Lack of concentration at work

[elainevdw]

Maybe it's because of diet, or maybe it's a bad habit that's grown on me, but I've had a really hard time concentrating at work lately. It's not that I dislike my job -- actually, it's quite the opposite. I'm a real word geek, so I especially love my proofreading duties. But lately, I have not been able to concentrate on anything at work, even proofreading.

I do drink enough water, eat breakfast, and get an okay (if not optimal) amount of sleep. My desk and computer are both organized and comfortable. I am a little bit stressed to be on deadline with so much fact-checking to do, but it's not overwhelming.

Can anybody brainstorm with me to either pinpoint the cause of the problem, or try out some solutions?

[tadams]

Elaine,

I've found that the times when I have the most trouble concentrating at work are ironically when work is at a slow point and very stress-free. When I don't have a lot of tasks piled up to do, I end up taking my time & therefore having trouble concentrating on anything because nothing is an emergency. Some ways that I try to counteract this is to try to behave the same way that I would if there was a lot of work - create "To Do" lists, establish deadlines and try to meet them, etc. When there really isn't much to do, I pad my "To do" lists with things that I've been wanting to do & just haven't had time.

-Torrie

[alexander.kharlamov]

Well, if you really love your job, then it's just a temporary thing, and it'll pass.

Try tricking yourself into starting working. Say "I'm going to do work for 10 minutes, and in those 10 minutes I'm not going to browse the web, check the mail, chat on IM, etc."

So basically, you'll leave yourself no other choice but to work for 10 minutes. And next time you look at the clock, you may very well realize that's it's been two hours, and not 10 minutes, and you got into "the flow".

Good luck!

[Dating Specialist]

Hey, Elaine, you're not alone! I'm in this can''-concentrate-for-long type!

To make things worse, due to my career's flexibility I can arrange my own time. For example when I'm writing my book or blogging, my mind could be on this forum, or another forum. Or I'l lbe surfing other sites doing research. It's really hard and I realised I am losing efficiency as a result too.

Today, yes just this morning I am using a new strategy. I give myself an hour to just go into forums and I tell myself to focus on this one thing. I don't open new windows, just on the existing one. When I'm done, I'll focus on my book and all forums will be logged out.

I hope this work. Oh I need to log out in 10 minutes time!

Good luck. Will be checking this thread to see if any more wonderful suggestions for me to pick as well!

[elainevdw]

Thanks for the tips! I guess I need to artificially create a sense of urgency in my work to blast through things in smallish chunks.

Torrie, how do you create/use your to-do lists? I've experimented with a few things but haven't found anything I really dig. The task feature in Outlook is what I'm working with currently, which is nice because the program's always open anyway, and it will remind me of appointments if I need it to.

Alexander, does that process strengthen your self-determination at all? Sometimes I wonder if my work ethic's gotten slack from lack of practice! Ideally, I'd like to work up from being semi-productive over a long workday to being super-productive over a short day (as Steve wrote about once, I think).

Internet browsing is a trap for me too, Kloudiia. I never used to have too big of an issue with it, but I think I picked up the habit at my last job, which consisted of long, boring stretches of nothing to do between projects that would come in with quick turnaround times. Now that I've got a more consistent deadline schedule, I suppose I need to schedule my browsing time, too, rather than immediately opening Firefox when my attention wanders!

Thanks, guys. Anybody else want to chime in?

[alexander.kharlamov]

Hey Elaine,

That method definitely does help me with self-determination. After doing that for a while, I got into the habit of tricking my brain by saying "I'm only going to work for 15 minutes"... and then, seeing what kind of results I'm able to achieve by doing that, it helps my determination a great deal. You can achieve best results by reaching a state called "the flow", where you are so consumed by what you do, you don't notice anything else going on around you. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

If I can just chip in with advice on Todo lists: I experimented a lot with different ways to keep them, and I found the best and the easiest solution is to use Back pack from 37 signals: http://www.backpackit.com/. It's free (they do have a premium version that has more features, but I haven't felt a need to use it yet), easy to use and solves a major headache for me, which was how to be able to update my lists at home and at work.