The importance of attention

Sometimes when we sit down to work, our attention clings to anything but our work. And sometimes we sitdown and don’t  get up until the evening, so our brains “lock” on the work process! What is it called? This is the selectivity of attention, which is also called concentration. When we focus on a certain occupation without being distracted by extraneous factors, we increase our efficiency by 30-50%. Only in this way can we achieve our goal in principle.

Your success is where your attention is. It’s like making a pie: if you are kneading dough while getting distracted by a TV show or a phone, you will be making your pie for a very long time. And then it will get burned when you get distracted again. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” is based on this principle: when we stop concentrating on something, things start to lose their meaning and disappear from our lives. But, do you want your job, salary, and chance for a better future to disappear?

Of course, we can’t keep our attention on one thing non-stop all day (it might happen occasionally, but I feel beaten after that). This is how our brain works: it can hold only a limited amount of information for a limited time. Therefore, in order not to experience overload, the brain likes to switch between tasks, which is why it is so challenging not to let yourself get distracted. Especially when the work is hard, am I right? And this is the brain’s fault! And in no case should we follow its lead because the more often we are distracted, the lower the quality of our work as the brain would resist resuming hard work.

If you find it difficult to hold attention for a long time or suffer from its deficiency, practice my exercise — two-minute concentration. Turn on any YouTube video or movie, and for two minutes, don’t look at it, but look at the hand of the watch you put in front of you. In no case should you look at the video or listen to it! Your task is only to follow the clock, not pay attention to the rest of the world. Well, would you give it a try?