Maintaining Focus
What is focus?
Focus means controlling one’s attention. It is the ability to concentrate on one subject, object, or thought, and at the same time exclude from the mind every other unrelated thought, idea, feeling, and sensation. Strategies to improve your ability to focus depend on the type of issue you are facing. In this article, we will cover different tailored strategies for dealing with each of these focus issues.
Maintaining Focus When Activities Are Competing For Your Time
A common cause for our inability to maintain focus is having distractions from other activities. These activities can include a job, an overly active social life, athletics, or student organizations.
Typically the root issue here is a lack of proper balance between your academic commitments and your other activities. To resolve this, you need to develop a daily plan. Check out the topic Time Management to see a step-by-step on how to do that.
Here are some additional suggestions:
Limit participating in other activities until you have finished your academic activities
Change the venue and time when you work. When you separate yourself from distractions, you’ll be surprised how much your focus will improve.
Find an accountability partner to who you can report. This will be someone who can keep you honest and help you keep a commitment. Your accountability partner should be someone you look up to and don’t want to disappoint.
Do an honest assessment of what you are getting from the other activities. You might find that they aren’t that important. Or you may find that some other activity would be more worthwhile.
If the activity is a job, learn to say no to your boss. Employers will often try to add hours to your schedule and you need to be honest about your time commitment and boundaries. If need be, look for another job.
Campus organizations can function just like a job. If the organization is consuming a lot of your time, look for others to help. If you are the only one who can be counted on, then the organization is probably unfit for you.
If your focus challenge is athletics, remember that you are first and foremost a student. Think of athletics as the vehicle to get to the career you want, but it shouldn’t take away your focus and result in losing your future career. You will need to schedule classes around practice. Your most important resource is an academic advisor who really knows your major/coursework. You must also have a designated study period every day. If you are struggling with a course, don’t be too proud to get help. If something negative happens during games or practice, it is important that you try to leave these feelings behind when you leave the sports facilities to maintain focus.
You will have a sense of personal pride when you are able to focus. Those who lose focus often become very upset when they realize how much time and investment they are wasting. Once you regain your focus, it’s something that you will really want to keep.
Maintaining Focus When Personal Challenges Arise
Many students face personal challenges that can include family problems, relationship challenges, financial difficulties, or personal health problems. These challenges can be especially difficult to face. Some tips include:
Have someone you can talk to. This person could be a counselor in a campus counseling center, a supportive professor or advisor, a faith-based professional, a friend, or a family member. Sometimes just talking out your issues can be a way of putting aside your problems long enough for you to focus on your academic work.
Write down your thoughts. Often just putting down on paper what you are thinking can be a release. This may allow you to return your focus to what you need to do.
Distance yourself from the personal challenge if possible. What you don’t want to do is to get sucked into issues involving others. (e.g. parents divorcing)
When your focus is challenged by something serious involving a loved one (e.g. death of a family member, loved one, or close friend, or a serious illness of someone close to you), you need to realize that the best way for you to support them is to do your best in school. This is a time to dedicate yourself to making them proud. Most people who have gone through a tough life challenge will tell you it helped strengthen their resolve and made them more focused.
If you are struggling with your personal health, let your teachers know. In most cases, they will be supportive. You may need to adjust your schedule and develop a new routine for studying. What you don’t want to do is to ignore the health issue. Also, you need to keep the health issue from becoming a crutch that you use as an excuse for lack of focus.
No matter what the challenge is think about the lessons you will learn about yourself in working through the challenges. Keeping focus when under immense pressure is a leadership skill no matter what career field you select.
Maintaining Focus When Dealing With Learning Disorders
Some people's lack of focus stems from a psychiatric condition such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit – Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Should either ADD or ADHD be relevant in your case, there are some things you can do to maintain your focus.
Get tested if you think you have a condition. Many campuses will have a testing service to help you with this.
If a medication is prescribed, be disciplined in taking your medicine. Often students will go off of their medicine because they don’t like how they feel when they take it. If you stop taking your medicine, you are very likely to see your grades plummet.
Check with your campus Disability Services Office and see if you can get accommodations. On many campuses, you can get extra support if you have ADD or ADHD.
