Ways to Improve Your Attention & Focus
Paying attention is a skill set that our caregivers and educators often try to instill within most of us from an early age. It is for good reason, as being able to focus can help us process what is relevant for what we need to do and sift out what is not. Attention is required in social relationships, work, general thought processes, and focusing on specific senses (like taste or smell).
In the modern world, however, it often seems even more difficult to maintain attention, as we have far more distractions, with the prime offender being our smartphones. In fact, a growing phenomenon is the "phantom buzz", where people imagine cellphone notifications when they don't exist. Additionally, many jobs demand that we utilize different programs and tools, juggling many responsibilities and often various roles simultaneously. This in itself makes it easier to get distracted.
In this blogpost, I have included some exercises and strategies that you can use to hopefully better direct your attention, improving your efficiency and mindfulness in action.
What Can Affect Attention?
Distractions: This one is obvious, but the more distractions one experiences, the more time required to waste getting back on track, not to mention the time spent on the distractor itself.
Inadequate or poor sleep: A large part of paying attention is recovering it after a distraction. Research suggests that people who lack sleep can have a much harder time regaining their attention.
Neurodiversity: Conditions like ADHD can make it far more difficult for a person to pay attention, and in such cases they are often prescribed stimulant medications. Click here to read our article on neurodiversity.
Multi-tasking: While it might feel like a great idea to do two or more things at once to save time, research has suggested, over and over again that it just makes us worse at all of the things we are attempting to do at once.
Interestingly enough, not getting enough water can have a negative effect on our attention.
What Can We Do to Improve Our Attention?
Start by removing as many distractions as possible. Try utilizing your smartphones “do not disturb” function to avoid interupting notifications. You can take it one step further by placing your phone out of reach or even in another room.
Try organizing your workspace and orient yourself away from distractors within your space. Close doors if you can to minimize noise from the outside, wear headphones, or utilize a noise machine.
In the same process of avoiding distractions, find the best times that work for your different activites. For example, if you work from home and know your living space will be busy during certain hours, shift your work hours times of day that are the most quiet, if possible.
Try not to multi-task, and limit the amount of times you switch between tasks. We must establish a new train of thought each time we begin a different activity. It is more efficient to focus on reaching a milestone or completing a task before switching to something else.
Practice meditation and mindfulness. Mindfulness, a way to practice focusing our awareness, has been connected to improving attention in research.
Take care of your body. Move your body in ways that feel good, stay hydrated, and eat a variety of nutritious and fueling foods. All of these factors directly or indirectly affect our ability to pay attention.
Stay Resolute
Did you pay attention while reading? It can be challenging to stay focused at times. While writing this blogpost, I must admit, I checked my phone a few times myself. This is to say that improving your attention is a process that takes time and consistent effort. Start small with one or a couple of the solutions suggested; try taking note of your progress along the way. See what works for you. In time and with consistent effort, you will see improvements.
About the Author
Hi there, my name is Peyman Moghimi and I am a recent Psychology (BSc.) graduate from York University. My interests lie in the intersections of religious practice and psychological concepts, as well as learning more about how technology and changes in culture have affected our mental health.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blogpost!