Distractions from outside sources can happen to anyone, anytime or anyplace. It could be anything from an uncomfortable temperature to a noisy atmosphere. You may think it is funny, but being physically uncomfortable can prohibit you from being able to concentrate better for the tasks you need to perform.
Students many times will have neighbors that are noisy when they are living in dorms. This makes it difficult to concentrate better on their homework due the next day. The party in the other room running all through the night makes it next to impossible to focus on your task. Even a telephone ringing over and over again can be enough at times to send you looking for a quiet haven.
If noise is a problem for you, then you need to find someplace to study that is quiet. The school library can be one solution when the dorm is too loud with noise. If the library is not available for the all-nighter you must pull, then opt for some earplugs to gain enough quiet time.
Distractions from outside sources can be such things as insufficient lighting or uncomfortable seats or tables. To be conducive to studying the chairs should be comfortable to sit in, the tables should not be too tall or too short, and there should be sufficient lighting. If you attempt to study in surroundings that are not comfortable and have insufficient lighting, you will just get a sore body and eyestrain instead of focusing on your school work. You will need to fix this if you are to concentrate better.
Now let’s imagine that you found the ideal place for you to study. This place is a serenely peaceful place with no distractive noises it has ideal lighting and the chairs are comfortable. You can start studying. Are there some other distractions that can keep you from focusing on your school work?
This is where distractions from within can show up and cause problems. You stomach could begin to growl with hunger or you body could start to feel tired. You could have little motivation to keep on task, bored silly with the subject, or you could have no interest in the topic at all which would be the worse-case scenario. These are some other hurdles to overcome to concentrate better.
You could be totally unorganized or drifting off into daydreams. Also, you might start thinking you should go through the piles of clutter in your room, since it is such a mess. You could be worried about being the next person let go at your place of employment and not being to pay your bills because of it. Worrying over what other people thinks could also be one distraction. “What if I am no good at this task? What if mistakes are made by me? What if my nerves get in the way?” Questions like these and others could run through you mind, completely distracting you and making it impossible for you to focus your efforts on whatever task you need to perform.
The worse thing that can happen is you doing negative thinking. Your mind keeps telling you that you will not achieve what you are trying to do. Why in the world do you think you can do something this big? You start to get caught up in your mistakes, instead of letting them go, learning how to right them and moving on. External and internal distractions cannot be avoided in your life, and the way you deal with them and rid yourself of them is what counts.
It really can be as simple as all that. You just have to make yourself quit thinking negative things and regain control. Force yourself to think positive and refocus your efforts on the work you need to do. This requires practice, but is necessary for you to concentrate better. If you do not immediately regain your attention, you will once again have scattered thoughts, and your concentration will be gone. It will take a bit of time to regain control of your thoughts, but it is worth the effort.
For decades, we’ve been all about developing more and more labor saving devices, communication devices, needing more and more information about everything under the sun. Now we’ve become a society that doesn’t just enjoy, but desperately needs the Blackberry, the pager, the cell phone, the laptop and internet access. Through these devices, we receive information every minute, every hour, every day. We have snail mail, email, radio, television, and phone calls demanding our constant attention. We have books, magazines, reports, and articles that must be read and absorbed. Heaven forbid any information should elude us. We feel we must know everything there is to know, every minute of every day. We’re terrified of being out of the loop, or in the dark about anything.
In our quest to know increasingly and because of our fear of being left out from new information, we have come to a point where it is impossible to concentrate on a project, to focus with laser-like energy. We’re much too busy gathering information. When do we have enough?
David Shenk calls this “data smog” and likens it to pollution we find throughout our world. The production and distribution of information in today’s world has become so much easier to do, not to mention the retrieval of said information, thanks to the internet. This unfortunately, produces an overabundance of low quality information coming at you constantly, every day, from a diverse amount of sources.
The speed at which our society changes is mind boggling to say the least. Technology changes with each passing minute; there’s always new new ways to make old jobs easier or even obsolete. Scientific breakthroughs and cultural innovations happen with such rapidity that it’s difficult to keep up. Every day, science fiction becomes science fact. And all of us feel we must run to keep up, keep our skills sharp, learn new skills every day, every year, constantly adapt to an ever changing society and work world.
When the distribution of more information began, it was considered a good thing, but we may have already reached our saturation point, and the flow of information towards us continues, increasing every day. It’s time to limit our use of so much useless information.
Futurologist Alvin Toffler has put together a very detailed study of the acceleration of change and its psychological effects. He foresees a time of severe physical and mental disturbances, which he calls “future shock” syndrome. He likens this to the nervous breakdown people experience due to wartime trauma, called “shell shock.” The rapid changes of our modern life can, and he thinks will, produce a state of helplessness and inadequacy.
