Attention span & Focus

Kinetic^

Hi all,

Ok I had my work review last week and the only thing that was remotely negative was thet i need to focus more.

I admit that a goldfish has more attention span and I've absolutely no focus on what I'm doing when I'm working.

Could someone give some suggestions on how to combat this as I'm actually good at my job and if I could sort this out I'd be damn good at it.

I think this is the correct place for this post as I didn't this P.I. would have been suitable. If it's placeed wrong, apologies in advance, and sure just move it wherever it need to be.

Cheers
Keyser.

RainyDay

Try disabling your Internet access, or adding boards.ie or other favourites sites to your 'banned' list.

Kinetic^

RainyDay wrote:

Try disabling your Internet access, or adding boards.ie or other favourites sites to your 'banned' list.

I was hoping for something a little more constructive Rainy Day.

WizZard

RainyDay wrote:

Try disabling your Internet access, or adding boards.ie or other favourites sites to your 'banned' list.

Imagine the productivity increase for our employers! :eek:

RainyDay

Keyser Soze 69 wrote:

I was hoping for something a little more constructive Rainy Day.

I really wasn't being smart, but it's up to you of course.

WhiteWashMan

drink more water.
your attention span drops by over 25% with just a few % point drop in the level of hydration in your body.

and by water, i mean pure water, not coffee

Zaph0d

Keyser Soze 69 wrote:

I admit that a goldfish has more attention span and I've absolutely no focus on what I'm doing when I'm working.

Could someone give some suggestions on how to combat this as I'm actually good at my job and if I could sort this out I'd be damn good at it.

Work with someone else. It's hard to stop working when you are beside someone else sharing a task.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

leeroybrown

I rarely have time to browse the web at work but that said I have a very interesting job. I find the single best thing to keep my attention is getting some interesting/challanging work. Conversely, I've always found myself to have a very limited attention span for mundane pointless work.

My three suggestions are:

1) Eat a decent healthy breakfast
2) Keep yourself well hydrated as air conditioners really dry you out
3) If you are having trouble focusing on something try to make a list of individual smaller sub-tasks and tackle them one at a time. Once you have one done pick another and continue like that.

Cake Fiend

WhiteWashMan wrote:

drink more water

Good advice, I personally try to get a glass of water every time I go to the toilet. Which makes me go to the toilet more often, which makes me drink more water, which...

Also, the aul web browsing is a serious time and energy hog. I'd say businesses are losing millions in productivity because of access to BBs, IMs, etc. It's shocking the amount of work I get done on the occasions that boards is down in comparison to my daily output.

I try to break down stuff into blocks of one hour, or if it's heavy technical reading, half an hour to keep my energy/focus up. When the time is up, I'll walk about a bit, go to the shop, whatever (you should be doing this anyway if you work at a computer screen all day).

nesf

Sico wrote:

I try to break down stuff into blocks of one hour, or if it's heavy technical reading, half an hour to keep my energy/focus up. When the time is up, I'll walk about a bit, go to the shop, whatever (you should be doing this anyway if you work at a computer screen all day).

Definitely agree. It's a myth that you can maintain concentration levels for hours without break. If you are doing something heavily technical then you need to be taking breaks. It really isn't an option.

Though how long you can concentrate for does change from person to person. An hour is the roughly agreed standard (I think it's closer to 40-50 minutes or sth).

RicardoSmith

Personally I need to get a decent nights sleep. Makes a big difference to how productive I am. I also work better if I'm listening to music, especially my walkman as it stops me getting distracted from all around me. I don't listen to my fav bands but usually some chillout music or stuff like that. Depends what you are doing of course.

Duckjob

Personally I find making a task list (nothing fancy, just in Word), then printing out the list and striking though items as I complete them helps me focus, even on my more lethargic days.

I guess your work needs to be task oriented to do this. I'm a developer and it works for me.