Focus: What It Is and How it Works
First things first. What is focus, really? Experts define focus as the act of concentrating your interest or activity on something. That’s a somewhat boring definition, but there is an important insight hiding inside that definition.

What is Focus?
In order to concentrate on one thing you must, by default, ignore many other things.

Here’s a better way to put it:

Focus can only occur when we have said yes to one option and no to all other options. In other words, elimination is a prerequisite for focus. As Tim Ferriss says, “What you don’t do determines what you can do.”

Of course, focus doesn’t require a permanent no, but it does require a present no. You always have the option to do something else later, but in the present moment focus requires that you only do one thing. Focus is the key to productivity because saying no to every other option unlocks your ability to accomplish the one thing that is left.

Now for the important question: What can we do to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t?

Why Can’t I Focus?
Most people don’t have trouble with focusing. They have trouble with deciding.

What I mean is that most healthy humans have a brain that is capable of focusing if we get the distractions out of the way. Have you ever had a task that you absolutely had to get done? What happened? You got it done because the deadline made the decision for you. Maybe you procrastinated beforehand, but once things became urgent and you were forced to make a decision, you took action.

Instead of doing the difficult work of choosing one thing to focus on, we often convince ourselves that multitasking is a better option. This is ineffective.

Here’s why…

The Myth of Multitasking
Technically, we are capable of doing two things at the same time. It is possible, for example, to watch TV while cooking dinner or to answer an email while talking on the phone.

What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once. You’re either listening to the TV and the overflowing pot of pasta is background noise, or you’re tending to the pot of pasta and the TV is background noise. During any single instant, you are concentrating on one or the other.

Multitasking forces your brain to switch your focus back and forth very quickly from one task to another. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the human brain could transition seamlessly from one job to the next, but it can’t.

Have you ever been in the middle of writing an email when someone interrupts you? When the conversation is over and you get back to the message, it takes you a few minutes to get your bearings, remember what you were writing, and get back on track. Something similar happens when you multitask. Multitasking forces you to pay a mental price each time you interrupt one task and jump to another. In psychology terms, this mental price is called the switching cost.

Switching cost is the disruption in performance that we experience when we switch our focus from one area to another. One study, published in the International Journal of Information Management in 2003, found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email.

In other words, because of email alone, we typically waste one out of every six minutes.

One of my favorite methods for focusing your attention on what matters and eliminating what doesn’t comes from the famous investor Warren Buffett.

Buffett uses a simple 3-step productivity strategy to help his employees determine their priorities and actions. You may find this method useful for making decisions and getting yourself to commit to doing one thing right away. Here’s how it works…

One day, Buffett asked his personal pilot to go through the 3-step exercise.

STEP 1: Buffett started by asking the pilot, named Mike Flint, to write down his top 25 career goals. So, Flint took some time and wrote them down. (Note: You could also complete this exercise with goals for a shorter timeline. For example, write down the top 25 things you want to accomplish this week.)

STEP 2: Then, Buffett asked Flint to review his list and circle his top 5 goals. Again, Flint took some time, made his way through the list, and eventually decided on his 5 most important goals.

STEP 3: At this point, Flint had two lists. The 5 items he had circled were List A, and the 20 items he had not circled were List B.

Flint confirmed that he would start working on his top 5 goals right away. And that’s when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn’t circle?”

Flint replied, “Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”

To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

I love Buffett’s method because it forces you to make hard decisions and eliminate things that might be good uses of time, but aren’t great uses of time. So often the tasks that derail our focus are ones that we can easily rationalize spending time on.

This is just one way to narrow your focus and eliminate distractions. I’ve covered many other methods before like The Ivy Lee Method and The Eisenhower Box. That said, no matter what method you use and no matter how committed you are, at some point your concentration and focus begin to fade. How can you increase your attention span and remain focused?

There are two simple steps you can take.

Measure Your Results
The first thing you can do is to measure your progress.