Studies have been done to show the direct correlation between constant change and physical illness. People with high life changes are more likely to develop serious illnesses.
Change can bring about one of two conditions. A person can become excited and curious about what happens next, or they can become fearful, confused, and tense. The longer these feelings remain, the more likely that fatigue will set in and the person will experience loss of control and feel highly distressed. Anyone who has experienced these feelings will tell you focus and concentration are out the window at this point. It’s impossible to concentrate under these conditions.
Too long in this kind of stressful situation brings about the instinctive animal reaction—fight or flight. A person can become aggressive in his/her behavior, something that is difficult to sustain for long periods, or it can cause that person to want to run away and avoid the whole painful thing. It can also tip a person into total despair and depression, a complete numbing of their sensations, an inability to move forward.
Unfortunately, anxiety seems to be ever present in our society, as evidenced by the record use of drugs to suppress the symptoms, such as sleeplessness, irritability, constant worry, and digestive upsets. Never have so many people needed so much medication just to make it through their lives.
Maybe it’s time to quiet the incessant chatter and stem the flow of useless information. Then we may better determine what’s important to us and what isn’t, what we need and what we can do without, what’s necessary to our existence and what amounts to pollution of our mental world.
What can we do about this “data smog?” How do we clear our heads so as to focus on the problems and concentrate on solutions? For starters, set the filters on your email, to dump the truly useless junk mail. If you must check your email all day, at least limit the amount you must go through. Throw away the obvious junk mail you receive each day unless it pertains to something you really need.
Try turning off the television a few hours a day; take a break from the news on occasion. Leave your Blackberry, pager, and cell phone at home when you take a vacation. Let your mind and body rest. Focus on what’s important. Remember, you cannot examine every piece of data, or every new web site added to the millions out there already. Don’t let information take control of you; you must control information.
When you set goals for yourself, whether is in school or the workforce, it is important that you concentrate on the task at hand to obtain those objectives. For millions of people, it is not that easy.
It is difficult to obtain your objectives if you do not know what they are. It is necessary to
define what your goals are. This will assist you obtaining them. When you have clear and concise objectives, you will be able to focus and concentrate better.
When you take on too many tasks at one time, you are setting yourself up for failure. Overwhelming yourself with too many tasks will inhibit your ability to focus because you will stress about getting everything done on time. Doing one thing at a time will help you to concentrate better.
If the task that you have is a big one, breaking it down in segments will assist you in completing more competently. Focus on the segment that you are working on and not the whole project. Concentrating on the task in front of you will allow you to complete it correctly with very little stress, and more often than not, you can complete it before the deadline.
No matter who you are, expect the unexpected. There are no guarantees that you are going to have a error proof life. Obstacles always crop up and you need to be prepared to handle whatever is thrown at you in order to meet your goals. Distractions are all around us everyday, being able to shut them out and concentrate on your task will assist you in completing it quickly and efficiently. Don’t Get Distracted
Success and recognition is gained over time. Nothing worth having is easy. You need to be able to concentrate and do the very best that you can in everything that you do. It is important that you do not give in to stress, it will only slow you down and concentration will be difficult if not impossible. Sometimes taking a short break will help you to regain your focus and concentration. You may find that by doing this, your focus will improve.
To be a success, sacrifice is sometimes required. It is like an exchange. You will give up one thing to gain another. You just need to make sure that what you give up is worth what you are gaining. If you have a job that requires you to focus intensely on your task, you may want to remove the telephone from your desk, as each time it rings, your concentration is broken. When you remove the daily distractions you are doing something that can help you to focus on your job.
Stop Procrastination
Putting things off is the number one cause of stress. When you put things off, they tend to creep up on you all at once and you find yourself with a multitude of tasks that need to be finished all at once. This not only causes stress that leads to loss of concentration, it also can cause you to become overwhelmed with work, and that can lead difficulties in focusing. When you do what you are supposed to do at the time you are supposed to do it, you will find that your concentration will be stronger.
Sickness is something that can not be completely avoided. Everyone knows this to be the truth. At some point or another, everyone gets sick enough to need the help of a doctor. Anyone who hasn’t, may have a problem that has gone undetected. So, there is just no truth to the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Being a doctor is very difficult because he/she has to always be organized and there is no margin for error. The reason for this is because of the life or death decisions that are the daily reality of being a doctor. Unlike casino gambling where casual risks are acceptable, a doctor can’t gamble casually with a patient’s life. It goes against everything he/she has been taught to practice in thought and deed. People in the medical profession are there because they have the desire and are trained competently to preserve life and not to casually waste it.
