Topics / Focus & attention
How can I concentrate better?
The problem as a graph
Your focus is the bold glowing edge: right now it connects you to exactly one node. Phone, notification and open tab send strong signals and keep pulling the active relation toward themselves. The pale edge to the actual task is still empty — it is the redirect target.
Graph as text
- Notification → Phone (active)
- Phone → Me (focus) (active)
- Open tab → Me (focus) (passive)
- Me (focus) → Actual task (empty)
- Actual task → Flow (empty)
Step by step
- Sketch your current attention graph: which single node is glowing right now? Next to it, draw the nodes that constantly reach for your active relation (phone, tab, noise, a thought).
- Find the disturbing node — usually the one sending the strongest signal. With phone-checking it is almost always the notification or the mere visibility of the device.
- Take the distraction node out of the active graph: phone out of sight and silent, tabs closed, one thing open. You do not delete the relation — you just make it invisible so it turns passive.
- Deliberately activate the empty relation to the task with a tiny first signal: one sentence, one line, two minutes. The first impulse makes the pale edge glow.
- Protect the new active relation for a while instead of fighting the old one. When focus jumps away, calmly steer it back without scolding — redirect rather than resist.
- Once the task relation glows steadily for a while, it can pass into the flow node: task and attention then become the same signal.
Seen through the model
Imagine you want to write a report, but your phone is lying next to the keyboard. Through this lens your attention is a single active relation that always jumps to wherever the strongest signal comes from. Every vibration, every flash of the display is such a stimulus — and the relation to the phone has been activated so often over months that it springs back very fast.
Suppose you put the phone in another room and close every tab except the document. With that you take the distraction nodes out of the active graph: their relations do not disappear, but without a signal they turn passive. Now the edge to the task is the only one left — and you give it a small impulse with the first sentence.
This makes visible why „more discipline“ is often not the lever: discipline fights against the glowing phone relation. It can be more effective to shape the environment so the disturbing relation is never activated in the first place — and the empty relation to the task gets the quiet it needs to start glowing.
Frequently asked
What helps against constantly checking my phone?
Through this lens you check the phone because its relation to you has been active so often that it springs back at the smallest signal. Instead of fighting it, you take the node out of the active graph: out of sight, silent, in another room. Without a stimulus the relation turns passive, and your focus stays with the actual task.
How do I get into flow?
Flow appears when your active attention relation and the task become the same signal — there is then no competing node left to pull you away. The path there: set all distraction nodes to passive, activate the task relation with a tiny first step, and protect it for a while until it carries on its own.
Is my concentration „broken“ if I can't focus?
Not in this way of thinking. Your attention works exactly right: it follows the strongest signal. If that comes from your phone or an open tab, it jumps there. That is not a defect but a hint about which nodes are too loud right now — and which ones you can turn down.
Keep thinking
Related terms: Relation, The three states: empty, active, passive, Signal (“Schwingung”)