Canadian doctor and psychotherapist Gabor Mate suffers from attention deficit disorder. He lectures on that topic, but his advice works for everyone who wants to stay focused:

  1. Connect emotionally to the task. Ask yourself what part of the task you care about the most and build on that.
  2. Consider the time of day. If you think better in the morning, schedule important work for that time.
  3. Decide how long you intend to work and what you plan to accomplish. Keep that in mind.
  4. Remove items that break your focus. Remove photos, magazines, and any material not relevant to the task, even the icon on your computer that alerts you to an email.
  5. Take a break every 40 minutes.

With the holidays coming up, you need to make a plan and stick to it. Hopefully the above ideas will help you be more productive this holiday season.