Focus often fades because of lack of feedback. Your brain has a natural desire to know whether or not you are making progress toward your goals, and it is impossible to know that without getting feedback. From a practical standpoint, this means that we need to measure our results.

We all have areas of life that we say are important to us, but that we aren’t measuring. That’s a shame because measurement maintains focus and concentration. The things we measure are the things we improve. It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.

When I measured how many pushups I did, I got stronger.
When I tracked my reading habit of 20 pages per day, I read more books.
When I recorded my values, I began living with more integrity.
The tasks I measured were the ones I remained focused on.

Unfortunately, we often avoid measuring because we are fearful of what the numbers will tell us about ourselves. The trick is to realize that measuring is not a judgment about who you are, it’s just feedback on where you are.

Measure to discover, to find out, to understand. Measure to get to know yourself better. Measure to see if you’re actually spending time on the things that are important to you. Measure because it will help you focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t.

Focus on the Process, Not the Event
The second thing you can do to maintain long-term focus is to concentrate on processes, not events. All too often, we see success as an event that can be achieved and completed.

Here are some common examples:

Many people see health as an event: “If I just lose 20 pounds, then I’ll be in shape.”
Many people see entrepreneurship as an event: “If we could get our business featured in the New York Times, then we’d be set.”
Many people see art as an event: “If I could just get my work featured in a bigger gallery, then I’d have the credibility I need.”
Those are just a few of the many ways that we categorize success as a single event. But if you look at the people who stay focused on their goals, you start to realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s the commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice, not the individual event.

What’s funny, of course, is that this focus on the process is what will allow you to enjoy the results anyway.

If you want to be a great writer, then having a best-selling book is wonderful. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of writing.
If you want the world to know about your business, then it would be great to be featured in Forbes magazine. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of marketing.
If you want to be in the best shape of your life, then losing 20 pounds might be necessary. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of eating healthy and exercising consistently.
If you want to become significantly better at anything, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it. You have to fall in love with building the identity of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming about the results that you want.
Focusing on outcomes and goals is our natural tendency, but focusing on processes leads to more results over the long-run.

III. Concentration and Focus Mind-Hacks
Even after you’ve learned to love the process and know how to stay focused on your goals, the day-to-day implementation of those goals can still be messy. Let’s talk about some additional ways to improve concentration and make sure you’re giving each task your focused attention.

How to Improve Concentration
Here are few additional ways to improve your focus and get started on what matters.

Choose an anchor task. One of the major improvements I’ve made recently is to assign one (and only one) priority to each work day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority task is the one non-negotiable thing that must get done. I call this my “anchor task” because it is the mainstay that holds the rest of my day in place. The power of choosing one priority is that it naturally guides your behavior by forcing you to organize your life around that responsibility.

Manage your energy, not your time. If a task requires your full attention, then schedule it for a time of day when you have the energy needed to focus. For example, I have noticed that my creative energy is highest in the morning. That’s when I’m fresh. That’s when I do my best writing. That’s when I make the best strategic decisions about my business. So, what do I do? I schedule creative tasks for the morning. All other business tasks are taken care of in the afternoon. This includes doing interviews, responding to emails, phone calls and Skype chats, data analysis and number crunching. Nearly every productivity strategy obsesses over managing your time better, but time is useless if you don’t have the energy you need to complete the task you are working on.

Never check email before noon. Focus is about eliminating distractions. Email can be one of the biggest distractions of all. If I don’t check email at the beginning of the day, then I am able to spend the morning pursuing my own agenda rather than reacting to everybody else’s agenda. That’s a huge win because I’m not wasting mental energy thinking about all the messages in my inbox. I realize that waiting until the afternoon isn’t feasible for many people, but I’d like to offer a challenge. Can you wait until 10AM? What about 9AM? 8:30AM? The exact cutoff time doesn’t matter. The point is to carve out time during your morning when you can focus on what is most important to you without letting the rest of the world dictate your mental state.

