How to Stay Focused When on Your Computer

"Here are three tips you can implement right away to keep your computer from stressing you out:

1. Keep tabs on your number of tabs.

Set a limit on how many tabs you keep open at one time. A good rule of thumb is three to five, but also listen to yourself and notice how many tabs you can have open before you start to feel a sense of existential angst. That's your signal to start closing tabs. The number will vary from person to person based on individual threshold for being overwhelmed by information, but, typically, the fewer tabs open, the better. And you can help yourself by...

2. Mine the information, then immediately exit the mine.

...mining each tab for the relevant information and then commit to closing it. We often leave tabs open due to a sense of loss aversion, in that we are afraid of losing the information. Don't get trapped in the mine because of the illusion of anticipated loss. Remind yourself that you found it once and can find it again easily, be it in your search history or with another search, which on one hand may take more time than if you had kept the tab open but, on the other, may save you precious time that would have otherwise been wasted shifting attention from one tab to the other. Research has shown that we lose quite a bit of time in the transition and startup costs of switching from one task to the other.

3. Complete your projects.

Practice finishing tasks to completion. Setting a rule and time limit to complete a task helps you make quicker decisions and is better than keeping things open-ended to come back to. Remember that there is a start-up cost every time you have to switch tasks. It is the difference between lighting a fire and keeping it aflame versus letting a fire go out and having to rekindle the flame from scratch. Furthermore, each time you practice staying focused on a task to completion, you reward yourself with a sense of accomplishment and closure as well as build the mental fortitude that you can make decisions and complete tasks in a timely fashion in the future."

Read the complete article available at Psychology Today!

Reflection:

Do you find it hard to focus when using your computer?

#Focus #Attention #Computer #Work