Ways to Improve Concentration So You Can Finish Things and Not Get Sad

While many creative people believe that a “flow state” of total immersion can best be achieved by scrolling Instagram, clicking on an ad for a Mongolian sweater startup, researching the history of Mongolia, seeing what movies have taken place there, and researching which film titled Genghis Khan (1950, 1965, 1998, 2018) has the highest rating on Rotten Tomatoes, some critics think this process might inhibit productivity. Some, it’s true, believe this is not a flow state at all, but a series of random links that serves no discernible purpose.

So how to proceed? Now that you are aware that 1950’s Genghis Khan was praised by critics for its use of historically accurate horse breeds? Well, frustration, self-criticism, and annoyance are all options. But if you’ve got a project you’re working on that you’re excited about, criticizing yourself for doing what social media and the Internet generally have trained you to do isn’t going to help.

Here are concentration strategies that I’ve tried that work for me. If you find your own technology habits getting a bit out of your control, and the result is anger at yourself, a loss of motivation, or simply wasted time, I think they could be worth trying.

1) Freedom

Freedom is an app for your phone and desktop that blocks you from accessing certain apps that you select, certain websites that you select, or the Internet altogether for a time period that you select. It costs $40 for the year or $9/month. If you use a computer for work, some kind of Internet-blocking software is extremely helpful. On days when I need to use the Internet for work, I block only certain websites that I have difficulty with (Twitter, news, niche endurance sports websites that are big in Europe for some reason). On days, or mornings, that I do not need the Internet at all for work, I block the whole Internet. I also block certain apps during the day so that my social media time is restricted. If I do not use this app, I am remarkably good at spending hours per day falling through link holes that, by the end of the day, I will have not remembered the purpose or results of. You can use Freedom on a browser and as an app on your phone, which makes the user experience pretty easy.

2) Adjusting your iPhone’s Do Not Disturb settings

If you have an iPhone, it comes with the ability to silence all calls, silence all calls except from certain people, silence all texts, silence all texts except from certain people, and silence all calls unless someone calls you twice in a row, during “Focus” sessions, which can be recurring or just happen when you turn on a session. Here is an article from Apple that does a pretty good job explaining how to set it up. Basically, you go to Settings, Do Not Disturb, and then you can play around with Focus settings. It might take about ten minutes to set up, and it’s worth it. So if you have your phone in the room with you, but you want to do something that doesn’t involve your phone, you can set up a Focus session and not be bothered unless you’re getting a call or text from a certain special someone. (If you want to create a group labeled That Certain Someone Special, for whom do-not-disturb blocks do not apply, buddy it ain’t illegal.)

3) Deleting apps from your phone

It is a matter of fact that social media designers used the principles of casinos in order to increase the addictive properties of their apps. When revenue is a direct result of time on app, addiction becomes profit. And, if you suffer from feelings of anxiety, depression, or low self-worth because of social media, you know that the house always wins. So what to do? Using Freedom or a similar software to block social media during certain times of day is one answer. Another is to delete the apps from your phone. I think, at the very least, it is worth it to experiment with deleting Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, your email service, and Internet browser. Here is why, beyond the fact that they distract you. These apps train you to think “Boredom is bad.” You’re standing in line, you open Instagram to experience something more interesting. You’re waiting to meet someone, you open a news app to stay abreast of a story you’re following. If, over time, you train yourself to avoid all boredom, then it gets much harder to concentrate, since boredom is the first step toward deep concentration. When sitting down to work on a big project, it's inevitable that the first five (Ten? Twenty?) minutes are pretty boring. You’re just sitting there, staring at the project. It’s not fun. It’s daunting. Eventually, your brain adjusts to the situation, and you start getting creative. But if you can’t deal with that initial period of boredom—if you can’t stand the thought of even being bored—it gets harder to enter the project in a meaningful way. At least that’s what I’ve found.

If you reach for your phone the minute you are bored (in line or whatever), you are also training yourself not to notice things. You are teaching yourself, “The world is not worth noticing, so I need to eject my attention from the tangible into the digital world.” If you are an artist or writer, this is a real problem, if you can accept the idea that the primary quality of an artist is the ability to notice things that other people don’t.

