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How To Actually Concentrate
You can change your attention span
To get better at concentrating, start small.
- Choose only one task or point of focus. Clear all other things away or shut them down.
- Look at your environment. Do you work better in silence or with ambient noise? Is your chair comfortable enough?
- You can also train yourself to be more mindful by focusing on your breath or any other sensation for three minutes.
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The hardships of stating focused
We have trained ourselves to be continuously distracted and find it's hard to stop doing it.
- Some are distracted because of sensory or visual processing problems, slow processing or memory problems.
- Your chemistry may be out of balance. Improper eating habits may make it harder to concentrate.
- You might be distracted in some environments and less in others.
Being in tune with your tendency and current state of being can go a long way to helping you make adjustments to be able to focus on the important things.
You can change your attention span
To get better at concentrating, start small.
- Choose only one task or point of focus. Clear all other things away or shut them down.
- Look at your environment. Do you work better in silence or with ambient noise? Is your chair comfortable enough?
- You can also train yourself to be more mindful by focusing on your breath or any other sensation for three minutes.
Be compassionate with yourself
If you're distracted because of internal turmoil, be kind to yourself. Remind yourself that's what's going on. Talk about it to someone or just to yourself.
If you do get distracted, notice it and gently bring your attention back.
The result of focused attention
We need to recondition ourselves to find joy in smaller moments of focused attention.
The reward from focusing our attention is a sense of calm in our mind and body.
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Our attention is fragile
Research indicates our mind wanders 50 percent of our waking hours. Internal and external distractions easily disrupt our attention from the task at hand.
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What mindfulness is
It’s about paying attention to the present moment with awareness and without emotional reactivity.
Mindfulness training
It can be broken down into two major categories:
- Focused attention exercises cultivate your brain’s ability to focus on one single object, like one’s breath or walking.
- Open monitoring helps you learn to pay attention to what’s happening around you without becoming attached to it.
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Listen to Learn, Not to Be Polite
Listen from a place of curiosity, not generosity. True dialogue does not happen when we pretend to listen, and it certainly cannot happen if we are not listening at all.
If you ev...
Quiet Your Agenda
Really listen to what someone else is trying to say.
We need information that is disconfirming, not confirming.
Ask More Questions
Ask more questions than you give answers.
When you ask questions, you create a safe space for other people to give you an unvarnished truth.
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“Distractions are by-products of a problem. Something outside of you is pulling you away from yourself or a goal.”..."
Kyle Cease
Temptations and Interruptions
Distractions can be either:
- Temptations: When we take a break from work to check social media
- Interruptions: When we get annoyed or repeated emails disrupting our workflow.
While we can deal with these external problems, what can be more challenging is our internal urge to be distracted.
Covering Our Fears
Distractions are a way to mask what we are fearful of. Fear is a deception that comes from looking at something you’ve never done. It’s simply how your brain works — it believes anything could be death and everything you’ve already done has proven itself to be safe. Embracing fear makes it lose the grip on us.
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