Why you can’t concentrate and what you can do about it

Well, it turns out that by engineering your environment and your mind-set you can get and keep control of your concentration.

First, it’s important to understand why you feel distracted to begin with. Why is that you can fly through your work some days and barely make a dent on other days? The fact is that random thoughts and senses are constantly competing for your attention. If you’re feeling short of concentration it may be because:

You are stressed
Your mind becomes inert when you are tense. You become unable to settle down and your ability becomes limited. Instead of being able to settle down and focus on the task at hand, more distracting “code-red” thoughts keep popping into your mind- “I have to remember to pick up the dry cleaning” “Did I turn off the stove?” “Why did I agree to watch the hockey game, I hate hockey!”

You are trying to do too many things at once
You may have unlearned the ability to focus on one thing at a time if you are juggling a hundred tasks at once. Consequently, you don’t do your jobs as well as you would like or worse you leave them unfinished all together before you move on to the next.

You are bored
It’s difficult to focus on something that you just don’t care about. Keeping your attention fixed on a subject takes willpower and effort. If something holds no interest to you, your mind is more likely to wonder around in search of something that interests you.

You are tired
Fatigue is the number one enemy of focus. Concentrating takes mental effort that’s why it is easier to write a report when your energy is high but as your energy decreases so does your focus making it more difficult to get the job done. According to a recent study at the San Francisco Brain Institute, staying up just one hour later than normal causes your attention to fray

Identify your goal
It is easy for your mind to get side tracked if it doesn’t have a clear goal. Pinpoint what you need to focus on and at what end. For instance suppose that you have to finish an article, give yourself a deadline “I have to finish this article so I can publish it by noon. The same goes for smaller tasks “I have to finish grocery shopping by this afternoon so I can get dinner on the stove by five o’clock.” Having a timeline helps to keep you on track.

Eliminate internal distractions
Worrying can keep anyone from fully focusing. So how do you keep worries from cutting into your concentration? Create a to-do list. But it’s not enough to just write down each task you need to figure out when you’ll do it as well. That way you can focus on the task at hand but your reassured that you have a strategy for the other projects on your mind.

Eliminate external distractions
If you know you’re a chatter bug let the machine pick up your phone calls. Not many of us can focus on a conversation and on our job as well. Remind your family and friends that you have something important to do and you don’t want to be distracted. As well be aware of more subtle distractions such as music. People perform better with silence or light classical music than they do to their favorite song. And try to steer clear of smells, even if it’s a pleasant one it can still cause you to lose your concentration.

Build in breaks
Majority of people concentrate fully for about 20-30min. This is why it’s important to reenergize yourself. When you feel your focus fading stretch or go for a short walk. Both these activities help to get the blood flowing which improve brain function.

By framing your mind set and getting organized you can keep focused longer which will give you more of those fly by work days.