Here Are 5 Playful Ways To Tame Your Distraction And Pay More Attention

We are distracted by evil social media but sixteen hundred years ago evil distraction was already a thing.

Turns out that not only you or I have some issues with concentrating on one thing, even the monks in medieval times already struggled with focusing and paying attention. 

The goal for the monks was “clearsighted calm above the chaos,” as the author and associate professor of history at the University of Georgia Jamie Kreiner writes in her book The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction. Sounds like the same we are aiming for in our modern world. But as opposed to the monks, don’t we have much more to do and to think about? 

Do you wonder what kind of distractions those monks might have faced? They struggled with similar human distractions as we do today, thinking about “the world” to the smaller “community,” and fighting with the “memory” and the “mind.”

Nuns and monks back then were aware of how their minds interfered with their concentration and focus on their duties and tried the wildest things to get their minds and body under control. Besides the sometimes harsh, physical measurements to force themselves to be more focused, there were more advanced methods for concentrating.

At the time educated thinkers, preachers, and researchers figured out that visualizing your learnings, simplifying your life, or moving around are good remedies for finding your focus.

Let’s look at 6 fun methods to play with your distraction to concentrate much better.

1- Visualize Your Learnings Or Thoughts

Already in medieval times, educated people tried to build elaborate mental structures while reading and thinking by visualizing the material they were processing. 

A Harvard Business Review article from 2016 talks about the importance of visualizing information even as a must-have-skill for managers. It was for the longest time just left to the creatives and design-related work fields but finally, the busy business world understood the value of visualizing in some form and shape information overload, complex data and ideas, because it’s often the only way to make sense of the work they do.

2- Outsource Your Distraction By Simplifying

When the mind wanders, the monastic theorists observed, it usually veers off into recent events. Cut back your commitments to the serious stuff, and you’ll have fewer thoughts competing for your attention. 

At the end of the day, these are all distractions adding up and keeping you from the things that are really important to you, if that may be time with your family or the exciting side business you are passionate about. 

Reducing your commitments, and engagements, and organizing yourself frees up your mind to focus on what really matters.

3- Take Your Distraction For A Walk

Moving around or walking helps with your concentration. Take your distraction for a walk and turn it around into concentration.

In their monastic life, the nuns and monks noticed that it was easier for them to concentrate when their bodies were moving, whether they were baking or farming, or weaving.

Just like we know from many of today’s leaders or creatives they take walking meetings or thinking breaks while walking.

4- Captivate Your Distraction In A Visual Scene

Getting lost in a painting or visual scene helps you train your brain to focus better. 

We are surrounded by so much information, most of which we take in by seeing, but we are not particularly observant about what we are looking at. The art of perceiving and noticing with awareness gets lost. 

To help improve your concentration skills, it’s worth considering how observing and afterward visualizing something can reinforce your focusing skills. Here is a fun, educational, and concentration-improving way: Go to an art gallery, just pick a few pieces and pay attention to what you see, engage with it, notice details, and reflect on it. Take your time and take it all in. 

5- Cheat The Distraction By Five More

Here is a fun way of learning to concentrate better and cheat yourself out of distraction. 

You hit the wall and feel like quitting whatever you are doing – don’t. Just do 5 more – 5 more minutes, 5 more lines of writing, 5 more exercises, 5 more pages. This will extend your focus. This rule of just-give-it-five more pushes you just beyond the point of frustration and helps you build mental concentration. 

It’s a form of training your brain and habit while at the same time, it's also a way of getting something accomplished.

TAKE.WITH.YOU

• Distraction is part of the experience of being human 
• Distraction is an old problem that humanity will not get rid of 
• The mind wanders around like it were drunk whereas the ideal is a mind that is always and actively reaching out to its target. 
• Let’s face it, better concentration makes life easier and less stressful while we will be more productive. 

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