Are you ready to be more productive? How does working with distractions help you focus more?
In Attention Span, Gloria Mark acknowledges that even though many external factors shape our behavior, we still retain some ability to choose how we act. You just need to learn how to take back most of the brainpower you use to concentrate.
Read more to learn how to increase your concentration power, including when to surrender to distractions.
Take the Power (Mostly) Back
Given all the ways modern technology hijacks your attention, is trying to control your focus a lost cause? Not at all. The first step in increasing concentration power is to become mindful of the internal and external factors that distract you. Then, learn to moderate your responses so that you’re less reactive to distraction’s tug and pull.
(Shortform note: Mark’s advice to be mindful of the urges that distract you takes practice, and mindfulness meditation may serve as a useful first step. In Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana defines mindfulness as the ability to listen to your thoughts without being caught up in them. He argues that through meditation, you can learn to control your mind and rob the impulses that distract you of their power. There are many approaches to meditation you can use, for which Shortform’s Master Guide to Choosing a Meditation Practice provides a starting point.)
Mark explains that when you concentrate, your attention is goal-oriented, but the impulses that distract you aren’t, meaning they come from different areas of the brain. Concentrating on a task physiologically changes sections of the brain, but only temporarily. When those changes fade, your ability to concentrate wears thin and you grow vulnerable to instinctive reactions, such as responding to social media notifications or giving in to the urge to snack instead of work. Mark says that it isn’t practical to fight your brain’s instincts indefinitely, and trying to do so can only lead to stress.
(Shortform note: Neuroscience suggests that Mark is right to say that you can’t always overcome your instincts. In A Thousand Brains, Jeff Hawkins argues that you have far less conscious control than you know. He explains that the brain’s neocortex, the seat of higher cognition and conscious thought, is composed of 150,000 “cortical columns” that each act as a mini-brain. The individual columns receive inputs, create mental models, and through a process akin to voting, arrive at a consensus about what you should do. Therefore, any time you have a conscious thought, it’s already been voted upon by tens of thousands of unconscious mini-brains.)
Work With Distraction, Not Against It
Instead of trying to control your every impulse, you should try to become more aware of your attentional state and your energy level so you can harness the dynamic nature of your attention and keep your self-control from slipping away entirely. For instance, Mark suggests finding logical stopping points in tasks that require steady concentration. If you schedule time to step away from a project so you can check your email or chat with a colleague, then you can minimize the wear and tear on your brain of trying to do several things at once. Another way to free up mental resources is to jot down details of things you leave unfinished so that they don’t live rent-free in your head and distract you from other priorities.
Find the Balance
Most of all, Mark disputes the idea that constant productivity is a worthy goal. Instead, she advocates a balance between periods of deep concentration, more “mechanical” tasks, and breaks to let your mind recharge. To achieve this, she recommends practicing three skills: self-awareness, planning your time, and self-moderation.
Self-Awareness
To begin with, Mark suggests that you learn your mind’s natural rhythm—when does your ability to concentrate go up and down throughout the day? This is different for each person, despite what our assigned work schedules might suggest. Some people concentrate best in the morning, while others find it easiest later in the day or at night. Also, which weekday it is makes a difference—some of us are more productive on Monday, while others need several days to ramp up. Once you figure out your personal rhythm, you’ll be able to schedule your high-concentration projects for the times when you have the most energy to spend.
However, Mark also suggests that you take the time to consciously observe your daily activities and ask how important they are. Are you wasting time on things that don’t contribute to your overall goals? Do you gain something from your time on social media, or do you simply check it out of habit? You may find that some of the “mindless” things you do bring you joy and replenish your energy, while some of the “important” things you do aren’t providing a return on your mental investment.
Planning
Mark writes that once you’ve figured out the patterns of your concentration and decided which tasks are most productive, you can design your day to optimize your cognitive resources instead of just scheduling tasks. This includes incorporating “downtime”—periods of rest or easy activities that help replenish your mental capacity. For instance, if your plan includes spending two hours working on an urgent report, perhaps schedule a long lunch or a walk in the park immediately after instead of planning to plow straight ahead into a meeting or a huge stack of emails.
Mark also stresses that when planning your day, you should consider the emotional impact of your to-do list. While some tasks are uplifting, others can bring you down, even if they don’t require a lot of mental energy. For instance, if you have to make a brief but unpleasant phone call, schedule a pleasant reset before your next assignment. In other words, don’t just think about what you want to accomplish for the day—plan for how you want to feel at the end of it. You’ll be able to maintain your attention better if you strategically intersperse things you like to do around the things you dread.
Self-Moderation
The final piece to the puzzle of taking control of your attention is to learn how to gently steer yourself back when you’ve lost focus. While there are digital apps that can help, such as programs that limit internet access or timers that restrict your email usage, Mark is leery of these since they’re a crutch that prevents you from learning real self-control. Instead, she recommends learning to resist your urges to switch from task to task by reminding yourself how much better you feel when you see things through to completion.
Mark also suggests that you can plant triggers to bring you out of distracting behaviors. For instance, if you plan to take a break by playing games on your phone, you can schedule it for 10 minutes before you have to leave for an important meeting. That way, you still get the recharge from relaxing without being lured into the endless, wasteful spiral of “one more minute on this game.” In other words, if you plan time to recharge, build an on-ramp back into your schedule to help you fight the urge to be unproductive.
In conclusion, Mark emphasizes that while you can’t remove every distraction, you can engage your limited attention more wisely. Computers, the internet, and smartphones aren’t going away, and though they were intended to enhance our capabilities, they often exhaust and distract us instead. Nevertheless, Mark insists that we’re still at the dawn of the digital age, and she’s optimistic that we still have the power to shape it. Suppose you take back the power to direct your attention and balance your overall cognitive load as you navigate the digital world. In that case, you can lead a mentally healthier life without sacrificing productivity and creativity.
