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INTRODUCTION TO USE OF VIDEO ONLINE

Changing technologies have sourced paradigm shifts in the way companies used to do their business. Gone are the days when print media, radio and television were considered the only ways of reaching the masses. The internet evolution has caused a revolution especially in the fields of advertising and market-ing. Internet has become the most effective mode of communication and today millions of companies around the world are engaging in online business activities in one way or another.

Even the companies who do not have an online presence rely extensively on online adver-tising and marketing campaigns in order to reach to millions of potential consumers and create brand awareness and promote their products and services.

As internet is becoming the most extensive medium of communi-cation. Well focused and future oriented companies realize the potential of the “Interactivity” of the online medium and hence they are spending millions of dollars on online marketing.

According to a report published on the 13th of October 2010 on marketing-interactive.com; which states that:

“Although severe global recessionary pressures have affected the economies in the last couple of years, it appears that the recession doesn't exist on the web. This statement was based on the basis of report presented by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and The Price Water House Coopers (PWC) which suggests that during the first half of the year 2010, advertisers spent US 12.1 billion dollars on the web, which is a record spending on online advertising for a half-year period. According to the report the online advertising spending climbed to 11.3% over the same period in 2009. That spree was fueled by a robust 6.2 billion US dollar in spending during the second quarter of 2010, marking the second-largest revenue quarter ever tracked by the Interactive Advertising Bureau /Price water house Coopers (roughly $6.3 billion was spent during last quarter of the year 2009).

Analyzing the results the report further highlighted the comments of David Silverman, a partner at Price Water House Cooper (PWC) maintained that despite an adverse impact of recession, the double-digit growth in both online search and display clearly suggests that the prospects for online advertising continue to be strong and it clearly indicates long-term growth in the future.” Visualizing the importance of online marketing and advertising, businesses are engaging into an incessant war to improve their visi-bility, drawing more and more traffic to their web sites. Online marketers and advertisers are constantly incorporating various tactics and strategies to attract the attention of the masses of visitors and stand out to their competitors. Hence there are several forms of online marketing through which companies can maximize search engine rankings online, one of which is Video Marketing.

VIDEO MARKETING

Video marketing is defined as a marketing strategy use by companies to promote their products and services by using short, attractive and informative videos. The basic objective of developing and using such videos is to induce product or brand awareness in the prospective customers and entice them into purchasing the promoted products and services. It is also essential to note that video marketing is basically a strategy of marketing products through video as people sometimes confuse it with marketing the videos.

Communication through videos has always been the most efficient means of conveying your message successfully to your audience.

As it is a well-known phrase that “A picture is worth a thousand words”, video communication is a potential mode of communication to reach thousands of people. A visual presentation instead of textual material is not only attractive and visually appealing but also remains in the minds of the visitor for a long time.

This is why today video communication is getting more and more important and companies are trying to improve their marketing efficiency through video marketing and giving its importance this book is dedicated to give you, an in depth information about Video Marketing. If you want to become a successful online marketer and want to stand out of your competitors through incorporating effective marketing tactics by incorporating videos in your websites and other online sources than this book is essential for you and will help you explore not only the importance and the scope of video marketing but also it will help you to explore how to create and develop an effective, and ways to embed it in your websites.

Further we will discuss several tips and tactics that can improve the efficiency of your videos. Hence this book presents a complete outlook on video marketing.

SCOPE OF USING VIDEOS

Afamous Russian story writer and dramatist, Anton Chekhov once said that; “DON'T TELL me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass”.

IT IS WELL-KNOWN fact that human brain always tends to visualize things whenever they read or see something, hence in order to communicate your message it is always important to remember that showing is better than telling. This quote is practiced well by expert marketers as effective marketing is also an art of showing not telling. As mentioned in the previous chapter that a picture message is worth more than a textual message. In an advertisement that is composed of text only, an online visitor has to go through the text, which consumes extra time and effort, in order to figure out the message conveyed. However, visual demonstration captures a viewer's atten-tion quickly and has the potential to create an impact on the minds of a viewer. This is the reason why many marketers either conventional marketers and/ or the online marketers prefer to use video clips in order to advertise and promotes their products well.

