3 Ways to Increase Your Attention Span with a Timer

by Dee Jones

See if this sounds familiar.

There's something you want to do, like write a short story or clean out a closet. So you get to work. And the going's good for about 5 minutes. Then you start wondering what's happening on Twitter, or what new emails have landed in your inbox. Or you remember your favorite show’s about to start. The last episode ended on a cliffhanger, and you really want to know what happens next...

Before you' know it, you've abandoned that personal project once again. You tell yourself you'll get back to it tomorrow. Maybe. Next week for sure!

"Our attention spans are shrinking." You've probably heard that one dozens of times. And, unfortunately, it seems to be true. This is bad news. Why? Because how long you can focus on a task before getting distracted has a lot to do with how many of your goals you reach. (And how long reaching those goals takes.)

Have you ever skimmed an article? Spent 5 minutes on that one project before getting bored and wandering off to do something else? Switched back and forth between cable channels as you tried to watch two programs at the same time? (And, yes, I know people who do this.) Well this is the kind of thing that can cause your attention span to shrink.

Luckily, there are some simple things you can do to increase your attention span.

All you need is a timer.

Give Your Attention Span a Basic Workout

Imagine you want to run a marathon. You wouldn’t start out trying to run 26 miles on your first day, would you? No, you might start with a quarter mile. Once your body was used to that, you’d move up to half a mile, then a mile, and so on, until you were finally ready for the big race.

Runners can increase how long they can run before their bodies need a break. And you can increase the amount of time you can focus on something before you’re attention wanders.

And here’s a simple exercise that will help you do just that.

1. Pick a task to work on.
2. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
3. Start the timer and focus on the task until the timer dings.

And that’s pretty much it.

You might be surprised to find this hard to do at first. But the more you practice, the easier it will get. Soon, you'll have no trouble sticking to a task for the full 10 minutes without getting distracted.

The task you choose doesn’t really matter. Doing this exercise with any task will improve your attention span in every area of your life.

For an extra challenge, you can try setting the timer for 15 or 20 minutes every once in a while. But even the basic, 10 minute exercise will do your attention span a world of good.

Read an Article without Skimming

Another way to give your attention span a workout is to stop skimming. Or at least stop skimming everything you read.

This can be harder said than done. The skimming habit can be difficult to break. But it’ll get easier with practice.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Choose an article or blog post that you'd usually skim.
2. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
3. Start the timer and start reading. And read every word, not skipping a single one.
4. If the timer goes off before you finish, you have a few choices. You can skim the rest of the article. You can stop reading the article altogether. (Maybe it doesn't contain the information you're looking for.) Or you can continue to read without skimming all the way to the end of the article.

You might find that your usual compulsion to skim has faded, and you'll want to read the article straight to the end. And, after a while, the number of articles you skim will drop.

Practice Refocusing Your Attention

It's estimated that, unless they suffer from a condition like ADHD, most teens and adults have an attention span of about 10 to 20 minutes.

“But wait,” I hear you saying. “What about the time I spent an hour writing that scene in my novel?”

Well chances are your attention wandered a few times during that writing session. Every 10 or 15 minutes, you stopped to gaze out the window, do a back-popping stretch, or take a sip of water. Then you were able to refocus on the task at hand and get back to work.

The problem is that, once our attention wanders, we aren't always able to bring it back. That’s especially true if your mind wanders to something you like to do, like hang out on Twitter. You start thinking, “Maybe I’ll just check in real quick...” And, two hours later, you still haven’t made any progress on your project.

Sometimes you manage to kick thoughts of Twitter out of your head and stick with your project. On those occasions, you have your ability to refocus to thank.

Just as you can increase your attention span, you can strengthen your ability to refocus.

Give this refocusing exercise a try.

1. Choose a task to focus on, and set a timer for 10 minutes.
2. Start the timer and focus on the task until the timer dings.
3. Take a 2 or 3 minute break. But during your break, don't do anything that will engage you so much that you don't want to get back to your task. Instead, walk around for a bit, take a trip to the bathroom or, yes, stare out the window at all the pretty sunshine.
4. After the break, set the timer again, and focus on the same task for another 10 minutes.

You'll get two benefits from doing this exercise. First, it will help to increase your attention span. And, secondly, it won't be so easy for a disruption or distraction to throw you off track.


Doing at least one of these exercises every day is a quick and easy way to increase your attention span. Daily "attention span workouts" will help you focus on projects longer, and resist distractions more easily. And that means you'll get more of the stuff on your to do list done.