Product Description

Where did my day go? How did it get so late?

I feel like I'm being pulled in too many directions at once.

If only there were two of me, I could get it all done.

If this is you at the end of the day, you are not alone. Millions of people deal with these same frustrations in today's world of endless distraction.

Let's face it: We all live on the edge of being overwhelmed, and old ways of paying attention just don't work anymore. When you get more than three thousand advertising messages and hundreds of emails every day, it's no wonder you feel like you're constantly fighting distraction. What is the secret -- known to a select group of high achievers, including Olympic athletes -- to finding your focus zone? The key is managing adrenaline. Too much and you're overstimulated; too little and you're not stimulated enough. Now you, too, can learn the same methods that high performers use.

In Find Your Focus Zone, psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD, gives you eight sets of keys to unlock your best attention so that you can concentrate in every situation -- even when you're under pressure or facing dull tasks that must be done. You'll choose which key solutions and strategies work best for you and use them to create your own personal keychain for daily achievement and success. The skills you learn in Find Your Focus Zone will help you to

• Beat procrastination and face boring jobs
• Overcome obstacles and finish what you start
• Prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed and burned out
• Build balance and trust in your work and family relationships
• Enhance your self-confidence
• Use interruptions to your advantage
• Tune out distractions to increase your efficiency and effectiveness

Dr. Palladino is the first to explain the science of attention in plain language. As she teaches you cutting-edge concepts and methods to win the fight against distraction and overload, she highlights them with engaging stories, easy exercises, and useful tips.

With the individualized program that Dr. Palladino prescribes for your particular needs, you'll learn not only how to find your focus zone, but also how to boost your personal productivity by applying these attention skills, self-encouragement practices, and strengths. And by learning to flex your attention

muscle, you'll avoid the dangers of distraction and boredom, like missing deadlines, disappointing your family, and feeling scattered and ineffective.

A book for anyone who struggles to cut through the noise of everyday life, Find Your Focus Zone gives you the tools you need to succeed in today's digital world of distraction. Warm, practical, and user-friendly, with innovative techniques and a powerful message, it's just what the doctor ordered.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41293 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-26
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
"Coaching people to optimize their brain's functioning is a new and much-needed field in our overloaded world. Civilization and our cyber world have clearly outstripped our brain's ability to deal with all that information, so we need all the help we can get. Lucy Jo gives practical tools to help all of us deal with the constant overloaded state in which we find ourselves immersed."

-- John Ratey, MD, author of A User's Guide to the Brain and co-author of Driven to Distraction

Review
"Lucy Jo Palladino has done it again! This is a truly remarkable, insightful, and useful guide to optimizing both your life and your performance. Buy several copies, as you'll keep thinking of people you want to share it with while you're reading it!"

-- Thom Hartmann, author of Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception

"A favorite coach of mine once said to me, 'You can have anything you want, you just can't have everything you want.' Find Your Focus Zone is a roadmap for eliminating the bombardment of daily distractions and focusing on the things that matter most to you, whether that be running a marathon, running a business, running a family, or just plain running your life."

-- Dean Karnazes, author of Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

"With technology exploding, the single biggest productivity challenge workers face is the ability to focus on a single task long enough to see it through to completion. Find Your Focus Zone is a seminal work in the science of attention and a must-read for every distracted professional. Focus is power."

-- Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, "The Productivity Pro®," author of Leave the Office Earlier and Find More Time

"In this age of digital distractions we all need strategies and tools to help us choose where to place our attention and how to stay focused on the really important stuff that makes life meaningful. Dr. Lucy Jo Palladino's Find Your Focus Zone offers that help in a book that is both insightful and accessible. I highly recommend Find Your Focus Zone."

-- Neil Fiore, PhD, author of Awaken Your Strongest Self and The Now Habit

"Find Your Focus Zone is a fun, entertaining, energetic, and great resource, jam-packed with simple, ready-to-use perspectives that help you understand more clearly the increasingly fast-paced world. Dr. Palladino's eight sets of cognitive strategies are surefire ways to focus your attention and perform at new high levels. It makes my top ten list of 'be sure to read'...and 'be sure to apply.'"

-- James Bauman, PhD, U.S. Olympic Committee Sport Psychologist

"Coaching people to optimize their brain's functioning is a new and much-needed field in our overloaded world. Civilization and our cyber world have clearly outstripped our brain's ability to deal with all that information, so we need all the help we can get. Lucy Jo gives practical tools to help all of us deal with the constant overloaded state in which we find ourselves immersed."