I would add that if you practice mindfulness (#3’s getting a bit long, isn’t it?), reaching for your phone detrains that, as well. Mindfulness says, “Sit with your boredom and let it pass.” Your phone says, “Here’s a video of a cat on an alligator put to a Dua Lipa song.” One of those is way more interesting than the other one, but unfortunately it comes with a whole host of problems: anxiety, racing thoughts, a wandering mind. Is that worth it? I mean, depending on the size of the alligator?

My argument, I guess, is that these apps detrain your brain, and retraining your brain involves deleting them. This is an argument that is difficult to disagree with (or agree with) unless you conduct an experiment in which you delete them for several weeks and reflect on how you feel afterward. (Bored more often, but more alert to the world? More alert to your inner world? Better able to concentrate?) In the very helpful book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, he asked if any of his students wanted to engage in this app-deleting experiment for four weeks. Many agreed, and they reported a kind of emptiness the first few days, a feeling of “what do I do with my time?” So if that happens to you, it’s normal. His advice is normcore and helpful: get a hobby; read more; go on walks; do things your grandparents did. Just be sure that, if you delete these apps, you begin every conversation with “I deleted all social media!!!” (yelling)—otherwise, it doesn’t count.

What I am not recommending is deleting all your accounts completely. You are free to do that—and in certain circumstances it’s a good idea—but usually people come back, and it’s usually because they feel disconnected from their social circle. So keep your account, but delete the app. Force yourself to use a computer if you want to go on Instagram. It adds just enough clunkiness to the process that you will find yourself using it much less—enough to keep up with friends, but not so much that you feel a random crash of self-esteem while in the back of an Uber on the way to buy a bagel. That’s progress.

4) Set a daily schedule

Alright, finally a solution that doesn’t involve messing with a widget. Perhaps especially if you work in a creative field, don’t have an imminent deadline, or are your own boss, your day is going to lack natural structure. Creating a schedule functions to prepare you for your day, structure your day, and provide a basis for rewarding yourself. When I sit down to create a daily schedule, I try to do so in the most relaxed way possible. I have a cup of coffee, I have a pen, I have my daily planner in front of me. I don’t rush. I feel a kind of spaciousness. It’s nice. It’s much nicer than just throwing myself into a task. If I do that, I feel rushed before I’ve even started my day. Also, sitting down and asking, “OK, what do I want to do with my day?” is a simple way to practice intentionality, which is helpful in other areas of life outside work. Then, as I’m going through my list, it helps keep me focused and, eventually, gives me a reason to reward myself if I finish a task. The best schedule-setting hack I’ve heard is this: whenever possible, do the most important thing first. That way, if you only get one thing done all day, it’ll be the most important thing, and you can feel a sense of accomplishment and peacefulness. It’s also worth noting that people tend to overestimate how much they can get done in a day. Schedule the important things and don’t expect to get much done beyond them.

5) Regular breaks from screens

This one’s related to setting a schedule. If you want to work on a certain project from 8:30-12, I would also recommend planning breaks in that time. Here is one way to take a break: go on a news site, then go on social media, then go on email, and then 30 minutes and 20 tabs later say, “What just happened?” I’ve used that technique a lot, and it’s not good. Especially if you use a screen for work, I think it can be helpful to avoid them during your breaks. My ideal break is listening to music, moving my body, and going outside. If I don’t do this, my break only tires me further and prevents me from subconsciously working through problems, since going to a news site, for instance, places my mind on a different track of thoughts than it was before. I’ll put it this way: breaks are for not-thinking, rather than for thinking about something else. Put yourself in an environment where you will not have to think, and there won’t be any demands on your attention. Many of my best ideas have come when I’m moving my body, usually outside, and not thinking about anything much. This is the irony with proper breaks: they help you work through problems with no conscious effort. And you know, I ain’t going to protest it.

6) Phone goes in a box

Get a simple box that has a lock. Put your phone in it for a chunk of three hours, or whatever time chunk you have, and lock it. Put the key in a different room. This is enough to make it ridiculous to get your phone to look at news or do whatever. This is a tactic of escalation, and it works.

