« Archives in June, 2012

Attention Control

I’ve noticed that keeping my attention on task has been getting difficult in the evenings. My mind has been wandering all over the place. Unfortunately, the internet aids and abets this tendency with a vengeance. So, to keep my mind from dissolving in endless distraction, I have been engaging in some attention control exercises I’ve come up with.

One of them involves drawing a black dot on a sheet of paper. I set my kitchen timer for 5 minutes, and stare at the black dot, not allowing my field of vision or my mind to wander from it for that period of time. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding this exercise to be almost physically painful. To stop thinking about every random thing going on in my head, and only about what I am consciously choosing to focus on is an extreme effort.

Of course, attention control *is* supposed to be a mental endurance exercise – I suppose it might get easier with time. My hope is that endurance in this regard translates over into being able to direct my attention on my projects.