Improve Your Focus

Tips for increasing focus and regenerating & controlling your attention

1. Avoid multitasking. Focus on one task, one screen, and one goal at a time. Switching back and forth  breaks concentration, increases workload & reduces pleasure and power. It also takes more brain energy.
2. Use the 5-minute rule. Commit to just five minutes. Starting is often the hardest part.
3. Choose more long-form media. Books, podcasts, films, and longer videos help rebuild sustained attention.
4. Keep your phone out of the bedroom. Reduce late-night scrolling and improve sleep.
5. Block distracting apps at night. Use settings or apps so you don’t have to rely on willpower.
6. Watch one screen at a time. Don’t scroll on your phone while watching a show or movie.
7. Try turning off subtitles. When possible, practice listening and following closely without extra visual cues.
8. Practice focusing in different places. Libraries, cafés, and public spaces can strengthen your ability to concentrate.
9. Set limits on distracting apps. Give social media a defined amount of your day instead of unlimited access.
10. Move your phone away while working. Another room is best; out of reach is still better than beside you.
11. Notice what makes you reach for distraction. Boredom, stress, uncertainty, and frustration can all trigger scrolling.
12. Make focused work easier. Remove small obstacles that interrupt your workflow or slow you down.
13. Make progress visible. Track pages read, words written, problems solved, or other concrete progress.
14. Take real breaks. Walking, stretching, resting, or getting outside restores attention better than checking notifications.
15. Work around focused people. Being near others who are studying or working can help you stay on task.
16. Take care of your “hardware.” Sleep, exercise, food, and social connection strongly affect your ability to focus.
17. Turn off unnecessary notifications. Don’t let every app decide when your attention should shift.
18. Make the task more enjoyable. Ask, “How could I make this 10% more fun?” Enjoyment makes attention easier to sustain.
19. Work in timed focus blocks. Set a short period—such as 25–45 minutes—to do one thing without interruption, then take a real break.
20. Write distractions down instead of following them. If you remember something unrelated while working, jot it down and return to it later rather than switching tasks.

Projects that reward focus and attention:

1. One Place, One Hour — Create a photo, audio, or video piece from spending one uninterrupted hour in a single place. The challenge is to notice changes that only emerge over time.
2. The 60-Second Shot — Make a short video using only long, unbroken shots—no rapid cuts. Students must use framing, sound, movement, and timing to keep viewers engaged.
3. Listening Portrait — Build an audio story from careful observation of one soundscape: a café, forest, dorm hallway, workshop, bus stop, shoreline, etc.
4. Slow Photo Essay — Photograph one subject repeatedly over several days or weeks. The story comes from small differences in light, behavior, weather, use, or change.
5. Attention Map — Walk a familiar route slowly and map what normally goes unnoticed: sounds, smells, textures, signs, plants, infrastructure, people, or traces of history.
6. Digital Still Life — Create an interactive webpage or multimedia composition around one ordinary object. Reveal its history, materials, relationships, meanings, and hidden systems.
7. Before You Scroll — Design a website, prototype, or short interactive work that deliberately interrupts automatic scrolling and asks users to pause, choose, reflect, or look closely.
8. Three Minutes of Nothing Much — Make a three-minute film in which almost nothing “dramatic” happens. The goal is to discover how composition, sound, rhythm, and observation can make ordinary moments compelling.
9. Micro-Documentary — Tell the story of one very small thing—a tree, bench, repair shop, bus route, recipe, tool, creek, discarded object—through patient research and observation.
10. Close Looking / Close Listening — Choose one image, artwork, interface, song, video, or physical place and build a media piece that reveals details most viewers would miss on first encounter.
11. Human Pace Interface — Redesign a familiar app or website feature to reward deliberate use instead of speed, clicks, streaks, autoplay, infinite scroll, or constant notification.
12. A Day Without the Feed — Spend a defined period avoiding algorithmic feeds, document what replaces them, then turn the experience into a visual essay, audio diary, video, or interactive story.
13. The Boring Thing Project — Choose something you initially find boring and spend enough time with it to discover why it might actually be interesting. Make a piece that helps an audience make the same discovery.
14. Notice → Return → Notice Again — Visit the same place three or more times. Each visit must reveal something missed previously. Build the final project around how attention deepens through repetition.