Improve concentration

Concentration means thinking about just one thing at a time. Concentration enables us to abstract ourselves from external disturbances and to eliminate extraneous thoughts.

It can be trained and is facilitated by specific conditions:

• Knowing your physiological state of activation. For most people, the best times are in the morning and between 5pm and 9pm. The worst times are after lunch and after midnight.

• For tasks requiring good concentration, e.g. memory work, allow for moments of physiological activation. Reserve tasks that require less concentration for other times (tidying, filing, summarising, completing notes, doing group exercises, etc.).

• Choose a place or places that are conducive to study where you will not be out of place. Finish what you have to do before studying (shopping, mail, etc.) to avoid distracting thoughts.

• Use a notepad to record everything you need to do as the ideas come in, to avoid constantly thinking about them (see our apps selection for suggestions for smartphone task managers).

• Create a favourable climate by clearing your desk of distracting items (mobile phone, photos, magazines), while keeping useful study items to hand (pencil, eraser, reference book, etc.).

• Be regular in the organisation of your work (my hours, my places).

• Set study objectives by noting the time spent on the study, the mini-objectives for that period of work and the results obtained. For example, 30-minute periods with an objective to be achieved.

• Vary the activities by alternating easy and difficult tasks, interesting and challenging tasks. Or, from time to time, read aloud. Take short breaks or rewards after each time slot or objective achieved.

• Verbally minimise a pleasant task (for example, « ça will only take »).

The major obstacles to concentration are linked to personal preoccupations. The emotional outweighs the rational, the affective outweighs the intellectual; in practical terms, this means that if your preoccupations have a significant emotional impact, whether positive or negative (bereavement, separation), they will tend to disrupt your concentration.

Improving concentration

To help you concentrate, prepare yourself mentally. Close your eyes and imagine:

• a double row of trees on either side of a road. Look at the trees closest to you and follow these 2 rows of trees with your eyes until they seem to merge into a single point - infinity.

• a child on a swing. Follow the movement of the swing as it becomes slower and slower until it comes to a complete stop.

• that you write the word PARIS on a blackboard. When you see it clearly, erase the S, the I, the R, the A and the P in turn.