this, you should have done that." I'd love to give you an example. Do you remember when we went to school? The answers we got back on tests were always marked in the most conspicuous places. And they were always the questions we got wrong, not the ones we got right! The underlying message was, "You should have done the questions this way, not that way." Another example is when we buy fashion magazines. They're full of pictures of handsome men and beautiful women, which can sometimes make us feel a little insecure about our own looks! I'd love to know what you think it means! It's basically saying, "Hey, you should look like this, not like that."

We all hear the words "should have" a lot in life, don't we? It can feel like they're saying that other people expect you to be perfect, and if you're not, then you're a failure. It might seem a little strange, but this is actually how other people see you, not how you see yourself. This way of thinking will always influence our thinking, making it difficult for us to see the real you and get lost in other people's opinions. It's not a good way to understand yourself, my friend. So Paradino has a great suggestion for us: let's reorient our way of thinking! Reorienting is all about letting go of that traditional success-or-failure mentality. It's about understanding, evaluating, and accepting ourselves, freeing ourselves from frustration and building up self-confidence. Michael Jordan once said something really interesting. He said that he had missed more than 9,000 shots in his career, lost more than 300 games, and had 26 times missed the winning shot at the critical moment. But he said that it was these repeated failures that made him successful!

So, if you want to rebuild a good self-image, you need to look at things like Jordan does. When you're feeling distracted, remember that it's okay to feel a bit off-center sometimes. Don't be too hard on yourself for having trouble concentrating. It's so important to take a step back and think about why you're distracted and why external stimuli defeat you. Once you've identified these things, you can start to work out ways to overcome them!

Let's give an example together. For instance, if you often find yourself reaching for your phone to check it for no particular reason and letting it distract you, don't fret! Take a moment to think about why you always want to check your phone. You'll see that it's because you're worried about missing a call or a WeChat message. And you know what? I'd love to help you understand why you're afraid of missing a call or a WeChat message. It's totally understandable! We all worry about missing calls from our bosses, girlfriends, and other important people in our lives. We might even worry that missing a call could lead to losing our jobs or our relationships. It's natural to feel this way. And you might even worry that when you don't answer the phone, other people might think you're unreliable. This is what Paradino calls the "fear of missing out" mentality. It's totally normal! It can even get in the way of your ability to concentrate.

When you can analyze it to this point, you are actually calmly repositioning yourself, which is great! As we just said, repositioning is all about establishing self-confidence, my friend. If you feel confident, you'll know if you can afford to miss a phone call or WeChat message. If you can afford it, then you'll be totally fine! If not, you can always make a plan in advance to minimize the negative impact. You know you've done a great job of dealing with the problem in a reasonable way and being reliable throughout the process. As for what others think, you couldn't care less! And this is the wonderful result of repositioning!

All right, then! We've made it to the third and final key point of today's lecture! This is all about repositioning your self-perception, looking at things objectively, evaluating yourself objectively, establishing a confident psychological state, and calmly dealing with various stimuli. When you can accurately perceive yourself, you'll find that attention disorders will be solved. This is a much more effective way of dealing with the problem than trying to adopt specific control methods.

Summary:

That's about all for today, folks! I'd like to take a moment to share a quick summary of the content we've covered today.

Our attention changes in response to external stimuli, and it does so in a way that looks like an inverted U-shaped curve. Right in the middle of the curve, when the stimulus level is neither high nor low, that's when your attention is focused. This is your attention zone, sweetheart. The great news is that we can control our adrenaline secretion level to enter this zone and better control our attention.

Now, to control our attention, we just need to go through three simple steps. The first step is to take a good, honest look at our adrenaline secretion level. We need to see what state our attention is in, what causes this state to appear, and whether it is caused by some hidden anxiety or fear in our memories. The second step is all about keeping a cool head! It's about regulating the excitement of our emotions. If you're feeling a bit over-excited, try the four-corner breathing method to calm down. Or, if you're feeling a little bored, the power interruption method is a great way to find some excitement! And finally, the third step is to sustain. This is all about stimulating our desire to do good by setting long-term goals. By doing something over and over, we train ourselves to pay attention for a long time to achieve success.

Finally, we'd like to introduce that the key to concentration is to change the way we perceive ourselves. We should learn to be objective and accept ourselves without being disturbed by external evaluations. On the basis of self-confidence, we should calmly respond to various external stimuli, keep our emotions in the best condition, and effectively maintain concentration.