Art Of Concentration In The Age Of Distraction Free Pdf Download

The effectiveness of your study time is only as good as your ability to focus and concentrate while studying. Choosing a quality study environment, decreasing any internal or external distractions, and limiting your multitasking can help make your study time even more productive and effective.

The environment you study in can have a huge impact on your ability to concentrate, and choosing an environment conducive to concentration is a proactive step towards monitoring possible distractions. Consider the following factors when evaluating a potential study location:

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If you find that your go-to study space isn't actually all that helpful for your concentration, consider these other options, and keep checking in with yourself: are you able to focus, or are you getting easily distracted?

To minimize this energy suck, and to make the most of your study time, do what you can to remove your external distractions. Take time to recognize what those distraction triggers are for you, and then take action to remove them from your workspace. Shut off those alerts. Turn your phone to do not disturb mode. Let your friends know that you'll be working and unable to reply until the time that you're finished.

For your internal distractions, consider having a piece of paper nearby for you to jot things down. If you're worried you'll forget, make a note so you don't. If you can't stop thinking about something that's happened, maybe take a break to walk around, or write about it, or do something to help lessen its presence in your head. And don't forget to have snacks and water. Learning is hard work, and you need to feed your brain.

When it comes to studying, multitasking is ineffective, and a myth. While it may seem like multitasking would be a good thing, research has shown that people who are multitasking are actually not doing two things at the same time. Instead, they're switching back and forth quickly between tasks. The result is that performance on both tasks suffers, and those who do this task-switching are less likely to remember information later on (Dzubak, 2008). While there may be other areas of our lives where multitasking is useful, studying and problem solving are not one of these. Learning and mastery require deep concentration, and the interruptions and distractions that come from trying to do more than one thing at once make it harder to focus and decrease your chances of recalling that information later.

What's your typical study session look like? Check out the ideal study session below, and then consider the tips that come afterwards. What are you already doing to increase your concentration, and what do you want to try?

In this article, we outline our view of how concentration shields against distraction. We argue that higher levels of concentration make people less susceptible to distraction for two reasons. One reason is that the undesired processing of the background environment is reduced. For example, when people play a difficult video game, as opposed to an easy game, they are less likely to notice what people in the background are saying. The other reason is that the locus of attention becomes more steadfast. For example, when people are watching an entertaining episode of their favorite television series, as opposed to a less absorbing show, attention is less likely to be diverted away from the screen by a ringing telephone. The theoretical underpinnings of this perspective, and potential implications for applied settings, are addressed.

This study compared the effects of suppression, focused-distraction, and concentration on controlling unwanted distressing thoughts, and examined how anxiety levels were associated with the use of each thought-control technique. In the study, college students were told to suppress thoughts about a distressing story, to suppress the same thoughts by focusing on an alternative distraction task, to simply concentrate on that alternative task, or to think about anything without restrictions for 6minutes. This initial period was followed by a "free-thinking" period to assess the delayed effect of thought-control techniques. The results indicated that focused-distraction and concentration led to fewer intrusions of target thoughts than suppression, and concentration in turn resulted in fewer target intrusions than focused-distraction during the initial period. Participants in the focused-distraction and concentration condition also tended to report lower anxiety during the initial period than those who were told to suppress thoughts.

It is also important to know when we study best. Many students are most efficient studying in the morning when they are fresh. Studying late in the day may be the only option for some students but often we are tired at the end of the day, and this can have a major effect on study efficiency. Figuring out where and when we study best may take some time. And even when we find the best place and time to study, we also have to be aware of distractions, which can be internal or external.

Keep in mind that it may take 20 minutes to reach a high level of concentration. When we are interrupted, it takes on average another 23 minutes to get back to the level of concentration that we were at prior to the disruption.[1] If a student is studying for an hour and is interrupted twice, the consequence to study efficiency is devastating.

One way to try to monitor how many interruptions you incur and how well you maintain your level of concentration is to keep track of it. Take a blank piece of paper when you are studying and mark down each time you were interrupted.

How am I to interpret this? I haven't found anything online, or in any of the books I checked, is there even a right way to handle this? I haven't seen a similar effect anywhere, so what should I generally interpret as a severe distraction?

Windows offers lots of ways to minimize distractions so it's easier to focus on tasks. You can declutter your taskbar and simplify the Start menu, use Focus assist to manage your notifications, and use the Immersive Reader to minimize visual distractions when reading a web page in Microsoft Edge.

By the time you reach maturity, the neural networks that govern cognitive control have been well honed. Years of learning and experience have conditioned your brain to discriminate between important information and distractions. In theory, your capacity for focus and concentration should be at its best.

In many ways, our ever-present smartphones inhibit the ability to remain focused on a task. The most obvious distractions are the alerts that come from the phone itself. Simply hearing the sound or feeling the vibration provides enough distraction to interfere with a task, even if you don't take time to view the message. Once you've engaged with the phone, such as to answer a call, it's easy to let your attention drift to other phone-related activities, such as answering email. Icons, bright colors, and catchy tunes heighten the attraction of these apps and enhance their ability to draw focus away from other tasks.

According to a 2018 survey by the technology company Asurion, Americans check their mobile phones an average of 80 times a day; the highest users surveyed topped 300 daily checks. But each time we interrupt something we were doing to check our phones, we break our concentration and have to start over.

In addition to the distraction factor inherent in media use, exposure to blue light emitted by phone, tablet, and computer screens can produce insomnia. A 2017 study published in the journal Chronobiology International, involving young adults in their 20s, showed that blue-light exposure before bed cut down sleep time by roughly 16 minutes. Blue-light exposure also reduced the body's production of melatonin, a hormone that is connected with normal sleep cycles.

To learn more about ways to live with everyday and abnormal distractions, read Improving Concentration and Focus from Harvard Medical School.

We live in an interruption-based culture that can be damaging to productivity. Most of the time, notifications from electronic devices only add to the distraction. In fact, many people are so used to getting interrupted at work that when they don't, they actually go looking for one. Distraction and constant multitasking can actually hurt small-business owners' performance.

Proactively checking for information may keep you from having it interrupt a concentrated work flow. You may want to turn off all notifications from smartphones and desktops applications. Consider checking email only four times per day and handling each inquiry only once. Controlling your devices, and not having that technology control you, may help reduce distractions and increase your focus.

There is conflicting evidence on whether music can improve concentration while studying. A 2021 article suggests that many factors may contribute to whether music improves focus when studying or completing certain tasks.

A 2017 research article suggests that the tempo and intensity of the music people listen to may affect studying. Other observations in this article about the impact of music on concentration include the following:

Perhaps the most well known study on concentration is a longitudinal study conducted with over 1,000 children in New Zealand by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, psychology and neuroscience professors at Duke University. The study tested children born in 1972 and 1973 regularly for eight years, measuring their ability to pay attention and to ignore distractions. Then, the researchers tracked those same children down at the age of 32 to see how well they fared in life. The ability to concentrate was the strongest predictor of success.

Juggling multiple projects and deadlines at school can be stressful. When you're working on one assignment, it's easy to forget about another. You can help organize your deadlines and manage your time more efficiently with a proper schedule. Figure out when you're most productive and set time aside for homework and activities. Keeping a planner or digital calendar will help you keep track of your classes and assignments. Paper planners are perfect for those who like writing to-do lists and scheduling appointments by hand. One study suggests that the simple act of writing things out helps boost your concentration and memory. 2351a5e196