by Stephanie O’Brien
In today’s distraction-packed world, it can be a challenge to focus on one task for a protracted period of time.
You’re just getting into the groove, your train of thought is leaving the station, and you’re ready to be productive… and then an email comes in, someone messages you on Facebook, or you think of something else that has to be done, and the next thing you know, you’ve lost half an hour.
Now, not only are you behind schedule, but you’re wasting even MORE time on mentally kicking yourself!
This challenge comes up a lot in my lines of work. As a novelist, artist, copywriter and coach, I have lots of fields of expertise that require prolonged periods of attention and concentration.
And as a creative type, I’m naturally prone to daydreaming.
Wandering through fictional scenarios is my mind’s natural habitat, so depending on my energy levels, it can be a challenge to buck that tendency for long enough to write a blog post, create an email for a client, or actually write a scene instead of just thinking about it.
So how do I stay on task for an hour or more at a time? As a creative daydreamer, I’ve had to come up with a few good strategies for staying mentally on track for long periods of time. Here are five things that work for me – hopefully they’ll work for you, too.
Strategy 1: Break your tasks into chunks of time.
If you can’t concentrate for an hour, don’t schedule in a block of time that lasts for an hour.
If you can’t think clearly during a certain time of day, whether it’s the evening when you’ve been working for hours, or the morning when you’re a zombie slowly shambling out of bed, don’t schedule your more challenging tasks for that time period.
Determine which tasks are the most important and mentally demanding, and schedule those in for the parts of the day when you tend to have the most mental energy.
Also, break them into manageable chunks, and schedule brief breaks between tasks, so you can rest your mind, go to the bathroom, grab a snack, and otherwise rejuvenate and be ready to concentrate on your next task.
If your attention span tends to work optimally for half an hour, schedule your tasks in chunks of half an hour.
Whatever you need to do, as much as possible, work WITH your natural mental rhythm, not against it.
Strategy #2: Close unnecessary tabs and programs.
Do your Facebook or email keep interrupting you? Unless you have good reason to believe that someone will contact you through those channels with a legitimate, time-sensitive emergency, turn them off.
Close the tab, log out, mute your notifications – whatever it takes to silence the interruption long enough for you to complete your high-priority tasks.
You can check your inbox between tasks, but if you want to get through your to-do list on time, you can’t interrupt your work every time someone wants a piece of your day. Your day belongs to you, not them – prioritize your attention accordingly!
Strategy #3: Use instrumental music.
If you’ve never tried playing beautiful instrumental music during high-concentration tasks, I highly recommend it as a way to both stay focused and make the job a lot more pleasant.
If you have an album or artist you especially enjoy listening to, it gives you something to look forward to when it’s time to start working, and the ambient sound helps to block out the distractions in your surroundings.
It helps if you choose a full album or long compilation, rather than needing to break your focus and switch songs every few minutes. Just look up “1 hour of peaceful music”, or “1 hour of (whatever mood you desire) music” on YouTube, and you should have plenty to choose from.
If you’d like a recommendation, here’s an hour-long compilation by two artists I especially enjoy.
Strategy #4: Get up and move.
If you’ve been sitting still for long enough that your butt is sore, your mind is starting to wander, or your body is beginning to feel twitchy, it’s probably time to take a two-minute break and move.
Walk around, go to the bathroom, grab a drink – or, if you’re like me and your cats are a bad influence, sprint randomly around the house a few times. (Yes, I do that. My family has learned to cross certain paths with caution in case of low-flying writers.)
Don’t let this break stretch on and on – that defeats the purpose of me writing a blog post to help you concentrate and stay on schedule.
But you’d be amazed by how much difference the occasional movement break can make in clearing your mind and keeping your body feeling good when you work in a sedentary occupation.
Strategy #5: Don’t get distracted by having been distracted.
If you realize that your mind’s been wandering and you lost a few minutes, the worst thing you can do is waste even MORE time on beating yourself up about it.
Instead, just pull yourself back to the task at hand, and keep going.
Previously titled “How to Concentrate on Your Work for Long Periods Without Getting Distracted.”
Stephanie O’Brien has been writing novels since she was twelve years old and has published three of them on Amazon’s Kindle. When she isn’t writing novels and running her marketing business, she’s usually creating comics, music videos, and fanfiction. If you’d like to get more writing tips, or to check out her books, art, and videos, you can visit her website. You can also connect with her on Facebook or on Twitter.
Do I ever need this lately! I’m good at tricking myself, too.
“It’s okay. You can go write in front of the TV.”
“But I’ll be distracted.”
“Nah. You’ll just listen to the TV and write the entire time.”
*writes about 5 words per hour*
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That’s hard for me sometimes–being an autistic person with ADD. I know, right? How’d I get this far? It’s a miracle. But I think I’m going to try the blocks of time thing. Might be helpful. Right now, my blocks of time are ten hours long. ☺️
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‘Low-flying writers’ 🙂 I find it difficult to get up once I’ve got into the mood to write. Getting into the mood? That’s altogether another thing 😉
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Stephanie, you soooo get me! Thanks for the great tips. I’m definitely going to try music during my next writing session. I’ve shared your post to help others deal with this crazy thing we call life. Thank you!
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Reblogged this on When Angels Fly.
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Instrumental music and breaking our chunks into smaller tasks help. Also, taking small breaks where you get the blood flowing by moving helps for sure. Thanks for the motivation and tips. 🙂
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The saddest part of this post is how quickly it distracted me into clicking on the title. 😦 I need help.
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I am easily distracted. When I’m disciplined, I set the kitchen timer for 40-60 minutes. When it goes off, I get up from the computer and set it for another 60 minutes. Then I have 10 minutes to be distracted before I must sit down again and go back to work. When I know I’m going to be writing all day, this keeps me focused and working, yet gives me time away from the computer.
But I have to set the timer before this works. 🙂
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So I’m ADD, for which I take Ritalin and endure hard crashes at the downturn of the twice a day dose. I’ve had to work around this at times, and figure out how to prioritize my work-tasks and writing (as I do both during my 8-hour shift as office manager, mail manager, hotel booker, and phone answerer). This is hard, especially when your coworkers start to wonder why you’re suddenly typing so much (even if it’s lunch). I realized that I needed a separate space for an hour where I could listen to intrumental/genre-specific ambient music and not worry about interruptions. I do what’s expected of me in the morning, take a piece of early afternoon in my car or cafe, and then return and steal what moments I have if it’s a quiet day. 🙂
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Soooo true! “If you realize that your mind’s been wandering and you lost a few minutes, the worst thing you can do is waste even MORE time on beating yourself up about it.”
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Good advice I needed to hear! LOL! Installed an app on my PC a couple of weeks ago to block the ‘Net. But, there’s still my cell! LOL! I’ve turned it off twice – and that was HARD to do! Never even thought about working in smaller blocks of time. Will start with that tomorrow! Thanks! 😉
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Great advice! Could really use these tips whenever I get distracted.
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Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Here’s a great post from Stephanie O’Brien on how to concentrate on your work without getting distracted from Ryan Lanz’s blog
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Great strategies! It seems distractions have been rearing their ugly heads for me much more lately and these are things I’ve done to nip it in the bud.
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Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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