The average goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds. Humans, on the other hand, lose focus after just eight seconds. How that happened is beside the point – my concern is reversing that trend so we can focus longer than an animal whose brain weighs 0.0002 pounds.
For millions of people, the solution is popping an Adderall or Vyvanse. I haven’t tried either – apparently it’s like having a cheat code to focus. But as with all cheat codes, you never learn how to master the game. And in this case, it’s the game of your career, your life.
The following methods are investments, not tricks. They aren’t easy, and they won’t work instant miracles. They are, however, sustainable and effective.
1. Sit in silence
Søren Kierkegaard once said, “If I were to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the world, it would be silence.”
Undoubtedly, one of those ills is the collective dwindling of our attention spans. The endless flood of pings, notifications, and chatter overloads our prefrontal cortex, diminishing our capacity for higher-order thinking. Left unchecked, it can seem unmanageable to maintain a singular stream of thought for more than a few minutes. Fortunately, we can restore our ability to focus by retreating away from sensory overload and into silence.
You’d think sitting in a chair for a few minutes with your eyes closed doing absolutely nothing would be a breeze. While it’s probably the simplest way to increase your attention span, it’s also the most challenging. In fact, it’s painful, especially if you’re not used to it.
2. Go for a walk
We can’t sit still forever. Accordingly, walking serves as a compliment to stillness in the quest for an improved attention span. The process of putting one foot in front of the other, of wandering and contemplating reorders our thoughts in ways that everyday activities can’t.
Aside from the scientific evidence supporting the benefits of walking, we can look to history’s most prolific thinkers to see just how powerful going for walks actually is. Charles Dickens would walk as many as 20 miles per day; Nikola Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field on a walk through a park in Budapest; Ernest Hemingway went for long walks whenever he had writer’s block; Charles Darwin went on multiple walks throughout the course of each day.
It goes without saying that a therapeutic walk shouldn’t be confused with a frantic walk to catch the bus or get to class on time. Make the most of it. Enjoy it. Soon enough you’ll notice, as Thoreau did, that the moment your legs begin to move, your thoughts begin to flow.
3. Stop multitasking
It’s ironic that we coined the term “multitasking” when it’s physically impossible for the brain to do so. If you have email, Twitter, Netflix, iMessage, and an Excel sheet all open at the same time, your brain doesn’t distribute attention equally to all of them. It flits from one task to another without ever diving deeply into anything.
It’s hard to readjust once we’re conditioned for sporadic thinking, especially since multitasking makes us feel productive. But feeling productive is a far cry from being productive. In reality, multitasking only leaves us scatterbrained and frustrated.
Don’t take my word for it, though. According to Jordan Grafman, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University, “The more you multitask, the less deliberative you become; the less able to think and reason out a problem… You become more likely to rely on conventional ideas and solutions rather than challenging them with original lines of thought.”
4. Read books
Reading a book can be painful, but why? For starters, it requires the brain to use neural pathways that are either weak or absent. It’s like trying to lift weights when you’ve never been in a gym before. But even just a few weeks of consistent reading can significantly improve one’s ability to settle down and focus. The brain is a remarkably plastic instrument.
A book invites the reader into their own mind and acclimates them to sustained, linear thought patterns. But when we spend time scanning and clicking instead of reading and reflecting, we break the synapses that support a healthy attention span and create new ones that make our thinking fragmented and dull.
I don’t know why I started reading. All I know is that it introduced me to a new world and I haven’t looked back since. It’s why I give recommendations every month and it’s why I have a bookshelf instead of a TV.
Like I said, these strategies aren’t quick fixes or “life hacks.” But I guarantee if you stick to them, you won’t need to ask your friend for Adderall when finals season creeps up.
Dominic Vaiana’s articles, essays, interviews, and book recommendations are sent in his monthly newsletter. All subscribers receive the PDF “11 Immutable Writing Lessons from Legendary Authors.”
Great insight – good work Dom