Busy and Exhausted? It’s Not the Hours – it’s Your Focus
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: July 16, 2025
Ask nearly anyone working in financial markets how they’re doing, and the answer is some version of “not enough hours in the day”, “manic” or “running on fumes”. In an environment that’s always “on”, the news never stops, there’s always another call, another trade idea or another client to respond to. Stress and exhaustion often feel like inevitable parts of the job. 
When you scratch below the surface, however, the reality is that most people are not exhausted because they have too much to do – they’re exhausted because they’re never really focused.
Without a doubt, speed matters in financial markets – but so does depth – and yet, when constantly reacting to market data, chats pinging or emails dinging, you get what is known as cognitive fragmentation i.e. you’re spread so thinly across a dozen inputs that it kills your ability to think clearly, execute well, and recover mentally.
The good news? Focus is a skill that you can build – and you can start with a few simple strategies.
- Avoid email/news feeds for the first 30 minutes of your day
Our mental energy is limited so the more energy we give to low-value or emotionally charged tasks early in the day (like scrolling news or social feeds), the less we have available for effective work later. Protect your “cognitive bandwidth” by not checking your phone or scrolling first thing when you get up. Wait at least until you have put the kettle on, or ordered your first coffee of the day!
- Silence the noise and distractions during your day
In trading, sales, and multiple other front office roles, being responsive is part of the job, and although juggling 10 screens and 15 threads might feel like productivity, it often results in mediocrity spread thin. In reality, very few things are truly urgent. Most are just noise and you generally end the day exhausted – and often quite oddly feeling unaccomplished.
The problem is twofold: First, there’s the external noise – endless pings, dings, chats, emails, and headlines all demanding attention. Each alert might only take a second to check, but the context-switching it triggers, reduces your ability to focus for much longer. Research shows that the average worker switches tasks every three minutes and takes 23 minutes to refocus. That “quick glance” is more expensive than it looks!
Second, there’s the internal habit of multi-tasking – flipping between chats, models, decks, and messages. Many people see multi-tasking as a strength and wear it like a badge of honour, but multi-tasking is just rapid task-switching, that drains cognitive capacity. The human brain isn’t wired to multi-task and although it keeps you busy, it is not effective. Your edge doesn’t come from how much you touch—it comes from how clearly you can think while others are reacting.
Practical takeaways:
- Designate “signal vs. noise” windows in your day to filter between meaningful and distracting information.
Not every alert deserves your immediate attention (and if you think it does, ask yourself who does it when you are on holiday or in a meeting?) Create two-to-three short slots during the day and deliberately pause to scan your inputs – news, emails, chats – and decide what’s actually important versus what’s noise. Outside those check-ins, mute non-critical alerts and stay focused on execution, client work or whatever it is that you need to focus on.
- Use the “one-tab rule.”
When doing focused work, close all unrelated tabs and apps. It’s not about doing more; it’s about doing what matters, better – without the mental burnout.
- Reclaim and Manage your Schedule
Your calendar is a mirror of your priorities – or at least, it should be. But for many of us, our schedules are filled with back-to-back meetings – often ones that we didn’t even choose ourselves, leaving very little white space left to think or plan.
When your entire day is dictated by meetings and external demands, you’re operating reactively with little space to work effectively.
Practical takeaway:
- Block out time for focus before your calendar fills up.
This isn’t a luxury – it’s essential. In the same way you’d book a meeting, put time in your calendar for focused work – at least 30 minutes where you’re not on calls or answering emails. Let others book around it.
Use this time to do the important stuff – all that work that you think you don’t have time to do such as report writing, deep analysis or updating your sales deck. Focused time is where differentiated thinking happens – not mid fire drill!
Remember that if you don’t schedule your own priorities, someone else will schedule theirs into your day.
Final Thoughts
Financial markets are fast, competitive, and relentless, but success doesn’t come from speed and stamina alone; the ability to protect and direct attention is a true competitive edge the ability to concentrate deeply, even for short bursts, is what separates chaotic, reactive responders from strategic performers.
In the haze of constant distraction that we now all operate in, focus is not just a nice-to-have, it’s a skill to build and a muscle to train. So even if the above tips and strategies seem impractical for your week, try them for even a day and I can guarantee that you will notice a difference.
Your attention is your most valuable resource so start treating it like one (…by closing the tab after reading this!)
Martina Doherty is an independent business psychologist, coach and trainer, and founder of MD Consulting
