Trying to mix work and play is a recipe for disaster. While going to work, think only about work. While going on vacation with your family, think only about the vacation. It will free you from unnecessary burdens, and you will truly enjoy spending time wherever you are.
Over the past few years, it has become difficult to set a firm boundary between work and play due to COVID. But those who were successful in maintaining the boundary while working from home knew its importance.
Make a trigger to switch work and play.
Each habit affects every other habit. So, if you do some work while you are spending time with family, you would also prefer to talk on the phone while driving, and the list would go on. You would keep on mixing everything in all the areas of your life. If you take a pause and think about it, you might already be mixing different things, which is the root cause of many problems.
Everything that you do impacts everything else you are doing.
When you completely focus on one thing at a time, your brain might get agitated at first because it likes being in a high-stimulus state. Your brain rewards you with dopamine whenever you multitask. Soon you are bound to realize that big companies are using this thing against us by setting traps for us. But if you quit this habit of mixing things up, you will soon realize that your efficiency at everything you do has increased. You will also have a lot of energy because focusing on one thing eliminates any unnecessary leakage of energy.
One thing at a time will lead to extraordinary results.
A person feels a lot better when they get into the habit of doing one thing at a time. It is a way to achieve a state known as “flow”. In this state, you are completely submerged in the thing you are doing and lose the sense of time. When you are finished doing the thing, you will experience joy. All the distractions around you are not letting you get this joy.
To do something phenomenal in this life, this constant urge to check your phone needs to stop.
A person gets instant gratification whenever he gets a notification and checks his device to see what the secret is behind the notification. It is like playing in a casino; after every roll, you get to see the results, which gives a great sense of excitement. By indulging more in these types of behaviors, you are making yourself prone to a lack of focus.
In today’s world, having focus is also a superpower because only a few have it.
Trying to mix work and play is a recipe for disaster. Focus on one thing at a time. There should be a boundary between work and play. A person needs to set a trigger to switch between the two. While doing this, you might feel agitated because you would not get the dopamine rush you were getting while multitasking. But believe me, this pain is temporary and the reward it will give you will last longer. It will help you get to the state of flow, which is a state where you lose the sense of time while doing something with complete focus. Notifications also play a crucial role in distracting us from doing anything with complete focus.