Leave your phone in another room. I usually don’t see my phone for the first few hours of the day. It is much easier to do focused work when you don’t have any text messages, phone calls, or alerts interrupting your focus.

Work in full screen mode. Whenever I use an application on my computer, I use full screen mode. If I’m reading an article on the web, my browser takes up the whole screen. If I’m writing in Evernote, I’m working in full screen mode. If I’m editing a picture in Photoshop, it is the only thing I can see. I have set up my desktop so that the menu bar disappears automatically. When I am working, I can’t see the time, the icons of other applications, or any other distractions on the screen. It’s funny how big of a difference this makes for my focus and concentration. If you can see an icon on your screen, then you will be reminded to click on it occasionally. However, if you remove the visual cue, then the urge to be distracted subsides in a few minutes.

Remove all tasks that could distract from early morning focus. I love doing the most important thing first each day because the urgencies of the day have not crept in yet. I have gone a little far in this regard in that I have even pushed my first meal off until about noon each day. I have been intermittent fasting for three years now (here are some lessons learned), which means that I typically eat most of my meals between 12PM and 8PM. The result is that I get some additional time in the morning to do focused work rather than cook breakfast.

Regardless of what strategy you use, just remember that anytime you find the world distracting you, all you need to do is commit to one thing. In the beginning, you don’t even have to succeed. You just need to get started.

What Are Habits?
Let’s define habits. Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. According to researchers at Duke University, habits account for about 40 percent of our behaviors on any given day.

Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits.

What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray. Everything I write about – from procrastination and productivity to strength and nutrition – starts with better habits. When you learn to transform your habits, you can transform your life.

Healthy eating. It’s something everyone knows they should do, but few of us do as consistently as we would like. The purpose of this guide is to share practical strategies for how to eat healthy and break down the science of why we often fail to do so.

Now, I don’t claim to have a perfect diet, but my research and writing on behavioral psychology and habit formation has helped me develop a few simple strategies for building and strengthening a healthy eating habit without much effort or thought.

Steven Witherly is a food scientist who has spent the last 20 years studying what makes certain foods more addictive than others. Much of the science that follows is from his excellent report, Why Humans Like Junk Food.

According to Witherly, when you eat tasty food, there are two factors that make the experience pleasurable.

First, there is the sensation of eating the food. This includes what it tastes like (salty, sweet, umami, etc.), what it smells like, and how it feels in your mouth. This last quality — known as “orosensation” — can be particularly important. Food companies will spend millions of dollars to discover the most satisfying level of crunch in a potato chip. Food scientists will test for the perfect amount of fizzle in a soda. These elements all combine to create the sensation that your brain associates with a particular food or drink.

The second factor is the actual macronutrient makeup of the food — the blend of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that it contains. In the case of junk food, food manufacturers are looking for a perfect combination of salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain and gets you coming back for more.

Here’s how they do it…

How Food Scientists Create Cravings
There is a range of factors that scientists and food manufacturers use to make food more addictive.

Dynamic contrast. Dynamic contrast refers to a combination of different sensations in the same food. In the words of Witherly, foods with dynamic contrast have “an edible shell that goes crunch followed by something soft or creamy and full of taste-active compounds. This rule applies to a variety of our favorite food structures — the caramelized top of a creme brulee, a slice of pizza, or an Oreo cookie — the brain finds crunching through something like this very novel and thrilling.”

Salivary response. Salivation is part of the experience of eating food, and the more a food causes you to salivate, the more it will swim throughout your mouth and cover your taste buds. For example, emulsified foods like butter, chocolate, salad dressing, ice cream, and mayonnaise promote a salivary response that helps to lather your taste buds with goodness. This is one reason why many people enjoy foods that have sauces or glazes on them. The result is that foods that promote salivation do a happy little tap dance on your brain and taste better than ones that don’t.

