Ability to concentrate. How to focus. Optimal arousal level: examples

Hello, friends! When we see people who have achieved a lot in life, it is easy to guess that one of the sources of their success is the ability to concentrate.

But the ability to isolate the main thing and focus on it can be brought up in oneself, or rather, developed by training. What needs to be cut off, and what to call on as allies on the way to this goal, we will now consider.

Before we learn how to focus on a single goal, let's take a closer look at the topic of motivation.

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From our own and other people's experience, we know that it is easiest to keep our attention on what interests us. Agree, doing what you love, for example, or, it's nice. To do this, you do not have to make heroic efforts and force yourself.

We are ready to give ourselves to such an occupation, sparing no effort and time. Even if it seems too complicated to an outside observer, we do not notice this complexity, we plunge into it, almost meditating. Somehow, by itself, everything “superfluous” is cut off, which at the moment is not within the scope of our priorities.

But in life, you often have to do not too exciting things. And then the question often arises: “I can’t concentrate, what should I do?” It's a good question, because the problem really needs to be solved.

If you learn to concentrate on the main tasks, the energy will not be dissipated, wasted on trifles, as is often the case in life. Nature endows us with remarkable forces, but we often use them irrationally, and as a result we get a lot of fuss, a lot of wasted nerves, time, health, and the result is doubtful.

The ability to concentrate saves us a lot of energy. Sometimes it seems that learning this is too difficult. But it is possible, and most importantly - it is necessary!

Having mastered this skill, we get a unique tool for self-improvement, and then the domino principle works: we begin to harvest achievements.

What hinders concentration

As in any “battle for the harvest”, various obstacles can lie in wait for us. Let's try to systematize the reasons that can significantly complicate the path to success, because you need to know the enemy "by sight":

• Health condition: insomnia, malnutrition, etc.;
• Fatigue, nervous exhaustion;
• Lack of qualifications for the implementation of this task at work or in other areas of activity;
• Negative attitude, lack of faith in success;
• Weak self-discipline;
• Weak motivation.

It is clear that the list of so-called "annoying flies" that interfere with our attention can be significantly expanded. I'll tell you a little more.

Self-doubt is the strongest demotivator. It can destroy even what was laid in us from birth. Not believing in success in advance, you can lose the desire to “strain” and let things go by themselves.

Complete ignorance of the object, and a headache or back problems, and any other serious ailment can prevent you from keeping your attention on the object.

Lack of sleep is another common negative factor.

Pushing away from the performance of a certain work that requires concentration can be too high requirements for the performer.

There are also quite specific everyday obstacles, for example, noisy neighbors or annoying guests at home, incorrect chatty colleagues in the office, an uncomfortable workplace, a dictatorial boss who does not appreciate our work, etc.

But the main hindrance is still not outside, but inside us!

No wonder they say: who wants to do, looking for ways, and who does not want, looking for reasons to shirk. Therefore, goal-setting and powerful motivation are the main points. If everything is ok with them, then there will be opportunities.

How to learn to focus

To learn how to fix attention, you need to constantly work on yourself, moreover, systematically, persistently, constantly. It is necessary to build an algorithm for moving towards a conscious goal and control yourself, developing responsibility, discipline in big and small.

Learn to control yourself!

You can identify the main steps that will help you focus on basic goals and abstract from everything that interferes with their achievement:

1. Faith in yourself and your strengths. With the simplest methods of self-hypnosis, auto-training, convey to yourself: you can do it! Programming yourself for is already half the battle.

2. Goal setting. Another aspect of programming is the goal. Explain to yourself why you need it. Only clearly, clearly, unambiguously. And even better: write down this resume and put it (option - hang it up!) In a conspicuous place, let it remind you, encode you on one thought. Let's say your destination is career growth. So cherish in yourself those bonuses that promotion will give: a decent salary, indecently wide opportunities, a chance to influence others and enjoy their veneration, etc.

