Focus - The art of concentration
One thing I may or may not have noticed during my one year at Uni was how people always claim that I have the ability to focus which as it turns out many lacks. Hate to dispute a compliment, at least I took it as a compliment, but I cannot focus easily at all.
Nevertheless, this remark about focus just got me wondering since there is still a lot about focus that I still need to understand. Therefore in this article, I would like to give myself a chance to think about and understand focus. How it works and why it works.
Using that information, I want to figure out how to focus more easily. All in the effort so I can take the compliment when given without disputing it. Is this a waste of my time? Maybe. Will I still dive in headfirst? Most certainly.
In this article, I would focus on the verb of focusing but not in the sense of bringing an object into focus because as it has been proven by the picture I took; I am incapable of taking a sharply focused picture.
Therefore in this article, I would be focusing on the verb which means to concentrate or in other words to bring or draw to a common centre or a point of union. In other other words, the ability to direct attention or efforts on something or someone specific. Mostly in the context of work/education.
Frankly, I don’t understand how people always claim that I can concentrate since much to their dismay, I cannot. I lose my focus pretty quickly especially if there is something I need to focus on which coincidentally also has a deadline.
Sure, it may seem that I can concentrate on the outside when I need to concentrate and will not get distracted easily but when I am at home and truly need to focus on my work, I don’t. People don´t know how often I get distracted by social media or even the ceiling when it truly mattered.
I guess the saying, there are two sides to every story is awfully correct. However, I digress. I would be lying if I say that I can write a whole article in one sitting without losing concentration. I can finish a whole article in one sitting but just not without distracting myself with something entirely different.
However, thinking about it a little more, I guess I understand where my peers are coming from when they say I can be focused. Sometimes, whenever in lectures and I am in my zone (not focusing on the lecture but instead on something else completely) I am hyper-focused.
The reason as to why I don´t focus on lectures instead during lectures is funnily enough because I cannot focus. I have difficulty concentrating my mind on something I am supposed to focus on, in this case, the professors explaining complex information.
My way to keep my head out of the clouds so to say, I do something related to the lecture before me but not specifically the lecture. I, most of the time, just spend the lectures taking detailed notes I can read over at home.
It is also what my psychologist recommended to stop my fidgeting during long lectures. Since studies have shown that people who fidget are prone to mind wandering and that mind wandering leads to poor performance on the tasks at hand.
Therefore, I don’t consider myself the prime epitome of someone who can focus easily. I may come over as being able to focus but that is just my way to prevent the further mind wandering and a complete loss of concentration. A coping mechanism so to say.
Boredom just generally encourages my mind to wander, which means whenever I am not stimulated or interested enough, my mind just starts to wander again against my will. Every time it wanders it wanders in another direction.
Sometimes a certain thing in my surrounding caught my attention and it is annoying me. Some other times the thing I am working on inspires me to think about another topic. During one task, I just jump down another completely related or unrelated rabbit hole.
Most of the time, I am just distracted by social media. The prospect of something else even if you have already seen it before, you are enticed to see it again since anything is more interesting than the work you are currently doing.
A situation we all have been in many times and will be in many times in the future. The world is literally at the tip of our finger and when work is dull and boring then anything in the world would serve as a fabulous distraction no matter how unwanted the distraction may be.
Most would blame the easy accessibility of everything, but I would blame the human mind. The phone and internet are just the media but the thing which encouraged the usage was the brain. It is like treating the symptoms and not the cause when it comes to the collective focus issue.
Therefore this leaves me with the question of what could be done about it. Constantly giving into the internet is not the best way forward. How to prevent the usage of electronic devices during work sessions? How to focus?
If electronic devices are truly the issue then the solution is easy. Lock away those phones. Most phones have screen time restrictions, locking apps when time is up if you are unwilling to lock up your innocent phone. However, if you know the restriction password then the world is just a number sequence away from being browsed again.
There are some browser extensions which limit screen time on certain webpages as well. There are many extensions to choose from to meet your preferences. With most, you can set a time and a webpage, the extension does the rest.