Don’t make your condition an excuse. You need to be extra vigilant about doing the little things that help you maintain focus.
Maintaining Focus When Dealing With Lack of Motivation
There are some students who have a problem with focus because they dislike their courses, they think the courses are too hard, or they think they are in the wrong major. As a result, they do not put in the necessary effort.
If you are in this category, think about the following suggestions:
Be honest about your situation. Often students will use one of the excuses above for bad grades when the reality is they are just not committed to the work required.
Don’t dig yourself a hole you can’t get out of. If you perform poorly in classes in one of your early college semesters, you could easily lose your financial aid or scholarships. Even if you don’t like the courses, you still need to perform well in them.
Use the challenge you face as a way to test yourself. There will never be a time when you are 100% happy with everything you are doing. But you need to do as well in these cases, as you do when you are excited about what you are doing.
Look at your current situation to determine what you want to do. Think about what you don’t like about your courses. That should lead you to discover what you might like better.
Find people to study with who you enjoy. You might not like the subject, but the subject will become more acceptable by your working with others.
Additional General Tips:
If your lack of focus is stemming from the use of devices, texts, calls, or social media apps you need to eliminate that distraction. Close social media and other apps, silence notifications, and keep your phone hidden from sight in a bag or backpack. Your primary focus is to complete what you need to do.
Reduce multitasking. Performing multiple tasks at the same time makes us feel productive but it leads to lower focus, poor concentration, and lower productivity.
Practice mindfulness and meditation. Meditating or practicing mindfulness activities can strengthen well-being and mental fitness and improve focus.
Get enough sleep. Make sure you leave plenty of time for sleep and set a time to be in bed. Sleeping is key to success. It not only helps you feel rested, but it also helps you be more focused.
Choose to focus on the moment. Make an effort to let go of past events. Acknowledge the impact, what you felt, and what you learned from it, then let it go. Similarly, acknowledge your concerns about the future, consider how you are experiencing that anxiety in your body, then choose to let it go. We want to train ourselves to focus on the details of what matters at the moment. Our minds go in the direction we choose to focus.
Take a short break. When you focus on something for a long time, your focus may begin to decrease. Researchers have found that our brains ignore sources of constant stimulation. Taking small breaks can dramatically improve concentration. A break can be as simple as moving around, talking to someone, or even switching to a different type of task. You will come back with a more focused mind to keep your performance high.
Connect with nature. Research has found that even having plants in office spaces can help increase concentration and productivity. Finding time to take a walk in the park or appreciating the plants or flowers in your garden can boost your concentration and help you feel refreshed.
Exercise. Start your day with simple exercise and get your body moving. Regular exercise releases chemicals that are key for memory, concentration, and mental sharpness.
Listen to music. Music has been shown to have therapeutic effects on our brains. Light music may help you to concentrate better, but some music may distract you. Classical music and nature sounds, such as water flowing, are good choices for concentration while music with lyrics and human voices may be distracting.
Eat well. Choose foods that moderate blood sugar, maintain energy, and fuel the brain. Fruits, vegetables, and high-fiber foods can keep your blood sugar levels even. Reduce sugary foods and drinks that cause spikes and dips in your sugar levels and make you feel dizzy or drowsy.
Set a daily priority. Write down what you want to accomplish each day, ideally the night before, and identify a single priority that you commit to accomplishing. This will help focus your brain on what matters, tackling the big jobs first and leaving the small stuff till later. Break large tasks into smaller bytes so that you will not be overwhelmed. Identifying true priorities can help relieve distracting anxiety, and achieving small daily goals can wire your brain to achieve success.
Create space for work. Create a calm, dedicated space for work that is free of clutter. An area with no noise or minimal noise is ideal and good lighting can help.
Set goals. If your lack of focus is a result of feeling overwhelmed by a task, try breaking it down into smaller parts. When you take a large, complex project and break it down into smaller tasks, you can boost your ability to concentrate and focus on specific tasks. To learn more about setting goals check out this ARTICLE.
Make a planner and to-do list. Having a written plan of action increases productivity. To learn more about how to make an effective planner and to-do list check out this ARTICLE.