3.Regular classes, practice. Any skill is the result of training, repeated repetitions. And this one is no exception either. Try, return to the simplest tasks again and again, gradually complicating them.

4.Mode. Another important circumstance that tells you how to quickly focus on a specific topic is the timing. The daily routine, the distribution of tasks "on the shelves" is very disciplined. We often try to become like Julius Caesar and grab onto several things at once. As a result, we do not complete any of them, or we execute them “running”, superficially.

With the answer to the question: "Why do we need the right daily routine?" can be found in the article.

5.Order in thoughts. Here you have to be on the lookout. "Superfluous" thought-sticky and strive to distract from the accomplishment of the most important task. Catch and expel them, persistently return to the goal. Tired of everyday worries? Husband (wife) is strained by the next not taken out bucket or lack of dinner? Be consistent: you have other priorities for this day and hour!

6.Comfortable workplace. To focus on one thing, if it concerns a career, take care of the comfort in the workplace. Colleagues who like to waste office time, gently siege, remind them that they are not alone here. If you work at home, convince your family that the sooner you complete what you have planned, the sooner you will be free and direct your energy into the mainstream of family values.

You can find tips on organizing a home office in the article.

7.Planning. Make a plan for the next day from the previous evening. And remember: the work schedule is “composed” by intelligent people, so such an algorithm as we work for an hour, indulge in relaxation with a coffee break for 10 minutes or discuss the next fashion magazine is ideal! This is the optimal embodiment of the slogan: "Business - time, fun - an hour!"

Read how to organize your day in order to have time for everything, and you can find out how to achieve effective time management.

8.Healthy food . A lot of important point, because food gives us the strength to work. And not just fast food snacks, but healthy food.

You can get acquainted with the menu of a healthy blogger in the article.

As you can see, my dear readers, the “feature” of lack of assembly is not so terrible as we sometimes imagine it 🙂

I suggest watching an informative video that will complement our today's topic in a wonderful way.

All the best to you, believe in yourself, and everything will definitely work out!

Don't forget to update the blog and see you soon!

Ekaterina Kalmykova was with you

A couple of years ago, I could not even think that I would be worried about the question of how to focus on myself. I definitely considered myself an independent person. And although I am a fairly sociable person, I am interested in the lives of many of my friends and relatives, but still, I used to focus more on myself, on my own life, and not on the lives of other people. I was constantly moving forward and trying to figure out how I could improve myself and my future. In short, earlier I was completely focused on my life and I was little bothered by what was happening around.

But just a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I was starting to change. I began to become more interested in the activities of other people, and something revived in me the desire to start focusing again on my social life. However, I immediately experienced a negative change in my personal life and found that all my attention was focused on the lives of my friends, and not on my own problems, goals and desires.

I wouldn't say that I had any serious problems because of this change in focus. But I can definitely say that I'm not in my place. This realization had a strong influence on me, and I had to look for ways out of this situation. So if you are also too focused on other people's lives and not your own, I have prepared some tips on how you can break free from dependence on other people and shift the focus back to yourself.

1. Spend less time with other people

You need to start taking more time for yourself if you want to change the way you interact with other people. When you create a certain distance between yourself and another person, you create more opportunities to focus on your emotions, thoughts and desires. You give yourself more time to think about what you want out of life. But this does not mean that you need to completely distance yourself from these people. This means you need to spend less time with people and eliminate possible unhealthy patterns in how you interact with them. When you begin to move away from them a little, clarity and understanding of your desires will come to you, and changes will come after clarity.

2. Become more mindful

Remove various gadgets and distractions more often so that you can focus on your own life, on your own plans and goals. Mindfulness and concentration will help you better assess the situation you are in. And you will be able to better understand how to focus on yourself.