Personally, I have been using those screen time restrictions quite frequently, especially with apps and webpages I know are designed to be addicting. Allowing me to use the app/webpage for a certain amount of time gives me control over how much time I spend on those apps/web pages.
It is somewhat annoying that the timer is up while you were in the middle of something but I see more positives than negatives in this case. It is either you miss out on a little bit or you waste your whole day doing nothing.
If time management is the issue then there is another thing I find really helpful. The Pomodoro technique. It is just a time management method. I don’t use the whole Pomodoro technique since I think the whole process is a tad exhausting for the fact that I have other things I have to do too.
What I like to do is set a timer for 25 minutes while I work on that task. After the 25 minutes of work, I spend 5 minutes taking a break. After four of those work-break cycles, I like to take a longer break lasting 20 minutes. When the long break is over I go back to work.
Since the whole setting of a timer is a bit arduous, I have downloaded an app which helps me set each timer and reminds me to take breaks. It is so much simpler than setting timers because I always forget to set the 5-minute timer after the 25-minute timer.
This method just helps me work more concentrated. Taking breaks in between doesn´t lead to overworking and reminds me to drink some water and to stand up so I can walk around a bit. The breaks in between also feel justified because you have worked focused on my task.
If the mind is the issue then I would suggest focusing on that first. Sometimes I feel jittery and no matter how hard I try I couldn’t get myself to work for the life of me therefore, I don´t. I stand up and let all of the pent-up energy out.
By either exercising a little bit or just by letting my mind wander a bit. This helps me to calm down before getting to work. I found that it is just so much easier to work with a calm mind rather than one that is constantly on the verge of exploding (metaphorically speaking).
However, this is where a little bit of self-control must come into play since otherwise none of the focus methods I use would work. You need to be able to resist the urge to the extent your breaks or your time on those addicting apps/web pages.
To be fair, none of these methods is necessary if the task at hand wouldn’t be so bland. Sometimes when I am truly interested in a topic, I just enter a zone where I cannot be distracted at all and it feels like paradise there.
Being able to focus without noticing the time of day, without needing to get up for human necessities, and without wanting to leave is just the best situation to be in. Being in synch with your work is an irreplaceable feeling. Being dragged out is the worst by contrast.
The zone just feels like a place far away from reality and the work just seems like your personal tour guide leading you further into the place far away from real life. It sometimes feels like another dimension but you are still on earth.
Being able to work in the zone constantly would be great but such glory is too much for mere mortals to bear so we are forced to descend back down into reality and work there instead. This is kind of a shame but that is just life full of disappointments.
However, this just got me thinking. What if we made everything we work on into a ticket securing us an entry into the zone? That just means that you have to work on what you love and what you find interesting.
This is where reality clashes with imagination again. Most of the time, we do something not because we want to but because we have to so my thought train just screeched to a sudden stop then and there. Standing there in the middle of nowhere on tracks leading somewhere.
Therefore, I decided to see where those tracks led. My thought train slowly started gaining speed to discover what the final station of that thought was. All the possibilities which could await me at the end of those tracks.
However, I didn’t get anywhere. Those tracks were endless and I couldn’t think of any way to gain entry into the zone without even liking the thing I am working on. I guess that is what makes the zone so special because you can´t easily get into it.
If the zone was easily accessible then it wouldn’t be special and I will probably get bored of it eventually. Sometime in the future, I would get distracted again even if I am in the zone. So I think it is best to not search for the entrance to the zone.
For reason obvious, I would still look for ways to focus since sometimes all the methods I use won´t work. Sometimes I am just lazy and unwilling to work but I still have to. As of currently, I didn’t find a way to get out of bed to work. So I will keep searching.
However, I do believe that gaining a little more insight into focus can help me focus more in the future since it is just easier to know why you are doing something and prevent doing so in the future. Understanding can go a long way sometimes.
Focus will for now remain one of the problems I cannot fully solve. The methods are some part of the solution but I am somewhat missing the bigger picture. I just need some more pieces to solve this mystery once and for all.
Until then, I will try to make my work more interesting so that at the very least I am stimulated enough so I couldn’t get distracted too easily. I will probably still get distracted by mind wandering but at least I couldn't find the ceiling interesting.