The following are ways you can make you environment more conducive to focussing and concentrating on some intellectual activity task in front of you (1 of 4):

◦ Ensure you are sufficiently comfortable for it not to be a distraction or for it to lead to fatigue. If you are working at a desk there are various guidelines available under the topic of Human Factors and Ergonomics, such as: ensure items you use frequently are within easy reach; ensure you are able to maintain a comfortable posture; ensure work or desk surfaces are at an appropriate height for the tasks being undertaken; ensure there is sufficient space under work surfaces for your legs; ensure lighting is adequate and does not lead to any eyestrain; ensure seat surfaces are not too hard or too soft; if using a computer you should ensure there are no reflective glares on the screen, and that the use of the keyboard is comfortable; etc. etc.

The following are ways you can make you environment more conducive to focussing and concentrating on some intellectual activity task in front of you (2 of 4):

◦ Ensure you do not have distracting noises. People’s tolerance for background noises vary, and what some people find distracting others don’t. If however the background noise is distracting, and you are unable to adjust the noise itself, then you can use headphones or speakers close by to help cut out the distraction: listening to music if it helps, or non-distracting sounds such as falling rain, or even using noise cancellation headphone. Find music that works best for helping you concentrate: generally without lyrics and not too upbeat, and have a playlist at least as long as however long you will be working for; avoid the distraction of the music finishing and having to decide what to listen to next.

The following are ways you can make you environment more conducive to focussing and concentrating on some intellectual activity task in front of you (3 of 4):

◦ Pictures of natural scenes, such as landscapes or other natural images that you find relaxing, can help improve your focus. ◦ You might try use of scented candles or other sources of smells. Smells such as orange, lemon, rosemary, pine, or peppermint are, for many people, conducive to mental activity. ◦ Organise the space around you so that you are not distracted by clutter and reminders of other tasks that need doing. If you are working on a desk space, it is best to have the desk clear of all items that are not relevant to the task in hand.

The following are ways you can make you environment more conducive to focussing and concentrating on some intellectual activity task in front of you (4 of 4):

◦ Ensure you do not have regular interruptions. You might for example divert your phone to a message, or switch off your e-mail or social media alerts so they don’t keep popping up in front of you. You can set aside certain times of the day to check and if appropriate respond to phone messages, e-mails, or social media.
◦ Have a bottle of water with you so you can keep hydrated without the interruption of having to get up and go find a drink.

Not everyone is the same and thus whilst a good diet is more likely to help you focus and concentrate, this does not mean those with a poor diet will be unable to. However if you want to increase your general ability to focus and concentrate improving your general diet is something that can help you do so.

Your ability to focus and concentrate can be significantly impacted by what you have been eating and drinking during the day.

Some general eating and drinking guidelines to help with focus and concentration include (1 of 2):

◦ Keep yourself generally hydrated during the day. Even if you are not feeling thirsty, a lack of adequate hydration can impact your ability to focus. Keeping hydrated is best done through drinking small amounts of water regularly during the day. You can vary this with other drinks and some tea and coffee, but if you drink a lot of tea and coffee during the day it will have its own negative impacts on your general health.
◦ Avoid heavy eating during the day, such as at lunch time. If you do it is likely to leave you sluggish for much of the period after.

Some general eating and drinking guidelines to help with focus and concentration include (2 of 2):

◦ Avoid being hungry during the day. For most people this means a healthy breakfast and occasional healthy snacks during the day, aimed at keeping your brain glucose levels balanced. Note high sugar foods don’t do this and lead to spikes in glucose levels which are bad for medium and long term focus.
◦ Regularly eat, in small amounts, certain foods that are considered to help improve focus and concentration, namely: blueberries, avocado, green leaves, dark chocolate (not the milky chocolate widely available), flax seeds, and certain nuts such as walnuts.

A good state of general physical health will help improve your ability to focus and concentrate. You should thus get some regular exercise, particularly aerobic type exercises that leave you a little breathless. It does not have to be anything intense, and regular brisk walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, etc. are all good sources of such exercise.

Also very important is sleeping well. If you don’t sleep well you need to try very hard to do something about it. Some advice is given elsewhere on this site, or is readily available elsewhere.

