According to "The Yogi Book," when the late Yogi Berra was playing in the minor leagues for the Newark Bears before joining the New York Yankees for his Hall of Fame career, his manager told him not to swing at balls out of the strike zone.
The manager urged Yogi to think about what he was doing.
That's when Yogi uttered one of his famous sayings: "You can't think and hit the ball at the same time."
Concentration may be something as simple as keeping your eye on the ball. If you are concentrating totally on what you're doing, you'll have total control of yourself. If your thoughts and hopes are elsewhere, it is impossible to set your mind to the work required.
With so many distractions in modern life, it's easy to lose focus. Concentration takes a back seat to the multi-tasking that rules our schedules. Time to rethink priorities.
This doesn't mean you can't have multiple interests or responsibilities. You just have to learn to give your full attention to the matter at hand to avoid getting sidetracked. I'll admit, that's easier said than done. But you can train your brain to block out the clutter with these tips.
• Time management. I like to say, killing time isn't murder; it's suicide. Improve your time management and your time will improve you. It's not how much time you have; it's how you use that time. Time is one of your most precious resources. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back. Using your time efficiently and effectively takes organization, planning and information.
• Organization. The more organized you are, the easier it is to concentrate. The people who know me well will laugh at this one because I'm a habitual pack rat. My filing system is piles, and one pile for each project. And that's a lot of piles. But I can typically find things. I just need a lot of room to spread out. Corral your e-mail. E-mail is one of the biggest distractions we have today. And to concentrate, you have to control distractions.
