Remember your school race? The teacher made you stand in a line at the starting point beside 9 of your batchmates, and said ‘Ready set, Go!’ And your whole body and mind were in tune for that moment. As soon as you heard the word ‘Go!’, you were off, sprinting down the track, your focus entirely on reaching that finish line as fast as you can. Not once during those next few minutes did your attention waver towards your mobile phone or some movie you were planning to see.
How often in life have you been able to call upon your brain’s attention reserves to the extent that you did during that race? To focus, if for a few minutes, entirely on one thing and one thing alone?
There are many factors that affect your brain’s attention span, but one thing is entrainment. Our attention is essentially an oscillating thing, always fluctuating and looking for the next useful thing. ‘Entrainment’ is a way of putting a pin on one particular aspect of our environment and telling our attention that this is where it needs to be for some time. Deficient entrainment has been found in schizophrenia and dyslexia and mounting evidence also suggests that it may be abnormal in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (reference - 1)
A sound that announces the start of the race, like the word ‘Go!’ or a gunshot, tells the brain that all its attention is needed here. Now, can we use this hack to get your brain to focus during other times?
I want you all to try something. Have your to-do list in front of you. Take an alarm clock and set it to 20 to 30 minutes. Pick one item from your list, switch on the alarm clock and say to yourself - Your time starts now!
Se if it makes a difference in your attention. And let me know.
We will discuss the mechanism of this at greater length in a YouTube video soon.
Till then, love and cheers!
Sid
Good one sid. Heard from someone about pomodoro technique. Maybe that works on the same principle you presented above.
This is a great idea, i will surely experiment with it and tell you. Thank you Sid🥂