When you read a book or are working on an assignment, do you think you should check your email, Facebook, Twitter or are you drawn away to random activities? All of that data flying at you by email, instant message, cell phone, voice mail and BlackBerry, it is a very common thing to lose concentration while working. There are plenty of other reasons you may be losing focus. Here are a few common ones:
- Information Overload: We live in a world where technology can transfer data with a speed of over one gigabyte per second. Unfortunately, your brain cannot process at that speed. All the gadgets such as blackberry, iPods, laptops, iPad etc are constantly throwing information at you. Multitasking is becoming the need of the hour. Unfortunately, the more you multitask, the lesser is your ability to focus on a single thing.
Learn to get organized in your approach to manage information. It's much easier to accomplish tasks if your information is organized. Also, set aside time for breaks during the day to refresh and recuperate. During this time, turn off all email or text notification, don't take phone calls, and disable instant messaging applications. - Lack of Sleep: Lack of sleep is a very important reason why you are always distracted. These days we are busy running from places to places and in the course of duration we don't get the required seven to eight hours of sleep every night. In such a situation one can be very irritable and lose the ability of focusing on tasks.
- Less Exercise: Studies suggest that exercising on a regular basis can help us feel more balanced and ultimately increase concentration and memory capacity. However, very few among us make it a point to exercise everyday. Exercising regularly not only helps you lose or maintain weight, but it can also help you sleep better at night.
- Stress Overload: Stress affects the cognitive centers of your brain. When you're stressed out, the anxiety makes it even harder to focus. To de-stress try meditation. Learning to meditate will also improve your attention span and help ease anxiety.
- Poor Job Satisfaction: We all become unhappy with our work at some given point of our career. But constant unhappiness can lead to poor job satisfaction resulting in total distractions towards your work. If you are unhappy at your job, probably you need to see a therapist or maybe it's time for a new one.
These are only a few common reasons that exist in today's world. Of course, there will be many more specific reasons as well. Make sure you undertake lifestyle changes to counter the causes of distractions.