3. Come up with a list of personal goals

When you realize that you have stopped paying enough attention to your life. You have a desire to catch up. You want to get back on track and move forward. So first of all, sit down and think about yours and what you need to do to achieve this. Depending on how much time you have spent on other people's lives, it will take you a certain amount of time to catch up. But no matter what goals you set for yourself, start putting them into practice if you want to focus on yourself and your life.

4. Take action

Once you have developed a list of goals and written a plan to achieve them, start taking action. It doesn't matter how small steps you take now. What matters is that you are moving forward. When you begin to understand that you have control over your life. And that you can make a huge breakthrough in life, you will be unstoppable. You will find that it is much more interesting and rewarding to get involved in your own life and pursue your own goals than to take care of other people's lives.

5. Be persistent

The most important thing about change is that it's difficult. If it were so easy to change your life, then there would be no need for self-improvement. So no matter how difficult the changes are, don't give up. If you allow yourself to give up, then it will be more difficult for you to give up your old habits, and you will return to them again. So keep moving forward, achieve your goals, and the result will not be long in coming.

6. Learn to speak "No"

The next way to focus on yourself is to learn to refuse people. You will not be able to do everything that you will be asked. And you can't get back the time you spend on other people's lives. Therefore, it is useful to sometimes refuse people, and prioritize personal tasks. Thus, you will have more free time and you can focus on yourself. Which will benefit your own life and health.

7. Do something for yourself

Whether it's walking, going on vacation, playing sports, or going shopping. In any case, do what you like more often. It may not be necessary to go abroad to take a break. You can go and see the sights in your city or surroundings. Even driving through the countryside and soaking up the fresh air and colors from the environment can become a focus on your own thoughts.

8. Be positive

In order to focus on yourself, you need to try to find the positive in everything. Whether it's your job, some problems, finances, your children and so on. There is always something good in what you have and what you are working on. So try everything. This is not only a good way to be more grateful. But it will make you feel a significant change in relation to yourself. And if something bad happens in your life, try to look at it differently. After all, it is the perception of the situation that upsets us, and not the situation itself.

9. Write down everything you are grateful for.

Robert Emmons is professor of psychology at the University of California. I found that people who wrote down five things they were grateful for weekly reported an increase in optimism and. Try and do the same. When you focus on what you have, you set yourself up to be positive and work on yourself.

10. Find happiness in your own success

For me personally, achieving success in some area brings

James Clear

Blogger, entrepreneur.

Concentration: what it is and how it works

Let's start with the most basic: what is concentration of attention? Psychologists define it as the act of directing interest or action toward a single goal. Yes, it sounds boring, but there is a very important idea hidden here.

What is concentration

To focus on one thing, you have to ignore everything else.

Concentration appears only when we say "yes" to one option and "no" to all the others. In other words, exclusion is a necessary condition for concentration.

What you don't do determines what you can do.

Tim Ferris, writer, public speaker

Of course, staying focused doesn't require an unchanging "no", it's important to say "no" now, in this moment. Later you can do something else, but for now you have to focus your attention on only one thing.

Concentration is the key to productivity. By saying no to any other options, you unlock your ability to complete the one remaining task.

Now for the big question: what can you do to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don't?

Why can't concentrate

Most people don't have trouble concentrating. They have difficulty making decisions.

We can convince ourselves to focus on the task by removing all distractions from the path. Have you ever had a task that needed to be completed at all costs? You did it because the deadline made the decision for you. Maybe you are, but as soon as the case forces you to make a decision, you act.

Often, instead of making the hard decision and choosing one thing, we convince ourselves that multitasking is better. But this is an inefficient approach, and here's why.

Why multitasking doesn't work

Technically we can do two things at the same time. For example, watching TV and cooking dinner or answering incoming calls during a telephone conversation.

But it is impossible to focus on two things at the same time. You are either watching TV while stirring the pasta in the pot in the background, or you are cooking pasta and the TV becomes background noise. At every single moment of time, you are concentrating on either one or the other.

