How to Stay Focused in Summer

Now that temperatures are rising far above what is considered to be a typical Dutch summer and 80% of your colleagues are on vacation, you might find yourself having difficulty to concentrate on whatever it is you are doing. Also wondering what you can put on to work so that it is more or less decent, but that you still don’t die of sweatiness and heat, you probably have few other things on your mind than the sun, the beach and the good life. At least that is what applies to me, I should confess.

This quiet summertime when people are mostly busy with a good deal of other things rather than their direct responsibilities is referred to in Dutch with a weird enough term “cucumber time”. The other day I heard on the radio where this seemingly strange name is coming from: evidently, in the past, the only thing papers would write about, around July – early August, when there’s no other news to tell, would be the cucumber price fluctuations. Very important to know, don’t you think? So, there’s hardly any news, not much is happening, but also less busy highways and virtually no traffic jams – that’s what’s the summertime is about for a working person like me who has enjoyed a vacation at the beginning of summer, which already feels like ages back.

The Pismo Beach

Does it have any sense to, career-wise, do anything at this very still time of the year? If you are job-hunting, you might just think that waiting till it’s September again to go on looking for that one dream job of yours could be a good idea, but bear this in mind if you want to stand out of the crowd: according to some recruiters, applying for jobs can actually be strategic in summer. If a company misses workforce as long as most employees are on vacation, they might be in very bad trouble. Just make sure to be there with your application to help them out – chances are, they’ll make a decision to hire you faster, than, say, in September. Seems to make sense: a couple of people I know who have been looking for a job for quite a while, have finally been hired as of late.

And if you do have a job, but feel discouraged by the half-empty office or by great sunny days, here are a couple of tips for you to stay focused I came across on intermediair.nl and find helpful:

·       Do everything with a goal: no one gets much motivation of meaningless activities. Or help yourself getting a better focus, once you let it slip aside for a while: ask yourself something like “why was I doing it again”?

 ·       Feel responsible for your own results: if you are responsible, you are in control, which is a powerfully motivating feeling

·       Don’t try to do things perfectly, just do it, starting with something really small

·       Surround yourself with motivated people – enthusiasm is known to be contagious

·       Eat healthy, sleep enough and watch your energy levels

And from time to time just allow yourself to enjoy, without feeling guilty or thinking that you should be doing something useful – after all, such a summer has not happened to the Dutch for the last 6 or 7 years, chances are it won’t happen soon again that for more that 2 weeks in a row the word combination ‘tropical temperatures’ has occurred so frequently in weather forecasts.

Do you have any own secret ways to stay focused? Let me know! And in the meantime - happy summer!