Also as it is a common knowledge that nowadays people enjoy searching the internet rather than to watch TV or to read newspapers, there is an emerging trend of increasing number of people turning to the internet in search of information. Even one of the major online icons Google recognized the importance of video marketing and recently bought out YouTube, the top video site on the Internet, which is one of the first sites that comes to mind when you want to do a video search for something. So bringing video into your campaigns is important to give your site a big boost.

As internet is becoming a globally preferred medium of communication and videos being the most efficient and attracting modes of communication, online marketers are extensively using internet marketing videos to attract high number of visitors towards their websites. Statistics reveals that there is an emerging scope of online video marketing as online video helps the businesses to reach to a wide range of best prospects instantly. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and The Price Water House Coopers (PWC) report, ad spending on digital video enjoyed its best quarter ever, jumping 31 percent vs. the first half of '09.

Another report indicated that the year 2009, was definitely a year when online video boomed, as in the United States the total time spent watching online video grew up by 34.9 percent.

Hence, online videos are getting popular as it does not only enable you to reach the targeted customers across geographical boundaries and fetch maximum number of customers but also the associated costs are significantly lower. This expands the customer base of a company. Online marketing is therefore more cost effective than regular TV ads, simply because, it is not only the less expensive source to produce and disseminate your message, but also it makes customer targeting a lot easier too.

MARKETING THROUGH VIDEOS & ITS TYPES

By now you must be aware of the fact that effective video marketing is essentially important to get traffic to your web site and increase your bottom line profits. With the ever growing rate at which companies are getting online and introducing themselves on the web pages it is essential to do something extra to beat your competitors and stand out of competition. By adding an effective and attractive video can help you to grab the attention of the web surfer towards your web site. Now before getting into further details about how a video can help you optimize the search engine rankings of your web site and attract traffic, let’s first explore a few common forms of video marketing that will help online marketers to improve the efficiency of their online marketing campaign and multiply their bottom lines.

FORMS OF VIDEO Marketing

Video marketing can take a variety of forms. Especially in the today’s world of digital age and increased technology an online marketers have so many opportunities to take the advantage of video marketing. A few of the various ways through which a marketer can utilize videos to improve their profitability are listed below as follows:

• INCORPORATE VIDEO on your own website

The most popular and the most efficient source of video marketing is to add a quality video to your website. An informative and eye catching video will make you stand out of your customers and also help you to generate web traffic towards your own site. Videos on websites can vary for example a video testimonial can be uploaded, or an informative video on how to use a product, or videos on customer reviews can be uploaded to increase consumer aware-ness and your company can be viewed as more reliable company.

• VIDEO BLOGGING

Video blogging is similar to blogging with incorporating video messages instead of text posts. Constantly uploading numerous informative and interactive videos at regular time intervals on your blogs can help you generate potential customer towards your website.

• ADD VIDEOS on Popular video web sites or social media websites

Business Online marketers can add videos to increase their webbase and broaden their reach on various social web sites like Face book, Google video, to get your message viral. Also in olden days, usually television was considered the only possible option by business marketers when they think of video marketing; but today video sharing sites like YouTube have gained enormous popularity and have made it possible for business owners to reach a broad audience without incurring huge costs. Posting videos to Youtube is not only free but also you get permanent air time.

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Introduction

“If you dream it, you can achieve it.”

William Arthur Ward

The quote above and many others that have been spoken by wise men in the history of human beings point out the importance of visualizing an event before it occurs. “Dream” in the context of the above statement doesn’t refer to the images and visuals you see when sleeping or taking a nap. Rather, this refers to the goals you plan to achieve in your life.

The topsy-turvy nature of life makes it challenging for some people to have targets they intend to achieve. Some people would cite the example of the rumblings and shocking nature of the COVID-19 as a genuine reason you shouldn’t make plans or set targets in life. Some individuals will say that life is just like the stock market; nothing is certain.

There isn’t doubt that life can be volatile such that you are never sure of what happens next. However, if you decide against setting targets and goals you intend to achieve within some periods, you are living your life based on speculations. It’s not true that whatever will be, will be. You can decide what you want in life and accomplish it.

