Practical ways to regain your attention span
We're more unfocused than ever, but we don't have to be.
When was the last time you watched a tv show without picking up your phone in the middle of the episode? Or even in the first 15 minutes? Do you struggle to read more than a chapter at a time? A page? Is getting through an entire article sometimes a slog?
You’re not alone. Our attention spans are worsening and worsening. We are more easily distracted than ever. One major factor? Our smartphones. If you haven’t read Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, I urge you to pick it up. It will open your eyes to the abnormality that has become our reality.
This isn’t an essay about how we lost our attention spans, though, this is a conversation about how we get them back. You can focus again, you can retrain your brain to see what’s right smack dab in front of you.
You won’t see a change overnight, but if you put in the work, over time you’ll be able to regain your ability to focus once again.
Reduce distractions
Our attention spans have worsened because of the sheer amount of things competing for them. To start focusing again, you first have to clear some space in your life.
Clutter
Start by eliminating physical clutter in your spaces. Ask yourself what you really need in your life. Be brutal. If you haven’t touched it in months, you don’t need it . If you use it once monthly, find a better spot for it. You don’t have to be a clean freak, but clutter and mess can be a huge distraction.
Routine
Tinker with a routine and time blocking that can work for you. I use to scoff at routine, but on the days that I skirt my schedule, I am infinitely more likely to get distracted by pointless activities. You don’t have to be rigid, there should be some looseness in your day (we all need some spontaneity!). My routine is less of a schedule and more of a flow or a series of events that I do every day. It’s a bit like habit stacking, but it’s daily.
Quit multitasking:
The 2010’s told us that multitasking was a superpower, meanwhile it was slowly making us worse at the tasks that we were taking on. Notice when you’re doing two things at once (emailing in the middle of a meeting, for example). Try to pause and only focus on one of those things. Over time, doing this over and over will become your new norm.
Rethink social media
If you spend more than an hour a day on social media, I urge you to consider eliminating it or seriously cutting back. Scrolling endlessly is terrible for your attention span — you’re seeing a new video, sometimes, every second as you look for one that piques your interest. When you finally land on one you watch, it’s only ten seconds long. This is training your attention span in the wrong direction. There are better forms of entertainment.
Eliminate notifications
Turn off your notifications. Seriously. Keeping senseless notifications on is one of the biggest attacks on your attention span. Narrow any notifications down to the truly important (ideally only phone calls). Take advantage of Do Not Disturb. It’s your time and attention, protect it.
Practice training your brain
Doing one thing at a time isn’t our norm in today’s society. We’ve over indexed on multitasking, we are always in two or three places at once. Even when spending time with friends — it’s not abnormal to see a group of people hanging out together while also scrolling on their phones. We need to shift our attention back to one thing at a time, but it takes practice.
Read
Read, read, read. Go to your library, and make a pile of books that you want to read. It can be fiction, non-fiction, biographies, cookbooks — whatever gets you excited. If you haven’t read in a long time, start small — maybe 10 pages. Then work your way up to 20, 30, 50 pages at a time. As long as the content is something you enjoy, this will eventually become easy.
Puzzles
Put your phone away, and start a puzzle. You can do this with friends and family or just as a solo activity. You’re exercising your brain! You’re making something!
Word games
These are another fun way to just practice focusing. It could be crosswords or sudoku or anything you enjoy. Playing physical games will be infinitely better than playing on your phone (too many temptations into distraction), so see if you can pick up a new word game book at the store this week.
Walk without your phone
Go for a walk and just observe the world around you. Don’t listen to music, don’t take pictures even, just walk and listen and let your mind wander. Notice how the landscape around you changes from day to day. We live in a beautiful world, be a witness to it.
Listen to music or audiobooks
This has been my biggest challenge, but try listening to music or audiobooks without doing anything else. Just lay in your bed and breathe, or look out the window and observe nature. We are so use to having something physical in our hands that just allowing the art to come to you can be such a gift.
New hobby
Pick up a hobby that requires your full attention. This could be a simple as knitting (you can’t knit and scroll) or something more complex like learning a new instrument or how to build a piece of furniture. Your options are endless.
Our attention is fading, but it doesn’t have to. We have the ability to refocus on what’s important. Just like anything important in our life, though, we have to put in the work. Your attention won’t just reappear one day, but that doesn’t mean it’s long gone. You can get it back again. You can start seeing the world again, sharp and beautiful as it is.
Needed to read this today.
Love this, thank you! I'm curious, do you ever do podcast interviews?