Things you do to improve or maintain your focus

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Qi
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24 Apr 2013, 12:22 pm

Something most of us do to maintain our focus is to maintain some routines and rituals, but I wonder how many of you do something unusual and creative to help you focus. The typical focus tips you find everywhere just don't do anything for me.

For instance, I have to do more than one thing at the same time to stop me from getting bored and losing interest and focus, so I have to play a game while watching a movie, because often neither is stimulating enough to my brain on its own.

I type my thoughts in a text editor on my computer as I'm thinking them, and I delete them afterwards (because I have no use for it afterwards). Just the typing/writing itself is enough to organize my thoughts, I don't have to keep a diary.



WestBender84
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24 Apr 2013, 1:00 pm

Occasionally I'll fidget / vibrate an elongated object, such as a fork, between my thumb and index finger. It's like a metronome for rhythm of thought! :D

If you try that, then my advice is to start with brief periods to allow calluses to develop so you won't rub the skin raw from the repeated vibration of metal against it. :wink:


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24 Apr 2013, 1:11 pm

Qi wrote:
I have to do more than one thing at the same time to stop me from getting bored and losing interest and focus, so I have to play a game while watching a movie, because often neither is stimulating enough to my brain on its own.


Exactly. I try to listen to at least a couple of hours of news per day on my laptop (NPR, MSNBC), but the only way I can bear to sit there and listen is to be playing a "bubble popper" game on my Ipad at the same time.



Mirror21
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24 Apr 2013, 3:22 pm

Qi wrote:
Something most of us do to maintain our focus is to maintain some routines and rituals, but I wonder how many of you do something unusual and creative to help you focus. The typical focus tips you find everywhere just don't do anything for me.

For instance, I have to do more than one thing at the same time to stop me from getting bored and losing interest and focus, so I have to play a game while watching a movie, because often neither is stimulating enough to my brain on its own.

I type my thoughts in a text editor on my computer as I'm thinking them, and I delete them afterwards (because I have no use for it afterwards). Just the typing/writing itself is enough to organize my thoughts, I don't have to keep a diary.


I fidget, or do several things at once such as post here, do homework and litsen to music at once. I mostly have to do this when I have to complete a task that is not interesting to me such as homework on a boring subject or something like that. When I draw or play a game I am really into, the entire world sort of dissapears, so I do not need to find a way to focus.



btbnnyr
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24 Apr 2013, 3:45 pm

I play a game that seems to increase my brain function and help me focus on things that I don't like to do.

It's a mental rotation game that is verry merry berry easy for me, but it helps me focus on writing my homework, which I don't like to do.


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Drehmaschine
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24 Apr 2013, 4:03 pm

Touching and fiddling with things helps to keep focus and seems to help my brain work better.



Eloa
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24 Apr 2013, 6:01 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
I play a game that seems to increase my brain function and help me focus on things that I don't like to do.

It's a mental rotation game that is verry merry berry easy for me, but it helps me focus on writing my homework, which I don't like to do.


I play Spider Solitaire a lot.
I t is a card game and I play it medium level.
I like the numbers of the cards in my head and "sorting it out" and matching the colours, symbols and numbers.
I need to play it a couple times a day.
And I like the numbers in two colours.


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Martian_Child
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24 Apr 2013, 9:23 pm

I doodle. During class. It's the only way I can control my nerves. And it helps me listen better because I don't have to look at my teacher. All of my main-course teachers are OK with it, luckily. But there's this one teacher that HATES it when I doodle and says that I don't look like I'm listening and blah blah blah. Ugh. High school. Makes me want to go catch a bus with my face.
But whenever I'm stressed or annoyed or bored or whatever, I just draw and I'm okay. Whenever my anxiety acts up, I grab something and start drawing and I immediately calm down. I bring a pen around with me everywhere I go, and whenever something gets me going i'll just grab it and start scrawling random stuff on my arm or hand.



Scia
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24 Apr 2013, 10:06 pm

If I'm trying to listen to something being said, I work on something that involves little-or-no language comprehension, like pixel art or solitaire. If I need to do something like reading, I find music helps. Sometimes the music has to be instrumental, or at least in a language I don't understand, or else the lyrics can distract me.

There has been one time where there was enough sound going on around me that I actually had to turn my music off, because it was one thing too many for my brain to pay attention to and the music was the one thing I could stop without being rude.



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25 Apr 2013, 7:54 am

In high school, a teacher asked me how I could write with loud music on. He said studying and writing should be a time when your mind retreats. When he used the word "retreat", I had an epiphany: My mind needed something to retreat from.


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CyborgUprising
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25 Apr 2013, 2:15 pm

I used to get b****ed at by teachers for listening to music and drawing while they were going over assignments/lessons. When a teacher accused me of not paying attention and asked me to say to the class everything she covered, I did so verbatim. She never complained about me not paying attention again. :twisted:



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25 Apr 2013, 2:18 pm

Weighted blankets



anneurysm
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25 Apr 2013, 7:05 pm

I meditate quite a lot. I also have to write nearly every day. My head is always busy and if I'm too distracted by my thoughts I can't be productive or do anything.


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PhilosophicTurtle
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25 Apr 2013, 8:28 pm

Doodling, fidgeting, or flicking. Either of them if not all of them. Flicking is the best.


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