There are many great examples of people who have achieved tangible success because they leveraged the power of visualization. You can become one of such people when you leverage the tips in this book. The journey begins with what visualization is and ends with how you can succeed with it. Enjoy the ride!

Chapter 1: What is Visualization?

One of the worst kept secrets in the world is that the mind is a powerful “place” and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way. Forget about the impressive wordplay; it’s the reality. Countless numbers of books have been written about how your state of mind affects your life. Visualization is one of the most effective “weapons” of the mind that is capable of setting you up for the glorious future you desire. The aim of this chapter is to help you know what visualization is all about by highlighting what it’s not.

What Visualization isn’t

One of the best ways to learn about something is to first identify what it’s not, and we will start this journey with this approach. Just like most popular concepts and phenomena, there are many descriptions and beliefs about visualization that are either blown out of proportion or totally false.

In order to ensure that you haven’t been a victim of some of the common overhypes and conjectures surrounding visualization, we will highlight them. Below are some common myths of visualization.

Myth #1: Wishing and Hoping Something Happens

It’s true that visualization involves creating a mental image of a target you intend to achieve. However, it’s delusional and misleading to assume that visualization is all about wishing and hoping that something happens. This ridiculously simplified view of this concept is the reason many people never achieve anything tangible with visualization. They assume that they are practicing and utilizing this phenomenon, but that’s not the case.

Rather, visualization involves using your thoughts to engineer a certain result and what you will need to do to achieve it. In other words, visualization doesn’t end with thinking about what you want to achieve. Instead, it also involves imagination regarding the steps you’ll need to take to accomplish the target. If all you do is imagining yourself achieving a target without thinking about how you will achieve it, you are in the realm of fantasies.

Myth #2: Visualization isn’t Scientific

In the bid to discredit visualization, some people would say that the practice isn’t scientific. However, this claim is far from the truth. Scientists have proven that visualization affects our brains in certain ways that promote the achievement of our goals. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to verify any assertion before you believe it.

The modern world offers us endless resources on the internet to evaluate the veracity of any claim. So, you’ll be doing yourself a lot of good by checking your facts before you agree with any popular opinion. In the subsequent chapters, we will explore the scientific evidence that validates the effectiveness of visualization.

Myth #3: Visualization is for Lazy Dreamers

This claim comes from the assumption that visualization is all about sitting on a couch dreaming about buying up Microsoft. Nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, this is far from the truth. World-beaters such as Jim Carey, Oprah Winfrey, and Will Smith have openly discussed how they were able to achieve their dreams by leveraging visualization.

If you know these people, you’ll know that they aren’t lazy people. Rather, their thought process fueled their desire to move from where they were to where they are. So, visualization isn’t for lazy people who live in the realm of fantasy. Instead, it’s for people who are deliberate about what they want in life and will go all out to accomplish it.

Myth #4: Visualization is Only Effective for Long-Term Targets

What you intend to accomplish doesn’t have to be in fifteen or twenty years before you can employ visualization. As long as the target you intend to achieve is in the future, you can leverage this practice. Therefore, even if your target is something that can be achieved within a week or a month, visualization remains relevant.
In fact, it’s more likely you achieve success with visualization when working on a short-term goal than a long-term one. A lot of things happen when you have long-term targets that can make you distracted. In some cases, you stop seeing the goal as important as when you first thought about it. So, you might abandon a long-term target along the line.

Visualization or Meditation?

One of the questions people ask is whether they should choose visualization over meditation. This question ought not to be perplexing or complicated. Just like visualization, many studies have established the benefits of practicing meditation. These two techniques are interwoven, and they share some similarities. However, they aren’t the same.

Visualization focuses on the mind more, while meditation involves both the mind and body. Meditation is broader and more complex than visualization and offers more benefits. So, choosing between the two depends on what you want. If all you want to do is set your mind right and keep yourself motivated to achieve your dream, visualization is what you need.

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Report: How to be Engaging, Charming, Charismatic and Persuasive

How are you in a group setting? How confident are you at talking in a group? When you meet new people, do you feel anxious or do you revel at the chance to dive straight in?

