Focus: The Organization Correlation

“Whenever your mind is totally absorbed in whatever activities you are performing, your mind will remain calm and content.” ~~Chin-Ning Chu~~

Being able to focus, actually minimizing or ignoring distractions, and seeing something through to completion, is a valuable ability. Whether you’re researching, writing, or even talking with someone, that ability to be present and be fully engrossed by the task at hand is a skill. Is there a direct correlation between that kind of intentional focus and being organized?

When presenting social media tools to be used for job search, the number one complaint I hear is that there is too much noise online. People state that they get too many emails, there’s too much activity on LinkedIn and it takes too long to read through it all to determine what is valuable. There are too many people on Twitter still telling the world that they’re eating breakfast or walking their dog. And, don’t even get them started on Facebook. They’re so surprised when I show them how to turn off the email that floods their “real” inbox from LinkedIn, how to manage the content that shows up on their homepage, how to create Twitter lists and use an application like Hootsuite** to manage what they see… It’s pretty eye-opening. They CAN actually focus on what’s important to them by simply getting organized.

If I take that a step further and I think about the “clearing the clutter” phase I just went through, I realize that I too can stay more focused when I am organized. There are fewer physical distractions, fewer “other” things to do, when my workspace is clear and things are put away. This may seem like “common sense” to you, but it’s not something I’ve ever really thought about… What is the correlation between organization and focus? Does it work that way for you too?

**To sign up for Hootsuite (FREE!!!!) click here: http://hootsuite.com/p_4061