Concentration refers to the mental effort you direct towards whatever you are working on or learning at the moment. It is also the careful attention you give to a task. Concentration is a very important key to success because a concentrated mind achieves a lot and attracts many opportunities.
A concentrated mind can solve problems and attracts many opportunities for success. When a mind is concentrated, it provides results and gives the power and vigor to conquer challenges. When an individual is faced with having difficulty with concentrating, whether a student or a worker, it can cause serious negative effects in one’s life.
The power to concentrate is the most important thing, without it, a lot of things can go wrong in your life. Lack of concentration undermines success.
Below are useful tips on how to improve concentration;
1.) Get Rid Of Distractions
To be able to concentrate properly on a given task, the first thing you should do is to eliminate every form of distraction around you. You could do the simple things like putting your phone on silent mode, moving to a quiet place, telling those around not to distract you, putting off the TV, etc.
Once all these are out of your reach, you have unlocked a needed level of focus. It becomes very hard for you to get distracted. Getting rid of distractions allows you to think more clearly and helps you listen to your intuition and authentic thoughts. If distraction becomes a normal reoccurrence in your daily routine, you will be unable to sustain the focus required for creativity in your professionals and personal life.
Plenty of research has shown that distractions cause people to take a longer time to complete a task, and it also degrades the overall quality of people’s work.
2.) Take A Break From Social Media
There are so many distractions in the world that could distract you from accomplishing a task, and social media is one of them if not properly used. Albeit, social media has a whole lot of advantages, but then when it distracts you from what you should be doing it becomes detrimental to your work/growth.
There is a time for everything. When you have a task at hand that you need to accomplish, you need to be intentional about your use of social media. It can be very addictive, but then if you desire to accomplish that task you should know what to do.
If you are in the habit of always checking Facebook or Instagram every 5 minutes, I doubt if you will accomplish something meaningful that day. Know when to take breaks from social media, this will help you in achieving a lot of progress.
3.) Get Enough Sleep
Sleep deprivation can easily disrupt concentration, not to mention other cognitive functions, such as memory and attention. Experts recommend that adults get 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Depriving your sleep on several occasions may not cause too many problems for you, but regularly failing to get a proper night’s sleep can affect your concentration span and performance at work or on a task.
Sleep is very important in life because it helps rejuvenate the body and prepares your mind for the next task at hand. Don’t think you are doing yourself a favor when you stay up all night to accomplish a task. Lack of proper sleep can make you tired always which slows down your reflexes and affect your ability to drive or do other daily tasks.
4.) Take A Break
You might ask how can taking a break from a task increase concentration? Researchers have found that taking breaks by shifting your attention elsewhere can dramatically improve focus. Maybe you have stayed so long on a task that your focus begins to wander away and starts breaking down, making it difficult for you to devote your mental resources to that task.
When you find yourself in this situation, it is okay to give yourself an occasional mental break. Shift your attention to something unrelated, take a walk outside or take a drink for few moments. When you get back to that task, you will be surprised that you will be more motivated, focused, and even more creative. Breaks can help boost these functions and more.
5.) Quit Multitasking
One proven way to lose focus is when you Multitask. Your attention is divided on a whole lot of things going on. Juggling multiple tasks at once can dramatically affect productivity which makes it much harder to focus on the fully important details.
Why it might seem like you are getting a whole lot of work done, don’t get surprised if the task is done haphazardly, because you failed to give the required attention to a given task. Quit multitasking, rather give your rapt attention to one thing in other to get effective results. Part of improving your mental focus is all about making the most of the resources you have available.
6.) Be Mindful
Often, our mind tends to wander away from the task at hand. This is a natural phenomenon that happens to everybody. Distracted thinking is very common. However, if not properly handled, can make it hard for you to focus on the task at hand.
Being mindful has to do with maintaining moment-to-moment awareness of where you are and what you are doing. By being mindful, you recognize when your attention starts to drift, then you bring back your focus to where it needs to be.
