Dear Maddi: Trouble refocusing after a study break

Sometimes I take a break from studying to watch a short YouTube video, then several hours pass before I realize how much time I've wasted. This cycle repeats over and over and it's impacting my grades and my social life. How do I stop this?

Signed, Wasting Away

Dear Wasting Away,

Thank you for your question! This is probably one of the most common questions I hear in individual therapy and during my Get it Done workshops. Taking effective breaks is a key component to being productive and it makes sense that if you’re having a hard time managing your breaks, it could create problems in the long run.

It’s so easy to lose track of time with the endless options on YouTube and social media. One thing to remember is that these platforms are designed to hold our attention and keep us engaged. We need firm boundaries and parameters for how we use these platforms or they end up managing *US* and disrupt how we spend our time. The good news is that you have recognized this issue and are looking for ways to put yourself back in the driver's seat.

What is being broadly addressed in this question is how to manage distractions. And my goodness, there are plenty of those to go around! Distractions can be either external (things outside of us, such as other people, noises, phones, etc) and internal (private experiences such as thoughts, feelings, and sensations) (Eyal, 2019). Any number of these things can distract us away from the target of our attention and ultimately, our life goals. Which brings me to the first suggestion --be explicit with where you want your attention to be, what you want to accomplish, and for how long you will do it. Oftentimes, we have vague ideas of how we spend our time (e.g. take a break) without clear parameters of what this involves and how we’ll switch back to another task. Set a clear time limit for your break time and set an alarm to help to shift back to your work. In my experience, people have tried setting alarms but they end up ignoring them and return to the distraction. Here again, we need intention. When you set your alarm, remind yourself why you are setting the alarm -- such as, I don’t want to waste my break time so I am setting this alarm to get back on track. And then when the alarm goes off, you again want to intentionally direct your attention to it and remind yourself why you set in the first place (to not waste time, use breaks more effectively, so you can go see your friends later, etc).

If attention is a problem for you, it may mean that you are drawn towards immediate gratification and potentially become hyper focused on an activity, thereby easily losing track of time. Whether you have difficulty maintaining attention or being overly focused at the expense of other important tasks, this is problematic.

People tend to misconstrue attention as something we have or don’t have. But attention, like many other aspects of experiences, is something we regulate. Regulating attention involves 4 components: starting, sustaining, stopping, and shifting (Surman, Bilkey & Weintraub, 2014). So in any given situation, we are choosing to start focusing on a task, sustaining our focus on it, stopping when our attention has shifted, and shifting it back to the task. After we take a break we need to shift back to where we planned to return. It may be helpful to plan out your work and break time, with specific goals for each segment of time, so that you have a reminder of exactly how you intended to spend your time.

I recommend the Pomodoro technique, which helps to divide work and break time efficiently. A typical Pomodoro involves 25 mins of work time, a 5 min break, completed four times (for a total of 2 hours), at which point you can take a longer break (30-60 mins). This arrangement can be adjusted based on your preference but try this option first because in addition to breaking work and rest time efficiently, it also teaches you to be more regimented with your breaks. As you can imagine, 5 minutes is not very long -- just enough time for a quick stretch, use the bathroom, or get a snack. Selecting the right break activity for the designated duration is key to the success of the Pomodoro. That means, you may have to forgo using YouTube or other social media apps for your breaks. Ultimately, if you continue to have difficulty staying within your break time with a certain activity, you may want to eliminate that activity for your breaks so you can stay on track with your day. If you want to figure out which activities work best for your breaks, you could track your activities to determine which ones are most likely to stay within the allotted time. Tracking could be a simple table that includes, date, type of break activity, length of time set aside, and actual break time used. If you had trouble staying within the break time, make sure to identify what got in the way in order to problem solve a more effective approach. Using these methods allows you to experiment with various activities so that you know which ones actually give you a needed break or rest, while also staying on track with your day. The information you collect can help inform your decisions and allow you to achieve other important goals, such as seeing your friends. Just don’t forget to reward and praise yourself whenever you stay within the allotted break time!

Lastly, if you’re struggling to transition back to work from a break it is important to pause and reflect on what is preventing you from returning to task. Oftentimes, we blame our phones, computers, and websites/apps for distracting us but what we need to uncover is the reason we are avoiding returning to a task. Sometimes, we take breaks to avoid some aspect of distress -- perhaps the task you are returning to is boring, confusing, or you don’t want to do it. During these times, we have to ask ourselves, is avoiding the task or taking longer breaks than planned helping with your long term goals? Or would problem solving ways to return to task be a better option in the long run? If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you may want to write down what exactly is overwhelming you and come up with a plan to resolve the problem. For instance, you may need to break the task down into smaller pieces or consult with your professor or classmates about your next steps. If the task is boring, find ways to make it more interesting by incorporating competition with yourself (how many questions can I complete in each Pomodoro?) or make your environment more enjoyable by incorporating upbeat music and a tasty snack. Bottom line, we need to investigate problematic behaviours and potentially consult with trusted family or friends to identify more effective ways to achieve our goals.

If you need additional support for managing your break time effectively, you could also check out these helpful resources:

Pomodoro Websites or Apps:

Tomatoes: http://www.tomato.es/

Pomodoro Tracker: https://pomodoro-tracker.com/

Focus Keeper: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus-keeper-time-management/id867374917

Focus ToDo: https://www.focustodo.cn/

Be Focused: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/be-focused-focus-timer/id973130201

Forest: https://www.forestapp.cc/

Tide: https://tide.fm/en_US/

CCS Video Series for for breaking down large goals, scheduling, and creating routines

References:

Eyal, N, (2019). Indistractable: How to control your attention and choose your life. BenBella Books.

Surman, C., Bilkey, T., & Weintraub, K. (2014). Fast minds: How to thrive if you have ADHD (or think you might). Berkley.