How to focus better?

Imagine you are at a cafe, with a laptop or a notebook in front of you. You are there to work, and you try to focus on the job in front of you. But your attention keeps wandering, to the people around you, to the sounds from the street to the pieces of conversation you can overhear from the nearby tables. You say ‘you’re easily distracted’. How do you solve this?

Try this the next time you’re in this situation.

Stand up, take a look around, walk around the space. Become aware of the physical space you’re in. Come back to your table and take a seat (or stand if you’re using a standing desk. We’ll talk about the benefits of standing desks in a later post)

Become conscious of your attention, where is it drifting towards.

Keep the target of your attention is in front of you, what you finally want to be aiming at - like your laptop or your book.

Now comes the tricky part. Instead of immediately trying to focus, do the opposite. Expand your attention outwards. Take in everything, observe everything around you. Take a moment to comprehend the people around you. Listen to the noise patterns, of the traffic on the street and the conversation patterns near you. Find the similarities in the patterns, allow yourself to predict and expect the changing stimuli.

Your brain is evolved to spot unexpected changes in the environment. It considers these as threats (or possible opportunities for a reward) and will always pay attention to them. It will keep scanning the environment for such changes.

Observe everything, take it everything. Take a moment to process it all.

Then visualise your circle of attention coming in. Becoming smaller.

Let all the background noises become white noise.

Let all the background sights and colours become blurred.

Let all the movement become non threatening.

Moving things, flashing things , change is what creates distraction. Remove those from the central circle of your visual attention. Put your phone in your bag.

Music helps blur changing sound. Listen to instrumental / white noise sounds or a familiar playlist that can play in the back of your mind and you won’t have to actively listen.

Start working. Start slowly. Observe yourself working.

Be mindful of the fluctuation of your attention. Bring yourself back to the centre.

Take a break after 20 mins.

Repeat the whole process.

Study like it’s meditation - keep bringing your attention back to the centre.

Be patient with yourself. Be kind. Your brain is not trying to ‘distract’ you, it is only trying to keep you alive.

Your brain will learn, if you teach well.

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Cheers and love,

Sid.