But no matter what method you use and no matter how serious you are, at some point the concentration disappears. How to stay focused longer? To do this, you need to follow two simple steps.

Measure your results

Mindfulness is often lost due to lack of feedback. Naturally, your brain wants to know if you are achieving your goals.

We all have areas of life that we claim to be very important to us, but that we don't track. This is fundamentally the wrong approach. Only with numbers and full tracking can we do something when we get better or worse.

• When I started counting how many push-ups I did, I got stronger.
• When I started to follow the habit of reading 20 pages a day, I read more books.
• When I wrote down my values, I became more principled.

The tasks that I tracked remained the focus of my attention.

Unfortunately, we often avoid measuring results because we fear the numbers will be unimpressive. Understand that measurement is not for judging yourself. It's just the feedback you need to understand where you are right now.

Measure to discover, learn, understand. Measure to know yourself better. Measure because it will help you focus on the things that matter to you.

Value progress, not results

The second thing you can do to keep your attention longer is to focus on the process, not the events. Too often we think of success as something that can be achieved and completed.

Here are some examples.

• Many people think of health as an event ("If I can lose 10 kilos, I'll be in great shape").
• Many people think of entrepreneurship as an event (“If our business were featured in the New York Times, we would be successful”).
• Many people think of art as an event (“If my paintings were exhibited in a big gallery, I would become famous”).

These are just a few examples of many where we define success as a single event. But if you look at people who are focused on their goals, you will understand that it is not the events or results that matter, but the concentration on the process itself. These people love what they do.

And the funny thing is, focusing on the process will allow you to enjoy the results anyway.

• If you want to be a good writer and have a bestseller, that's fine. But the only way to achieve this result is to love writing.
• If you want the whole world to know about your business, it would be nice to be featured in Forbes magazine. But the only way to achieve this is to love the process of promotion.
• If you want to be in good shape, you may really need to lose 10 extra pounds. But the only way to achieve this result is to love healthy food and exercise.
• If you want to become much better at anything, you have to love the process itself. You have to fall in love with building the image of a person who is doing business, and not just dreaming about the desired results.

Focusing on goals and results is our natural inclination, but focusing on progress results in the long run.

Life hacks to improve concentration

Even when you are genuinely in love with the process and know how to stay focused on your goals, daily practice can wreak havoc and damage your mindfulness. Here are some additional ways to increase concentration.

1. Choose an anchor task

Choose one (and only one) priority for each working day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority is one non-negotiable task that I must complete. I call it the "anchor task".

With a single priority, we start building our lives around that commitment without thinking.

2. Manage your energy, not your time

If a task requires your full attention, schedule it for a specific time of the day when you have the energy for it. For example, I have noticed that my creative energy is highest in the morning. I am awake in the morning, write better, and make better strategic decisions for my business. So I plan all my creative tasks for the morning. And I postpone all other work matters to the second half of the day: meetings, answers to incoming calls, phone calls and Skype chats, analysis and processing of numerical information.

Almost every productivity strategy includes better advice. But time itself is useless if you don't have the energy to complete the task.

3. Never check email in the morning

Concentration is the elimination of all distractions. And email can be the biggest distraction.

If I don't check my email at the start of the day, I can make my own schedule instead of having to adjust to someone else's schedule.

I understand that for many people it makes no sense to wait for the second half of the day, but I want to throw you such a challenge. Can you wait until 10 am? Or until 9? Before 8:30? The exact time limit is not that important. The bottom line is that you can make time for yourself in the morning when you can focus on what matters most to you.

4. Leave your phone in another room

5. Work in full screen mode

Every time I run a program on my computer, I use it in full screen mode. If I read an article on the web, the browser takes up the entire screen. If I write notes in Evernote, I use full screen mode. If I'm editing images in Photoshop, the program window is the only thing I can see. I set up the desktop so that the menu bar automatically disappears. When I'm at work, I don't see the time, app icons, and all the other distractions.