-- John Ratey, MD, author of A User's Guide to the Brain and co-author of Driven to Distraction

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

You and I live in a 24/7 culture, and someone is always upping the ante. New technology makes you more productive but pressures you to pick up the pace. You have a new cell phone? Good. Now, your boss can reach you on your day off. Wireless PDA, huh? Excellent. We'll expect e-mails, too. Mini-PC? Even better. We'll instant-message you those files.... Whether you work inside or outside your home, you juggle a schedule of constant demands and always-on electronics. Multitasking is rampant. For better or worse, we're rewiring our brains for what the technology industry now calls "continuous partial attention."

In the digital age of distraction, we function at new levels of stimulation and anxiety. The Internet spews information like a fire hose, but to digest information we need to sip it through a straw. Overwhelmed and overloaded, we have no time to process or reflect. Sunday is not a day of rest, but an attempt to catch up and clear your clutter. Old ways of paying attention can't keep up. We need new tools.

Having control over your attention is a critical skill. I specialize in working with human attention because paying attention matters. Every one of us needs the ability to direct our attention, or we will not reach our goals. In my thirty years of practice as a clinical psychologist, I've helped thousands of people solve myriad problems by improving their attention. Learning attention management skills has made life better for just about everyone who has walked through my door, not just for those with attention deficit disorder.

This morning, for instance, my first appointment was with an executive who'd recently had a heart attack. He came to see me to learn stress management skills that will help him prevent another one. His biggest challenge is to get his mind off his highly competitive workplace when it's time for him to go home and relax. Next, I saw a woman in her thirties who is battling depression. "Everyone tells you to stay positive," she observed, "but no one tells you how." I'm going to help her unglue her attention from negative thoughts of worry, blame, and self-criticism, and focus instead on hope, trust, and self-appreciation.

I saw a college student with social anxiety who's learning to redirect his attention away from his memories of rejection and onto cues he can get from others so he can succeed in social situations. Then came a baby boomer trying to lose weight, struggling to pay more attention to fruits and vegetables than to rich sauces and pastries. A young perfectionist couple have a weekly appointment with me to practice ways to focus on each other's humanity, not on each other's faults. Attention control is a necessary ingredient for each of us to be healthy, happy, and successful.

When it comes to attention and the digital age, we each have different strengths and vulnerabilities. What's your style? Are you prone to attention swings, back and forth between boredom and overdrive? Or do you tend toward one end or the other -- lost in space or racing against the clock with no time to spare? Take a moment to ask yourself which style describes you best.

Most people today fluctuate between boredom and overdrive. Do you:

• Buy books that grab you at the store, but don't finish reading them at home?
• Buy the latest high-tech gadget, play with it while it's new, then turn it into a bookend (to hold up all those unfinished books)?
• Stop what you're doing to answer a cool e-mail, but have two or more half-written e-mails in your drafts folder?
• Agree to go to places that sound like fun when you're invited, then make up excuses when it's actually time to stop what you're doing and go?
• Ambitiously start a diet by buying ingredients for unusual recipes, but toss them out when they grow mold and turn into a science project in your fridge?

Some people find that they're more the scattered and spacey type. It's a constant challenge for them to stick with what they're doing. They spend a lot of time overextended, underpowered, and indecisive. Do you:

• Go to the store, browse through some books, see one you like, put off deciding whether to buy it or not, go home, wish you'd bought it, and eventually go back to the store only to find that it's no longer on the shelf?
• Put off buying the latest high-tech gadget, and when you finally do get it, leave it in the box until your tech-savvy neighbor comes over to set it up for you?
• Have six or more half-written e-mails in your drafts folder?
• Agree to go to places that sound like fun when you're invited, look forward to going, and then arrive late no matter what time you started to get ready?
• Consider starting a diet for a few weeks, go to the bookstore to find (but not buy) a diet book, read magazine articles about losing weight, and put a recipe on your refrigerator door (if there's room) to think about it awhile?

Some people are wired for speed and intensity. They find it hard to say no to constant stimulation. Do you:

• Go only to bookstores that have wifi so you can stay connected while you're there?
• Be the first to own the latest high-tech gadget, trade up your current gadgets for the next generation right away, and have a gadget for every purpose?
• Check your e-mail continuously and wrt msgs ryt awy lk ths?
• Agree to go to places that sound like fun when you're invited but in the back of your mind know that if a better opportunity comes up you will call and cancel?
• If you need to lose weight, gulp down breakfast shakes and power bars -- a great reason to eat on the run!

Whatever your style, you will benefit from Find Your Focus Zone.

Copyright © 2007 by Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD

Customer Reviews

One of the best self-help books I've read
When a friend put this book in my hands a few months ago, I wondered if he was trying to tell me something, and if I should be offended. Find Your Focus Zone: Hadn't I read enough time-management books or self-improvement books already? Now I've read the book -- and passed on a few copies myself -- and I'm signing on here to say that THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL SELF-HELP BOOK.

