Do you ever feel like all of your thoughts come all at once? While talking with my colleague Jorge, we realized that we go from one subject to another in a matter of seconds. From “Oh, you should really listen to that audiobook”, to “What is the status of that project you’re doing? ”, to “Do you know this festival I went to last weekend?”, to “Oops, I forgot to do my laundry”. We have a continuous stream of thoughts and ideas and easily get distracted by them. This makes us feel creative, spontaneous and sometimes chaotic, but also overwhelmed at times. There’s a gap between ideas and the actions we must take in order to accomplish them. We know these feelings are not unique to us and that there are many people who struggle in similar ways. Do you recognize yourself in this as well? In this blog we’ll share some tips from our own experience and research.

What can we do?

Why are we so easily distracted and overstimulated? How does it affect our daily life? Do we feel fulfilled at the end of the day? And, now that we are a bit more aware of the limits of our attention, how can we thrive in a hyperconnected world with an ever-growing number of distractions? We decided to make this our new personal goal: we have to train our attention and create the best possible environment in which we have a good sense of fulfilment and we feel more connected to others. We started doing some research on attention. 

Facts about attention and focus:

• Attention and focus are two different things.
• Attention is selective attention: we can’t perceive everything at the same time. With attention, you select what’s important. Think about notifications on your phone while working; your brain is wired to check your phone. You can fight against it, but you will most likely lose.
• Focus is sustained attention: how long can you keep your attention on something? When you experience sustained attention, you will get into the flow and do deep work. This will make you better at what you do, help you achieve more in less time and it will make you feel true fulfilment. 

Tips to help you throughout the day

We researched and tried out some attention deficit tips and these were the ones that worked for us:

1. Keep a steady routine in your daily life activities. This means doing things such as going to sleep, preparing your meals and exercising at fixed times, so that you get used to them and don’t spend too much time and energy on them. 
2. When you experience attention problems it can be difficult to distinguish between essential and side tasks. Every time a great idea pops into your mind while you’re doing an important task, make sure you have a notebook or an app to write it down. This will allow you to continue what you are doing without being distracted. 
3. Experiment and find out what your optimal work environment is. For example:
   1. Go to the office instead of working from home when you’re sensitive to distractions.
   2. Make sure your phone is not visible when you are doing important tasks. 
   3. Make sure you make your work environment clutter- and distraction-free.
4. Break tasks into small chunks that are easily achievable: focus on one thing at a time. Even if you don’t feel like doing it. It is better to start small and tell yourself to work on something for at least 10 minutes than to say you will do it later. 
5. Disable smartphone notifications. Most of the notifications you get on your phone aren’t urgent, so disable sound and vibrations. I even bought an old Nokia phone to detox and experiment with basic functionalities, such as calling and texting (back to the old days).
6. If you are sensitive to news, social media and emails: try avoiding checking these media frequently. If you really want to, allow yourself to have a couple of fixed time slots during the day to do so. 
7. Encourage yourself like you encourage a friend. If you find yourself in autopilot mode:
   1. Accept it and decide to consciously make a change, discipline yourself. 
   2. Don’t be too hard on yourself (judgemental) if things don’t go as planned.
   3. Learn to forgive yourself.
8. Have an offline hobby/craft/sport: it is proven that these allow us to enter a flow state. In a flow state, you are totally absorbed by and deeply focused on something. You are beyond the point of distraction. Flow is also seen as a perfect hypnotic state between training skills and challenging yourself. It can also help you to break the cycle of rumination, for example worrying about a deadline, presentation, meeting or something else that causes stress. Exercising, crafting or enjoying a hobby helps you relax. Even if you feel tired, there is a difference between physical and mental tiredness. So stop thinking; just do! 
9. Find support: don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t be afraid to ask for help from family members or friends.

Get support

If you feel like you experience severe attention disorders, it’s essential to seek professional help. If you feel like your own attention deficits are really disturbing to you or others, it might be interesting to talk with experts in the area of AD(H)D.