Build Your Focus Enhancing Toolbox

The image shows three-dimensional red letters spelling the word focus with a magnifying glass on the letter O.

The “don’t wanna” is strong in me today. I’m distracted by every little thing, every muscle twitch, the silent house, the lyrics of music, noises outside my home, Facebook, the television, everything except the nearly completed manuscript, the blog post due tomorrow, and finishing the cutting in paint job that will lead to completion of the remodeling I’ve been working on forever. I really want to complete all these things so what do I do when am I stuck in the don’t wanna? 

This problem is not unique to me. People worldwide, from schoolchildren to highly paid executives, stumble through their days and their lists of things to do, feeling unable to focus or accomplish much. 

Fortunately, if you recognize your barriers, you can reduce your barriers, optimize your conditions, re-train your brain, and significantly improve your ability to focus and concentrate.

To enhance your understanding of the tools, we’ll discuss there are some terms you need to understand. If you already understand the terms focus, concentration, attention, neurons, and neuroplasticity, skip to the section titled “The Barriers to Focus.” 

What is Focus?

Merriam Webster defines focus as “directed attention.” Our ability to pay attention to things is present, even at birth. Newborns startle at loud noises. Touching a newborn’s cheek causes them to turn toward that touch and try to feed. 

Attention was part of everyday life for prehistoric peoples who paid attention to their environment to avoid being swept away in a flood or eaten by a predator. Even today, it is critical that we pay attention to our environment. It’s through applied attention that we learn, work, play, form relationships, and much more. 

But in this post, we’re talking about focus, aka concentration or sustained attention, which is more than simply centering your attention on one thing. It also involves ignoring all the other information and stimuli that surround you. Focus allows you to “tune out” any information, sensations, perceptions, or emotions that aren’t relevant at the moment. Turns out, in today’s world, that tuning out takes more concentration and energy than ever before.

What are Neurons?

illustration of a neuron fired up with a yellow light and it's tendrils reaching out to lots of other neurons some to which it's passing on the yellow light

Your brain is a complex organ made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons. Neurons are the cells that send information through electrical or chemical signals to other parts of your brain or your body.

Those signals control all body functions. That means everything—every movement, all your senses, all your other organs, your speech, and your thoughts and memories. 

Researchers believed changes in the human brain could only take place during infancy and childhood. They believed that once the human reached early adulthood, the brain’s structure was mostly permanent. Then the idea of neuroplasticity came along.

What is Neuroplasticity? 

In the late 1940s, a Polish neuroscientist suggested neurons could change. Since then, advances in imaging technology and research have since proven this happens. We can learn new tricks and lots of other things, too.

The term neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to develop and change throughout life. These changes happen through learning, repetition, experience, and sometimes injury. 

Note: this is a general discussion. It is not prescriptive for you. Nor is it an exhaustive list of all the science or focus barriers known to humans or even all the barriers you face. It is intended to help you discover what your barriers are and how you might address them.

There are many barriers that affect your ability to focus, but they fall into three major types or categories: distraction, physical, and behavioral. Technically, distraction can be a subset of physical and behavioral, however, distraction is such a humongous subset, it needs to be discussed on its own. 

Distraction Barrier

On an average day, Americans are bombarded with an estimated 34 gigabytes of information and 100,500 words. Meanwhile, office workers are interrupted every 11 minutes, while it takes 25 minutes, on average, to get back to the task they were working on before the interruption. It is therefore no surprise that our ability to focus is withering due to these endless distractions.” Medical News Today 

Smart phones, tablets, computers, streaming video content, or the internet can be very distracting. But visual distractions such as stacks of paper, old notebooks, or a cluttered digital desktop can affect your ability to focus. Sounds, smells, temperature, or a texture or vibration also may distract you. And distractions aren’t always external. Add your emotions and stress levels to the gigabytes of information referenced in the quote above.

