Written by: Anna Pasternak / Communication Coaching / December 22, 2021 / 10 minutes read

Many may experience difficulties with maintaining attention when they are communicating with others or trying to complete daily tasks. Some of the most common causes of inattention include ADHD, traumatic brain injuries, and those who had a concussion. Difficulties with attention can appear very differently for all people, as some people may struggle with keeping attention during conversation and others may have a difficult time doing two tasks at once. No matter what the cause is or what sort of difficulties one may be experiencing with attention, it can lead to many day-to-day problems that affect the overall functioning of the person. These difficulties can impact the person’s personal and professional life.  

Inattention can be divided mainly into 4 different types of attention. A person can have difficulties with one or several of these types. The four different types of attention include, selective attention, divided attention, sustained attention, and shifting attention. Selective attention  is the ability to focus on the specific task at hand. This could be something like reading an article at a coffee shop and understanding what you have read, while not being distracted by everything else going on around you.  This can cause problems such as not understanding what has been read or making mistakes when writing or filling something out , due to loosing attention in the middle of the task. 

Divided attention  is being able to focus on two things at once. Those who have difficulties in this area find it hard to do two tasks at once such as cooking while on the phone, or not being able to focus in on a conversation with the presence of background noise such as music or others talking. 

Sustained attention is being able to maintain attention and listen for a certain amount of time, people who have difficulties with this type of attention  may get easily distracted by their own thoughts and loose themselves when in conversations with others. Often not catching everything that was said to them.  

Shifting attention is being able to shift in between different tasks. For those who have difficulties in this area it may be hard to finish a task as they get distracted by  something else and find it difficult to go back to the original task. 

Depending on what sort of attention difficulties you are struggling with different strategies may  help you cope with some of these difficulties and improve over time. Some attention techniques  include: 

• Avoiding distractions- you want to work in environments that are less distracting if you find you get easily distracted by certain things. Is there background noise? Move to a quieter space. Turn off you phone, or notification pop-ups on your computer that may become a distractor to you. Evaluate your environment and what is potentially acting as a distractor and try to eliminate it. 

• Internal thoughts- If you are finding you are getting easily distracted by your thoughts when in conversation, write down those thoughts before entering the conversation. This will allow you to focus more on the conversation at hand, knowing that whatever you were thinking about is written down for you to come  back to at a later time. Sometimes we may have these internal thoughts because we are worried that we might forget certain things, with them being written down, this can give us some peace of mind.
  

• We want to make sure that when in conversation we are also using our active listening skills to help us maintain attention. A link that talks deeper about active listening is posted below.

• Taking breaks- as another technique to help with attention you want to make sure you are taking breaks when you need them. What is the optimal amount of   time you can work for in order to be the most productive? If it is only half an hour then make sure to take a  5 minute breather in between to help reset your focus. During this break you may want to do an activity that helps you relax such as deep breathing, stretching, going outside for a few minutes, find something that works best for you. 

• To work on improving divided attention- try to practice with doing two things at once- such as talking on the phone while listening to music.  If you find this too difficult, maybe music without lyrics would be easier to follow? Start with something that is easier for you and work on increasing he level of difficulty as you get better at the task. 

Check out our Communication Wellness Masterclasses for additional support in areas such as active listening and attention.

To speak with one of the speech-language pathologists or a psychotherapist at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or calling (647) 795-5277.