From time to time, we all struggle to be focused on important tasks. Want to learn how to make a concentration adjustment? Read on and understand how Michael Lucido, Clinical Psychologist, provides a guide to finding your focus.
Making sure your physical health is in good shape helps improve your concentration and overall brain health, as well as helping you feel better overall.
Follow the guide below for a quick physical health check-in.
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Check Point
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Ask yourself
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Review your sleeping habits
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Do I keep my 8 hours of sleep?
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Keep an eye on your diet
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Do I eat enough fruit and vegetables?
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Keep track of your exercise
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Do I usually exercise about 2 hours a week?
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Build your inner resilience
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How do I recover from stressful moments/days?
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Find the right environment
Do you prefer complete silence when you have important work to do or do you prefer to listen to music or some kind of background noise? Finding an environment that is conducive to your working style is important. For some, lighting a candle, tidying up a desk or work area can help them achieve greater levels of concentration for important tasks.
Don't multitask
While it may be tempting to try and tick more than one item off your to-do list at a time, experts recommend not multitasking at the same time.
"Multitasking ruins concentration," explained Dr Lucido. "In fact, productivity drops to about 40% when we try to multitask at the same time."
Instead of trying to do several things at once, focusing your attention on one task at a time helps you concentrate your energy in one place, allowing you to fully concentrate and give 100% to the tasks you're performing. At first, it can seem like a big challenge, especially with so many distractions we have during our day to day lives, such as the notifications on our phone.
To help improve your focus, Dr Lucido encourages the practice of mindfulness.
"Mindfulness conveys the principle of focusing all your senses on one particular activity or subject, keeping yourself free of distractions at that moment," Dr Lucido said. "You can start practicing this by starting a podcast and asking yourself questions about it to exercise your brain and improve your concentration level at work or school."
Take breaks
Taking breaks is essential to improving concentration. While you may feel that working is the only way to get it done in a timely manner, we are actually more productive when we stop to take quick breaks. Moving your body, meditating and focusing on breathing are great ways to give your brain and body a break from deep concentration and the time we spend next to the screens we deal with every day, whether it's mobile phones, computers or televisions. Taking short breaks throughout the day has been proven to increase productivity and help you feel less stressed.
Dr Lucido recommends using the following strategies during your breaks, with the goal of feeling refreshed and ready to enter moments of absolute concentration.
Say no
It's easy to get overwhelmed with a large volume of tasks when we take on some responsibilities. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our own health is to 'say no' when we get underloaded with tasks. Reducing the amount of stress and pressure you are experiencing can help you focus on the tasks you are already responsible for. Dr Lucido recommends this video to get you started .
Ask for help
It's not always easy to admit when you need help. Learning how to effectively ask for help can make your task flow a lot easier.
Dr. Lucido recommends this video that talks about how to ask questions using interpersonal effectiveness.
Create your wellness routine
If you are struggling to find enough time in your day-to-day life to organise your tasks, improve your concentration, including your physical health and mental wellbeing, these tips will help you start the process of improving your concentration in a more empathetic way.
How we approach concentration at PMH
At our production lines in Samora Correia, where we have around 200 employees, maintaining concentration levels, motivation and low stress levels is an extremely important task and one that constantly pushes us to innovate. Since the work developed in our production lines requires a high level of concentration, since it is manual and extremely detailed work, PMH created a break system for the employees where they perform, in a staggered and sequential way throughout the day, some upper limb relaxation exercises in order to avoid tendonitis, back pain and reduce stress levels accumulated during the time they are working. With this, we can avoid injuries and increase the productivity of our workers in the production of our products.