How Can I Pay Better Attention when I Work or Study?

People often ask, “How can I pay better attention to my work, reading or studying?”

Others ask, “How can I pay better attention when talking with people, learning a new skill, or driving a car?”

Some people ask, “How can I improve my attention? What do I have to do to increase my attention?”

Most people find it difficult to focus on one single thought or activity for more than a few moments, sometimes even seconds. This means that their attention span is short. Why the attention span is short can be a good idea for another article.

It is frustrating when you keep making mistakes, missing parts of the conversation or lecture, or not remembering a name of a person you have been introduced to, because your mind was somewhere else.

Sometimes, you might get mad about yourself, because you made some silly errors, due to not being attentive enough.

Do you sometimes ask yourself:

• “What can I do to improve my focus?”
• “What can I do to pay better attention to my work?”
• “How to fix my mind on my homework or book keep it there?”
• “What can I do to pay more attention to people, details, or instructions?”

Nowadays, the attention span of most people is very short, and it is not getting better. Years ago, information about anything was not so within reach as today. People could not access a lot of information as it is now, and therefore, their lives were simpler.

Now, with the information overload due to the Internet, people have become very impatient. They move fast from one item of information to another, hardly paying attention to what they read, see or hear.

This behavior weakens the attention span and the concentration, and spoils the ability to pay attention to details.

Is there a way to learn to improve the attention?

Yes, there are ways to do that. However, this requires some action on your part. Below you will find a few tips on how improve your attention skill.

How to Pay Better Attention – 10 Tips

I would like to offer you here, a few tips on how to improve your attention and pay better attention to anything that you do.

1. When doing something important that requires your full attention, switch off your phone or mute it. If you want to pay attention to the road when driving, take part in a conversation, or carry out a task, you need to avoid any sort of distraction, and your phone is one of the main distractions.

2. Is there the room where you are well ventilated? Is it too warm or too cold? These factors affect how attentive you are.

3. Get enough sleep at night. After a good night’s sleep you are calmer and more relaxed, and this helps you better pay attention.

4. Do anything you can to relieve stress and tension. Breathing exercises, relaxing your body, exercising your body or meditation are very helpful.

5. Declutter your room and your table. When there is clutter around you, it becomes more difficult to fix the attention, since it will constantly wander to the objects in your room and on your table.

6. When in conversation, look at the person with whom you are talking and show interest in him or her. Don’t let the conversation constantly revolve around you.

7. Many keep the TV noisy in the background when reading, studying or conversing, and while doing work at home.

There are people, who play loud music no matter what they might be doing.

The TV and the music do not allow you to pay full attention to what you are doing. It would be very helpful if you switch off your TV or music when you need to be attentive.

8. Always, try to do one thing at a time. Avoid doing one thing, while at the same time thinking of something else. This splits your concentration and weakens it.

9. Acknowledge that there are always distractions that divert your attention away from what you are doing.

The “secret” is not to fight them, because it would only make you more distracted, tensed and stressed. The secret is to keep calm, and strive to bring your attention back, whenever you notice that it is drifting away.

This might be a long process, but the effort is worthwhile.

10. If you wish to have a better control of your attention and focus, and truly improve your concentration ability, I would recommend learning and practicing concentration exercises, as taught in my book, “How to Focus Your Mind”.