Most of us have had days when concentrating feels almost impossible. You sit down to work, but your mind keeps wandering. You reread the same email three times. By the end of the day, you're exhausted, even if you don't feel like you got much done.
It's easy to assume the answer is to push harder. But pushing harder is often what leads to burnout.
Staying focused isn't about squeezing more out of your brain. It's about working with it.
Why Focus Gets Harder When You're Burned Out
Burnout is a result of long-term workplace stress that hasn't been managed well. Paying attention, solving problems, making decisions, and remembering things all take mental effort, and burnout can wear that down.
Burnout can show up in ways you might not expect, including:
Trouble concentrating
Forgetting things more often
Feeling mentally drained
Losing motivation
And becoming easily frustrated by tasks that normally feel manageable (Canadian Psychological Association [CPA], 2021).
These are not signs of laziness or a lack of discipline. They are recognized symptoms of burnout. Research suggests that planning and decision-making skills are the ones most often affected, although the evidence is still limited (Koutsimani & Montgomery, 2022).
Focus on One Thing at a Time
It can be tempting to juggle emails, meetings, messages, and projects all at once. It feels productive, but it may not help your focus. A review of 46 studies found that people who multitask heavily with media tend to report slightly more trouble with sustained attention. The effect was small, though, and researchers still can't say whether multitasking causes the problem (Parry & le Roux, 2021).
A simple, practical approach is to pick one priority and give it your full attention before moving on to the next. Silencing notifications for a set block of time can make this easier.
Schedule Breaks Before You Need Them
Many people wait until they're mentally exhausted before stepping away from their work.
Research suggests that short breaks during the workday give a small boost in energy and reduce fatigue (Albulescu et al., 2022). Even very short pauses during long stretches of mental work tend to help attention and performance (Schumann et al., 2022).
You could stand up, stretch, take a short walk, or look away from your screen for a few minutes. Putting breaks on your calendar makes them easier to actually take.
Don't Underestimate Sleep
Sleep plays an important role in attention and memory. Short-term sleep loss can reduce attention (Lim & Dinges, 2010), and sleep helps your brain strengthen new memories (Klinzing et al., 2019).
If you're regularly cutting back on sleep to get more done, you may be making it harder to focus the next day. Protecting your sleep is one of the best things you can do for your brain.
Take Care of Your Brain
Your brain works best when your body is well supported. A few habits have research behind them:
Move your body regularly. Reviews support the idea that being active helps thinking skills such as memory and attention (Erickson et al., 2019).
Spend time outdoors. After time in natural settings, people have shown small to moderate improvements in working memory and mental flexibility (Stevenson et al., 2018).
Manage stress. Long-term stress can affect the brain, including memory (Lupien et al., 2009).
Eating regular meals, staying hydrated, and making time for activities you enjoy are also good general health habits.
These habits won't remove every distraction, but they help create the conditions your brain needs to work well.
When It Might Be More Than Burnout
Sometimes trouble focusing isn't just the result of a busy schedule.
If you've struggled with attention, organization, memory, or mental fatigue for years, or if these challenges are affecting work, school, or daily life, it may be worth looking a little deeper.
Conditions such as ADHD, learning differences, anxiety, and sleep problems can all affect focus. In adults, ADHD often shows up as ongoing trouble with attention, and it frequently occurs alongside anxiety (Faraone et al., 2021). A comprehensive cognitive assessment can help identify what's contributing to these difficulties and provide practical recommendations tailored to your needs. Reach out today to learn more about the assessments we offer and how we might be able to help.
Focus Is About More Than Productivity
Everyone has days when it's hard to concentrate. But if you're constantly feeling overwhelmed, mentally drained, or like you're working twice as hard just to stay on track, it's worth paying attention.
Taking care of your brain isn't about being productive every minute of the day. It's about understanding what helps you think clearly and recover well.
If staying focused continues to feel harder than it should, getting answers can be the first step toward finding strategies that work for you.
This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider.
References
Albulescu, P., Macsinga, I., Rusu, A., Sulea, C., Bodnaru, A., & Tulbure, B. T. (2022). "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLoS ONE, 17(8), e0272460. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460
Canadian Psychological Association. (2021). "Psychology Works" fact sheet: Workplace burnout. https://cpa.ca/docs/File/Publications/FactSheets/FS_WorkplaceBurnout_EN_2021.pdf
Erickson, K. I., Hillman, C., Stillman, C. M., Ballard, R. M., Bloodgood, B., Conroy, D. E., Macko, R., Marquez, D. X., Petruzzello, S. J., & Powell, K. E. (2019). Physical activity, cognition, and brain outcomes: A review of the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 51(6), 1242–1251. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31095081/
Faraone, S. V., Banaschewski, T., Coghill, D., et al. (2021). The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 evidence-based conclusions about the disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 128, 789–818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.01.022
Klinzing, J. G., Niethard, N., & Born, J. (2019). Mechanisms of systems memory consolidation during sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 22(10). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0467-3
Koutsimani, P., & Montgomery, A. (2022). Burnout and cognitive functioning: Are we underestimating the role of visuospatial functions? Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 775606. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.775606
Lim, J., & Dinges, D. F. (2010). A meta-analysis of the impact of short-term sleep deprivation on cognitive variables. Psychological Bulletin, 136(3).
Lupien, S. J., McEwen, B. S., Gunnar, M. R., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434–445. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639
Parry, D. A., & le Roux, D. B. (2021). "Cognitive control in media multitaskers" ten years on: A meta-analysis. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 15(2), Article 7. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2021-2-7
Schumann, F., Steinborn, M. B., Kürten, J., Cao, L., Händel, B. F., & Huestegge, L. (2022). Restoration of attention by rest in a multitasking world: Theory, methodology, and empirical evidence. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 867978. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867978
Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/10937404.2018.1505571
