7 Ways to Improve Your Concentration

What Is Concentration Really?

Concentration is your ability to focus your mental (or physical) faculties on a specific thing or task. Concentrating is being able to listen, observe, and accomplish any goal you desire. Like memorizing vocabulary, grammar, or conjugation, for example. In other words, you need to be able to concentrate to learn a new language.

The problem is that most of us are prone to distraction. Our surroundings, a lack of sleep, a bad diet, an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle, or even a negative outlook on life can all cause us to lose focus. Here are 13 tips, tricks, and advice to improve your concentration and to maintain higher levels of concentration so that you can study better, work better, and be more successful at everything you do!

7 Ways to Improve Your Concentration

1. Plan Your Objectives

Planning and concentration go hand in hand. You should add your objectives to your calendar so you have a clear goal for every lesson or review sessions. By planning each of your milestones, you’ll establish essential organization and structure to your task so you can stay concentrated.

It’s important to be realistic when planning your objectives. There’s no problem with planning your final objective, but for now, break it down into small attainable steps. By having these sub-objectives, your overall goal feels more attainable because you can easily accomplish at least one small every day! For example, trying to order at a restaurant in your target language, or book a hotel in that language. And to break that goal down even farther, you can study words from a certain category every day before making that attempt. MosaLingua’s cards can help you organize your learning into categories like this: choose the theme you want to learn, and dedicate, let’s say, one session a day on the theme for three weeks. Then after learning the important vocabulary, you can then also review with MosaLingua’s Spaced Repetition System.

2. Know Yourself!

You should know that on average, the maximum peak for concentration is 30 minutes (give or take a few minutes). This peak often occurs in the morning; however, we are all most efficient at different times of the day. Some of us are morning birds, others are night owls. It’s up to you to find out when you have the best concentration and aim to learn at that time.

Once you find your “concentration time,” keep in mind that it is best to have short learning sessions. Break down your daily study session into 10-minute interval with short breaks in between, that way you can maintain full concentration on your goals while studying, something that you wouldn’t be able to maintain for an hour-long session.

3. Improve Your Mental Endurance

Did you know it’s possible to improve your mental endurance, aka, the time you’re able to concentrate?

We’ve already seen that the peak of concentration only lasts around 30 minutes for the average person. As we all know, sometimes its difficult to even make it to 30 minutes. There’s a simple exercise you can do to improve how long you can concentrate: time yourself. On the first day, just time how long you can concentrate on something. The next day, take the first amount of time and add an extra minute to create your countdown. The day after that, add another minute. And so on. By adding just one extra minute every day, you’ll be able to build your level of concentration over time!

4. Never Work When Hungry or Sleepy

There’s no point in working when you’re hungry or sleepy, you’ll just be distracted. It’s better to eat well (but not so much that you’ll feel bloated) and to have a positive state of mind when working or studying.

We could even say that in order to keep up your concentration, that you need to adopt a healthy lifestyle: lack of sleep disrupts concentration, as well as hunger and physical tiredness. What does this tell us? To be able to concentrate properly, we have to eat healthy, balanced meals, get enough sleep, and stay in shape.

Please note: Some foods are good for your neural system: green vegetables, grains, legumes, etc.

5. Go at it Step-by-Step, One Task at a Time

Our brain can’t focus on more than one task at once, it can only deal with one thing at a time. So if you want to improve your concentration, don’t multitask.

If you’re learning with the MosaLingua cards, for example, focus on one card at a time before going onto the next. That means taking the time to read it, commit it to memory, and only then moving onto the next one. Basically, try to finish a task completely before starting a new one.

Between each task, or each vocabulary card, feel free to take a break for a couple minutes to let the information sink in. By giving your full attention to one task at a time, you’re engaging in active learning. That just means that you’re conscious of what you’re doing, while you’re doing it, so you’ll be able to remember it for longer.

6. Develop an Interest in What You’re Studying

Being interested is the biggest factor in concentration. To maintain motivation and concentration, you have to feel interest in what you’re studying. Think about what you’re learning and why you want to learn it.

Ask yourself: Why do I want to learn a foreign language? Make a list of why you want to learn a language, consider those reasons while you’re making a plan, and maybe even leave reminders around your home so you stick with it. You need to be conscious of why you’re spending time on a certain project. Not only will this help you remember your objective, but it’ll also make the learning process much more interesting.

7. Relax!

Just relax and breathe deep. Regardless of why you want to improve your concentration, you need to breathe properly so you can oxygenate your brain for the task.

Here’s an exercise to help you relax and thus improve your concentration: sit straight, or at the back of your armchair, take a deep breath through your nose, and slowly breath out through your mouth; repeat this 10 times. You’ll be more relaxed, and better able to concentrate on your work. Learning a language shouldn’t be stressful. The more at ease you are with it, the easier you’ll be able to concentrate.

Video: How to Improve Your Concentration

To help you get started, Cédric, from the MosaLingua team, will review the 7 best ways to improve your concentration in the video below. This video is in English with subtitles in 6 different languages that can be activated in the bottom right of the video. You can watch the video here or watch it directly on our YouTube channel.

Before you go, subscribe to our YouTube channel for tons more tips!

Improving your concentration isn’t hard.

It all comes down to being conscious of, and deliberate about, what you do. Many learning experts recommend slowing down and spending a little extra time on each task. Slowing down makes you more intentional with what you’re doing. So, don’t rush. Your goal? To be as *zen* as possible in order to learn a new language in the best possible conditions. Pair that with the concrete strategies discussed this video and you’ll be able to keep your focus from slipping!

Do you have other tips on how to improve your concentration? Let us know what’s worked for you in the comment section below 😉