How to focus when studying without fighting distraction

To focus when studying, the most practical path is to cut down interruptions and study in short blocks with breaks agreed in advance. It is not only about willpower: research on interruptions shows they have a cost, and organizing your environment usually helps more than trying to resist all the time. Below are the main studies, with their limits, and a plan you can apply today.

Interrupting costs more than it seems

In 2008, Gloria Mark and colleagues compared people doing tasks with and without interruptions. Those who were interrupted finished the tasks in less time and with no measured loss of quality, but reported more stress, frustration, time pressure and effort. The authors interpret this as people compensating for the interruption by working faster, and that has a price. The title of the paper sums it up: "more speed and stress" (Mark, Gudith and Klocke, 2008).

In practice, an interruption does not make you stop completely. It makes you rush, with more tension. It was a lab experiment, so it works as a clue, not a law. Still, it matches many people's experience: after checking a notification, studying feels more tiring.

Does the phone on the desk weigh on you?

In 2017, Ward and colleagues suggested that the mere presence of your own smartphone, even switched off, would reduce available mental capacity (Ward et al., 2017). The idea became known as "brain drain" and sparked a debate. In 2022, Ruiz Pardo and Minda repeated one of Ward's experiments, with a preregistered design, and found no performance difference between the phone positions in the two lab tasks they used, one of working memory and one of response control. The authors concluded that the mere presence of the phone may not be enough to hurt performance (Ruiz Pardo and Minda, 2022).

So the phone stops being a problem? Not exactly. What the debate shows is that the effect of mere presence is uncertain. What is safer to say is that an open phone within reach generates interruptions, and interruptions have a cost, as we saw above. Getting the screen out of the way is a cheap habit, even if the effect of mere presence is uncertain.

Many screens at once: what the study shows

In 2009, Ophir, Nass and Wagner compared people who use several media at the same time, like watching a video and answering messages, with people who use fewer media together. Those who multitasked the most were more sensitive to irrelevant stimuli and, surprisingly, worse at switching from one task to another (Ophir, Nass and Wagner, 2009).

The study compares groups. It does not prove that multitasking caused the difference, because other factors may be involved. Still, it points in a direction: studying with several tabs and a chat open demands more than it seems.

Brief, rare breaks keep attention

Ariga and Lleras (2011) tested a vigilance task, in which a person has to stay alert for a long time for a rare signal. When participants were reminded, from time to time, of the numbers they were holding in mind, performance did not drop over time. When that reminder only came at the end, the drop appeared. The authors call these moments brief and rare mental "breaks" and propose that they keep the goal of the task from gradually "fading" (Ariga and Lleras, 2011).

This is a simple task, done in a lab, quite different from studying math or history. The result does not guarantee the same effect in your notebook. Even so, it suggests a practical idea to test: in a long session, stopping now and then for a few seconds and telling yourself what the goal of the task is may help keep your attention from getting lost.

A plan for today

1. Write the task in one sentence, for example: "solve exercises 1 to 6 on fractions". A specific task is easier to start and to finish.
2. Take the phone off the desk. If you can, leave it in another room. If not, turn the screen face down and silence it.
3. Agree on a short block, 20 to 25 minutes. Short blocks are easier to keep, and there is no magic number of minutes of focus.
4. When an idea comes up or the urge to check something, jot it on a piece of paper beside you. You do not lose the thought and you do not open the tab.
5. When the block ends, take a short break without a screen, like standing up and drinking water. When you come back, read the last line you wrote before continuing.

What if I get distracted anyway?

It will happen, and it does not mean a lack of character. When you notice you got distracted, do not spend energy blaming yourself. Do just three things: go back to the task written on paper, reread the last line you produced and pick up again. If the distraction keeps happening at the same point, the exercise may be too hard or too long. Split it into smaller parts. A list with the current task and the next one also helps you avoid deciding what to do all the time.

And at home, why is it harder?

At home, interruptions come from everywhere: family, the fridge, the television, the bed nearby. What helps is having a fixed place to study, preferably a table, and letting people know your study time. If the place is your bed, it is worth choosing another corner, even a small one. At school, the tip is similar: pick a spot in your notebook and a study time before the test, instead of studying only the night before.

If the studying is a child's, the guide Study routine for kids covers schedule and environment at home.

When to seek help

If difficulty focusing is constant, shows up in almost every situation and gets in the way of school or work, talk to a doctor or psychologist. A suspicion of ADHD, for example, can only be evaluated by a health professional. This text gives general tips and does not replace that evaluation.

If you want to combine focus with review, see also Interleaved practice, which explains how to mix types of exercise in the same session.

Sources

1. Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), pp. 107-110. https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072
2. Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583-15587. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903620106
3. Ariga, A., & Lleras, A. (2011). Brief and rare mental "breaks" keep you focused: Deactivation and reactivation of task goals preempt vigilance decrements. Cognition, 118(3), 439-443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.007
4. Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140-154. https://doi.org/10.1086/691462
5. Ruiz Pardo, A. C., & Minda, J. P. (2022). Reexamining the "brain drain" effect: A replication of Ward et al. (2017). Acta Psychologica, 230, 103717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103717