The most reliable ways to sharpen your focus are the ordinary ones: enough sleep, regular movement, doing one thing at a time and keeping interruptions away. None of them is new, but the research behind each is stronger than for most of the quick fixes sold as focus boosters. This piece is part of our guide to energy and focus.
| What you can change | What the research shows |
|---|---|
| Sleep | Short sleep hits simple attention hardest |
| Physical activity | A single bout gives a short boost; regular activity is linked with better thinking skills |
| One task at a time | Every switch between tasks costs time, more so for complex tasks |
| Notifications | Even an alert you ignore can pull attention away |
| Brain-training games | Better at the games, no convincing gain in everyday skills |
Why does sleep matter so much for attention?
Attention is the first thing to slip when you are short on sleep. A 2010 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin pooled studies of short-term sleep deprivation across six areas of thinking: "simple attention, complex attention, working memory, processing speed, short-term memory, and reasoning."
The effects ranged from "small and nonsignificant" for reasoning to "large" for lapses in simple attention. In everyday terms, a tired brain can still reason through a problem, but it is much more likely to drift off, miss things and make slips. If focus is your main complaint, check your sleep before anything else: how many hours of sleep adults need is the place to start.
Does exercise help you concentrate?
Yes, both straight away and over time. A 2019 review for the US Physical Activity Guidelines rated the evidence as strong that "acute bouts of moderate- to vigorous-intensity PA have transient benefits for cognition during the postrecovery period." A brisk walk before a demanding task is a reasonable bet.
Over the longer term, the same review found moderate evidence from randomized trials that regular moderate to vigorous activity improves thinking skills such as processing speed, memory and executive function, the set of skills that manage planning and attention. If you sit most of the day, movement snacks are an easy way to fit activity in, and how much exercise you need covers the weekly targets.
Why is switching between tasks so costly?
Because your brain has to reconfigure itself every time you change task. In a 2001 study of task switching, "Task alternation yielded switching-time costs that increased with rule complexity but decreased with task cuing." The researchers also found that switching into an unfamiliar task takes longer than switching back to a familiar one.
A single switch costs little, but a working day of email, messages and meetings can mean hundreds of them. Practical ways to cut them down:
- Batch similar work. Answer messages in a few set blocks rather than as they arrive.
- Give hard work a protected block. Complex tasks have the biggest switching cost, so they benefit most from uninterrupted time.
- Leave yourself a cue. Cues reduced the cost in the study, so a one-line note on where you stopped makes returning to a task easier.
Do phone notifications break your concentration even if you ignore them?
They can. In a 2015 experiment, researchers found that "cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupted performance on an attention-demanding task", "even when participants did not directly interact with a mobile device during the task." The size of the distraction was comparable to actively using a phone. The authors suggest the alert sets off thoughts unrelated to the task.
The fix is simple, if not always easy: silence notifications during focused work, or use your phone's focus mode so only essential calls get through.
Why does your mind wander, and does it matter?
Mind wandering is the default, not a personal failing. A 2010 study in Science sampled people's thoughts through the day with a phone app and found that "people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is", and that this "typically makes them unhappy."
Later research suggests a wandering mind is not always an unhappy one. The aim is not to stop it entirely but to notice when it is pulling you away from something you want to do. Practising that noticing is a large part of meditation; see what the research actually says about meditation.
Do brain-training games improve attention?
Not in any way that carries over to everyday life. A 2016 meta-analysis of working memory training found "reliable improvements" on tasks similar to the training, but "no convincing evidence of any reliable improvements" on wider abilities such as reasoning, reading comprehension or arithmetic when compared with a fair control group. The authors concluded that these programs produce "short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize to measures of "real-world" cognitive skills."
Time spent on a training app is better spent on sleep, movement or the work you actually want to get better at.
Does caffeine help you focus?
It can help you feel more alert in the short term, but it works best on top of enough sleep, not instead of it. See whether caffeine actually gives you energy, and use the caffeine calculator to check that an afternoon coffee is not shortening tonight's sleep and tomorrow's focus.
When is poor focus worth seeing a doctor about?
Most trouble concentrating comes from short sleep, stress and a crowded day. Talk to a doctor if it is persistent, has gone on for months, affects your work or relationships, or comes with low mood, heavy snoring, or sleepiness during the day despite enough time in bed. Our article on when tiredness is worth seeing a doctor about covers the signs. For setting up your surroundings, read how to set up a workspace for focus.
