Insights · Focus
You work through the whole day, meeting after meeting, email after email. Yet by the end of the day you can't quite say you thought deeply about anything. Busy, but not fulfilled.
That's the difference between being busy and focus. And that difference is bigger, and matters more, than most people think.
Our brain constantly registers more than we realize: sounds, movement, an email arriving. Cognitive research distinguishes between different forms of attention. Alerting attention keeps us watchful for change. Orienting attention helps us judge whether that change is relevant. Only when we direct our attention at a single task for a sustained period do we speak of executive attention, the form of attention we call focus in everyday language.
Psychologist Theo Compernolle describes it aptly as 'sustained, uninterrupted attention.' Focus isn't simply being alert. It's attention with a clear goal, that you can sustain without constantly switching tasks.
A common mistake is thinking focus means staying sharp and "on" all day. It doesn't. Just as a photographer doesn't spend the whole day tensely staring through the viewfinder, effort and rest constantly alternate. After finding the shot, there's space: time to walk, to think, to look again.
The same alternation applies at work. Focus isn't keeping your attention permanently locked on one point, it's finding a rhythm between effort and rest. Anyone who ignores that rhythm and tries to stay continuously focused actually loses sharpness instead of gaining it.
Digital technology is designed to hold our attention for as long as possible. Tools and apps promise more efficiency, but shrink the space for deep work at the same time. The result: we're constantly alerted, our executive attention is rarely truly engaged, and our attention jumps from task to task all day long. That mechanism has a name: technostress. And it has a direct, measurable impact on our ability to focus.
Curious where your focus is under the most pressure? Take the free technostress self-assessment, 15 statements, 3 minutes, an instant personal breakdown.
Take the self-assessmentMore discipline doesn't solve this. If your environment constantly demands attention, the system usually beats your willpower. That's why, together with Anouk, I work with a concrete framework: five levers that together determine whether attention can deepen, or not.
F · Friction, deployed deliberately
Make distraction a little harder. Put your phone out of reach, bury social media a few screens deep. Those extra steps give you just enough of a pause to choose consciously.
O · Optimize your environment
Your environment shapes your behavior more than your good intentions do. Strip your screen down to the essentials, without the colors, badges, or notifications that keep stimulating your brain.
C · Cultivate rhythm
A bow that's always drawn loses its power. Focus requires intensity, but not non-stop. Deliberate recovery isn't a luxury, it's the condition for sharpness.
U · Unclutter the noise
Every open loop costs energy: an unanswered email, a vague task. Focus isn't just choosing what you do, it's also daring to say: not this, not right now.
S · Safeguard focus, together
Focus isn't an individual discipline alone. Teams constantly strengthen or undermine each other's attention. Agree together, explicitly, on when someone doesn't want to be disturbed.
Not with all five at once. Pick the lever that's causing the most friction in your situation, or your team's, right now, and start there. That's exactly what I work on with leaders and teams: in a keynote, I explain the full model; in a team workshop, we translate it into concrete agreements; and in a 1-on-1 coaching program, we build it up step by step, tailored to you. The full model, with the science behind it, is in 'Digitale Fitheid voor Leiders'.
Curious which lever would make the biggest difference for your team?
Book a free strategy callIs focus the same as concentration?
Largely, yes. Concentration is often the shorter, more momentary form; focus as we mean it here is about sustained, uninterrupted attention over a longer period, with a clear goal.
Can you train focus, or is it an innate talent?
Focus is largely the result of deliberate structures: your environment, your rhythm, your habits. That means it can be trained and designed, even if it feels difficult right now.
Do I need to apply the whole F.O.C.U.S. model at once?
No. The model works precisely because you can start with the lever that delivers the most right now, and build from there.
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