Anyone who has ever tried to focus on a very dull job can confirm: sometimes, it is incredibly difficult. Science offers us five seemingly counterintuitive ways that should help.
The Internet is chock full of tips on how to focus when everything around distracts you. However, many of these tips are too far from reality. If possible, it disconnects you from the office routine (and then you begin to be distracted by the thought that perhaps you are missing something important).
How many of us enjoy working with headphones all day? Or not even once turn off the Internet altogether? Or maybe it’s that simple – “always treat your work as inspiring and fun.”
But perhaps the considerable part of such advice has a fragile connection with what modern psychology already knows about the human mind.
Much of what we thought should help us concentrate on work contradicts the normal functioning of our brains.
So, if there is a science about focus, then what does it offer us that is not on the Internet?
1. Disconnect from work
Are you having trouble concentrating on important work? This may seem contrary to common sense, but letting your brain shut off and wander aimlessly will do the most right thing.
More and more psychologists are coming to the realization that we all spend a very significant part of the day just dreaming and fantasizing aimlessly – by some estimates, about 50% of the time!
That prompted a number of psychologists to think that this is a wandering mind – as they say, “not a bug, but a feature”, not a malfunction in the brain, but an essential part of the system that helps our brain to function normally.
To understand why we are losing focus, look at how the brain works.
Concentration requires concerted action, networking between different areas of the brain. It has frontal cortex that controls unnecessary urges and distractions. It takes a lot of energy to keep this network functioning—more than the group of brain regions involved in our doing nothing like daydreaming.
Therefore, at one point in the working day, we inevitably slow down, and our mind starts to wander.
People who have the best concentration skills know how to turn off their brains when it does not affect work.
In this case, why not allocate time for this more consciously?
Paul Seli, a psychologist at Harvard University, makes a distinction between intentional and accidental “disconnection” of the brain. According to him, only those cases when it happens by accident are harmful to the case.
People who know how to turn off the brain at those moments when its participation is not required do a lot better. For example, when performing some kind of mechanical work – generally, they cope with tasks more successfully than those who give their brains the freedom to turn off and on.
“One can consciously turn off the brain if the given task is easy. Let your mind go where it wants, and this will not affect the result of the work,” says Seli. In his opinion, such deliberate shutdowns will only help at other moments of the working day, when a deep concentration is needed.
“Try thinking about irrelevant or different problems. And after a while return to your task,” the psychologist recommends.
Allowing yourself to switch off and daydream not only removes subconscious guilt but also gives your brain what it needs.
2. Fool around a bit
Funny videos with cats are often seen as the embodiment of distractions. Some psychologists believe that such videos just help us find the right mental state to successfully cope with work throughout the day.
The fact is that, no matter how much we love our work, we need a particular exertion of will. We need thoughts to stay concentrated on a complex task for a long time.
One of the best ways to use your mental reserves is to laugh heartily.
Recent study suggests that laughing heartily is the best way to preserve your thinking capacity. During the experiments, people who were given to watch a funny video worked longer and more thoroughly on solving an unanswered riddle. Comparatively the members of a control group didn’t perform well who were shown relaxing but not funny videos.
The researchers concluded that humour replenishes our reserves so expertly that we must create a more relaxed, fun atmosphere in the workplace.
David Chen suggests productivity can be raised exponentially by working in a fun environment. He is an Australian National University researcher in Canberra.
That’s not a signal to watch cat videos the whole day long. However, interruptions from time to time for a joke are very useful. Especially when you need a break from all the work.”
3. Try to make things worse
You need to remove external distractions if you wish to focus on the task.
In fact, according to one of the influential theories of attention, just the opposite is exact.
Nilli Lavie talked about load theory in 1995. The psychologist from University College London believed in the theory. It gave out a brief idea for the information quantity a human brain can take at a given time.
And when all the processing power is full, the brain’s attention system begins to choose what to focus on.
Levi’s experiments have shown that we seem to work more efficiently. Not at empty, clean tables and in complete silence, but disorder and chaos.
This is because when all the perception cells are full, the brain focuses all its energy on the essential task. Everything else is simply cut off.
The challenge with translating this idea into practice is to ensure that there are just the right amount of distractions and not overload it.
There are already dedicated mobile apps (like ommwriter or focus @ will) that can add visual or musical distractions at your request. However, none of them has been scientifically tested yet. Perhaps their benefits are no more than just turning on the radio.
The main thing here is to give your brain a sufficient load so that it does not have the ability and desire to look for stimuli elsewhere.
For most of us, it all comes down to trial and error. Since this method is quite tedious, we advise you to use it with caution – only when everyone else fails.
4. Stop working too much
When you urgently need to do something, then a break is the last thing that comes to your mind.
However, there is plenty of evidence that just a break will help you achieve more. The main thing is to decide precisely when to take the break, how much and how to spend it.
According to several studies, we can fully concentrate for no more than 90 minutes, and then we need a 15-minute break.
According to several studies conducted in the 1990s, our natural cycle of consciousness works. It lets us fully concentrate for no more than 90 minutes, and then we need a 15-minute break.
Other few studies suggest minimum break can work wonders even if it is just for a few seconds. It should work if it distracts completely from work for those few seconds. In the experiments, people were offered within a few seconds to do arithmetic. To occupy your mind with something much more intense than just looking out the window.
A break for exercise will be very beneficial for your brain. A cup of coffee will be an excellent addition to it before you sit down again for work.
Going for a run or just taking a walk in nature will certainly help your brain do better tasks that require a high degree of focus.
Another option is meditation. There is ample evidence that those who have learned to meditate can better control their attention and more accurately sense when to take a break.
If it seems to you that all of the above requires too much time, then here’s the good news: with or without exercises, a cup of strong coffee improves memory, reaction time, and attentiveness – albeit for a reasonably short time.
So whatever your break, be sure to pour yourself a coffee when you return to work.
5. Don’t stress too hard
If you are planning to concentrate for a long time, it’s better to take more breaks.
Mike Esterman and Joe Degutis concluded in their study from the Learning laboratory and Boston attention (Massachusetts, USA).
After conducting many experiments they found a formula to maintain concentration. It states one should work for a short time and then take a short break. If one tries to continue work for longer hours without any breaks, he is more prone to make errors.
The more we learn about how the brain functions, the better it is for us: stress is the biggest enemy of concentration.
Christian Olivers from the Free University of Amsterdam came to similar conclusions in his research. People’s attention reserve does not dry out longer if you ask them to be distracted from time to time. The same goes for when you ask them to think about something else instead of constant, uninterrupted concentration in action.
And this is probably the most important conclusion of all studies of the human ability to focus. It is important for us to know how the human brain works. And how the biggest enemy of focus and concentration is stress. So try to find time for those exercises or little tricks that will help you feel calmer and more confident in yourself. And you will succeed.
You can also read:
Lucy Palladino – Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload