Its time to active monk mode! It’s time to go all in, and fully focus completely on whatever it is you are looking to achieve and remove everything that is stealing focus away from you.
It starts now, whether you want to grow in your finances, get in shape, start a business, move up in your career or whatever goal you have.
To get ahead of 99% of people, you will need to immerse yourself fully, if you plan on getting closer to the goal you set out for yourself.
Monk mode will help you develop high levels of mental clarity and productivity. This means you will need to stop everything that is taking away from your mental focus and mindfulness.
Its the deliberate elimination or scaling back of social interactions, dating, unhealthy habits, and time-wasting activities with the purpose of focusing solely on a self-development goal.
There are a few Inherent Rules of monk mode:
You need to get work done, period, no excuses!
You must remove all distractions & vices.
You must set goals, hit them, and remain consistent.
This may sound simple enough but the truth is we are facing more distractions then we have ever faced in history.
And one of today’s biggest culprits Is the internet! It’s a double-edged sword, the advancement of the internet gave us speed of information at our fingertips, but also created some of the biggest distractions we have ever faced.
There are so many distractions in today’s world that it’s almost impossible to stay focused, and online platforms are built around keeping you on their platform for as long as possible. These companies study the phycology on what it takes to keep you mindlessly scrolling on their site. They have some of the smartest people in the world who work daily on increasing the retention on their respective platforms.
And their all fighting for your attention.
Recent studies show that the “average person is distracted every 40 seconds when working in front of a computer.” Think of all the alerts, emails, text messages and mobile app notifications that you receive daily trying to funnel you back into their ecosystem.
This means that the average person gets distracted hundreds of times, daily. And we wonder why its so difficult for the average person, now a days, to rise above the other 99% of people.
I wanted to start here because you need this to move forward.
Self-awareness
You need to get honest with yourself and identify anything that is keeping you from achieving hyper focus. This could be social media, friends, phone calls, mobile and desktop app notifications, YouTube videos, music, relationships, smoking, drinking, binge watching a Netflix series, whatever it is, you need to identify it..
A good way to see where your attention is going is spend a week and write down everything you’re doing; from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. This will put into perspective exactly what you’re doing. It’s a lot of work, but it will visually show you exactly how you are spending your time.
This will also point out any of your blind spots and allow you to find out what it is that you need to cut out, so that you can focus completely on what you need to get done and transform your life moving forward.
Now that you have identified those distractions, we need to eradicate it by any means necessary. Everyone’s different and there is no one size fit all, but here’s what helped me.
Weighted Daily Tasks
For me personally, my focus is at its peak from the time I wake up till about noon. It drops a lot around 2-4 pm. I organize my day by handing everything that requires a lot of mental focus and do those things between when I wake up until noon.
So, I organize them in order, from the most urgent items that require the most focus and as the day progresses I work the tasks that require less mental focus, but are more repetitive in nature.
So repetitive, mindless tasks for me would be, responding to emails or recording videos and content. It’s not that these aren’t important things that need to get done, it just doesn’t require as much mental focus as other things.
Moving on to-
Environment
Everything in my workspace, office, and home, is very minimal and purposeful.
For me having a clean clutter free area helps me with mental clarity. This doesn’t stop here; this even applies to my desktop or laptop. I organize all my folders and make sure my desktop itself looks clean. I have this large 49-inch dell monitor and I sort my screen into 3 sections, with only what I need.
I block all notifications besides slack notifications from my VA. And they know not to reach out until afternoon unless it’s urgent.
There is absolutely no YouTube, podcasts or audibles between this time, or anything that will distract me from the tasks that need to get done. I know these are things that help me learn and grow, but not while I’m in my peak focus state of mind.
The only thing that needs to happen in this time frame, is utter and absolute focus. My phone is turned over, on vibrate and I don’t answer any phone calls or respond to text during this time unless I absolutely need to.
I’m in Isolation, and it’s important to give yourself the space and time, by yourself, to grow in the areas of your desires, weaknesses, and goals. This also allows you time to think deeply about your next move.
Your environment can help your brain to focus on your task in front of you. As for music, I
Listening to 40-Hz binaural beats that can help with mental focus and stimulate the frontal region of the brain. Sounds a bit excessive, right, but that’s what monk mode is. It is by any means necessary!
Even down to my clothing, I often wear a hoodie, and actually wear the hoodie over my head, when I’m in front of the computer. It kind of blocks the side view and helps me stay focused on the screen in front of me.
My Typical Routine
Here’s what my typical routine looks like. Now everyone is different, monk mode can be practiced for a short term (30 days) to get a specific goal done, or long term. I have been doing the routine I’m about to mention for years.
To get above 99% of people in anything, will require that you implement this in your long-term plan of action.
- I wake up around 6 am, brush my teeth, make a quick breakfast, and grab a jug of water.
- At around 6:20 am, I pray and spend some time with God.
- At 6:30 I’m in front of my computer, hyper focused, working nonstop until 12Pm.
- I’ll eat lunch at noon, for like 30 mins.
- At around 12:30 to 1 Ill wrap up any unfinished work from the morning.
- From 1 to 4pm I’ll work on anything that requires less mental focus and that may be more repetitive, like we discussed earlier with the weighted daily tasks. I’ll respond to phone calls, texts, emails, record these videos and check in on my team.
- From 4 -6pm I’ll head to the gym and workout for about an hour. This is kind of like my version of meditation. While I’m in the car, ill listen to audibles or podcasts.
- I eat dinner around 6:30 and then shower.
- From 7-10:30 I spend time with my wife and kids, write down tomorrow’s daily tasks, I’ll have my laptop with me and do some light work, nothing to heavy.
- I go to bed and rinse and repeat the next day.
My monk mode is a little different than what you may have expected. I don’t personally meditate or do anything like that. I wake up and get to work, consistently, without distractions, for years. I’m in complete isolation the whole time with very limited distractions. I eat very clean and healthy, take my supplements, and drink my coffee and water.
The effects of this, compounds into incredible transformation.
Monk Mode Activated!
Your routine may need to be different, based on your circumstances. But in general, the rule to get above the other 99% of people, is to limit those distractions and vices that prevent you from getting things done.
Monk mode works because it forces you to have to work! You can apply this to any goal you want to achieve.
I spend time with my family on the weekends. Monk mode isn’t meant to make you feel miserable. It’s to transform you and allows you to get maximum efficiency out of your day.
Some key takeaways that you can apply from this article is
- Remove all distractions. (This could be social media, friends, phone calls, mobile and desktop app notifications, YouTube videos, music, relationships, smoking, drinking, bing watching a Netflix series, whatever it is)
- Get isolated. – spend time by yourself to allow yourself to think.
- Set goals and timelines. – Create realistic milestones that you want to achieve.
- Create a clutter free environment. – The area around you can impact your mental clarity
- Self-awareness – identify the things that are distracting you and eradicate it. You can spend a week writing everything that you are doing down, from the time you wake up to when you go to bed and see what’s stealing your focus.
- Structure your daily tasks around your peak focus hours. Prioritize high value tasks that require the most mental energy in the window where you are naturally most focused. For me its in the mornings.
You can even schedule distraction time if you need, where you allow yourself a small window, to take a mental break and relax without feeling bad about it. But ultimately everything is purposeful and for a reason.