Physical Barriers

Acute illnesses such as a cold or flu, pain from a recent injury, and medications or their side effects can adversely affect your focus. Sleep deprivation, insufficient nutrition or dehydration also interfere with your ability to concentrate. Chronic physical or mental health issues or chronic sleep deprivation may cause sporadic or daily barriers to focus. And don’t forget that alcohol use and recreational drug consumption can affect focus for twenty-four or more hours after use.

Behavioral Barriers

Misbeliefs or self-doubt can be massive barriers to focus for creatives, writers in particular. Habit, doing something that isn’t working just because you’ve always done it that way, is another barrier to focus. Multitasking. Yes, many of us believe multitasking is the way to be productive, but keep reading for why it’s a barrier to focus. There are tons of ways social expectations or behaviors can interfere with your concentration. 

Yikes. With all these barriers to focus, how can you ever focus at all?

No one’s brain can handle all the information that bombards it. So your brain deliberately ignores some information so you can focus on what’s important. 

What’s important is highly variable. Your brain filters information in a kind of selective triage. Biological needs (automatic and others), past learning, experiences, emotions, and the environment are among the things your brain uses to decide what’s important. 

Selective Triage

The first level of your brain’s selective triage tells you when to pay attention and signals the body to mobilize when needed. Next, your brain filters for what to pay attention to and finally it decides how to pay attention and what processes are relevant. All that can happen in an instant. Over and over and over. This takes a lot of energy or blood glucose (also called blood sugar). 

Too much information can cause a traffic jam of sorts and triage can’t operate as efficiently or you’ll focus on the wrong thing. Too little energy and your brain can’t function as well as it should. Severe shortage of energy can cause serious medical issues.

How Long?

Research shows that the ideal length of mental focus for most people is around 90 minutes. That means some people may have more time, others will have less. Experiment with the best length of time for you. Start with a thirty- or sixty-minute session. Stop when you feel your attention wander. Adjust your time accordingly. You may increase that duration over time by implementing some tips below.

When that 90 minutes is over, take a five to ten-minute break. Your brain has been working hard to maintain that sharp focus for that 90 minutes. Following it with a period of “idleness” is essential for optimal focus. It doesn’t have to be idle as in not doing anything. Take a walk in nature. Exercise. Do automatic or non-thinking chores. Don’t expect yourself to go back to that sharp focus until after you’ve had that break.

With practice, you should be able to do two or three cycles of 90 minutes of mental focus per day.  

Photo of a yellow toolbox with a black lid. the lid is open and various tools including a hammer, tape measure and glove are visible

Keep the tools listed below in your focus toolbox. You’ll discover some that you use all the time and others you’ll only use sometimes. Still others you may never use. Some of you will find rotating different tools will give you optimal focus.

Prepare to Focus

Enough Sleep. Sleep helps regulate attention. Aim for optimal sleep 80% of the time. No one gets 100% optimal sleep. Consider a restorative nap or NSDR (non-sleep deep rest) for those days when you get less than optimal sleep.

Sufficient Nutrition

Neurons thrive on glucose. That doesn’t indulge in a diet of sugary sweets. It means eat a balanced diet that includes complex carbohydrates. 

Eliminate as many processed foods as possible. They contain fewer nutrients and often convert to glucose more quickly, giving you a “sugar rush” followed by fatigue. 

Don’t overeat. When you eat, your body sends blood to your gut to help with digestion. If you overeat, your body sends even more blood to your gut, so your body goes into a more relaxed state in compensation.

Stay Hydrated

The first sign of dehydration is fatigue. Your body needs water to produce enough hydraulics to get glucose to your brain. Drink 8 glasses of water per day.

Practice Mindfulness

Some research has shown that mindfulness training may be helpful for improving your focus. You can find some free training tools on YouTube.

Eliminate Distractions 

At least eliminate as many as possible. 

Clean off your both your physical and your digital desktops. 

Shut the door to your office or choose a time to focus when you’re less likely to be interrupted.