Most of us would say that we still feel at least a little anxiety in a lot of social situations, especially those that require us to interact with lots of people we don’t know, or where there is some kind of pressure to perform well.

And those people that don’t feel any anxiety might be more worrying still – it suggests that you might not truly be thinking about the situation or how you can optimize the way you’re acting and maximize your opportunities.

And there are SO many situations in life where being able to mix into a crowd and make the best possible impression is crucial. Being more likeable, charismatic and charming is crucial if you are at a networking event, or if you’re given the opportunity to work with a new company. It’s crucial when you’re going for a job that you really want and it’s crucial when you’re trying to pick people up in bars.

Trust me when I tell you that there are people for whom this comes easy. And those people tend to have amazing opportunities handed to them on a plate. If you’re someone who is instantly impressive and who can demonstrate their skills and their confidence in any setting, then you’ll find people instantly taking chances on you and giving you opportunities you won’t believe.

The good news? This can all be learned.

In this post then, we’re going to look at some things you can do to start becoming more confident and likeable, and to demonstrate your very best side. The result will be that you’re more instantly impressive and attractive – which will help you in every aspect of your life.

The Basics

I mentioned that there are people out there to whom this comes naturally. Perhaps you know someone. I personally have a friend who I’ve known since university and who was just as goofy as me during those years. That’s to say that he spent a whole ton of evenings watching YouTube, wasn’t particularly ‘cool’ in the traditional sense and wasn’t exactly thriving on his course. Suffice to say, he was just a regular guy.

But despite not being anywhere near the top of his class, he got the placement job that everyone on his course wanted. This was simply due to how well he interviewed. When he left Uni, he went to work with Simon Cowell but shortly after decided he wasn't interested in that career anymore. So he chose a completely different path and in months he had changed career and is now on a six figure salary. He took a year long sabbatical recently and his work were happy to pay him while he was away. He’s always being given development opportunities, women love him and he recently got offered a spot on a massive YouTube channel.

So why does all this great stuff happen to him? Simple: he’s highly charismatic and charming and attractive in the magnetic sense. He just has that X factor and this means that people want to work with him, despite the fact that if you knew him at uni, you’d know he was actually just a regular guy.

So where does something like this come from?

Well, it actually comes down to our evolutionary history. Our evolution dictated the development of our hormones and emotions which in turn serve one basic directive: ensure our survival and ensure the survival of our offspring. That’s why we’re driven to find food, it’s why we look for mates that seem to offer good genetic material and it’s why we like people who have resources.

Something very similar plays out when it comes to deciding who you want to associate with. Often, we choose people to associate with because we think they can help us to survive. Someone very confident will appear to have a higher social status (even if that is not true) and so spending time with them might help us to elevate our own social status. Someone who seems to know what they’re doing might be able to help us with access to foods or potential mates.

This is a big part of why we gravitate toward some people and not others: they are sending a signal that they are highly capable and that they are a good genetic ‘pick’.

The Game For Life

This is a concept that pickup artists realized some time ago. They realized that women don’t like men who dote on them or who pay them compliments all day because they don’t offer any challenge. If you’re infatuated friend who has been friendzoned and you spend a lot of time comforting her and telling her she’s beautiful, then guess what: you’re going to look needy and desperate. And unconsciously this says to her that you think she is out of your league. And if she’s out of your league, then what would you have to offer or her or her DNA?

Meanwhile, the ‘jerks’ are more aloof and indifferent which makes them appeal more desirable. It’s the simple logic that you want what you can’t have but with some added evolutionary incentive.

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For centuries, humans have been obsessed with beauty and youth. We have tried everything from practices we still use today to some off the wall things that might make one cringe in order to maintain a youthful appearance. With the technology that we have at our disposal now, looking and feeling great is almost down to a science! Even now, scientists are uncovering new tips and tricks to maintaining a youthful appearance that will help us to stay confident and enhance our lives.

While the saying is true that beauty is only skin deep, many people find that maintaining a youthful air is important to keep going on with our routines. The working world is competitive in more ways than one, and it also helps us to stay confident with our friends and partners if we can manage to look younger than our age. It is one of the best compliments one can receive, and this book will help you to uncover several anti-aging hacks that will help you to stay at the top of your game.

