Focus Blocks are designed to get you into what psychologists refer to as Flow State---long stretches of intense focus that:

• Improve performance [11]
• Produce intense feelings of enjoyment [12]
• Improve overall feeling of happiness [13]
• Reduce anxiety and boost self esteem [11]
• Improve your levels of persistence [14]

Every Focus Block starts with a very precise, guided 5 minute Focus Ritual that gets you into Flow State using practices such as Micro Goal Setting, Social Commitment, Moderate Time Pressure, Meditation, Visualization, and Distraction Elimination.

Once the Focus guide finishes the 5 minute Focus Ritual, you do 50 minutes of deep work and hit flow state consistently and effortlessly. 

Areas related to the brain's dopamine based reward system are more active during flow state (Ulrich et al., 2014)

This leads to feelings of optimism and hope, positive mood, and feeling energized or motivated (Ashby et al., 1999). In addition, it can reduce feelings of fatigue or discomfort . Flow states also lead to improvements in intrinsic motivation, and relentless dedication to a task.

In 2008, for example, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Charles Limb used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine people in flow state. He found the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain best known for self-monitoring (inner critic), deactivated. [16]

Self-monitoring is the voice of doubt - our inner critic. When the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex goes quiet, your inner critic is cut off.

The result is liberation. We act without hesitation. Creativity becomes more free-flowing, risk taking becomes less frightening, and the combination lets us achieve breakthrough results. 

Being accountable to ourselves is hard. It is very easy to let ourselves off the hook. 

Studies have shown that the single biggest driver of accountability is other people.

That is why,  in every Focus Block, you are accountable to your group to get your most important work done without any distractions - In Real Time. 

We add an additional level of real-time human accountability by recommending that you leave your camera ON throughout the Focus Block. 

This real time human accountability forces you to work on your commitments and get your most important work done no matter how little willpower you have. 

Within the ADHD community, “body doubling” (having someone else sit quietly with you while you work) is a popular practice for getting tough tasks done. [17]

One study showed that our performance goes up by 230% if we are being held accountable to others (compared to working by ourselves) [18]

When you work by yourself, it is easy to do "stuff" and feel busy - while not working on what is truly important. You do a lot of things - but at the end of the day it feels like you didn't make much progress. 

The cure to this is using Implementation Intentions. 

An implementation Intention is a plan you make beforehand about where and when you will act on a specific goal/task. 

Studies show that our chances of following through on our goals/tasks go up by nearly 91% with clear implementation intentions [5] [19].

Focus Blocks have multiple layers of Implementation Intention built it. 

When you schedule a Focus Block, you create an implementation intention about precisely when you will do a certain task. 

Not only that, during a Focus block, when you commit to doing a specific task you strengthen your implementation intention even further.  

That Intentionality forces you to focus and dramatically increases your productivity.

Teresa Amabile's research at Harvard University shows that having time pressure leads to much higher levels of productivity [20].

Not only that, when people have low to moderate time pressure, people are the most productive and the most creative. 

That is why every Focus Block has a precise 50 minute Deep Focus Work Sprint. 

Knowing that you have 50 minutes to complete a certain task puts you under a low to moderate time pressure which allows you to do your best, most focused and creative work.

When you are working by yourself, it is easy to allow your energy or mood or feelings to dictate whether you will do your best, most focused work or just waste time.  

But when you are surrounded by a community of other ambitious people - ALL working on their important work, you summon the energy and motivation to get your most important and difficult work done. 

We place heightened demands on ourselves when are in the presence of others.  

We do this to fulfill certain implicit and explicit expectations and achieve social acceptance.

Research shows that the mere presence of another person improves human performance by up to 32 percent. [7]

Every Focus Block has several layers of Social Pressure built-in. 

At the most basic level, you are on a Video Call with your Focus Guide and other ambitious people from around the world. That forces you to step up and bring your best self every single time. 

Next is the specific intention you set with your group. You now feel the pressure to fulfill that expectation you set for yourself. 

Also, you have a desire to be liked and respected by your Focus Blocks peers. This drives you to even higher levels of performance.

Pre-commitment is making a commitment to a task or goal in advance. Pre-commitment dramatically improves our chances of following through on our goals. [1][3]

Without Focus Blocks, you might have a generic commitment with yourself to work between the time you wake up and the time you go to bed. 

However, every Focus Block session is a specific and concrete commitment – when you book a Monday 7 am session you're essentially saying, "I commit to start working at 7 AM sharp on Monday".  Not sometime around 7 am. Not sometime in the morning. Not at 7:08 AM.  

That is because every Focus Block starts and ends precisely ON the hour. If you are late by even 1 minute, you will not be able to join the ongoing Focus Block and you will have to wait for the next one. Hence every Focus Block creates an externally imposed deadline for you.  

A 2002 Research by Dan Ariely at MIT showed that externally imposed deadlines are far more effective than self imposed deadlines when it comes to eliminating procrastination [4].

On cognitively demanding tasks, externally imposed deadlines can reduce procrastination by nearly 70% and increase work output by nearly 30%. 

A research study at University of California, Irvine showed that when someone is distracted, it takes them 23 minutes and 14 seconds to get back to the same level of Focus as before the distraction [21]. 

In other words, those 30 seconds to check Email or News aren't just 30 seconds of waste. Its more like 23 minutes and 44 seconds of waste. 

That is why we do not allow ANY distractions during a Focus Block. 

During the 5 Minute Focus Ritual, we ask you to put your Phone on Do Not Disturb Mode and keep it away from you(in another room if possible).

One study showed that just by having our phones around us decreases our Active IQ by 10 points. [22]

We also ask you turn off all notifications on your computer (Messenger, Email, Slack etc - ALL OFF).

We recommend that you shut down all other windows and tabs you don't need. 

We recommend that you let your family/household member know that you are in your Focus Block (meeting) so they won't disturb you. (A lot of our members use the LIVE Focus Blocks Zoom window to show to their family members/colleagues that they are in a meeting and should not be disturbed.)

Without all these distractions, your productivity will soar to levels you may have never experienced before and you will achieve your goals much faster. 

Most people operate at very low levels of productivity because they multi-task - constantly switching between tasks as they work.

On the other hand, single tasking (doing one thing at a time) has 3 major benefits over multi-tasking [15]. 

• Our stress levels go down 
• Our quality of work goes up 
• Our work output goes up by 85%
  

Focus blocks are designed to force you to single task every time. During the 5 minute Focus Ritual you make a commitment to exactly what you will accomplish during that Focus Block.

As a result, you stick to finishing that one thing rather than splitting your energy over multiple tasks.