Needed Tools Prepared in Advance
Before a patient ever enters the operating room, the doctor will make sure all the instruments needed for the procedure are in their proper place and sterile. He/she won’t have to actually do this job because there are nurses and scrub techs that set up all the items necessary. The doctor still needs to make sure that all is in proper order, though before beginning the procedure..
Once surgery has started, it can’t be stopped in the middle because the forceps or surgical sponges are either not on the tray or are in the wrong position and not easily accessible. Such an occurrence would waste time and result on more bleeding than is necessary. Since the life of the patient is in the doctor’s hands, he/she must use time wisely to maximize the patient’s good outcome.
The doctor must know exactly every instrument that will be needed during surgery so he/she can quickly see if any are missing or in the wrong position. Incompetence is not something that can be afforded in this situation.
Narrow Beam Focus
The doctor also needs to keep his/her focus on the immediate point of concern. If the patient is having a hot gall bladder removed, it is not the time to be examining the duodenum. That can wait until after the gall bladder has been remove and the area completely taken care of.
The surgery could become unnecessarily complicated if the surgeon’s focus strays from the task at hand. He/she must stay focused on the gall bladder or it could rupture if its removal is delayed because of a lack of focus.
Once concentration is diverted to another area, such as the appendix, a rupture could occur, causing severe infection and even loss of life. So losing concentration and focus would be considered an inexcusable error.
During medical training, doctors learn to keep a narrow focus in surgical and non-surgical cures and treatments. For this reason, a well-trained doctor is one that can be trusted when you get sick and need medical help.
Even so, there are still time when doctors make errors. Some have managed to complete training even though they are incompetent. These are doctors who should not be in the medical profession and really should look into a career change that would be a better fit. The medical profession is not the place for a casual attitude in focus and concentration.
The ability to focus and concentrate intensely is required of doctors. No one can be successful as a doctor without these attributes. If you have aspirations of becoming a doctor, work on developing the ability to stay intensely focused and concentrated on the task in front of you. This is especially important is you dream of becoming a surgeon.
You’ll find, when it comes to concentration, there are four elements that help to define it. These are the:
Width
Direction
Intensity
Duration
The width of your attention has to do with the amount of information coming at you from all sources. That means that it can be a rather wide perspective, with a great deal of information directed at you, or simply a narrow perspective, where it’s just a limited amount, trying to get your attention. Being able to grasp a lot of information at the same time takes practice, and even more so to shift from a large amount to a small amount and back again. Learning to do this however, will help you to avoid the unimportant thoughts that everyone experiences all day every day, and really hone in on what’s important, to focus your thoughts.
The second component of attention is direction. This means how well you are able to filter information and events as they come at you. There are times when it’s just not possible to filter out all events changing around you. This too requires practice.
The third component, intensity, can vary from moment to moment. Concentration can go from very weak to incredibly intense, depending on the situation in which you find yourself. Again, it requires practice to go from weak attention to detail, to an intense, focused concentration.
The last component is the duration of your attention. It can go from brief to long, sustained intervals of time. Keep in mind that it’s not always possible to maintain long periods of intense, focused attention. In fact, the more intense the attention, the shorter the duration you can maintain it.
The length of a person’s attention span is on average between twenty and ninety minutes, depending of course, on the person’s interest in the subject at hand.
As early as 1890, William James had already formed a definition of attention. He said, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects of trains of thought: focalization, concentration of consciousness are its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”
Since then, students, athletes, business men and women, psychologists, scientists, and researchers have used everything in their arsenals to increase their ability to focus their minds on the task at hand, whatever is relevant at that moment in time, to the exclusion of all else. Athletes, intent upon their sport, have to focus their mind and body, like a laser beam on the appropriate action, pushing everything else from their minds. Only by doing so will they win the game; no time to daydream here.
In sports, as with other endeavors, the play changes by the second and athletes must be focused on what they are doing, fully aware and ready to spring into action, change course, and win the game. Nothing else is acceptable. There is no room in the sports arena for daydreamers. Athletes call this ability to hone in with laser-like ability being ‘in the zone.’
Dr. Robert Nideffer, psychologist and founder of Enhanced Performance Systems has classified the two rudimentary categories of attention as internal and external. He describes internal attention as mentally projecting oneself into the proposed action, whatever problems might be encountered.
External attention is, of course, what is going on around oneself. An example would be a member of a team, being constantly aware of where his/her teammates are at any given moment, as well as those on the opposing team.
Athletes, probably better than anyone else, learn how to focus on the moment, to the exclusion of all else.