The most important thing about focusing our lives on anti-aging is the fact that we are doing everything we can do within our power to view our bodies as machines that are either going to work in our favor or against it. So when does the body work mostly in our favor? When we supply it with the vital components that it needs in order to stay at its peak form. Our bodies will work in our favor when we are getting the essential vitamins and nutrients, it will work in our favor when we are drinking enough water, and it will work in our favor when we are exercising.

When does the body work against us? When we stop accepting responsibility for the things that we do to our bodies and what we put into them. When we decide that we can cut corners and that we can continue to go on paths full of vices and habits that are going to make it difficult for us to remain healthy. Our bodies will work against us when we are giving ourselves an excuse to make bad decisions that will harm us rather than becoming proactive and stepping up to the plate to give ourselves the reason and the motivation to make the choices that are best for our bodies and lives. If we aren’t making choices that are going to help us to embrace a youthful life, then we are not going to live a youthful life. It is that simple.

Whether your goal is to keep an edge in the working world or simply to make sure you are feeling as confident as possible, there are several different things that one can implement in order to prevent aging from marking its course and diminishing our confidence. We don’t have to accept aging at face value! We can take control over our bodies and lives and do everything possible to prevent aging from taking over our lives. This book will show you how!

When most people think of anti-aging, most of the time what they really want is to make sure that their skin does not show the typical wear and tear that naturally come with growing older. Over time, we often develop habits that make our bodies suffer and eventually we begin to see the results of these poor choices. Fortunately, there are many ways that we can begin to address the bad habits that can cause our skin to look more aged than we are comfortable with. This book will cover these antiaging hacks in the chapters to come!

The first and foremost of these tips, however, is to do everything possible to take care of your skin and keep it hydrated. If you are not using a good skincare regime now, then it is something to seriously consider for the future. Our skin is what shows the appearance of age, probably more than most other things besides perhaps gray hair. If you want to have the appearance of youth, what you do and don’t do for your skin will really make a difference! Everything that we do has a consequence. If we aren’t taking care of our bodies to the best possible extent, then ultimately there will be consequences for that. Make sure the consequences that you manifest are the most positive possible!

Our skin is made up of three very important layers. The external layer is called the epidermis, and contains the protein keratin, which is what eventually continues to grow as our skin cells die and are removed in flakes. It also contains Lagerhans cells, which are a preventative measure our bodies take to ward away bacteria and viruses, along with other things that could ultimately end up making us sick. Our skin insulates us, protects us from water and intense temperatures, and keeps our inner workings safe from sun damage. It also gives the brain signals through our nerve endings when everything is operating fully. Ultimately, it is one of the most important organs in our body (although it can easily be argued that every organ in our body is pretty important!)

The layer of skin below the epidermis is called the dermis and it is also very important. It is more to do with the way things work beneath the surface, such as with the temperature regulation by controlling our blood flow. For example, when it’s cold outside, our skin will constrict the flow of our blood, while when it is hot, it actually allows the blood to circulate more quickly so that heat can escape through the surface of our skin.

Our bodies can cool themselves using natural thermodynamic methods, including sweating. However, when we sweat it releases toxins from our bodies that can stay trapped on the skin unless we deal with them quickly. That is why it is so important to keep our skin clean, especially if we want to reduce signs of aging!

Knowing the importance of our skin and how it works can be a vital element in preventing aging from showing up on it. When we understand just how important skin care really is in our daily regimen, and caring for our bodies in general to help us get ahead of aging before it’s too late, then we will have the tools at our disposal to live a life with the vitality of youth and the confidence to match it! This book will show you how.

Many, many people go through life feeling the pressure to look a certain way in order to feel confident and be accepted by their peers. We want to be attractive, youthful, and confident, and a lot of people find that one of the aesthetics they thrive for is to be tan.

Tanning is a natural process that a lot of people in the Western world have succumbed to encouraging. Sitting out in the sun, rubbing oils on the body so that the sun’s rays are attracted to our skin to give it that pleasing, darkened glow, is something so common that it’s almost bizarre to consider that it could be harmful.

