10 Ways to Increase Your Ability to Concentrate

Ask a student what concentration really means during his board examinations. In that description you would find concentration being continually related to an inaccessible virtue. As per the student it would be next to impossible to attain perfected concentration. However that would be just an exaggerated version of concentration. Being able to maintain one’s concentration is not that hard as it seems to be. Maybe it is the importance and ultra-significance attached to it that makes it seem all the more complex. It is not just the woeful story of a student, but also that of every working person. Read the following easy to adopt and practice tips. Come to your own rescue.

Sleep is a regular enemy

It is often seen that feeling sleepy becomes the greatest enemy whenever you try to focus on something important. Strangely it is only in those specific hours that demand our attention, when we end up feeling all drained and tiresome. It is high time to kick off that habit before it costs you your career. Help yourself to a cup of coffee or tea as and when you find yourself struggling to invest all the concentration in something. It awakens you for good and makes you more able to invest every bit of your mind.

Fix a time

Fixing a time would solve half of your concentration issues. Fix up a time in the day for the works that demand your maximum attention. Allot significant time slots to each of those tasks. Doing so, you would become able to concentrate on one thing at a time. As and when this develops into a habit, you would find that it is a much easier and organized way to function. This is absolutely what you need to do first; bring about proper time management in your life. As for the concentration part, it comes along the package and would eventually follow.

Say no to multi-tasking

If you have befriended the art of multitasking and seem to be very proud about it, then here is an eye opener for you. Multi-tasking might be doing good to you as of now but will not always in the long run. Eventually you would see for yourself that the ability to concentrate and multi task do not go hand in hand. Sooner or later it would be realized that how fatal it can be. Late as they say is always better than never. Mend your choices as soon as possible.

Give in to distraction

This surely would have taken you by surprise. Yes, you are being advised to give in to distractions. Give in to those distractions which are keeping you from concentrating and hence acting as a hindrance. While trying to concentrate, it is natural for thousands of irrelevant things to pop up into your head. Those things could range from settling a dispute with a love one, catching on the favourite sitcom, going for a burger and so on and so forth. Attend to those thoughts.

The more you try to push those aside, the more they would keep on coming back to you. And with each return, the level of hindrance would just keep on increasing. So, why waste time trying to tackle those thoughts. Only when you attend to those thoughts would you be able to gain back the control of your mind and use it the way you want. Adopt this technique and it would help you with your issues of concentrating.

Meditation

There are some thoughts that cannot be attended to. If and when attended they might turn out to elicit a very painful feeling. It is thereby always advisable to be done away with such thoughts. Having negative and apprehensive thoughts is nothing peculiar given the complex lives we are leading. It can be very tiresome and challenging when being bothered by debilitating thoughts at times when you need to be focused. For avoiding unsettling moments like those you can turn towards meditation. Practice meditation in a relaxed squatted position every day. It would bring you peace and silence the surge of negativities rising in your mind. You will then have all the energy required to be able to concentrate on anything and everything that you want to.

Take little breaks

Sitting for hours in front of the book or the computer screen isn’t a reflector of your concentrating abilities. They just show that you are pushing yourself too hard. Remember even your mobile phones need to be charged every now and then. The same applies for you too. Take a little break every 45 minutes or one hour. Not only would it energise you but also freshen you up as well as relieve your body of the strain of having sat in the same position for hours. You certainly cannot ignore the fact that human body is a machine too. It needs to be taken care of in order to function efficiently.

Set goals or targets

Working without a motive is like deciding to take a long drive without a fixed destination. Either way you are bound to be lost. It is always better to fix a goal before you start on something. Determine what you expect out of the task undertaken. This would compel you to focus all your attention on achieving the target or the goal. Hence you would be enhancing your concentrative powers.

Pay attention to details

Many times we tend to skip the details of something. All that we pay attention to is the things obvious on the surface of the matter. Take a step ahead. Delve into the details of the task that you have to complete. Once you set your foot in the intricacies of the subject you would find yourself captivated. It is this captivation that is needed desperately for you to be able to concentrate. It is only when we understand something in totality that we get to comprehend it. There would be no question of your concentration being diverged once you are knee deep in it.

Decide on your environment

It is not easy to read for an exam in a busy metro and that too while standing. It is pretty obvious hence that you need to pre-decide on your location where you need to concentrate on something rather important. It becomes necessary to pre-decide so that you don’t become panic stricken in the last few hours before the big test or a big presentation. Choose a place where you are on your own and get a chance to work in solace.

Eat and sleep well

It is natural to feel lazy at some times of the day. It is here that coffee and tea can come to rescue. But that does not imply that you start cutting short on your sleeping hours. Eventually doing so repeatedly will take a toll on your health. If you need to concentrate effectively then you need to be fresh and energized. This can happen only if you take care of your sleeping and dietary habits.

It is easy and difficult at the same time to enhance one’s ability to concentrate. But the good part is that it is definitely not impossible.

Source: listaka.com