It seems a trifle, but in terms of concentration, this is a very important action. If you see an application icon, then from time to time you are tempted to click on it. However, if you remove the visual signal from your field of vision, then the desire to be distracted disappears after a few minutes.

6. Remove all tasks that interfere with your concentration in the morning

I like to do the most important things in the morning, because at this time there is no rush yet. So I moved the first breakfast to noon to free up some extra time in the morning for work rather than cooking.

No matter what strategy you follow, remember that when the world distracts you, all you have to do is stick to one thing. At first, you may not succeed. But you just need to start.

We all struggle to maintain focus in our daily lives. Constant distraction does not allow our brain to be concentrated on one thing. But what actually happens in our head when we lose focus? And more importantly, what do we do to induce this centered state in ourselves? Let's answer the question: "How to learn to concentrate?"

It is important to understand what goes on in our head when we are focused on something and what happens when we are distracted. Then we can minimize all distractions and train our brain to better focus. After all, focus is a skill and it takes practice to develop it.

What happens in your brain when you are focused and distracted.
First, let's look at what happens in the brain when you start focusing on something, and then what makes you break that focus. It turns out that both processes are interconnected.

The Two Step Process: What Happens When You Focus

The brain goes through two main stages when it focuses on a task. This system is under your control and asks a simple question: “What do you want to focus on?” When you choose to focus on something, the brain goes through two steps to make sense of and understand the information.

• Visually, you take in all the information and start processing it to find what you need to pay more attention to. This can be compared to a blurry photograph that slowly begins to come into focus.
• The second part involves focusing on one aspect. And which photo is in focus, attention starts to increase on one aspect that you want to pay attention to.

When you are fully focused, your perception of the world around you changes, time seems to stop and you stop noticing everything that is happening around you. This state is called "flow".

This is what happens in your brain when you break Focus.

Loss of focus and focus is an evolutionary system designed to keep you and me safe. You cannot control the peripheral attention that distracts you, as it has been hardwired into our brains for a very long time.

Two external events cause us to lose concentration: bright colors or lights and loud sounds. Your attention is primarily focused on what could be dangerous or beneficial to you, like the growl of an animal or the sound and lights of a police siren.

It takes about 25 minutes to restore concentration. Every time you get distracted, you need a lot of time and resources to get back to “flow”. Therefore, we need to remove all possible external factors that can distract you.

Determine what disrupts your concentration and remove those triggers

All people are unique. It's likely that at some point in your life you've met that one person who can enjoy reading with the TV in the background or who has no problem focusing on the task of listening to heavy metal. To help you focus, you need to identify your triggers that are constantly distracting you.

Minimize external distractions

Minimizing common distractions is a sure way to become more alert and focused.

There are many different ways to easily block outside influences. Here are some simple tips to help you minimize the risk of external influences disturbing your focus.

• Wear headphones or ear plugs: If loud noises are the main cause of distraction, then the most logical approach would be to remove them from the equation. It's important to remember that it's not just loud noises directed at you that are distracting (someone shouting your name), but loud noises in general.

• Turn off various email, social network and phone call alerts.

Creating a kind of small sound and noise isolation booth will be a great solution to remove external distractions. However, there are also internal distracting triggers.

Identify your internal distractions and stop them before they distract you.

We all get distracted by various inner things throughout the day. These thoughts could be about what you eat for dinner, why the girl in the cafe doesn't want to go on a date with you, or what a stupid thing you said to your boss.

To suppress distractions, you must be aware of your internal mental processes and catch the wrong impulses before they take over your brain.

Start thinking about and describing your own actions in words. By fixing the descriptions of your actions in your brain, you will increase the strength of your inhibition. Which will help you put the block on the simultaneous work with a large amount of information, spraying your attention and being distracted.

Learning to deal with distraction is great, but to be more resilient in the long run, you need to train your brain to be focused.