How to stop being distracted by gadgets too often

Social networks, email, and other traps for attention nullify our ability to concentrate on the important things. But the habit of distractions can be overcome, if you know how it is formed in the subconscious.

Why did we lose focus

When you listen to music, certainly you remember the beginning of the next song in the playlist before the completion of the previous one. This is because in the process of repeated listening queue brain learns to predict the future songs. The ability to forecast plays a key role in our understanding of speech and predicting the behavior of other people.

However, the brain is important not only to anticipate future events, but also the right time for them. After all, to seamlessly interact with other people, you must make the correct action in due time. As a result, the brain is actively working to ensure that you are guided in the schedule of upcoming events. This process affects the distribution of attention.

The brain builds forecasts in several time frames simultaneously. To shake hands with business partner, you need to know where it will be in the next few seconds. Not calculate the position of the hand, you can get into a stupid situation. To successfully conduct the meeting, it is important to plan the time of its completion. Otherwise, participants can overdue other things. To keep important customers should choose a convenient time to get in touch.

Based on how often you perform a specific action, the brain tries to predict the next opportune moment for it. Thus formed habits can work against us, especially when we are talking about the use of gadgets.

As technology exacerbate the habit of distractions

Many alone email checked several times per hour. But still there is a tape of social networks and notifications from other applications. At first, people in control of himself. He deliberately opened the post office computer or smartphone gets, and the brain detects these actions with respect to time.

If you check your email every 20 minutes, in the subconscious habit of delayed transfer look at the icon to counter new posts three times per hour. You spend part of the attention to the fact, to see the number of incoming emails, and every time to decide whether to take the next step - to open the program and check the contents of the box.

Add in social networking and other applications. In the end, you start to get distracted from important things every five minutes and the process gets out of conscious control. The brain is accustomed to such scheme of interaction with gadgets. Based on it, the subconscious mind begins to look for the best time to check new messages and focus on them too often.

If you decide for a long time to work on something really important, you will be required something more than just the intention to carefully approach the task. You will need to change the schedule of interaction with the distractions that took root in the brain.

What to do to last longer concentrate on the important

• Measure the time during which you can work without interruption. Gradually increase it using a timer set for a longer period.
• Dispose of the maximum number of distractions. Continue to keep them out of reach until they improve concentration skills.
• Use your free time to help the brain to get rid of schedule, according to which he was accustomed to distractions. For example, leave your smartphone at home, when out for a walk, do not use gadgets in queues.

It comes down to the restructuring established in the conceptions of the brain that, when you may need one or another feature of the gadget. The more you succeed in this, the longer will be able to concentrate on work. The brain should realize that there is no real need to be distracted several times within an hour of the important tasks.