Improving your focus: stop at one shot of coffee

Look alive! UQ Mythbusters is back and this time we’re wrangling your attention span. Whether struggling to get in the zone at work or reading the same sentence of a book 20 times in bed at night, all of us have experienced frustration at our inability to focus at one time or another.

And it’s no wonder – life in the era of endless notifications and relentless algorithms often puts our attention spans to the test.

Contact asked Dr David Sewell, UQ Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology and an expert on the science of concentration, to bust some myths and share some tips.

Still with us? Let’s get into it.

Key points:

• Multitasking is a myth! By juggling tasks, you complete them more slowly than you would sequentially.
• Some people do naturally have stronger focus than others.
• You can improve your concentration, but there’s no shortcut: you must build habits that protect you from distraction.
• Stick to one cup of coffee. The attentional benefits level out after one shot, and can even be diminished by large amounts of caffeine.
• Surprise, surprise – smartphones and apps like TikTok are designed to damage your focus and they do this very effectively. Silence your alerts to stay on track!

True or false: we can multitask to be more productive?

False! Many of us have heard someone say that they’re great at multitasking. I imagine plenty of us have made such claims about ourselves at some point, too. But it’s a myth. Granted, it’s a great feeling to have multiple things on the go (and to not have them fall to pieces), but this is what makes it an especially pernicious myth.

The fact of the matter is that we’re rather lousy at performing any task when we divide our attention. Each of us has a finite attentional capacity, making focus a zero-sum game. When we divide our attention, we can make progress on multiple fronts or across different tasks, but the pace of that progress is often slower than if we had approached things sequentially. Moreover, there are further overhead costs associated with switching from one task to another. It’s quite difficult to move straight from one task into another and we often take a moment to reorient ourselves, giving rise to a ‘what am I doing again?’ kind of experience.

Is it possible to improve focus?

Thankfully, it is possible to improve one’s ability to concentrate and focus attention. That said, it’s not so much about expanding one’s attentional capacity—you’ve only got so much attention to work with. Rather, it’s about protecting those finite attentional resources from being captured by distraction. Part of this can be driven by practice. Good attentional habits can be cultivated over time, but intensive training is often needed for this to be effective.

More immediate improvements can come about from adopting more structural changes around performing tasks that require concentration. Proactively removing or avoiding likely sources of distraction can help keep your attention from being pulled away from the task at hand: finding a quiet place to work without interruption and switching off notifications can be a huge help. Having a clear plan for accomplishing a goal – reflecting on what specific steps you need to take and how much time you will spend on-task – can also help protect from the distraction of planning on the fly. It also has the advantage of breaking up a larger task into several smaller, more manageable, ones.

Are some people just a little bit more ‘scatterbrained’ than others? When should we seek professional advice about issues like ADHD?

There are certainly individual differences in attention and ability to focus. Optimising conditions to protect against distraction can go some way to narrow the range, but there are also fundamental person-specific limits on what one can do in terms of attentional focus. For a variety of reasons, it’s important to understand one’s own attentional bottleneck and organise things based on what works best for you. How long can you meaningfully maintain focus on a task? Do you focus better in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Are there certain tricks you’ve discovered about yourself that improve focus or motivate you to focus?

As with any concerns about mental well-being and cognitive ability, it’s fine to voice concerns and seek advice when issues begin to limit your day-to-day life. If you’re concerned that attention-related issues are disrupting everyday function or are causing distress or worry, it would be appropriate to seek further advice.

Do our phones and their attention-gobbling apps like TikTok and Instagram have a measurable impact on our ability to focus?

They certainly do, and from a few different angles at that. On one hand, push notifications are intentionally designed to grab our attention and pull it away from our current focus. Responding to notifications involves the pick-up and put-down costs of reorienting our attention, like any kind of task switch. However, simply knowing that you’ve received a notification can distract based on thinking about what it might be. Through use and experience, we quickly learn that these apps are an endless source of novelty and intrigue. Since we find these things intrinsically interesting, we go out of our way to engage with apps. Restricting how much time we end up spending on them is one way we can try and reclaim our attention.

What’s your advice for anyone who feels they struggle to concentrate at work?

Hang in there! Easier said than done, I know. If one feels that it’s getting harder to concentrate at work, it’s important to reflect on why that might be. Sometimes the causes might be under your direct control – it’s too easy to grab my phone and start scrolling through social media—and these kinds of issues can be addressed by being proactive. Install lock software or make it physically harder (or more annoying) to access your phone when you don’t want to be distracted. Other times, the causes can be more structural and require a more thoughtful response. Are there other external stressors that are creating problems outside of work that need to be address? Are you burnt out and need a break? Taking stock of how your attention is being spent is a key first step.

Does caffeine help with focus? Or can it be a hindrance?

Coffee drinkers, rejoice! Caffeine helps but, sadly, the benefits to attentional focus don’t continuously grow with each additional cup – there are diminishing returns. Benefits to attentional focus seem to kick in after a cup of coffee and level off soon after that. It is possible to overdo it though, as performance can get more haphazard and error-prone after consuming large amounts of caffeine.

Is it natural to lose focus as we age? When should we worry about a struggle with attention?

Attentional control does weaken as we age, in that it can take longer to establish focus and we can be quicker to lose it, too. I think it would be a mistake to attribute all kinds of changes to aging or cognitive decline more generally, though. Also important are changes in priorities and interests that naturally come along with changes in how (attentionally) captivating we might find certain tasks or activities. However, if challenges with attention are interfering with accomplishing goals you are pursuing or are beginning to create problems in day-to-day life, it is best to seek out advice or assistance earlier rather than later.

Any other tips to improve focus?

Be patient as you refine your ability to focus. We’ve probably all picked up some bad attentional habits along the way that are hard to change. Cultivating a set-up that protects you against distraction is an incremental process. It takes time and effort. Of course, looking after yourself physically and mentally goes a long way to help, too. Having a plan and being clear about what goals you want to achieve and how you might go about achieving them is key. It’s easy to stay on task when you’ve got a clear plan. It’s much harder when you’re unsure of what to do next.