Finding it difficult to concentrate?

Finding it difficult to concentrate?

No matter how old you are, your ability to concentrate can take a hit due to a variety of reasons. We live in a world today where it is easy to get distracted — thanks to easy virtual access. Here are some of the most common reasons that could be making it difficult for you to concentrate...

- Gone are the days when there were just a handful of ways to get in touch with relatives and friends. Today, thanks to the incredible strides that technology has taken, smartphones allow us to constantly stay in touch with people in any part of the globe. While this has its benefits, it also distracts us. Those constant pings and alerts of instant messages more often than not break your line of concentration.

Tip: Mute those alerts and resist the urge to constantly check your phone.

- Social media has literally exploded in our lives. Almost everyone you know, irrespective of age, now has a social media account that they either use to update their day-to-day activities or keep a track of other people's escapades! This constant uploading or surfing on social media accounts can cause your concentration levels to literally go haywire.

Tip: If you absolutely cannot do without logging in to your social networking account daily, do it twice a day at most. And avoid logging on when you're working.

- Constantly checking your emails because you're scared of missing an important mail or worse, a flash sale? Constantly logging in to check your emails will cause the task you're currently doing, to suffer. If you stop to check and reply to each mail that you get, you'll never be able to work without getting distracted.

Tip: Unless you're in a job, which demands you constantly stay glued to your emails, there is no need to check your inbox more than twice or thrice a day at most.

- Your smartphone is called 'smart' for a reason. Apart from the plethora of tasks it can accomplish, it also has options for playing games, listening to music, surfing the web or even watching a movie. However, being stuck to your smartphone all the time will cause you to neglect other parts of your life not to mention, distract you from your chores.

Tip: Make a conscious effort to dedicate not more than a certain amount of time to your

smartphone every day. While it might seem difficult at first, with patience and practice, you'll soon realise that you can do without your precious smartphone all the time.

- While multitasking is a good thing, not everyone is good at it. And if you can't manage to do things simultaneously, you'll simply end up getting distracted and wasting more time completing your tasks.

Tip: Sometimes it is better to do one thing at a time instead of everything together.

- It often happens that when you don't have much to do, it results in boredom, which may lead to an inability to concentrate even on the most mundane of tasks.

Tip: Deal with this by telling yourself that once you focus and complete the task, you will reward yourself with something.

- Feeling anxious can also impair your ability to concentrate on things — this is because your mind is so caught up with that one particular subject, everything else pales in comparison and you may end up making mistakes in what you're attempting to do.

Tip: Calm yourself down — take a couple of deep breaths — clear your mind and then attempt your task. There's no point getting anxious over things beyond your control.

Source | Times of India | 16 November 2015

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Khaitan & Co