Do you ever wish you could ignore all of the distractions around you and just focus…but find that, no matter how hard you try to stay on task, you keep getting sidetracked?

If so, then you can relate to what students often experience on a daily basis when they sit down to work on their homework.

Students with ADHD can have an especially difficult time avoiding distractions and staying focused on their work.  However, this problem isn’t limited to students with diagnosed attention difficulties. Many high school and college students struggle with maintaining focus – especially on assignments that require sustained attention, like writing papers or reading textbooks.

A study conducted by psychology professor Dr. Larry Rosen found that when sitting down to study, students generally lost focus after about 3 minutes! (Rosen et al. 2013) And this was for students who knew they were participating in a study! 

This lack of focus can have major costs for students.

Working while distracted can dramatically increase the amount of time students spend on their homework.  If a student has 2 hours of homework to complete, but only spends 10 out every 15 minutes actively working on his or her assignments (the average from Dr. Rosen’s study), they will need at least 3 hours to complete the same amount of work.  (Again, that’s an optimistic estimate!)  All this extra time spent on homework can cause students to stay up late and lose sleep…which makes it even more difficult for them to stay focused and avoid distractions the following day.

Frequent distractions also have a quantifiable effect on students’ grades.  Studies have shown that college students who spend more time on Facebook tend to spend less time studying, and have lower GPAs, than their peers.  Sending text messages while studying has also been associated with lower grades in college. (Canales et al, 2009; Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009)

Strategies to help your student get focused

There are many reasons why students can have trouble focusing, including…

• Physical factors (low energy, dehydration, etc.)
• External distractions (phone, computer, siblings/parents, etc.)
• Internal distractions (thoughts, worries, etc.)
• Difficult or confusing task
• Low motivation
• No sense of urgency

Luckily, there also are a number of quick and simple solutions that students can use to reduce distractions and increase their ability to focus!

Here are some of my favorites…

1. Nourish your body & refresh your brain 

• Try working at a time of day when you naturally have more energy. For instance, if you normally do homework later in the evening, try starting it earlier in the afternoon and see how that affects your ability to stay focused and avoid distractions.
• Try exercising before you study.  Just 15-20 minutes of aerobic exercise can provide an immediate boost in executive function, which helps students avoid distractions and maintain focus on their work.
• Drink more water!  Studies have shown that even being slightly dehydrated can have a significant impact on attention and focus.
• If you’re having trouble focusing while you sit, try standing or walking while you work. Some students find that they can think and focus more effectively while they’re physically active.
• Take short breaks after completing each assignment, or after 30-60 minutes of focused work.  Getting up to walk around, refill your water bottle, use the bathroom, pet your dog, etc. can help reset your focus & attention.

2. Eliminate external distractions

• Turn off or silence your electronic devices.  If you can’t turn them off, put them on silent and turn off all notifications. Block internet access for websites that tend to distract you with one of the great tools designed for this. If you’re writing, try putting Word in ‘Focus’ view, or writing within an app.
• For a detailed overview of technology distractions and the best tools you can use to stay focused, sign up at the bottom of this post to receive my FREE guide on managing teens and technology distractions!
• Try changing your location to someplace less familiar, where there are fewer potential distractions nearby.  For example – a high school student studying in their room could try working at the dining room table.  A college student could try studying in a coffee shop or library, rather than their dorm.
• If studying in silence is distracting, try listening to ambient sounds or music that is designed to help focus & creativity, from sites like coffitivity.com, noisli.com, or focusatwill.com

3. Minimize internal distractions

• If your mind is racing in 100 different directions as you sit down to work, take a few minutes before you start to write down everything that’s on your mind so you can deal with it later, after your work is completed.
• Keep a notepad (or a text file) nearby while you’re working, so you can quickly jot down any ideas that come to mind while working but are NOT related to the task you’re working on. Each time, remind yourself: that’s NOT what I’m doing right now.
• If you’re worried about something, make a commitment to worry about it at a specific future time later in the day, and set an alarm to remind yourself so your brain can trust you enough to let it go, knowing you’ll get to it later.

4. Make it easy to get started

• Identify the physical next step you need to take in order to make progress with this work, and focus on WHAT you need to do to move things forward. For example, instead of telling yourself you need to write your essay, just focus first on looking in your bag for the rubric.
• Shrink the task down to something so easy that you’re 100% confident in your ability to do it successfully.  For example: commit to focus on your work for just 5 minutes, or to write just ONE paragraph, and then give yourself a break.
• Reduce performance pressure. For example: Instead of trying to write a “good” essay, start by creating a rough first draft.

5. Increase your motivation

• Create a reward, or incentive, for yourself by planning a specific, fun activity you will do as soon as you finish your work.
• Focus on the benefits of finishing this assignment. Think about how good you will feel as soon as you have completed it, or about how much better you will do on your next test.  Or,f that doesn’t work for you, try considering the negative consequences of not finishing it to see if that feels more motivating.
• Increase your accountability, by working in a place where people can see what you’re doing, or making a public commitment (to a friend, roommate, parent, sibling, etc.) about what you will accomplish in this time period.

6. Increase the time pressure 

• Reduce the total amount of time you have available to do the work, by creating constraints that require you to finish your work at a particular time. For example, you could tell a friend you’re going to Facetime them at 8 pm, and set a goal of finishing your homework before you allow yourself to call.
• Instead of setting aside 3 hours for homework, divide your work into shorter intervals and give yourself a deadline for each task.  For instance, rather than thinking “I have 3 hours to finish my homework”, think: “I have 30 minutes for my math homework, 30 minutes for my history reading…” etc. Use a timer to keep track of how much time you have left for each task.
• If the task feels really boring and tedious, challenge yourself to see how quickly you can finish it by trying to set an absurdly SHORT deadline (e.g. if it would usually take 30 minutes, can you manage to do it in 15 if you really focus?)

How you can help

If your student is having difficulty staying focused, offer to help brainstorm ideas for how to improve their focus. You probably have lots of ideas, especially after reading this article! Try to resist the urge to give your student lots of ideas all at once, as this can create overwhelm and increase resistance to your ideas. Instead, encourage your student to come up with at least one idea of his or her own between each of your suggestions. Trade off suggesting ideas until you have 4-5 options to choose from, and then ask your student which ones seem like they would be most useful.

Alternatively, you’re welcome to forward this article to your student, so they can read about the strategies themselves.

If you think your student could benefit from working through this information with an Academic or ADHD coach who can help identify the strategies that will be most helpful for increasing their focus while studying, sign up for a free consultation here.

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About The Author

Dr. Maggie Wray is a certified ADHD Coach & Academic Life Coach with a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell and a Bachelor’s degree in Astrophysics from Princeton. She founded Creating Positive Futures in 2012 to help high school and college students learn how to earn better grades with less stress. Her team of dedicated coaches is on a mission to empower students to develop the mindset, organization, time management, and study skills they need to achieve their goals.