Rapid food meltdown and vanishing caloric density. Foods that rapidly vanish or “melt in your mouth” signal to your brain that you’re not eating as much as you actually are. In other words, these foods literally tell your brain that you’re not full, even though you’re eating a lot of calories.

In his best-selling book, Salt Sugar Fat (audiobook), author Michael Moss describes a conversation with Witherly that explains vanishing caloric density perfectly…

He zeroed right in on the Cheetos. “This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.”

“I brought him two shopping bags filled with a variety of chips to taste. He zeroed right in on the Cheetos. “This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it … you can just keep eating it forever.”

Sensory-specific response. Your brain likes variety. When it comes to food, if you experience the same taste over and over again, then you start to get less pleasure from it. In other words, the sensitivity of that specific sensor will decrease over time. This can happen in just minutes.

Junk foods, however, are designed to avoid this sensory specific response. They provide enough taste to be interesting (your brain doesn’t get tired of eating them), but it’s not so stimulating that your sensory response is dulled. This is why you can swallow an entire bag of potato chips and still be ready to eat another. To your brain, the crunch and sensation of eating Doritos is novel and interesting every time.

Calorie density. Junk foods are designed to convince your brain that it is getting nutrition, but to not fill you up. Receptors in your mouth and stomach tell your brain about the mixture of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in a particular food, and how filling that food is for your body. Junk food provides just enough calories that your brain says, “Yes, this will give you some energy” but not so many calories that you think “That’s enough, I’m full.” The result is that you crave the food to begin with, but it takes quite some time to feel full from it.

Memories of past eating experiences. This is where the psychobiology of junk food really works against you. When you eat something tasty (say, a bag of potato chips), your brain registers that feeling. The next time you see that food, smell that food, or even read about that food, your brain starts to trigger the memories and responses that came when you ate it. These memories can actually cause physical responses like salivation and create the “mouth-watering” craving that you get when thinking about your favorite foods.

These factors all combine to make processed food tasty and desirable to our human brains. When you combine the science behind these foods with the incredible prevalence of food (cheap fast food everywhere), eating healthy becomes very hard to do.

II. How to Make Healthy Eating Easier
Most people think that building better habits or changing your actions is all about willpower or motivation. But the more I learn, the more I believe that the number one driver of behavior change is your environment.

Your environment has an incredible ability to shape your behavior. Nowhere is this more true than with food. What we eat on a daily basis is often a result of what we are presented.

Let me share an interesting experiment to show you exactly what I mean…

The Importance of Environment for Healthy Eating
Anne Thorndike is a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Thorndike and her colleagues conducted a six-month study that was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

This study secretly took place in the hospital cafeteria and helped thousands of people develop healthy eating habits without changing their willpower or motivation in the slightest way. Thorndike and her team utilized a concept known as “choice architecture.” Choice architecture is just a fancy word for changing the way the food and drinks are displayed, but, as it turns out, it makes a big difference.

The researchers started by changing the choice architecture of the drinks in the cafeteria. Originally, there were three main refrigerators, all of which were filled with soda. The researchers made sure that water was added to each of those units and also placed baskets of bottled water throughout the room.

What happened? Over the next 3 months, the number of soda sales dropped by 11.4 percent. Meanwhile, bottled water sales increased by 25.8 percent. Similar adjustments and results were made with food options. Nobody said a word to the visitors who ate at the cafeteria. The researchers simply changed the environment and people naturally followed suit.

Choice architecture is even more important when you’re already stressed, tired, or distracted. If you’re already worn-down, you’re probably not going to go through a lot of effort to cook a healthy dinner or fit in a workout. You’ll grab or do whatever is easiest.

That means that if you take just a little bit of time today to organize your room, your office, your kitchen, and other areas, then that adjustment in choice architecture can guide you toward better choices even when your willpower is fading. Design for laziness.

