Attention Management: How to Regain Your Attention After You’ve Lost Your Flow
In today’s world of on-demand services and instant access, people are presented with more distractions than ever, making it a challenge to stay focused on tasks, personal goals like writing a book or completing NaNoWriMo, and more.
Once you find your attention wandering, getting yourself refocused can feel impossible. Fortunately, there are some tips and tricks you can use to get yourself back on track whenever you feel your attention waning.
1. Remove unnecessary distractions from your work environment. This includes turning off the TV and sitting your cell phone aside (if needed, you can even put your cell phone in a different room if the temptation to scroll is too strong).
2. Break down large tasks into multiple smaller ones. For example, if you need to get your whole house cleaned, it's easy to refocus your attention elsewhere. It's easier to maintain your focus when you break down this big task into smaller, more specific ones (like dusting the bookcase and unloading the dishwasher).
3. Start your day with your more challenging or attention-required tasks. If you like to “ease” into your day with your mindless, repetitive tasks first, switch up your routine and knock out the harder ones first – this allows you to spend more of your attention on the tough stuff immediately.
Staying Present When You Have a Lot of Thoughts
Have you ever been completely focused on a task, only to have your work interrupted by your random thoughts? These types of thoughts can easily derail your workflow, leaving you Googling random questions or getting up to run an errand rather than focusing on what you need to get done.
A great way to handle all these random thoughts is to create a neat, tidy space for them. Buy a small notebook and keep it handy. When you're in the middle of focusing on a task and have one of your random thoughts, please take a second to jot it down inside your notebook.
Think of your small notebook as a compromise with your attention span. Whenever you write down your random thoughts in the notebook, you're giving yourself a chance to return to them later when you have a chance to focus your attention on them.
The Myth About Taking Breaks
If you're struggling to manage your attention span, permit yourself to take a break! This advice may seem counterintuitive, especially if you’re a GenX type – after all, if you get up and leave the task to take a break, aren't you just continuing to lose your focus?
The answer is no. Scheduling short breaks for yourself throughout the day is an excellent way to maintain your overall attention span. Think about your attention like a muscle in your body. If you exercised that same muscle constantly throughout the day, eventually, it would grow too weary and weak to keep moving. Writer’s block, particularly during a writing sprint like NaNoWriMo is similar to a cramping or fatigued muscle. The same concept applies to your attention span; you can try to push yourself to maintain steady attention all day long, but this method will likely lead to burnout.
Let yourself take a short break between tasks or during larger ones to give your mind a chance to rest. Grab a snack, watch a funny video clip, or walk a lap around the building to clear your mind and give your attention span a chance to refocus.
Keep Yourself Focused in the Moment Using the Senses
A great way to focus yourself back into the present moment after a break is to follow the five senses exercise that . To complete this exercise, complete the following:
1. Close your eyes. Take two or three big, deep breaths.
2. First, focus on what you can hear. Name one thing aloud that you can hear (Example: “I can hear my coworker in the next office typing.”)
3. Next, focus on what you can smell. Name one thing aloud that you can smell.
4. Third, focus on what you can taste. (This one can be challenging, but let yourself focus hard on your senses – can you taste your toothpaste from this morning? The sip of coffee you had earlier?)
5. After that, focus on what you can feel. (A cool breeze from the overhead fan, a stiff back from too much time in a chair?
6. Lastly, open your eyes. Focus on one thing you can see. Take a few more deep breaths and allow yourself to soak in your present moment and environment before returning to work.
Be Realistic About Your To-Do List
Have you ever experienced a day where you felt unstoppable? Perhaps you cleaned the whole house, paid all the bills, made a great meal, and ran all your errands. Days like these feel phenomenal, and when they happen, they're wonderful. However, this amount of focus isn’t going to happen every day, so it’s important to be realistic about your to-do list.
If you're struggling to manage your attention, assess your to-do lists. Are you grouping large, time-consuming, thought-intensive tasks on the same day? Is the workload you're placing on yourself to get these tasks done realistic? If your to-do lists are too intense, it's going to be a challenge to keep your attention focused on all these tasks simultaneously.
Instead, structure your to-do lists in a more realistic and manageable fashion. Organize your tasks by priority, give yourself enough time to accomplish them, and schedule some breaks for yourself.
Controlling Distractions by Setting Boundaries
One of the biggest attention-suckers you’ll experience are requests from other folks. For example, a coworker may beg you for help on their project….even though you have a project of your own that needs your attention. In situations like these, many people have a hard time setting boundaries to protect their time and attention spans from others’ demands.
Learning to set boundaries is important because doing so protects your attention span from any extraneous, unnecessary distractions. If you find yourself constantly allowing others to monopolize your time, energy, and focus, it's difficult to maintain enough attention to get your tasks accomplished accordingly. Over time, this can damage your performance at work, hurt relationships, cause yourself a lot of undue stress, and more.
Learning to set a boundary with someone can feel awkward at first, but it's important to remember why you're doing it. Setting boundaries early allows you to protect yourself and your attention span, and your relationship with the other person by practicing clear, open communication with them.
Keeping Your Body Well to Maximize Focus
When you aren’t properly caring for your physical health, your ability to manage your attention suffers greatly. Without your mind working at its very best, focusing and maintaining attention is difficult – ensure you’re doing everything you can to protect your ability to focus by treating your body well.
Some important aspects of physical bodily care you can practice to maximize your focus include:
● Drinking plenty of water throughout the day. Keeping your body hydrated is good for your entire body, especially your brain! Since the body is composed of around 60 percent water, you need plenty to keep all your organs operating correctly.
● Getting enough sleep each night. Missing out on quality sleep is an attention killer. When you’re struggling to stay awake midway through the day, you can forget about being able to keep your attention on anything.
● Eating plenty of nutritious foods. Your body needs a lot of vitamins and minerals to work correctly. Give your body all those nutrients by eating a diet full of fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and carbohydrates.
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