For the most part, the primary disruption to your ability to concentrate is your own wandering mind.

The following are some guidelines to help focus your mind through reducing or removing mental distractions (1 of 3):

◦ Look to deal with your worries. Rather than let worries continually swirl around in your brain, admit them to yourself, and as specifically as you can identify the next action you can and will take to move forward in addressing them. Ensure you write this down together with a clear understanding of when you will take this next action.
◦ If thoughts about something else occur to you whilst you are trying to focus, then write them down so that you can come back to them later. If you don’t, they will continue to interrupt your thoughts and disrupt your concentration. Or worse still you’ll be tempted to just quickly do something, such as look on the internet, or go find something, or whatever: whenever you do so you will have seriously disrupted your focus on the task you had in hand. When trying to focus ensure you have some paper or a notebook close to hand to write down any thoughts that occur to you so you can come back to them later.

The following are some guidelines to help focus your mind through reducing or removing mental distractions (2 of 3):

◦ Ensure you make a clear decision about the task you wish to focus on. Understand your priorities enough to ensure that what you are doing is either the most important thing for you to be doing right now, or is something you have deliberately decided to do, recognising the alternative things you could be doing. The feeling that you should be doing something else can be a significant distraction so you need to eliminate it. If appropriate choose to do and focus on something else instead, but once you’ve decided to get on with something in particular it should be a clear and deliberate decision.
◦ If you find your mind starts to wander, just say ‘stop’, and return your mind to the task at hand.

The following are some guidelines to help focus your mind through reducing or removing mental distractions (3 of 3):

◦ Have a clear objective for the particular period in front of you during which you are looking to focus. If you are not clear about what you are trying to achieve in the next hour or so you will have difficulty keeping focussed. See it as a deadline to have completed the particular objective in the time you have allocated to it.
◦ Don’t try to multitask. The activities will interfere with each other. Much better to put all your focus into one task at a time. As explained elsewhere our brains don’t really multitask on anything that is at all complicated, and merely switches between the tasks, meaning we are continually loosing focus on any given task in particular.

You cannot retain a high degree of focus on something for a long time. You need to take occasional breaks, typically about once an hour. Options for taking a break include:

◦ Go for a short walk, and do a bit of deep breathing.
◦ Get up and make a cup of tea or coffee, or otherwise get yourself a drink.
◦ Just sit and observe your breathing for a little while, clearing your mind of any other thoughts. As you observe your breath, it will slow down, along with your mind and your mind becomes recharged.

Be wary however of allowing a break to last too long, not more than 5 or 10 mins, otherwise you might find it hard to get back into the task.

During an extended period over which you are doing a task, you can from time to time switch to a low attention task for about 10 or 15 minutes now and again. Maybe do a bit of filing, or a bit of work on a relatively easy task.

The following are a few more Tips for generally improving your concentration (1 of 3):

◦ Be clear about your longer term priorities and goals in life, as well as the things that are stressing or worrying you in the shorter term. Use this understanding to plan what you will be spending your discretionary time on in the near future, ie. the time you are able to choose what to do with. Thus when you settle down to focus on something you should be satisfied that it is the most important thing to be doing, either because it is being forced upon you for reasons you can’t change, or because you are choosing to do it in the light of your own priorities and worries
◦ Do your most intellectually challenging tasks when you’re most alert. For most people this will tend to be in the morning.

The following are a few more Tips for generally improving your concentration (2 of 3):

◦ Promise yourself that a given period of concentration is just for a certain limited time, sometime between 30 mins and 50 mins. If you find it impossible to keep up your concentration for a longer period of time, then do it for a shorter period of time. As you learn to better succeed for shorter periods of time, you should find you can slowly increase it. During the allotted period, if you mind starts to wander, be conscious of it, and bring it back to the task to hand, after all it is not for very long. If necessary write down anything you particularly want to remember so it doesn’t keep tugging at you.

The following are a few more Tips for generally improving your concentration (3 of 3):

◦ Over an extended period of time, 6 or 7 hours or more, it can be difficult to remain focussed on a given topic, even with occasional breaks. If however you switch to a different task you will often find a renewed ability to maintain focus. However ensure you don’t try to multitask the different activities, and ensure that you keep an extended period of time focussed on each task in turn. Don’t start switching tasks every 15-30 minutes or so, unless you are completing them as you do so. Ensure you work on a given task for at least an hour, or a couple of hours if it is a major task, before switching to another task, which again should be for at least an hour or so. Of course if you have some short tasks you can group these up into their own period.