How to Eat Healthy Without Noticing
Brian Wansink is a professor at Cornell University, and he has completed a variety of studies on how your environment shapes your eating decisions. Many of the ideas below come from his popular book, Mindless Eating (audiobook). Here are some of his best practical strategies for using choice architecture to make healthy eating easier.

1. Use smaller plates. Bigger plates mean bigger portions. And that means you eat more. According to a study conducted by Wansink and his research team, if you made a simple change and served your dinner on 10-inch plates instead of a 12-inch plate, you would eat 22% less food over the course of the next year.

On a related note, if you’re thinking “I’ll just put less food on my plate” … it’s not that simple. The picture below explains why. When you eat a small portion off of a large plate, your mind feels unsatisfied. Meanwhile, the same portion will feel more filling when eaten off of a small plate. The circles in the image below are the same size, but your brain (and stomach) doesn’t view them that way.

As it turns out, both lines are the same length, but our brain has a tendency to overestimate vertical lines. In other words, taller drinks look bigger to our eyes than round, horizontal mugs do. And because height makes things look bigger than width, you’ll actually drink less from taller glasses. In fact, you will typically drink about 20% less from a tall, slender glass than you would from a short, fat glass. (Hat tip to Darya Pino for originally sharing this image and idea.)

3. Use plates that have a high contrast color with your food. As I mentioned in this article, when the color of your plate matches the color of your food, you naturally serve yourself more because your brain has trouble distinguishing the portion size from the plate. Because of this, dark green and dark blue make great plate colors because they contrast with light foods like pasta and potatoes (which means you’re likely to serve less of them), but don’t contrast very much with leafy greens and vegetables (which means you’re likely to put more of them on your plate).
4. Display healthy foods in a prominent place. For example, you could place a bowl of fruits or nuts near the front door or somewhere else that you pass by before you leave the house. When you’re hungry and in a rush, you are more likely to grab the first thing you see.
5. Wrap unhealthy foods in tin foil. Wrap healthy foods in plastic wrap. The old saying, “out of sight, out of mind” turns out to have some truth to it. Eating isn’t just a physical event, but also an emotional one. Your mind often determines what it wants to eat based on what your eyes see. Thus, if you hide unhealthy foods by wrapping them up or tucking them away in less prominent places, then you are less likely to eat them.
6. Keep healthy foods in larger packages and containers, and unhealthy foods in smaller ones. Big boxes and containers tend to catch your eye more, take up space in your kitchen and pantry, and otherwise get in your way. As a result, you’re more likely to notice them and eat them. Meanwhile, smaller items can hide in your kitchen for months. (Just take a look at what you have lying around right now. It’s probably small cans and containers.)

Bonus tip: if you buy a large box of something unhealthy, you can re-package it into smaller Ziploc bags or containers, which should make it less likely that you’ll binge and eat a lot at once.

What Should I Eat?
As I mentioned at the outset, this is not a guide about what to eat. It’s a guide about why we eat the way we do and how to do something about it. That said, I’ll offer two suggestions regarding what to put on your plate.

1. Eat more greens. There isn’t a consensus on the best diet, but pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: eat more veggies. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a single diet that doesn’t think eating more plants is a good idea.
2. Eat a variety of foods. As we covered earlier, the brain craves novelty. While you may not be able to replicate the crunchy/creamy contrast of an Oreo, you can vary your diet enough to keep things interesting. For example, you could dip a carrot (crunchy) in some hummus (creamy) and get a novel sensation. Similarly, finding ways to add new spices and flavors to your dishes can make eating healthy foods a more desirable experience.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be bland. Mix up your foods to get different sensations and you may find it easier than eating the same foods over and over again. (At some point, however, you may have to fall in love with boredom.)

Two Simple Ways to Eat Healthy
The main idea of most good diets is the same: eat whole foods that are unprocessed and that grew or lived outdoors. Some of them have different variations — no animal products, no grains, etc. — but most of them fit the general “real food” framework.

