— the act of giving your attention to a single object or activity
Being able to concentrate is a vital part of many aspects of our life. It’s the key to successful studying as well as an effective creative thinking process. When working on something more or less difficult, it’s important that one can concentrate fully on the task at hand. Distractions, lack of motivation, fatigue, other problem occupying one’s mind – all these things are heavily subtracting from concentration.
It’s not rare that this comes at the expense of not only quality and efficiency, but also leads to stress due to deadlines creeping closer or even frustration over one’s own insufficiency to properly concentrate.
These problems are all old and known, and yet many people still struggle with staying concentrated. If you are facing the same problems when working on something to trying to study for your next test, we have something for you.
Also, check out this article about whether music can help you focus.
These Environments Help You To Concentrate
If you have problems concentrating, you need a change of scenery. In most cases, distractions in your environment are the main cause for the lack of focus. When you try to get work done or study at home, in your living room or bed room, distractions are bound to draw your attention from the work you should be focusing on. It’s no coincidence that people’s apartments and rooms start to become a lot more clean when deadlines are creeping in, term papers are due, or exams are coming up. Suddenly, everything around you becomes more important and urgent than your actual work.
Furthermore, turning a room that’s supposed to be used for relaxation, contemplation or sleep into your study field is toxic for the room altogether. There is a reason why it is not advised to work in your bedroom or study sitting on the couch. Because once you want to use these rooms for their original purposes, sleeping in your bedroom or calming down in your cozy living room, your mind will inevitably jump to those stressful and pressing tasks.
Here are some valuable tips on how you can separate working and living at your home, room or dorm:
- Use a spare room as your study. Separate this room from all leisure rooms in your house and use it for the purpose of working, studying and concentrating alone.
- Define one spot as your working spot. This can be in the living room, at the dining table or in your own (bed) room. Treat this spot as separate from the rest of the room, keep it clean and tidy and use it for its purpose only. Make this spot your island of concentration.
- Keep your desk tidy. A clean and organized environment is key to productive working. While chaos may reign in the rest of your room or apartment, make sure that the place where you are supposed to work concentrated is cleaned up. Everything you need should be reachable, but everything that could distract you should be put someplace else.
- No phone, no wi-fi, no internet. If researching the net is not a major part of your working or studying process, cut the internet connection of your laptop and place your phone far, far away. This may be tough, yes, but apps and the million of online resources that invite you to waste your time are one of the main reasons we don’t get things done anymore.
- Clarify that you need time for yourself. If you are not living alone, it’s possible that your room mate, partner, parents or siblings will come up to you to talk. Politely establish that you are, so to speak, closed for order right now. Let the people around you know the importance of what you are doing and that they should call or disturb you only if really necessary. If you have established your working space in a room where others are in as well, politely ask them to stay calm and quiet. However, don’t overdo. You are, after all, not the only one living there.
Outside your home
If distractions at home are just too much or you can’t find and establish a quiet and suitable spot to work at, you can still move your studying or working someplace else.
- Go to the library. There, other people make sure that you can study and work in silence. Your school’s or university’s library is just as well-suited for this as the local library.
- Go to a coffee shop. These social places are great to boost your creativity, and when you are not easily distracted by the constant buzzing of conversations in the background, a café can also be a great spot to get some work done.
- Venture into nature. If the weather is nice, why no go and catch some fresh air. Take your books or notebook to the park or a nearby meadow. Without technology and other distractions near, the peaceful atmosphere of nature will help you to focus.
Check out our article on studying with ambient background sound as well.
Many things we have talked about in our article on how to create the perfect reading atmosphere can be applied here as well. Satisfying the five senses is the next step after you made sure your environment is perfectly set up. The sense of seeing is, partially, taken care of already since you have to look at your work, and the sense of touch is most probably occupied with you writing or typing down things as well. This leaves three other senses that want to be satisfied: Taste, smell and hearing.
Taste and smell can, partially be taken care of by having a snack. Did you know that there is food that helps you concentrate? Being outside in nature or having a scented candle nearby can also stimulate your sense of smell. As for hearing… of course we from Ambient-Mixer.com are specialized in this particular field. Thus, we gathered some audio atmospheres that our users created that will help you to create an atmosphere that boosts your concentration.