Nine exercises to improve concentration at work
27 March 2014
Read by 2528 persons
Family worries, emergencies, fear of failure... Impossible to concentrate. And yet, you need to finish that difficult file, prepare for that delicate interview, lead that crucial meeting. How do you clear your head and mobilize your neurons and energy? The answers from Nicolas Dugay, coach and associate director of CAA.
Concentration involves mobilizing your mental and physical faculties on a subject or action. However, our brain is solicited by multiple pieces of information and can only process one at a time optimally. It is therefore a matter of monopolizing it, freeing oneself from parasitic emotions and training oneself to act, activating one's five senses. Through this practice, you will also gain performance. Here are nine exercises to do before and during this work.
1. Identify your "attentional style"
Researcher Robert Nideffer, an expert in sports psychology, observed that an athlete's attention is characterized by two dimensions: the scope, broad or narrow depending on whether it is focused on one or several pieces of information; the direction, internal or external depending on whether it is centered on thoughts and sensations or on an external event or object. This gives four possible preferences. Example for a footballer. 1/ narrow-internal: I mentally repeat a penalty. 2/ narrow-external: I visualize five passes on a field. 3/ external-narrow: I visualize the goal. 4/external-broad: I visualize the entire field. Everyone has their own inclination. It is better to know this to perfect your training.
2. Focus on your breathing
Sitting or standing, with your back well supported on the seat or firmly planted on your two legs, inhale and exhale at your normal rhythm ten times in a row, paying attention to your breath. You will bring your emotional state to a standstill.
3. Fixate on an object, only the object
Isolated in your office or waiting before a debate, force yourself to "zoom" in on an object, preferably neutral (not a photo of a loved one or a vacation memory), pen, telephone, chair... And this for one minute. Which is a long time. Scrutinize all the details, the contours, the color, the texture, the smell, and forbid yourself from thinking about anything else.
4. Fixate on the object... then its surroundings
As before, look at a single object but without lingering on it. Fixate on it for 20 seconds, no more, then widen the focus, examine what surrounds it, the wall, the table on which it rests, the green plant next to it, etc. This exercise is effective for any creative work. You thus prepare your mind to go beyond a specific point and to search in unexpected corners that will facilitate the association of ideas, innovation.
5. Listen to music
For auditory learners, this is a helpful aid. There are two ways to use it. 1/ Listen to a piece or song that will put you in the right emotional state for the situation. If you are going to have a gentle discussion with a colleague, choose a concerto. If you have to win a contract with a stubborn buyer, prefer rock. 2/ Isolate in your listening the instruments -piano, guitar, drums- one after the other. Your attention will be sharpened.
6. Count in your head
7x2=14; 7x3=21; 7x4=28...Remember your multiplication tables, do mental arithmetic, subtraction, division, logical series of numbers. This is a really good method because the brain is then engrossed in this activity. Only mechanical and repetitive actions can be performed concurrently: cycling, swimming, doing push-ups. Another advantage is that the exercise is of elastic duration depending on your mood.
7. Slow down your movements
Create an "open" concentration bubble. That is, not closed to the world, otherwise the slightest question will be experienced as an aggression. Before a crucial meeting at 10 am or writing a sensitive report, get up in the morning taking your time: dress slowly, enjoy your shower, allow yourself half an hour for breakfast and not 15 minutes, walk slowly, etc. You then enter the next phase, senses on alert, having conserved your energy.
8. Visualize the unfolding of the action
This technique used by athletes before competition works well before a public speaking engagement, a negotiation or a complex project. It involves repeating the scene mentally 3 or 4 times, in real time and visualizing all the details (setting, atmosphere, microphone or other tool) and all the steps up to the final success. A manager was thus afraid of being destabilized during a meeting by criticism from his peers on his CSR policy. He visualized the scene in his head, and found replies. On "D-day", at the dreaded moment, he was able to assert himself while staying on topic.
9. Find your "switch" and activate it.
Identify during this mental video (or by exploring your past) a sensory stimulus that connects you to memories related to success. A kind of "off"/"on" switch, called a "switch" by sports coaches, which soothes and instantly triggers positive energy and maximum concentration. This could be seeing the color pink, saying a specific word -"I can.", "Attack!"- or clenching your fist. Thus, Zinedine Zidane, before each match, systematically put on his left sock before his right.
