Improve Your Concentration 

People who manage their time well have one quality in common - a high level of concentration.  Those who say that they do not have time tend to take up more jobs simultaneously and unable to concentrate on any one of them.  Consequently, they take more time to complete a task due to various interruptions.  The ability to focus on one issue at a time is very important. 

One of the popular detective storywriter Georges Simenon used to have a practice.  He will cut himself off from the outside world - no telephone calls, no visitors, no newspapers, no mails.  He will live like a monk and work on a book.  After about 10 or 12 days of total immersion in his writing he will emerge with one of the best sellers!  This is the ability to concentrate on one job at a time. 

We may not be able to do it for every project on hand.  We may not be able remove ourselves for 10 or 12 days at a time.  Can we not shut off all distractions for 30 or 45 minutes to start with?   Can we not sit away from a telephone for an hour to concentrate? on any work?  Can we not hide in a place where we do not have visitors for about 10 minutes at least so that we do justice during that 10 minutes to the task on hand during that 10 minutes. 

You should also train your mind to concentrate on one issue at a time without mind wandering.  It is said that mind is a monkey and it will wander all over.  It is for you to control your mind.  With a little amount of practice it is possible.   

Do the following exercise: 

Take a watch, which has a sweep second hand.  For solid three minutes observe the movement of the second sweep hand and concentrate as though nothing else exist in the world.  Whenever any other thought comes to your mind put a tally on a piece of paper.  After 3 minutes of observation, count the number of tallies.  This represents the number of times your mind wandered.  This is a measure of the level of your concentration.  Every time your mind wanders say "cancel, cancel" and come back and observe the second sweep hand. 

Do this exercise for a week at a fixed time.  You will be surprised to note that with practice the number of times your mind wanders will come down substantially.  Just like any other exercise like muscle building, concentration can also be improved by constant practice. 

Will you try this exercise today?

>> Next

Above: Links