Why Can’t I Focus? Exploring Attention for Learning and Life
Do you find it challenging to maintain attention? Do you feel distracted while studying? Do you find it hard to focus on daily activities?
Join us for an interactive, in-person workshop and explore strategies and resources that can help you find focus and manage inattention as a U of T student.
- Gain insights into the various personal and environmental factors that impact attention.
- Reflect on your own experiences with attention in your life and learning.
- Discover practical strategies and useful resources to support focus.
This workshop is right for you if you:
- Experience attentional challenges.
- Experience the impacts of inattention on learning and life.
- Are questioning if there might be underlying factors impacting attention (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), executive functioning challenges, or mental health diagnoses) and are looking to build skills to support your attention and focus.
Upcoming Why Can’t I Focus? Exploring Attention for Learning and Life Workshops
Registration is required. Register using the Folio links* on this page.
There’s nothing on the schedule right now, but check back soon to see what’s coming up.
In the meantime, visit Folio for similar events or explore our website to discover other programs and opportunities.
*The Folio link is only accessible to people who are eligible to register for the Why Can’t I Focus? Exploring Attention for Learning and Life program. This program is open to University of Toronto undergraduate and graduate students.
Practice strategies to boost your attention
Outside of a workshop, you can always try out small changes you can make that can help you boost your attention. A list of strategies below fall into three categories: person-level (get in the right headspace), task-level (change how you work) and environment-level (change where you work).
Get in the right headspace
Person-level strategies
Person-level factors are thoughts, emotions, sensations, level of interest, level of motivation. Maybe you are thinking of something you saw on the news, feeling worried about an upcoming exam, are experiencing a headache or other bodily pain, preoccupied with a family responsibility you have. Maybe you have low interest and motivation to engage with a specific task. All of these can draw our attention away from a particular task. Some examples of person-level strategies to boost your focus are mindfulness, exercise and energy management.
Change how you work
Task-level strategies
Task-level factors are details of the activity we’re engaging in that can contribute to attention challenges. For example, what are the demands of the task? Is the task complex with multiple steps? What are the components of the task and how many are there? Some attention-boosting strategies that change how you approach tasks include printing your readings and working offline, timing your tasks and building in buffer time between tasks.
Change where you work
Environment-level strategies
Environment-level factors are things like visual and audio stimuli, other humans or animals around you, the physical environment like a library/lecture hall or subway, technology. Maybe you are in a loud and busy café trying to study, someone is coughing in an exam hall, your phone notifications for TikTok are going off. Some changes you can make to your work environment to help you stay focused are limiting distractions in your space, working with a partner, and putting your phone in a different room or turning off notifications.