Unfortunately, the UV rays from the sun’s rays can actually cause damage to the skin and cause wrinkles. It can also, over time, cause skin cancer. The negative effects are enhanced greatly if you end up getting sunburnt frequently. This can dry out your skin and cause untold damage to it that can present itself as you age in the form of wrinkles and other blemishes.

When you do get sunburnt, it is important to deal with it immediately. Using things like aloe-vera cream will help you to heal your skin and keep it hydrated despite the damage that has already been done. It will help to do some damage control and provide some relief from the pain of the sunburn as well.

Overall, it is incredibly important to make sure that you are smart about your sun exposure. You want to keep your skin hydrated whether you are in the sun a lot or not, but to prevent wrinkles and dryness, making sure to moisturize becomes even more important. When you go outside, you could try to make sure that you only do so during hours when the suns rays are not as extreme in temperature. Another thing that you can do is to wear clothing that will protect your body from the harmful U rays of the sun. Wearing hats, long sleeve shirts, sunglasses, and even carrying a parasol, can be good ways to keep your skin smooth and pristine and prevent yourself from having to suffer from the consequences of negative UV ray exposure.

UV rays are a threat to anybody who gets sun exposure. It is difficult to predict when or how one might get cancer, but skin cancer is more prevalent in those who spend a lot of time out in the sun. Don’t make the mistake of using suntanning oil over sunscreen. Don’t purposefully expose yourself to tanning beds or natural UV rays for a temporary attempt at glowing and beautiful skin. Instead, do everything that you can to keep your body safe from the harmful rays. Even if you don’t get skin cancer, it will still damage and dry out your skin and could ultimately cause wrinkles and contribute to age spots.

Our society has a tendency to glorify the people who look vibrant and tanned without really getting into the details about how damaging the sun can be for our skin. It is a dangerous industry and we will have more long-term beauty if we are able to avoid overexposing ourselves to the sun’s rays. Instead of spending money on trying to heal the damage caused by years of sun overexposure, do yourself a favor and prevent it, starting now!

A lot of us have habits that we perform daily without even thinking twice about it. We may not even think of them as bad habits and simply functions that we perform in order to go about our days. However, did you know that rubbing your eyes is actually considered dangerous to your skin, especially for those who are concerned about the effects that aging can have on their appearance?

Well, it’s true! When we rub our eyes regularly, it can actually cause the damage to the skin around our eyes. This is because it is so thin there that when we rub it, we can easily damage the blood vessels surrounding it. This can lead to decreased blood flow in one of the most sensitive areas on our body and a place that is highly prone to showing the effects of aging on the body. It can have several different consequences, including a darkened effect around the eyes, or the thickening of the skin around the eyes as it works to consistently repair itself after our thoughtless habits. It can even lead to a lackluster effect that decreases the vibrancy of one of the most captivating parts of our bodies! It’s best to avoid rubbing our eyes if at all possible because we don’t want to help our bodies age faster than it is necessary!

If you have been prone to rubbing your eyes in the past, have no fear. While it can be true that our past habits can affect us in the present moment, the sooner we address our bad habits and do away with them, the faster we can begin preventing any further damage from occurring. Knowledge truly is power! Especially when we use it wisely.

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Introduction

Maintaining your focus in a noisy and distracted world can be tough. There is so much pulling our attention in every direction that it seems almost impossible to focus on the tasks that are truly important. From social media to text messages and calls and even people stopping by to talk, there is always something that can take our attention away from getting work done.

The result is that we feel like we are behind. When we spend most of our day checking notifications on Facebook or responding to unimportant emails, we find that there is very little time left to get projects and other work done. This can leave us feeling overwhelmed and may drive us to overwork ourselves, while feeling like we get nothing done.

This guidebook is here to change all that. The goal is to learn how to focus our attention and manage our time so we no longer have to stay at work late to finish projects or waste time away from our loved ones. Inside, we will learn that we are the ones in control over our time, not the clock, and that we can actually get things done based on a schedule of our own choosing.

As we work through this guidebook, we will learn the importance of setting goals, minimizing distractions, and even taking breaks.

When it comes to focusing, we can work with some of the best time management techniques, including the Pomodoro Method and Eat the Frog to help us get more done. Slowly, by implementing some of these tips in one at a time, you can start to turn these ideas into habits and improve your focus when getting work done.