Our ability to keep focussed on a single task weakens as we get older, and thus we need to work harder at it as we get older.

When doing exercises to improve your focus and concentration it is important not to get disheartened if you don’t have immediate spectacular results. Just as you will get fitter if you physically exercise regularly so will your focus and concentration gradually improve with regular relevant practice.

Some general areas of exercise which will help improve your general focus and concentration, and will help you master your mind rather than be a slave to it (1 of 3):

◦ Practice mindfulness regularly throughout the day. Mindfulness is simply focussing completely on what you are doing, experiencing it as fully as you can. There are many opportunities to practice mindfulness, by bringing yourself fully into the present, supressing thoughts, and just being aware of what is around you and what you sense. Do it whilst you are eating, or whilst you are sitting somewhere waiting, or getting dressed, or having a shave. Or when you are with someone really pay attention to them and listen to what they are saying, supressing the chatter in your own mind.

Some general areas of exercise which will help improve your general focus and concentration, and will help you master your mind rather than be a slave to it (2 of 3):

◦ Learn to meditate. Research shows that meditation, even just 10 or so minutes a day, can significantly boost your attention span.
◦ Undertake exercise to improve your willpower. General exercises to improve your willpower will also improve your general ability to focus and concentrate.
◦ Practice memorising things: maybe poems, or short pieces of text, or lists of factual information, word for word.

Some general areas of exercise which will help improve your general focus and concentration, and will help you master your mind rather than be a slave to it (3 of 3):

◦ Regular physical exercise will help Improve your general focus and concentration.
◦ Be very curious. If you ask yourself questions about something you can retain focus on it for a long time. As an illustration try to focus on a dot on a piece of paper. After a short while you are highly likely to have found your attention will have wandered. But if you ask yourself questions about the dot, examine it in detail, its size, its shade of colour, its exact position, you will find you will have been able to stay focussed on it for much longer.

Some more specific exercises to improve your general focus and concentration (1 of 3):

◦ Take a piece of writing, a book, or a magazine, and count the number of words in a paragraph. Then count them backwards to see if you get the same answer. If you don’t repeat until you are confident you’ve got the number right. Then do it with a longer piece of text. Do it just be looking at the text, don’t use your fingers.
◦ Count backwards in your mind from 100 stepping back in different numbers, threes, or sevens.
◦ Take a phrase and repeat it silently to yourself for 5 minutes. If your mind wanders return to the task. Once you can do this for 5 minutes, then do it for a longer period.

Some more specific exercises to improve your general focus and concentration (2 of 3):

◦ Take an everyday object and focus your whole attention on it. Examine it in every greater detail, finding ever variant and blemish in its colouring. Then try closing your eyes and imagining every detail in your mind.
◦ Take a magazine or newspaper or online article of a page or so length, read it slowly, looking to ensure you fully understand it, then put it aside and try to summarise it without referring back to it. Look to try to summarise all the key points in a couple of sentences. Compare your summary to the text to check you didn’t miss anything significant.

Some more specific exercises to improve your general focus and concentration (3 of 3):

◦ Look to spend a period of 5 minutes without thinking anything at all. Set an alarm for a 5 minute period, or set a stop watch and see how long you can keep your mind free of thoughts.
◦ Do a crossword or puzzle, but focus totally on it for a given period of time 15 or 30 minutes, or until you’ve finished it if earlier.
◦ Just sit and observe your breathing from time to time clearing your mind of any other thoughts. As you observe your breath, it will slow down, along with your mind and your mind becomes recharged.

Put your whole attention into focus and concentration exercises. Suppress your wandering thoughts. If you find your thoughts have drifted elsewhere then stop and start again, or come back to it later. Don’t get despondent if at first you struggle. You don’t get strong just because you’ve done a little bit of exercise. But keep practicing regularly, even if just for 10 minutes or so a day, and you will both get better at keeping your full focus when doing the exercises but will also find your general ability to focus and concentrate improves.