In this groundbreaking book, author and psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino shows us how to fearlessly find the perfect arousal level so we can concentrate even when we're under pressure, or facing dull but important tasks that simply need to get done. For the millions of people who combat distraction every day, this friendly, practical book with its innovative techniques is just what the doctor ordered.
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
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 --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.
About the Author
Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD, is the author of Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos: How to Help the Child Who Is Bright, Bored, and Having Problems in School (formerly titled The Edison Trait). She is an award-winning psychologist and attention expert with thirty years of professional experience. Dr. Palladino, who lectures nationwide, has received several federal research grants, published numerous articles in professional journals, and presented papers at national conferences. She has also taken advanced training in sports psychology and served on the clinical faculty of the University of Arizona Medical School. Her research findings have been featured in Family Circle, Men's Health, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Web MD. In recent years, she has appeared as the resident psychologist for the The Morning Show on KFMB-TV, the CBS affiliate in San Diego, California. You can learn more about her work at www.YourFocusZone.com.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
89 of 92 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
39 of 40 people found the following review helpful
By M. Gill
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
77 of 84 people found the following review helpful
By e-Patient
Format:Hardcover
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?
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?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't you have more stars?
It's impossible give only 5 stars to this book. I gave 5 stars to other very good books and now, after read and study this one (learning is my Phd field), I see that would be... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lelian
5.0 out of 5 stars
System works!
I strongly recommend this book to anybody who suffers from concentration and trying to study/work but wanders somewhere-else by any interruptions. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Dantes
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Help for the Overwhelmed
This book is a page-turner from chapter one.
Ms. Palladino has several 'Keys' that one can use to find one's focus. Read more
Ms. Palladino has several 'Keys' that one can use to find one's focus. Read more
Published on October 17, 2010 by A. Ikeda
5.0 out of 5 stars
www.yourfocuszone.com
Tips To Stay in Your Focus Zone
1. Keep track of your adrenaline level. Use a 1 to 10 scale or simply rate yourself: "too low," "too high," or "in the zone! Read more
1. Keep track of your adrenaline level. Use a 1 to 10 scale or simply rate yourself: "too low," "too high," or "in the zone! Read more
Published on July 15, 2010 by D Bulsa
5.0 out of 5 stars
it actually works !
Most self-help books are quite good at describing the problem and / or the causes of the problem but the solution part of the book is usually weak and ineffective. Read more
Published on May 14, 2010 by pgp
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! the best book I have ever read!
For the first time, I have been reading for an hour without getting distracted! I was thirsty as well as a bit hungry but they didn't stop me from reading on. Read more
Published on April 3, 2010 by desinger techie
5.0 out of 5 stars
"What are you not doing right now?"
"What are you not doing right now?"
Find Your Focus Zone will help you get back on track and answer that critical question. Now more than ever, social media, e.g. Read more
Find Your Focus Zone will help you get back on track and answer that critical question. Now more than ever, social media, e.g. Read more
Published on January 19, 2010 by Michael P. Naughton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Here's the TOC, from the author's website.
she has Chapter 1 on her site as well; Google "Lucy Jo Palladino" and it'll come right up.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Understanding Your... Read more
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Understanding Your... Read more
Published on November 17, 2008 by Paul K.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Closer to my focus zone...
The book provides great insight into strategies for finding your own focus zone. I'm still trying to hone the methods for my optimal zone, but all in all, the book is very... Read more
Published on February 17, 2008 by DannyBoy
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read for every successful person out there!
As a medical student I felt I had a grasp on time management and attention skills, and then I read Find Your Focus Zone. Read more
Published on July 27, 2007 by Julia Cormano
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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