Stop letting this noisy and distracting world get the best of you. Stop being a slave to the clock and feeling like nothing gets done. Take a look through this guidebook and see the exact steps you can use to reclaim your time and your focus!

Chapter 1: The Psychology of Staying Focused

When we think about how many things are vying for our attention right now, the list seems endless. From a long to-do list to our phones, emails, family members and more, it seems almost impossible to keep up. While modern technology is amazing and has helped improve our world so much, there is the side effect of always getting our attention.

Think about your phone. It is common to see one notification after another popping up and distracting us from the things that we need to get done. All of a sudden we have wasted an hour and have a ton of work left to do. This continues to happen throughout the day and makes it impossible to get ahead.

You are not alone in this problem. The average office worker will find a distraction every three minutes. And Research from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University says that it can take almost 25 minutes to get back on task after a distraction. Basically, it is easy to lose focus and hard to get it back. We may not have a problem with too much work, but rather a problem with too many distractions.

How the Brain Chooses What to Focus On During the day, your brain is always on and trying to gather and take in important information. This means that it has to sort through the noise and decide what it wants to focus on. This is called selective attention and there are two main forms that come with it:

Top-Down

This is also known as voluntary focus and it is one of the best types. With this focus, you pay attention to your goals. You look at the bigger picture and come up with a plan that helps you get there. You know that your phone and emails keep you from reaching these goals so you ignore them. You get stuff done on time, if not ahead of time.

Bottom-Up

This is more of a stimulus-driven focus. When a thought starts to creep up to you or a notification shows up on the phone and you get distracted, this is a sign that you work with bottom-up focus. You have to pay attention to what is going on around you, rather than the thing that deserves the most attention for you.

What’s the Problem Here?

The ultimate goal is to become a top-down thinker. This allows us to focus on what is important and avoid all the rest. Unfortunately, because of our natural instincts, we are often bottom-up focusers instead. Willpower and focus are finite resources, which means that the more you are distracted, the harder it is to get back on track. And since we are bottom-up focusers, every little thing is enough to distract us from our goals.

Since most of us can be easily distracted by little things like emails and notifications on our phones, we need to prepare for this. We need to be aware of it and limit the amount of distractions that we have during the day. Turning your phone off and staying away from social media, for example, can help keep the distractions down so your brain will not even realize they are there and you can focus on your work.

There is just too much that is adding to our focus problem and trying to draw our attention away from what is important. Those notifications, those emails, and those little things have a way of drawing us in, even if they are not that important at all. We think we just give them a few moments of our attention, but it does not take long for them to take over and then we get nothing done during the day.

Notifications are Just as Distracting as Phone Calls In the past, we would not know anyone was trying to contact us on our phones unless it rang. This was less frequent because most people had to have something important to talk about before they would go through the effort because it took some time for a phone conversation. Today, our phones often do not ring as much. But we may here a single beep or a vibration for a text or a Facebook message. And since these take the sender just a few moments, we may get a lot of them during the day.

A study from three researchers at Florida State University suggest that getting one of these notifications, no matter how small they may be, could distract us as much as responding to a text message or a phone call, even if we do not respond to it.

During this study, there were about 150 students who had to complete a test of sustained attentional performance. During this test, the subjects are given a series of single digits on a screen and a new digit will show up every second.

During this, the students are meant to tap on the keyboard each time the digit changes, unless the new digit is a 3. Each person did the test two times. The first time they did it without their devices there to interrupt them. The second time, they could have their phone and assistants to the test would text or place phone calls to these phones.

Through this, researchers found that the performance for that assessment suffered if the student receive audible notification on their phone of any kind. Each type of phone distraction, whether it was a phone call or a text, was destructive to how well they did. It didn’t seem to matter if the student didn’t answer the phone or ignored the text. If they got the notification, they still knew they had that notification and their performance suffered.

This is telling to our focus and it is an example of how bottom-up thinking works. Something as small as a text notification is enough to send our focus out the window and can make our performance suffer. Recognizing this and finding methods to limit the impact it has on our work can be critical if you want to improve how well you do at work.