Emotional or other internal disturbances can be difficult to avoid. Try to resolve these types of things before you sit down to work. If that’s not possible, label your emotion. Once you identify what you’re feeling, reflect on how your emotion distorts your thoughts. Try to reassure your brain that you’ll deal with that emotion later by scheduling a time when you will re-focus on that issue. 

Turn off your notifications. Then put your phone away to avoid the visual distraction.

If visual distractions are your nemesis, try wearing a cap or hoodie to cut down on those. 

Warm Up Your Focus

There isn’t an on-off switch. Focus is dynamic. Expect that you’ll experience varying levels of focus. The key is to return to focus.

You warm up before exercise, singing, or practice an instrument before a performance. Spend 5-10 minutes to transition or warm up using one or more of the following techniques.

Focus Meditation

Researchers found that an eight-week course of meditation helped increase focus. Practice this up to thirteen minutes a day. Sit or lie down. Close your eyes. Breathe through your nose (preferred) and concentrate on a point about an inch inside your forehead. Your focus will drift every 5-20 seconds. The key to return to focusing on that spot inside your forehead. It’s not about achieving total focus or about how long you focus, it’s about training your brain to re-focus. Research has shown that people who practiced focus meditation had improved concentration and focus.

Transitioning Sounds

Listening to 40 Hz binaural beats through headphones before or during your work time can help you transition into a period of sharp focus. Some say that white noise, pink noise, or brown noise has the same effect. Experiment with these noises to see what works for you. You can find recordings of these on YouTube.

Practice Visual Focus

Visually focus on one specific, non-digital location for 30 seconds to 3 minutes (blink as needed). Again, re-focusing is the key component. Start with 30 seconds per day and add 5 seconds per day. Don’t know what to focus on? Draw an X on a post-it note and attach it to a nearby wall. 

Avoid Multitasking

Multitasking is training your brain not to focus on one thing for very long. Make the most of your limited focus time by working on only one thing at a time. Research has shown productivity that a one-thing-at-a-time process significantly increases productivity over multitasking. 

Background Music

Some people find that soft background music helps them concentrate. Experiment with different genres of music, with instrumental vs. music with lyrics, to determine what works best for you. There are several streaming services that offer free music. 

Social Media

Avoid or limit social media use during your mental focus period. They designed social media feeds for short attention spans. Don’t undo all the hard work you’ve done to increase your focus by hopping on social media. 

The Urge to Quit

Your brain will try to get you to quit. It’s part of your survival mechanism. It warns you early, then tries again with more and more urgency. Accept that this desire to quit early is something your brain does but that you don’t have to accept it right that moment. Develop a mantra to counter this desire. Things like “You got this” or “Challenge accepted” or “Just ten more minutes” can be helpful.

Breaks

Take five-minute breaks when your focus flags. Short breaks can dramatically improve focus. Researchers believe this is because your brain needs to ignore sources of constant stimulation. 

Notice Your Distractions 

Keep track of when you get distracted and what distracts you. Choose which focus tools will help you handle that distraction the next time it crops up.

At the end of your sharp mental focus period, take ten to thirty minutes to decompress or de-focus. Exercise, time spent in nature, time with your pets, or do things you don’t have to think about. 

Photo of a young archer woman with her arrow notched and pulling her bowstring back against a blue sky

You wouldn’t expect to learn ballet or how to use a bow and arrow in a few sessions. It takes plenty of time and practice to strengthen your concentration skills, too. Fortunately, focus is like the muscles you train in ballet or archery or other sports. With the proper exercise and a well-stocked toolbox, you can learn to work with greater focus. 

What are your biggest challenges to maintaining your focus? Do you have a favorite tool for increasing your focus? 


References

1. The Very Well Mind Podcast

2. Good Rx Health

3. Huberman Lab Podcast

4. Merriam Webster Dictionary

5. Harvard Business Review

Image Credits

All images purchased from DepositPhotos.

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