The problem is that — if you’re anything like me — you will eat whatever is close to you, whether it came from Mother Nature or not. As a result, the best strategy is to surround yourself with healthy food.

1. Use the “Outer Ring” Strategy. When I go to the grocery store, I only walk around the “outer ring” of the store. I don’t walk down the aisles. The outer ring is where the healthy food usually lives: fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, and nuts. These are items that grew or lived outdoors. That’s what I eat.

The aisles are where all of the boxed and processed stuff is placed. Don’t go down those aisles and you won’t buy those foods. Don’t buy those foods and they won’t be around for you to eat. Try this the next time you go to the store and do your best to not to make exceptions.

Sure, there will be the occasional time that you’ll need to go down an aisle to pick up spices or grab a bottle of olive oil, but this is rare. The last three times I’ve been at the grocery store, I have easily stayed on the “outer ring” and I bet you can do the same.

How to Eat Whatever You Want Without Feeling Guilty

2. Never Miss Twice. I think life is meant to be lived joyfully. I have no desire to judge myself for eating pizza or to feel guilty for drinking a beer. But, I also know that I feel much better when I eat healthy.

In order to balance the two, I have a simple rule that I try to follow: whenever I eat an unhealthy meal, I follow it with a healthy one.

Missing once is fine, but I never want to miss a healthy meal twice. Top performers make mistakes like everyone else, but they get back on track faster than most people. That’s what I try to do with my diet. I don’t worry about having fun and I try to enjoy life, but I also use this simple rule to guide me back toward a healthy diet as quickly as possible.

III. How to Stick to a Healthy Eating Habit
Address the Root Problem of Unhealthy Eating
There’s a reason why many people eat as a way to cope with stress. Stress causes certain regions of the brain to release chemicals (specifically, opiates and neuropeptide Y). These chemicals can trigger mechanisms that are similar to the cravings you get from fat and sugar. In other words, when you get stressed, your brain feels the addictive call of fat and sugar and you’re pulled back to junk food.

We all have stressful situations that arise in our lives. Learning to deal with stress in a different way can help you overcome the addictive pull of junk food. This could include simple breathing techniques or a short guided meditation. Or something more physical like exercise or making art.

How to Say No to Temptation
Learning how to say no is one of the most useful skills you can develop, especially when it comes to living a healthy life. Research is starting to show that small changes can make it easier for you to say no, resist temptation and stick to healthy eating habits.

In a research study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, 120 students were split into two different groups.

The difference between these two groups was saying “I can’t” compared to “I don’t.”

One group was told that each time they were faced with a temptation, they would tell themselves “I can’t do X.” For example, when tempted with ice cream, they would say, “I can’t eat ice cream.”

When the second group was faced with a temptation, they were told to say “I don’t do X.” For example, when tempted with ice cream, they would say, “I don’t eat ice cream.”

After repeating these phrases, each student answered a set of questions unrelated to the study. Once they finished answering their questions, the students went to hand in their answer sheet, thinking that the study was over. In reality, it was just beginning.

As each student walked out of the room and handed in their answer sheet, they were offered a complimentary treat. The student could choose between a chocolate candy bar or a granola health bar. As the student walked away, the researcher would mark their snack choice on the answer sheet.

The students who told themselves “I can’t eat X” chose to eat the chocolate candy bar 61% of the time. Meanwhile, the students who told themselves “I don’t eat X” chose to eat the chocolate candy bars only 36% of the time. This simple change in terminology significantly improved the odds that each person would make a more healthy food choice.

Why does something so small make such a big difference?

The One Phrase That Will Help You Eat Healthy
Your words help to frame your sense of empowerment and control. Furthermore, the words that you use create a feedback loop in your brain that impacts your future behaviors.

For example, every time you tell yourself “I can’t”, you’re creating a feedback loop that is a reminder of your limitations. This terminology indicates that you’re forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do.

