5 Things To Do For Better Focus & A Longer Attention Span

Recently, I asked a friend if she had watched a show I like. “Oh I don’t watch TV anymore,” she responded. I waited for her to explain that she’d taken up reading or was just too busy. “Ever since getting TikTok I just can’t focus for a whole episode,” she said instead.

I was shocked, but I guess I shouldn't be. In a modern world inundated by digital screens and the constant "ping" and/or vibration of notifications, it's no surprise that our attention spans are dwindling down to nothing. 

Whether you find yourself daydreaming at work or mindlessly checking your phone while watching TV, it can feel near impossible to maintain focus on a single task for an extended period of time—and according to a 2018 Neuron article, that isn't your fault: After studying both humans and monkeys, researchers from Princeton University and the University of California, Berkley discovered that attention pulses in and out four times per second1, which means you're facing an uphill battle of distraction during even a few minutes of focused concentration.

Scientists hypothesize that shorter attention spans gave early humans the evolutionary advantage of being able to monitor their surroundings for danger. Today, we face far fewer threats than our ancestors; instead, digital devices specifically designed to steal our attention have infiltrated our everyday lives. Automatic notifications prompt engagement with technology at random intervals throughout the day, priming you for a dopamine hit of bright lights or social reinforcement. 

This constant multitasking wears on our ability to filter out irrelevant information. Inevitably, these factors wear down on our ability to focus throughout the day, exhausting our limited attention spans and willpower.

Defined as ‘the length of time for which a person is able to concentrate mentally on a particular activity,’ attention refers to where we direct our thoughts (and, for how long). 

“Attention is the sort of overarching, colloquially used term, but it can mean many, many things,” says Elizabeth Ricker, neuroscientist and author of Smarter Tomorrow: How 15 Minutes of Neurohacking A Day Can Help You Work Better, Think Faster, and Get More Done. “There are different flavors - like sustained, selective, or divided attention. Attention relies on other mental abilities doing their jobs, too - like working memory (kind of like your brain's RAM), inhibition (inhibiting off-task stimuli or mental behaviors), and mental flexibility (shifting between and synthesizing concepts)."

There are an infinite number of things happening around us at all times, but the brain can only process so much. To illustrate how our brains decide what to pay attention to, psychologists use the classic example of a cocktail party. 

At this cocktail party, you could focus on any number of stimuli in a room: the music playing, the sound of glasses clinking, the person walking by, or the conversation happening behind you. Thanks to the brain’s filtering processes, you’ll usually tune in the person in front of you, with surrounding sights and sounds blurring into mere background noise. But say someone walks by and says your name. Even though you weren’t previously paying attention to their conversation, it now comes into focus as the person in front of you fades into the background.

Of course, for someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), this process can be more difficult. Both conditions present challenges with executive functioning2, which includes attention and focus.

The most obvious example of how technology grabs our attention is through push notifications. Pings and pop-ups divert us from the task at hand and into our feeds or inboxes. After a while, the habit becomes so ingrained that we don’t need these reminders to reach for our devices.

In a 2015 study published by Computers in Human Behaviors, half of survey respondents4 reported experiencing ‘phantom phone signals’ (i.e., when you think you heard or felt your phone but didn’t) at least weekly, while up to 63% experienced them monthly. 

Researchers theorized that this was due to the brain’s use of schemas, or frameworks for interpreting complex information. The brain relies on past examples to interpret new information. So, if you’re regularly hearing and seeing notifications from your phone, the brain may incorrectly attribute another kind of input (say, the sound of a neighbor’s television) to your phone. The study also found that with more phone usage came more phantom phone signals. 

It's clear that our society has a serious problem with attention. The inability to focus can decrease your productivity at work, make it more difficult to complete personal chores, and even impact your relationships (if you've ever zoned out in the middle of your friend's story or reached for your phone during dinner with your partner, you know the result is less than desirable). 

A study from the Harvard Business Review found the average worker switches tasks 1,200 times per day. This persistent bouncing from one thing to the next can have detrimental effects on our focus and performance. 

Case in point: A 2005 observational study found that office workers spent an average of only 11 minutes working on one project before switching to another. Once interrupted, participants took an average of 25 minutes and 26 seconds to resume their work, only after switching their focus to an average of 2.2 other tasks. 

This consistent switching between tasks has been shown to significantly reduce the quality and efficiency of your work6, in what researchers call the ‘switch cost effect.’ 

Some of this is unavoidable and built into the nature of a job. In a Frontiers In Psychology7 article, researchers note that “This digitalization of work now tethers [workers’] ability to perform largely to their ability to intensely focus in small chunks, and then “hyper-jump” that focus to another task without traversing the cognitive cool downs or warm ups required to reconfigure their train of thought from one task to another.” 

We’ve long known that multitasking doesn’t work, but research shows that for those who multitask often, the downsides are long-lasting (and can affect performance even when they’re not multitasking). 

Meditation can alter your brain chemistry and has a slew of worthwhile benefits: including an improved attention. While keeping a regular meditation practice is ideal, a 2019 Frontiers in Human Neuroscience review found even just one ten-minute guided meditation can improve your ability to pay attention for longer9. 

“When we're trying to pay attention, we're using a much more recently evolved part of our brain: the prefrontal cortex,” Ricker explains. Glucose, a simple sugar, is the brain’s main source of energy12. It serves as the raw materials the brain uses to create ATP, which provides energy for many metabolic processes. “[When paying attention], we're using particular networks that tend to be a lot more expensive in terms of glucose than other parts of our brain,” she says. 

While some functions (e.g., running away from danger) are preprogrammed and easy to access, the ability to focus for long periods of time is highly complex. With this complexity comes variability—i.e., attention is highly variable, changes throughout the day, and depends on your mood and overall health. “When we're tired or feeling emotionally distracted, these are some of the networks that ended up working a little less well.” 

To better understand your own attention span, Ricker recommends keeping a work log. Set aside a specific amount of time to get work done and set a timer. Once the time is up, rate yourself on whether you completed the task, how focused you were, and whether you were in a state of flow. 

Maintaining focus can feel like an increasingly uphill battle. On the bright side, there are expert-backed practices we can implement to preserve our attention.