The demanding work pressure in the office and daily stress often kills a person’s concentration level. Every person will fall victim to lack of concentration at some point of time in their lives. However, to keep up with the pressure of work and submit the task in the given time, you must keep your concentration levels high. For dedicated focus and unflinching concentration, you must recognise the top concentration killers and stop them from manipulating your concentration and sabotage your work.
As a result of an imbalanced concentration, adults as well as children suffer from symptoms of ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Loss of concentration can be caused by emotional stress, tiredness, pregnancy, menopause and various other reasons. The physical causes can be catered to, but the silent concentration killers are difficult to identify and difficult to treat. Here are the top concentration killers and ways to overcome it.
Top 10 Concentration Killers & Ways To Overcome Them
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Multitasking
Multitasking is something that probably every busy person does and is one of the biggest concentration killers in today’s time. Hopping from one task to the other and coming back to the first task again and juggling many tasks simultaneously has become a common trend. As a result, you struggle to complete any of these tasks properly with absolute concentration. Multi-taskers often think that they are completing more than one task at a time. But the fact is that they are taking way longer time to complete each task. Devoting your attention and concentration to multiple tasks will lead to loss of concentration.
How to Overcome It: The best way to overcome this concentration killer is understanding that it is always better and wiser that you choose only one task at a time. When you are doing a high-priority task, you must not club any other task with it. It is not a problem if you wash dishes while talking over the phone, as neither is a high priority task or need concentration much. Doing one task at a time will mean, complete attention and concentration to that task. Result – faster completion and better outcome with complete concentration.
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Social Media Hitch
Most of the time, while working, we end up falling prey to the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest status update black hole. Social media has become a major concentration killer. You might aim at limiting the access to ‘only a few minutes’, but these social media platforms always consume a lot of your time, sometimes even up to hours. In fact, frequent visits will mean a cumulative consumption of a few hours. While working, this might grab your attention and disturb your concentration levels.
How to Overcome It: Be determined not to access the social media sites while working. If you still need to check in, limit your login times only up to the recesses. You can also try out staying away from internet, during deadline hours, so that lack of internet compels you not to login to social media sites. This will help you a lot in concentrating on the important work.
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Boredom and Tiredness
Boredom and exhaustion are also great concentration killers and both can cause lack of concentration in your work. There are many tasks that you need to do in a day, which are less interesting than others. If you are bored of doing something or if you have been doing the same work for a long time in a stretch, it can make your work more difficult. In fact, it will take longer to finish it.
How to Overcome It: Take a break from work and go for a small walk or even tune in to radio to get rid of the monotony of your work. If the exhaustion and tiredness is caused by lack of sleep, you must make sure that you have ample sleep after completion of work, so that you can start afresh. Refreshing sleep will not only relieve you of tiredness but also increase your concentration.
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Cell Phones
This is probably one of the most irritating concentration killers. When the cell phone continuously rings or vibrates during your work, it kills your concentration level to a great extent. Taking the call will not only kill the time, but will also kill your forward momentum that could help you complete the task on time and fast.
How to Overcome It: The best way, of course to overcome this concentration killer, is switching off your phone, but only if you are not expecting an important call. However, if you need to keep the phone on, take only those calls that you think are urgent. Otherwise, you can put the phone on the silent mode or turn the voicemail on. Rather than taking every call as it might come, it is always better to take all the voicemails at a convenient and designated time and then reply accordingly.
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Emails
The flood of Emails, as soon as you sit down at your work desk, may ruin your concentration level at once. An inbox full with emails is not only distracting, but also disturbing as you might find it difficult to decide, where to start your work from.
How to Overcome It: To overcome this concentration killer, the first task that you need to do in order to get rid of the email burden is to set your spam filter setting on high priority so that all your unwanted junk mails get filtered. Turning off the email notification is a good idea for not to get distracted whenever an email arrives. Fix a time to read and reply to emails and as soon as you are done with an email that you no longer need, delete it. If you are in the middle of a project and are receiving work related emails that are not associated with the current project, then do not read them at once.
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Stress and Worrying
Stress and worrying can be a significant cause of losing concentration. As you are worried and stressed about some pending household work back home, it will prohibit you from concentrating on your office work. Even if you have more tasks on your schedule to complete than you can actually complete within the given span, it will diminish the concentration on individual task.
How to Overcome It: If you are worrying about your other pending works, rather than being stressed about what to do and when to do them, you can jot them down on a paper. This will help you to let those thoughts go for a while. As for stress of loaded work, try to commit only to what you can complete within time. Stress can be well managed, if you do a little bit of meditation every day, at the very start of the day.
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Depression, Drugs and Other Medical Conditions
Depression is a very strong cause for losing concentration. Whenever depressed people are up to doing some work, they will start to think of sad things. However, to get rid of depression, some take medicines. These drugs have side effects like interfering with your concentration. Sleep apnea, anaemia, ADHD and thyroid disease can also kill your concentration.
How to Overcome It: Depression is highly treatable if you want to get rid of it. Counselling and drugs can help you to solve this problem and let you pay attention to work. If these drugs or some other drugs are stopping you from putting concentration on work, ask your doctor to modify the dosage if your daily works are being interfered. You can also ask for switching to alternative drugs. These are some of the ways to deal with this type of concentration killers.
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Hunger
Hunger is one of the top concentration killers. If your brain is low on fuel, if you start your day with an empty stomach, you are more likely to suffer from attention deficiency and even short-term memory loss.
How to Overcome It: To help your metabolism jump-start for the day, always eat breakfast. If you are feeling that you are losing focus on your work, grab a snack or a few nuts. Choosing high-protein and complex carb meals is a good choice to overcome this concentration killer.
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Fatigue & Sleep Deprivation
Insufficient sleep is one of the major concentration killers. If you haven’t had enough sleep and if your body is not permitting you to stay awake and work, you will lose concentration even if there are very few or no distractions.
How to Overcome It: Every day, you will find a specific time when you will feel most alert. Keep the high priority tasks for that time. Always have enough of sleep, at least 8 to 9 hours a day to keep yourself alert.
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Noise & Other Distractions
Sometimes, noise of any sort can be a persistent problem with adults that can cause them to lose concentration. The noise can be loud music, conversation and even irregular sounds which play havoc with your concentration levels.
How to Overcome It: While noise distracts, the right kind of music and sound can do the opposite by increasing your focus and concentration. If background noise is disturbing you, you can switch your tune and listen to music that will help you forget the background noise and concentrate more on what you are doing.
Foods That Can Boost Your Concentration
There are many foods that can regulate your mood and energy, resulting in greater concentration. If you consume them regularly, it will help you to have control on your concentration and attention level.
Caffeine: Foods that contain caffeine in them can help you to gain concentration and energise you. Coffee, green tea and dark chocolate are some of the natural food items that contain caffeine in high content. However, you need to have them in moderate portion and not overindulge yourself in the milky and sugary chocolaty delights.
Proteins: Fish like salmon, mackerel, trout and herring that are rich in omega-3 fatty acid and also eggs are good source of energy. Since eggs contain choline that helps in maintaining a healthy brain cell membrane, it will result in a good concentration level.
Vegetables & Fruits: Fruits like blueberries, avocado and bananas as well as vegetables like spinach and other leafy greens as well as beet, contain some essential minerals that help in good brain function. As a result, the concentration level is improved to a great extent with consumption of fruits and vegetables.
If you are facing difficulty in concentrating on your work, try to identify the cause of it and rather than worrying about the concentration problem, try to eliminate the root cause of the problem. The ways to get rid of the lack of concentration trouble will help you to pay attention to your work better.
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