In comparison, when you tell yourself “I don’t”, you’re creating a feedback loop that reminds you of your control and power over the situation. It’s a phrase that can propel you toward breaking your bad habits and following your good ones.

Heidi Grant Halvorson is the director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University. Here’s how she explains the difference between saying “I don’t” compared to “I can’t”…

“I don’t” is experienced as a choice, so it feels empowering. It’s an affirmation of your determination and willpower. “I can’t” isn’t a choice. It’s a restriction, it’s being imposed upon you. So thinking “I can’t” undermines your sense of power and personal agency.

“I don’t” is experienced as a choice, so it feels empowering. “I can’t” isn’t a choice. It’s a restriction, it’s being imposed upon you.

In other words, the phrase “I don’t” is a psychologically empowering way to say no, while the phrase “I can’t” is a psychologically draining way to say no.

Perhaps most importantly, a change in language leads to a change in mindset. You can now utilize your new, empowered mindset in all future situations, which is why a subtle shift can lead to very different outcomes over the long-run.

The Government today said that the recovery rate of Covid-19 reached 56.37 per cent in the country and a total of 2,48,190 people have been cured so far.

During the last 24 hours, 10,994 people have recovered from Covid-19.

Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is 1,78,014.

As per the World Health Organization’s Situation Report-154, India has one of the lowest deaths per lakh population.

India’s average cases of death per lakh population is one while the global average is 6.04.

Health and Family Welfare Ministry said a total of 14,933 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 4,40,215.

In one day, a total of 312 deaths have been reported taking the nationwide toll to 14,011. The case fatality rate is 3.18 per cent in the country.

Meanwhile, Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR said one lakh 7,233 tests of corona virus samples were conducted by  various laboratories in the country in the last 24 hours.

So far, a total of 71,37,716 tests have been conducted.

ICMR is continuously increasing its testing facilities for Covid-19 by giving approval to government and private laboratories.

As of now, 992 laboratories across India have been given approval to conduct tests for Covid-19 that includes 726 government laboratories and 266 private laboratory chains.

India has announced contributing 10 million US dollar to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) over the coming two years.

Addressing an Extraordinary Virtual Ministerial Pledging Conference for UNRWA, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said yesterday that capacity enhancement through training and building durable institutions is a major plank of our developmental assistance to Palestine.

Asserting that UNRWA needs continued support, Mr Muraleedharan said when certain countries withdrew funding, India had stepped up its annual pledge from  1.25 million US dollar to 5 million US dollar in 2018. He said, for this year, India has  already disbursed  two million dollar  and will soon be remitting the balance three million dollar. He said, India provides 250 annual scholarships to Palestinian youth and officials, apart from regular customised training programmes, and our current project grant is around 72 million dollar. He said, as a steadfast supporter of the Palestinian cause, India deeply appreciates the generous support and untiring work of host countries, donors and UNRWA to ensure millions of our Palestinian brothers and sisters displaced from their homeland lead a life of dignity.

He said, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the globe, stretching governments’ resources to address healthcare and socio-economic needs of their own people, and constraining capacities to assist others. He said, but victory over this unprecedented crisis demands collective and concerted action. He said, therefore, despite a surge in domestic demand for medical supplies amidst rising Covid cases, India  is assisting countries in need of critical, life saving drugs. He said, India is  sending a medical shipment to Palestine next week.

Indian government has decided to reduce the staff strength of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi by 50 per cent. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that the behaviour of Pakistan and its officials is not in conformity with the Vienna Convention and bilateral agreements on the treatment of diplomatic and consular officials. On the contrary, it is an intrinsic element of a larger policy of supporting cross-border violence and terrorism, it added.

MEA referred to the recent abduction at gunpoint of two Indian officials in Pakistan who were subjected to severe ill treatment. Foreign Ministry said that the act underlines the extent to which Pakistan has gone in this direction. The abducted officials after their return to India have provided graphic details of the barbaric treatment that they experienced at the hands of Pakistani agencies. In this connection, the Charge d’ Affaires of Pakistan was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs yesterday and informed that India had repeatedly expressed concern about the activities of officials of Pakistan High Commission. It said that the Pakistani officials have been engaged in acts of espionage and maintained dealings with terrorist organizations.