For one thing, it's really helpful. Really, really helpful. Palladino has a novelist's gift for succinct and memorable character descriptions, which means that her description of the too hyperfast, hyperfocused guy reminded me of someone (several someones) I knew, as did her sketch of the woman who is scattered and spacey, the folks who are overstimulated, understimulated, afraid of failure. I started turning down pages to share with people but stopped partway through. I could tell that nearly everyone I know could benefit from Palladino's clear analysis of what makes us less effective in every part of our lives.

That leads me to another part of Find Your Focus Zone that surprised me: how much I found that Palladino's advice could help me in my family life. Her portraits of parent-child interactions hit home with even more force than did her sketches of workers. Because of her book, I've changed the way I think about my daughter's foot-dragging over homework and music practice. Also how my husband and I work with her and our son on chores, how we think about our family meals, our vacations, our dreams for them. Little stuff and big stuff.

If you wonder about the effect of the new connectivity toys and tools on children, read this book. If you wish work didn't intrude on your family life but find it hard to leave it at the office, read this book. If you wish you could just Get More Done, read this book. If you feel like there's more in you than your work is getting out, read this book. If you're a manager or business owner, read this book. If you're just starting out in a job, read this book.

Best of all, it's not just easy to read and well-written. It's clear that Palladino knows her science. She trusts the intelligence of her readers when she describes current research in attention and attention disorders. It's a pleasure to read a book with clear footnotes that also has practical end-of-chapter suggestions.

So if someone gives you this book, thank them. And then buy another to pass on.

HELP FOR MY SCATTERED BRAIN!
HELP FOR MY SCATTERED BRAIN!
I like this book. Tips and strategies for staying engaged with boring tasks, as well as practical methods for dealing with anxiety, pressure to perform, and fear of failure. It teaches the art of finding and maintaining a state of productive focus. It provides tools to call yourself to attention so you can visit that wonderful place where "all systems are go" and you are humming along. You don't have to be a scientist to appreciate the clear explanation of the upside down U that graphs the relationship between attention and stimulation. Even the Brain Chemical Attention Chart, showing the relationship of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine to attention, is clear and understandable. The book is easy to read, user friendly, and contains lots of practical advice. I had no problem staying in my "focus zone" as I read.

Living a life you love, more effectively
I've spent about 15 years reading books and articles about this subject, and this is the first time I've actually experienced an immediate and tangible shift in focus. That's pretty close to miraculous, especially since I've even been an editor or contributor to some books on the subject.

See, I have a very very busy mind. I'm a marketing director for a Boston high-tech company (fast-moving group in a rapidly changing environment with constantly large amounts to learn), I sing in a championship men's chorus which requires a substantial commitment, I'm in an a capella quartet (ditto), I'm Class Notes secretary for my college class, and just for fun last year I discovered a very advanced life-threatening cancer, learned an enormous amount fast (as if my life depended on it) and completely beat it, while being stuck with two houses because we'd moved at the start of the housing slump. Now that the house and cancer are resolved, I'm a team leader in a year-long self-development course, I've become an active blogger, and I've published my year-long cancer journal and I'm becoming active in the "e-patient" movement to promote a new kind of doctor-patient relationship for the internet-enabled, whose principles played a big role in my cancer success last year.

I mean, I love my life, but with a life like that, who has time to stop and "go to school" about focusing?

I'll never forget the first time management course I took, decades ago. It said you just make a list and mark everything A,B,C for priority and then do the most important stuff. I wanted to reach out and SLAP the author, saying "You idiot, if I could do THAT, I wouldn't need this course!"

Where most books spend chapters being philosophical about why their solution WILL be useful later in the book, Find Your Focus Zone immediately gets to the point, delivering solutions in the very first chapter. Sure, it deepens your understanding later on, but the punchline, the payoff, is delivered right away.

I experienced it like a caffeine jolt of understanding and awareness. It's about finding the level of stimulation that works for you (which isn't as easy as it might sound). The funny thing is that I read it months ago and didn't think much about it since then, but then the other night in the middle of a marathon of productivity, I realized I was *doing* it, and it was working. I was moving from task to task with grace and ease, just gettin' stuff done.

Frankly, I've always had a hard time with the idea that with all the ways I experience and contribute and enjoy life, somehow I shouldn't be the way I am. I mean, I have more fun and I experience more stimulation than two or three ordinary people. This book doesn't say for a minute that you've got to learn to be different - it says "Here's this one massively useful knob you can control about your environment, to get more stuff done while being exactly the way you are." How cool is that?