How to increase attention span while reading or working?
These days almost everything that you've surrounded yourself with is begging for (or should I say 'commanding') your attention. Be it your smartphone and its powerful push notifications served hot it you from the countless apps, or the social media websites that are constantly open in one of the tabs in your browser - Something is always distracting you.
There's something I noticed when I started reading a novel after many, many weeks. I just couldn't concentrate. Something else was capturing my attention every 2 paragraphs. I almost shut the book thinking I would just watch the documentary/movie based on this book.
That brought me to discussing the same thing with my friends. Does everyone have a very low attention span these days? I check a TED Talk and if the speaker can't grab my attention in the first 2 minutes or so, I hardly ever complete watching the entire thing (no matter how appealing the topic). I involuntarily scroll down to the comments and read the description and close the tab.
What I find frustrating about this is - something is terribly wrong. To get real work done, everyone needs to have really strong attention spans. All kinds of works these days need you to study something new. This means you need to concentrate on one topic without wavering for at least couple of hours.
I started this discussion with the intention that not only employees or startup owners, but also students could benefit from the ideas discussed here. Anyone up for sharing any suggestions? How do you go about increasing your attention span?
There's something I noticed when I started reading a novel after many, many weeks. I just couldn't concentrate. Something else was capturing my attention every 2 paragraphs. I almost shut the book thinking I would just watch the documentary/movie based on this book.
That brought me to discussing the same thing with my friends. Does everyone have a very low attention span these days? I check a TED Talk and if the speaker can't grab my attention in the first 2 minutes or so, I hardly ever complete watching the entire thing (no matter how appealing the topic). I involuntarily scroll down to the comments and read the description and close the tab.
What I find frustrating about this is - something is terribly wrong. To get real work done, everyone needs to have really strong attention spans. All kinds of works these days need you to study something new. This means you need to concentrate on one topic without wavering for at least couple of hours.
I started this discussion with the intention that not only employees or startup owners, but also students could benefit from the ideas discussed here. Anyone up for sharing any suggestions? How do you go about increasing your attention span?
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