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New neuroscience reveals 6 secrets that will increase your attention span
Welcome to The Productivity Blueprint newsletter 🗞️
Last newsletter, we went over the 4 stages of competence. We hope you got a chance to practice the productivity challenge and found it helpful. If you missed it, you can catch up here 😊
Today is all about attention span, and how you can work on increasing yours! Let’s dive in.
“A short attention span makes all of your perceptions and relationships shallow and unsatisfying”
Throughout the years, attention span has been recorded to be declining and as such, it seems to be reducing productivity. Here are some tips, based on the most recent neuroscience research, as to how you can increase yours:
Recognize your limits: You must first recognize that your brain isn’t always going to be focused. Attention span fluctuates and to maximize efficiency, try to get good sleep and take breaks to let your mind reset.
Mood: Having a negative mood naturally discourages you from completing your goals. Stressing about unfinished tasks is also a big factor in creating negative mood. The article suggests that if you have any unfinished chores at the end of the day, write them down before you sleep, instead of thinking about them.
Social Media: Use social media (texting, scrolling, etc). as a form of reward for completing tasks, and set a timer so you don’t accidentally get distracted!
Reduce Multitasking: Try not to multitask and focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking can induce stress which will affect how you carry out your day-to-day activities.
Reduce Distractions: Distractions are most of the time cause by yourself instead of the things around you. In order to stop being distracted, try to organize your time so you can dedicate certain blocks of your schedule for other people/hobbies. When you are working, turn-off notifications, set up internet blockers, and make your work fullscreen!
Set your own pace: At the end of the day, the most important thing is having a plan and is best targeted for you. Instead of solely focusing on how to maximize productivity, think about how certain things can affect your mood and ask yourself how they affect your goals.
TL/DR: You can increase your attention span by recognizing your limits, focusing on your mood, controlling the use of social media, and reducing multitasking/distractions.
 As the article recommends, here is a book written by Gloria Mark that goes in depth about your attention span and perhaps you can get more insight if you are curious. It can also train you to increase your attention span by focusing on reading. Find the book here. |  This app blocks all sites that are marked as a distraction, including games, YouTube, and other forms of media so you have less distractions. What we love: This feature is very tough to crack, which means you cannot disable the feature when you have it turned on. ColdTurkey won’t let you delete/uninstall during that time and essentially you are forced to increase your attention span! |
💡 Challenge of the week
Set a timer to 20 minutes and try to focus on your task without getting distracted. Then take a 5 minute break, after, set the timer to 25 minutes. Slowly increase your working period and see how far you get!
That’s all for this newsletter! We hope you enjoyed exploring ways to increase your attention span and found some practical tips to help you stay focused.
Until next week,
The Productivity Blueprint Team
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