When working or taking classes from home, it’s easy to find yourself distracted by your phone, pets, or a fridge full of snacks. Training your brain to stay focused will help you remain productive throughout the day and achieve your goals more efficiently. If you’re having a tough time staying on track, here’s nine ways to improve your brain focus.

1. Plan and visualize critical tasks. Creating a game plan for your day and visualizing completing these tasks is a great way to set the tone for your day. Whether in your head or on paper, make note of a set of concrete and achievable daily tasks and get to work!
2. Find your peak hours. One of the best parts of working from home is the freedom to work when you’re genuinely most productive. Pay attention to your energy levels throughout the day and set a work schedule that takes advantage of your prime times. Prioritize your two most productive hours of the day for your most intensive tasks.
3. Avoid multitasking. While we all like to think we can listen to a conference call and answer emails simultaneously, you’ll be most effective if you concentrate on doing one thing at a time and doing it well. 
4. Treat your mind like a muscle. Similarly to how we lift weights to gain physical strength, practicing focus will make your mind stronger. Start small by pushing yourself to focus for five more minutes when you sense yourself getting distracted. As you work up better focus, you can extend these periods of concentration for longer. 
5. Build willpower and discipline. Fuel your willpower by recognizing what you will be able to achieve once you cut out distractions and loss of focus. Fuel your discipline by practicing good habits. Maybe this means leaving your phone in another room of the house while you work or setting a timer for yourself for 30 minutes of uninterrupted concentration. 
6. Acknowledge achievements. Training yourself to focus can be tough, but reminding yourself of what you will accomplish once you do makes it all worth it. Think about a specific project, goal, or ambition that improved focus will help you achieve. 
7. Use the power of habits. As the old saying goes, humans are creatures of habit. Much like brushing your teeth or checking the mail, if you practice improving your focus every day, soon you won’t even have to think about it. 
8. Practice mindfulness. Be aware of your wandering mind and make a conscious effort to think about the here and the now. This will help limit daydreaming and even translate to more in-the-moment mindfulness in other areas of your life. 
9. Become sovereign. Sovereignty is the practice of aligning your thoughts, emotions, and actions. If you tell yourself that reading a book is going to be boring, most likely, you’ll never read the book. Come to a situation with the mindset that you are going to focus and be productive, and you’ll be impressed with what you can manifest. 

In the modern world, we are bombarded constantly with distractions. Technology and the immediacy of interactions and knowledge has trained our brains to jump quickly between tasks, but when it comes to focusing on a project for extended periods of time, this tendency can harm, rather than help, us. Practice these techniques to improve your focus and remember that our brains and bodies need breaks, so even if you’re concentrating on a big task, it’s important to take pauses to stretch and reboot.