How to Get Your Brain to Focus

I started to notice some unsettling things about my own behaviour a few years back. And with that, my life became a sequence of screens from the moment I woke up till the end of the day. I began the day with my phone, which is what got me out of bed in the first place. I sat in bed, watching different food videos on Instagram and switching between a number of different apps. However, when it was time to get out of bed and prepare breakfast, I turned my attention to the iPad that was sitting next to the oven in addition to the omelette that was cooking.

When it came time to get to work. I moved to another screen that was mounted on top of another screen. While I was attempting to get vital things done, this tiny demon on my wrist kept tapping, beeping, and blooping, distracting me. Out of all these many devices, though, there was one that I wasted more time on than any other. That was my phone, that evil device. I could work on this stuff for hours every day. I therefore made the decition to, well, basically throw the item away for a month.

I thought, "I'm going to live on this thing for just 30 minutes at most, every single day," as an experiment. This is the amount of time I have available for maps, phone calls to my mother, and any other activity I could want to perform. I also noticed several events that occurred within this period, such as listening to podcasts or music. It took me around a week to acclimatise to a new, lower level of stimulation, but once I did, I saw the occurrence of three intriguing occurrences.

My attention span first increased. It was as though, compared to before this experiment began, I could focus on things considerably more easily, if not effortlessly. In addition to this, though, my mind came up with more ideas as I was exploring the world, particularly when it roamed a little. On top of this, I also had more goals and thoughts for the future. These three outcomes resulted from the removal of one basic device.

How come? I began this extensive journey to understand what it takes to focus in a world of distraction after realising this a few years ago. At my workplace, I went through hundreds of study papers, cover to cover. I'm not sure whether you've ever watched a crime drama where the focus is on solving a murder. They have a large Bristol board with string tied to documents, notes, newspaper clippings, and other items; it looks exactly how my workplace used to. I took a plane to visit with specialists who study focus from all around the world.

How come? I began this extensive journey to understand what it takes to focus in a world of distraction after realising this a few years ago. At my workplace, I went through hundreds of study papers, cover to cover. I'm not sure whether you've ever watched a crime drama where the focus is on solving a murder. They have a large Bristol board with string tied to documents, notes, newspaper clippings, and other items; it looks exactly how my workplace used to. I took a plane to visit with specialists who study focus from all around the world. I kept testing myself until I had 25,000 words of research notes explaining why this is the case.

What effects does technology have on our capacity for focus and attention? I'd want to start by talking about our attention spans. This is how we observe the environment around us and how much attention control we possess. This specific field of study is the subject of fascinating investigation. It turns out that when we work in front of a computer, especially with our phone close by, we only focus on one task for forty seconds before moving on to the next. This decreases to thirty-five seconds when we have Slack open while.

Our overstimulated brains are the cause of our distraction. The reason is that we are naturally drawn to distractions. Our brains are addicted to these little informational morsels, which we obtain via social media, emails, and other daily activities.

Our minds even include a mechanism known as the "novelty bias," which allows us to be rewarded with a hit of dopamine, one of those amazing pleasure chemicals. We receive the same hit of dopamine when we order an entire medium pizza from Domino's, eat, and make love. When we check Facebook, we experience the same stimulation. Dopamine starts to flow across our minds.

Therefore, our mind rewards us for first seeking out and locating diversion, in addition to the fact that we crave it. Thus, this is how we currently think.

We are oscillating between a wide variety of highly exciting objects of attention because we are in a hyperstimulated condition.