How are we able to focus on and deal with all the information coming at us at once? Research shows that we deal with this information on two levels. One is simply automatic; we grab onto it without consciously thinking about it. This generally happens when we are performing tasks that we have learned over time and can do almost by rote.
The second level we work at is called the controlled level. This is limited by the capacity of the brain to deal with all the information available to us. If we go beyond that capacity, our performance automatically declines. It is even possible to work on both levels at the same time, though of course, the automatic level works much faster than the controlled level.
The trick is to bring oneself to a state of awareness and energy, directed towards the desired goal. Some athletes or those involved in other types of contests might find themselves over-excited to the point of distraction. They experience nausea or nervousness, which naturally distracts them from their original focus.
The modern world is horrible for focusing on a task. There are a million distractions all fighting for your attention, and all seem to be important. The ability to concentrate is more important now than it has ever been in the past, and yet we are finding it harder than ever to stay focused. So are you wondering how to improve concentration? Read on.
Have a Focus Phrase
This is simple: any time you feel yourself drifting, have a phrase that says “get back to work.” Mine is simple “Focus on your work.” but others might prefer something simpler, like “Be here.” Whatever your phrase is, associate it with getting your task done.
Train Yourself not to be Distracted
Laser Focus
Think of your distraction as a game, or a hurdle to jump. Try training for it. go to a crowded, distracting place like a coffee shop and work on some simple, unimportant tasks. Reward yourself with coffee when you stay focused, and generously to the tip jar when you don’t. That way, you have both the carrot and the stick.
Isolate yourself
When you need to get real work done, however, your best bet is to find an environment you feel extremely comfortable in and cut yourself off from the world. This isn’t the office, unfortunately; cubicles and offices are notoriously bad for getting real work done. If you can’t cut yourself off physically, try listening to music.
Have Work Music
Play music when you work, preferably the same thing every time. Maybe make a play list. Just make sure that the music is mostly lyric-less, as vocals will put your mind to work listening to them. Also find something that is fairly repetitive, so your mind doesn’t have to work to find patterns. I personally like Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports.”
Give Yourself a Break
A while back, a simple productivity technique emerged. It isn’t novel, but it is catchy, and it is effective. Introducing the Pomorodo technique. Named after those small tomato-shaped timers, the Pomodoro technique take advantage of structured breaks. This is the technique:
1. Set a timer for 25 minutes
2. Work vigorously for those 25 minutes
3. Write an X somewhere you will remember
4. Take a 5 minute break
5. Repeat until you have 4 X’s, then take a 15-20 minute break.
This pattern gets your mind into the habit of only getting distracted when you let it, and turns focusing into a bit of a game. Give it try, and you’ll be surprised how effective this simple technique is.
Reward yourself
If you successfully concentrate, then give yourself a treat. Otherwise, nothing. This is particularly easy if you are using the Pomodoro technique. Say you work for 7 hours a day. You could expect 10 or so Pomorodo X’s, so if you reach your goal, give yourself a treat. If it’s particularly important, punish yourself for not making it. You get to choose.
If you try these techniques, you should be able to get your wandering, distracted mind under control in no time. Give a few try, and you will be happy with the results.
Our bodies are very complex and can actually evolve to respond to detrimental stressors in the way they react . However, when we come across a stressor that is symbolic to our bodies the body alters itself the way it did before but may not react the same. If you need to concentrate really hard , then actually short term stress can be beneficial. For example, when you have a deadline on a project for school or work that is coming up quick you can work hard and fast to get it finished on time.However, it is almost the exact opposite when it comes to long-term stress . This is because your body starts putting more chemicals into the brain like adrenaline to keep you moving and others to help you focus. While at first this can be a good thing you can really begin to have problems if it is long term. Then you end up in this harmful cycle telling yourself you have to finish it and you need to concentrate. Therefore, instead of pushing yourself you need to stop and take a break. Relax for a bit and stop trying so hard.
You know that you need to get your project done by a certain time by if you can’t get it finished because you are stressed out and pushing yourself its not going to do you any good. To avoid any decrease in concentration level, it is shown that relaxation methods will minimize any evolvement. Take time out of your busy schedule each day to relax deeply. It doesn’t matter what you do to relax just find something you enjoy doing that will take all your stress and let it fade away. An easy way is simply listening to binaural beats frequency cd, brain waves MP3 or brain entrainment Unfortunately, everyone has to deal with stress and anxiety breaking their concentration on the things that are important. It happens to everyone, which means that you are not alone. Everyone needs to learn to deal with their stress and anxiety to continue to live long, healthy lives and have healthy brains.For more interesting steps on improving concentration and focus visit focus and concentration improvement
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