重要的事情排在第一。说真的，专注到底是什么？专家把专注定义为：把兴趣和活动集中到某些事情上的行为。这是一个稍显枯燥的定义，但是这个定义里面隐藏着一个重要的启示。
什么是专注？
为了把注意力集中到一件事情上，你必须放弃、忽略很多其他的事情。更好的表达方式是：
专注只能发生在我们接受一个任务，而拒绝其他所有任务的时候。换句话说，清空是为集中注意力提前做好准备。就像蒂姆·弗雷斯说的，
“你不做的事情决定了你能做的事情。”
当然，专注不是永远拒绝一些事情，只是现在拒绝它们。你有一些任务随后总是要去做的。专注是提高效率的钥匙，因为拒绝了其他的每一件任务，就解锁了你完成剩下的这一件事情的能力。现在最重要的问题是：我们能做些什么，才能使我们专注于重要的事情，并忽略不重要的事情呢？
为什么我不能专注？
大多数人的专注没有什么问题，而是在做决定上有问题。我的意思是大多数健康的人，只要找到排除干扰的方式，都有足够的心智去专注。到底发生了什么？你去做一件事情是因为最后期限逼着你做了决定。可能你以前一直在拖延，但是一旦事情变得非常紧急，你就会被迫做决定，你就能做出行动。
困难的反而是选择专注的去做一件事情，我们经常让我们自己相信，多任务处理（同时处理几个任务）是更好的选择。其实这样是低效率的。为什么呢……
多任务处理的神话
严格来说，我们有同时做两件事情的能力。这是可能的，例如一边看电视一边吃晚餐，或者一边打电话一边回复邮件。但是不管怎样，同时集中注意力做两件事情是不可能的。你在倾听电视的时候，搅动意大利面的声音就成了背景音。或者你注意到你的意大利面的时候，电视就成了背景音。在每个单独的片刻，你的注意力只在其中一个上面。
多任务处理强迫你的大脑在非常短的时间，从一个任务切换到另一个任务。如果人的大脑能够从一个工作到下一个工作无缝的切换，这就不是什么大问题，但是我们的大脑不能无缝切换。
你是否曾经遇到，正在写一份邮件的时候被某个人打断？当对话结束以后你回到要写的东西上，这花了几分钟去找到你的状态，回忆你正在写的内容，并找回你的思路。当你多任务处理的时候，经常有类似的事情发生。多任务处理强迫你在每次从一个任务跳到另一个任务的时候花费你的精力。心理学术语中，这个花费的精力被称之为：转换成本（switching cost）。
转换成本是我们把注意力从一个领域转换到另一个领域的时候性能的破坏。
发表在2003年《国际信息管理》杂志上的一项研究表明，一个典型的人每隔5分钟查看一次邮件，平均来说，在检查完邮件后要花64秒才能恢复原来的任务。换句话说，只是由于电子邮件，我们通常每六分钟就会浪费一次。（提示：那么微信呢？）
关注专注力，关注漫拼
First things first. What is focus, really? Experts define focus as the act of concentrating your interest or activity on something. That's a somewhat boring definition, but there is an important insight hiding inside that definition.
What is Focus?
In order to concentrate on one thing, you must, by default, ignore many other things. Here's a better way to put it:
Focus can only occur when we have said yes to one option and no to all other options. In other words, elimination is a prerequisite for focus. As Tim Ferriss says, “What you don’t do determines what you can do.”
Of course, focus doesn't require a permanent no, but it does require a present no. You always have the option to do something else later. But in the present moment, focus requires that you only do one thing. Focus is the key to productivity, because saying no to every other option unlocks your ability to accomplish the one thing that is left. Now for the important question: What can we do to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don't?
Why Can’t I Focus?
Most people don’t have trouble with focusing. They have trouble with deciding. What I mean is that most healthy humans have a brain that is capable of focusing if we get the distractions out of the way. Have you ever had a task that you absolutely had to get done? What happened? You got it done because the deadline made the decision for you. Maybe you procrastinated beforehand, but once things became urgent and you were forced to make a decision, you took action.
Instead of doing the difficult work of choosing one thing to focus on, we often convince ourselves that multitasking is a better option. This is ineffective. Here's why…
The Myth of Multitasking
Technically, we are capable of doing two things at the same time. It is possible, for example, to watch TV while cooking dinner or to answer an email while talking on the phone. What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once. You're either listening to the TV, and the overflowing pot of pasta is background noise. Or you're tending to the pot of pasta, and the TV is background noise. During any single instant, you are concentrating on one or the other.
Multitasking forces your brain to switch your focus back and forth very quickly from one task to another. This wouldn't be a big deal if the human brain could transition seamlessly from one job to the next, but it can't.
Have you ever been in the middle of writing an email when someone interrupts you? When the conversation is over and you get back to the message, it takes you a few minutes to get your bearings, remember what you were writing, and get back on track. Something similar happens when you multitask. Multitasking forces you to pay a mental price each time you interrupt one task and jump to another. In psychology terms, this mental price is called the switching cost.
Switching cost is the disruption in performance that we experience when we switch our focus from one area to another. One study, published in the International Journal of Information Management in 2003, found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email. In other words, because of email alone, we typically waste one out of every six minutes. （Note: What about WeChat?）
