3 Simple Tips to Improve Your Focus
3 Simple Tips to Improve Your Focus
While also minimizing stress and enhancing your productivity
We live in a distraction-prone society where constant noise comes at us, demanding our attention and eating up our cognitive capacity. This leads to us being hyper-responsive yet often unfocused. And there is nothing worse than closing out a workday and thinking - "What on earth did I actually get done today?"
Tragically, the stats also confirm that our attention spans are dwindling in the face of the short byte-style way we are living. Dr. Gloria Mark's book - Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity - discusses this decline, noting that in 2004, the average attention span was 2 1/2 min. In 2023, that stat tumbled to only 45 seconds.
In good news, there is debate over exactly what "attention span" means and how to apply it, and there is still plenty of evidence that we can actually concentrate when we're set up for success.
The Brief
Evidence suggests that on average, our attention spans have dramatically decreased.
Unconscious use and reliance on the default settings on our technology create constant distractions.
Distractions require us to task-shift and break our focus. It can take more than 20 minutes to regain focus when you're interrupted.
We can help ourselves by consciously using technology, minimizing the distractions we experience, and doing our heavy-lifting brain work earlier in day.
Increasing our focus simultaneously reduces stress and increases productivity. When we're thoughtful about what we're working on, we consistently get more done and minimize the last-minute stress-inducing sprint.
Minimizing distractions also reduces the spike in cortisol (AKA panic feeling) that can come from knowing you have something to attend to, but you can't immediately give it your focus.
Read on for more details and “how to” tips.
Academic Adam Brown blames this overall decline in attention span on the environment and, more specifically, technology. It doesn't take an expert to be able to put the pieces together. It makes sense when you look at the constant bombardment we receive from just about everything these days. Our phones are beeping, email and calendar notifications are popping up, and Slack is constantly flickering.
Distractability itself is nothing new. But the number of distractions that are pulling us in is.
So how can we set ourselves up to rebuild our attention spans, and reduce our stress by actually being able to get shit done?
Here are three things to "focus" on to help you minimize distractions and regain focus:
Hide Your Phone
Recent research has assessed the impact smartphones are having on our cognitive functions and distractability. It's hard to believe these have only been part of our lives since 2017, and of course, there are numerous advantages to having a smartphone close.
Yet scientific studies have found that smartphone overuse reduces concentration ability, wellbeing, and creativity. Constantly being sucked into the "quick hit" internet can pull our attention unconsciously away in an instant from where we really want it to be, and act as a huge form of distraction.
It's not just the text messages either. It's the quick swipe of Facebook, the flick through Instagram, or the refresh of the Newsfeed can pull in your attention for a significantly longer period of time.
Tips to help minimize the unconscious pull your phone is having on your attention include:
Pop it in a drawer when you need to concentrate. Out of sight actually does help with it being kept out of mind.
Use the "do not disturb" function during work hours. Additional tip: you can add essential numbers like your spouse or the kid's school to the "favorites" list, and their calls will still come through.
Remove distracting apps. I know you'll hate this one, but removing the Facebook app a number of years back completely changed my relationship with my phone. It's worth it.
Additional inspiration:
Book: How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Your Life Back by Catherine Price
Documentary: The Social Dilemma on Neflix (if you’re inspired to break up with social media)
Do the Heavy-Lifting First
Most of us will find it easier to do the heavy-lifting brain work earlier in the day.
Building on John Sweller's cognitive load theory, our brains use a lot of mental effort when problem-solving, and can only process a limited amount of information at any given time.
Pairing this with the insights gained from Roy F. Baumeister's willpower theory, we're also likely to be more successful at minimizing distractions earlier in our days. Baumeister and his colleagues found that willpower works like a depletable resource, much like a muscle that gets fatigued the more we use it. Distractions are all around us, but following this theory, we’re more likely to be able to turn away from them when our willpower reserves are higher, and when that muscle is still feeling fresh and energized.
If you're anything like me, it is much easier to flick between quick email replies later in the day after you've got the hard work that requires real thinking out of the way.
Tips to help you focus on the "brain work" and enhance your productivity include:
Do your best to make it a habit to spend your first two hours each day working on important project work. The quick-reply emails can wait till 10.30am.
Consider which tasks are Important but not Urgent (as demonstrated by the Einshower Matrix), and make these a morning priority. This will minimize stress by allowing you to consistently move highly important tasks forward in a meaningful way.
Plan. Have a weekly and monthly planning session with yourself. You can't utilize these strategies if you're approaching your days and weeks ad hoc and reactively. You need to be ahead of the game to block this vital thinking time and know what you want to use it for.
Additional inspiration:
Article: The Einshower Matrix: How to Prioritize Your To-Do List (Asana)
Article: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Week (Time Management Ninja)
Turn Off the Notifications
Push notifications are killing your productivity. It's been proven that multi-tasking is a myth, and when we're jumping between two things, this is actually called task-switching. Stats highlight that once we've been interrupted by a notification, it can take us about 23 minutes to get back into the original task and regain our focus.
Many clients I work with are running with the default settings, and have simply never put the time in to turn off the notifications that tell them they have a new email every two seconds, stop the calendar pop-ups, or pull back from Slack.
There is the element of feeling like you may not be responsive or available enough, but when I've challenged clients to trial turning off the notifications, they universally reported an increase in focus and a decrease in stress from those "stress-inducing interruptions" (because you often can't immediately react when you see a notification).
Tips include:
Disable notifications on your email and smartphone. If you need help, Google it!
Get into a habit of batch replying to emails. This might include a quick check first thing in morning, a mid-morning stint (after a solid couple of hours of work), a mid-afternoon session, and a final day close out. People will happily wait a couple of hours, and you'll retrain them to find another way to get in touch with you if something is more urgent than that.
If turning off notifications seems incredibly scary, treat it as a trial. You might trial it for a week, two weeks or a month.
Additional Inspiration:
How To: Turning off notifications on iPhone
Relatively small actions, like turning off your notifications, hiding your cell phone, and planning out your week in advance, can have massive impacts on your focus, productivity, and stress. These small changes will no doubt have an impact on how you feel about your days.
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Kate Snowise trained as an Industrial & Organizational Psychologist in New Zealand, before moving to the US ten years ago, where she has established herself as a prominent Executive Coach, Speaker, and Facilitator. She is dedicated to guiding leaders to deepen their self-awareness, grow into their potential, and have a positive impact on those around them. Recognized as a top Executive Coach by the Coach Federation and Culture Amp, she has also been listed among the Top 15 Coaches in St Paul, MN by Influence Digest. Kate’s thoughts and insights have graced prestigious platforms, including FastCompany, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, and Huffington Post.