The Foreign Ministry also highlighted the activities of the two officials caught red-handed and were expelled last month as a glaring example. It said that Pakistan has engaged in a sustained campaign to intimidate the officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad from carrying on their legitimate diplomatic functions. Indian High Commission will also reduce its staff strength in Islamabad to 50 per cent in the next seven days.

Russia has supported India’s bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, a Russia, India and China (RIC) meeting discussed probable reforms of the United Nations and India is a strong nominee to become a permanent member of the UNSC. 

He said, Moscow supports India’s candidacy and believes India can become a full-fledged member of the Security Council. Foreign ministers of the RIC discussed reforms of the United Nations during the trilateral meet held through video conferencing. 

UNSC comprises five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members.India has been elected as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for a two-year term recently. India’s two year term will begin on January 1, 2021. 

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that India and Russia share relationships based on special and privileged Strategic Partnership. He said Russia has assured that the ongoing military contracts between the two countries will be maintained, and in a number of cases, will be taken forward in a shorter time. Mr Rajnath Singh was speaking to the media in Moscow yesterday after meeting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov. Mr. Singh, who is on a three-day visit to Russia to attend the 75th Anniversary of Victory Day Parade, said his visit to Moscow is the first foreign visit of an official delegation from India after the COVID pandemic.

Terming it as a sign of special friendship, Mr Singh said, despite all the difficulties of the pandemic, bilateral relations between Delhi and Moscow have been keeping good contacts at various levels. He said, during the meeting, Indo-Russian defence cooperation was reviewed and plans to further extend it was discussed. Affirming defence relationship as one the important pillars in the relationship between the two countries, Mr. Singh informed that Indian proposals have received positive responses from the Russian side. He asserted that the traditional friendship between India and Russia remains strong and both countries continue to cooperate on mutual and shared interests. The Defence Minister said, he is looking forward to participating in the 75th Victory Parade wherein an Indian Military contingent will be marching in the Red Square today. He conveyed greetings to the people of Russia and especially the veterans, who he said, have immensely contributed for the common security of both the nations.

He also remembered the Indian soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the second world war and said, many of these soldiers were part of the war efforts to provide assistance to the Soviet Army.

The meeting of Indian and Russian Defence Ministers holds high significance in terms of early procurement of S-400 Anti Missile system from Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to visit India later this year.
 

In Tamil Nadu, a 7-day full lockdown in Madurai came into effect at midnight last night. It will be in force till the end of this month. The move is aimed at containing the recent surge in fresh Covid-19 cases in the city and its suburbs.

Tamil Nadu witnessed 2516 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, taking the total to 64,603.

AIR correspondent reports, Madurai joins Chennai in the state in going for the complete lockdown, which many say is a lockdown within the lockdown, the reason being the soaring new cases of Covid-19. The measure is aimed at breaking the chain of the spread of the elusive virus. Along with Madurai, its suburbs and adjacent villages also come under the intensified lockdown as they form a contiguous area.

However, retail outlets of essentials can function upto 2 pm including fuel stations. Health facilities can function without any restrictions, though vehicular movement is permitted bare to the minimum.

Meanwhile, the state Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy is slated to interact with all the district collectors today to review the current situation.

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that it has now facilitated setting up one thousand laboratories across the country for testing Covid-19 samples.

In a tweet, ICMR termed it as a major milestone towards enhanced testing in the country. It added that there are 730 government labs and 270 private labs for the testing. The ICMR also said there was only one lab for testing on 23rd January this year, 160 labs on 23rd March and now the number has reached one thousand labs. It has advised all states, public and private institutions and hospitals to take required steps to scale-up testing for Covid-19.