Marie-Madeleine Sève.
Lexpress.fr
Concentration involves mobilizing your mental and physical faculties on a subject or action. However, our brain is solicited by multiple pieces of information and can only process one at a time optimally. It is therefore a matter of monopolizing it, freeing oneself from parasitic emotions and training oneself to act, activating one's five senses. Through this practice, you will also gain performance. Here are nine exercises to do before and during this work.
1. Identify your "attentional style"
Researcher Robert Nideffer, an expert in sports psychology, observed that an athlete's attention is characterized by two dimensions: the scope, broad or narrow depending on whether it is focused on one or several pieces of information; the direction, internal or external depending on whether it is centered on thoughts and sensations or on an external event or object. This gives four possible preferences. Example for a footballer. 1/ narrow-internal: I mentally repeat a penalty. 2/ narrow-external: I visualize five passes on a field. 3/ external-narrow: I visualize the goal. 4/external-broad: I visualize the entire field. Everyone has their own inclination. It is better to know this to perfect your training.
2. Focus on your breathing
Sitting or standing, with your back well supported on the seat or firmly planted on your two legs, inhale and exhale at your normal rhythm ten times in a row, paying attention to your breath. You will bring your emotional state to a standstill.
3. Fixate on an object, only the object
Isolated in your office or waiting before a debate, force yourself to "zoom" in on an object, preferably neutral (not a photo of a loved one or a vacation memory), pen, telephone, chair... And this for one minute. Which is a long time. Scrutinize all the details, the contours, the color, the texture, the smell, and forbid yourself from thinking about anything else.
4. Fixate on the object... then its surroundings
As before, look at a single object but without lingering on it. Fixate on it for 20 seconds, no more, then widen the focus, examine what surrounds it, the wall, the table on which it rests, the green plant next to it, etc. This exercise is effective for any creative work. You thus prepare your mind to go beyond a specific point and to search in unexpected corners that will facilitate the association of ideas, innovation.
5. Listen to music
For auditory learners, this is a helpful aid. There are two ways to use it. 1/ Listen to a piece or song that will put you in the right emotional state for the situation. If you are going to have a gentle discussion with a colleague, choose a concerto. If you have to win a contract with a stubborn buyer, prefer rock. 2/ Isolate in your listening the instruments -piano, guitar, drums- one after the other. Your attention will be sharpened.
6. Count in your head
7x2=14; 7x3=21; 7x4=28...Remember your multiplication tables, do mental arithmetic, subtraction, division, logical series of numbers. This is a really good method because the brain is then engrossed in this activity. Only mechanical and repetitive actions can be performed concurrently: cycling, swimming, doing push-ups. Another advantage is that the exercise is of elastic duration depending on your mood.
7. Slow down your movements
Create an "open" concentration bubble. That is, not closed to the world, otherwise the slightest question will be experienced as an aggression. Before a crucial meeting at 10 am or writing a sensitive report, get up in the morning taking your time: dress slowly, enjoy your shower, allow yourself half an hour for breakfast and not 15 minutes, walk slowly, etc. You then enter the next phase, senses on alert, having conserved your energy.
8. Visualize the unfolding of the action
This technique used by athletes before competition works well before a public speaking engagement, a negotiation or a complex project. It involves repeating the scene mentally 3 or 4 times, in real time and visualizing all the details (setting, atmosphere, microphone or other tool) and all the steps up to the final success. A manager was thus afraid of being destabilized during a meeting by criticism from his peers on his CSR policy. He visualized the scene in his head, and found replies. On "D-day", at the dreaded moment, he was able to assert himself while staying on topic.
9. Find your "switch" and activate it.
Identify during this mental video (or by exploring your past) a sensory stimulus that connects you to memories related to success. A kind of "off"/"on" switch, called a "switch" by sports coaches, which soothes and instantly triggers positive energy and maximum concentration. This could be seeing the color pink, saying a specific word -"I can.", "Attack!"- or clenching your fist. Thus, Zinedine Zidane, before each match, systematically put on his left sock before his right.
Marie-Madeleine Sève.
Lexpress.fr