7) Create a new computer user

What I would like is the ability not just to block the Internet and apps, but also the ability to block the entirety of my computer that isn’t the project I’m working on. If I’m working on a long project, I really only need a few documents. One document is the piece of prose. The second document is a collection of notes. The third document is a collection of cut prose that I keep mainly for peace of mind. (If I cut something that I think sounds good, a part of me dies a little if it goes straight to the trash. So I stick it in a separate document called “[Project name] cut prose,” and there it can enjoy a fruitful, happy afterlife with its friends.)

If I have access to more than this, I find myself tinkering with old, not-quite-abandoned-but-not-quite-active writing projects, looking at old photos, listening to chunks of voice memos that I use to record songs, and on and on. It’s pretty ridiculous the lengths my mind will go to in order to avoid working on the tough stuff. Once the Internet and apps are disabled, this is perhaps the final frontier of procrastination. One solution is to buy a second, super stripped-down laptop dedicated just to writing projects. There was a New Yorker article about this retro-contemporary, basic-but-sleek tech late last year, and its conclusions weren’t satisfying to me, mainly because none of the hardware that the writer tried worked quite the way he wanted. So here’s a different solution (that doesn’t cost any money).

It’s this: create a second user on your computer that is called [Name of Big Project], and only load project files into that user. So if you’re writing a spin on Jane Eyre from Grace Poole’s point of view, you’d create a new user for your OS called Grace Poole, and the only files you’d have under Grace Poole are: Microsoft Word (or your word processor of choice), Grace Poole setting notes, Grace Poole character notes, Grace Poole rough draft, Grace Poole cut prose, and Google Drive (to back up Grace Poole documents). That’s it. Delete every single other app on that user. Literally every single other one. Put in the trash bin your Internet browser, email app, every single other application. “Oh, but I’ll never use the calculator to procrastinate. I don’t need to delete that,” you’re saying. Buddy, if you don’t trash your calculator, in two weeks you’ll be multiplying the square root of 2 times 14 because you want to know the exact length Mr. Rochester travels if he goes fourteen steps straight and fourteens steps to the right. That ain’t intel the reader needs, and you’re just trying to avoid working on Poole’s View. Trash it! And, once you commit, never save a document in this user that doesn’t have to do with Poole’s View. In this context, the computer cannot distract you. There’s nothing on it except your project.

If you are a musician, you’d delete every app except your music recording software. If you’re a filmmaker, you’d delete every app except your filmmaking software and maybe something to take notes. Trash it all and don’t look back! Then, when you sit down to write, log onto Grace Poole and don’t log out. It’s amazing how adding just a bit of annoyance—needing to log out—can prevent you from unhealthy habits.

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Alright, so here’s the deal. This is the type of post that is easy to read, say, “OK, yeah, I’ll try that one,” and then completely ignore it and forget this experience ever happened. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Everybody’s done it. I don’t want this to be a post that’s basically “eat more vegetables,” and then you’re like, “Ok, cool,” and then just go on doing whatever. So here’s where I’ll say something more. Modern technology has transformed our lives. Some of those transformations have been positive, but a significant number of those transformations have been for the worse. Our social, political, and working lives have been disrupted. The way we relate to others, the way relate to ourselves, and the way we relate to our work have been changed and, in my view, deformed. Conversation has become more difficult. Work has become harder to achieve. Rates of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing, particularly among populations that are the heaviest phone users. Our politics have become so toxic that non-participation sometimes seems like the healthiest way to engage. This is grotesque and wrong. There is a level of outrage that should be taking place at the mind-invading companies and their executives that is not happening. And the outrage is not happening because their marketing has worked. They say they are saving the world, or at least are innocuous, and we believe them. But many of their products cause terrific harm, and they know this, and they do not change.

You have something you want to do. It is not getting done because of distractions from tech. That shouldn’t be the case. Live your life the way you want, and get done what you want to get done so that you can go do other cool stuff. Don’t let the Internet and social media mess up your day, day after day. Seriously! No to all that!

Get rid of the nasty stuff! Experiment and see what happens. And if this is really concerning to you, agitate more broadly to reign in tech companies so that it’s not just a personal responsibility.

The addictive properties of social media and the Internet are intentional and very real. But you’ve got something important you’re working on. Finish it. Revise it. Put it in the world. I want to see it.

-C.G.

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If this is a topic that is interesting to you, some books I would recommend are:

Deep Work and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshanna Zuboff

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

and

The Circle and The Every by Dave Eggers