You sit in a room with silence, no one to disturb you, you put your phone away to read but then your thoughts are coming in your mind and you can’t focus. After reading each sentence, you get distracted by your thoughts.
You take yourself back to what you were reading but the thoughts keep on distracting you. The time is up now, you have to do other work.
Even though you made time to read, you got distracted by your own thoughts(by yourself).
Do you want to get to a level where you get so focused while you are reading that you make the most of your reading time.
I’ll help you to find the solution of this problem in this post. You’ll know what causes you to get distracted by thoughts when you are reading so that you can remove them. And finally how to read without getting distracted by thoughts.
Let’s start it.
What makes you to get distracted by thoughts while reading
1. You have distractions in the room
You are reading in a place where other people are present, they are talking, the TV is on, others are talking loudly or there are other noises, it’s very hard for you to concentrate now.
Too many things around you can draw your attention away from your book.
So your attention is eaten up by the environment. You are sitting in an environment where the environment is allowing you to get distracted.
You can’t read with focus in this environment.
Your brain has to work extra hard to block out these sounds, which makes it difficult to stay focused on what you are reading.
2. You are tired or exhausted
You are tired from a long day at school or job or other activities, your brain don’t have enough energy left to focus on reading.
When you are exhausted, it’s easier for your mind to wander because it’s too tired to concentrate. Sometimes, after a busy day, your brain just wants to relax.
So as you have read in physics, you need the energy to get the work done.
Reading takes mental energy.
Reading is a work for you but you don’t have energy to do it. Reading needs your focus and attention but you have almost finished your battery.
3. You don't have interest in what you are reading
The book or material you are reading doesn’t interest(important to) you, it’s very easy for your mind to wander.
When you are not actively engaged with what you are reading, your brain starts looking for other things to think about.
This makes it hard to stay focused on the plain text in front of you.
Sometimes, you might pick up a book randomly without really planning what to read. If you haven’t chosen something that you find interesting or that you want to learn about, it’s harder to get engaged in reading.
4. You left some work in middle (Unfinished tasks)
You start reading while you have other unfinished tasks on your mind. Your brain keeps reminding you about other important things you haven’t finished ‘Hey you left your report in the middle, you have to finish that’, which distracts you from your reading.
When you sit down to read but have worries or tasks left undone, your thoughts keep on interrupting you and you can’t fully focus on the book.
This also happens when you sit down to read without a plan.
You keep thinking about what you need to do next, which makes it hard to enjoy and concentrate on your present reading.
How to Read Without Getting Distracted By Thoughts
1. Block your reading time and place before reading
Sitting for reading with no plan might not work. You must block the time and place for the reading.
Reading at the time when you have high energy and feeling good is the time you need to block for it.
When you do this, your mind knows that ‘Oh, this is my reading time.’ And there are very low chances that you’ll get distracted by your thoughts or phone or someother work unless something urgent comes.
There is so much power in scheduling.
Once you schedule the tasks, you have saved your energy from thinking what to do next instead you focus on how to do it.
Now block your place for reading.
Don’t fix your place that ‘this is the only place where I will read’. No that’s not an efficient idea. I used to do it previously and I failed to make time because I have made my mind to do the reading only at one place.
For reading, you just need the reading material and your focus mind.
You can be reading in your room, reading in the coffee cafe, reading in the park bench, reading at the library or you can be reading in the office too.
But you have to choose your place so that you don’t get distracted by other objects or peoples and you put your full attention to what you are reading.
When there is less noise around you, it’s easier for your mind to stay on the book instead of wandering off.
Choose your reading place where you like but choose a place where it is easy for you to read with focus and nothing is disturbing you.
2. Use Active Reading practices
a) Speak when you read
This is the tip I and you have learned in our lower grades.
When you are reading, it happens to all of us, our mind starts imagining the stories through words. The mind jumps from one story to other, it’s makes you get lost in thoughts.
So the best practice is to speak the words when you’re reading.
What happens by this, you are speaking what you’re reading, then you are hearing what you’re speaking and also you’re understanding what you are hearing.
Your mind is doing 3 things at a time now your mind is busy in the work and it’s very hard for the mind to get distracted by thoughts.
Reading words loud and hearing them takes your mind back to focus even if you get distracted by thoughts.
b) Engage with what you read
Don’t do the reading passively.
Stop the mind wandering by reading actively.
What is meant to read actively? You are just having the book and reading on the bed. This is a passive reading.
This works fine if you are reading a fiction story book. For non-fiction book, educational books, you have to read them actively.
So take a pen and start marking circles, underlining, highlighting or writing notes in the book(notebook). Write down important points, questions, comments, explainations as you read in the book(notebook).
This completely removes the mind wandering as you are “actively” doing the thing and your mind is highly focused what is in front of you.
c) Review what you just read
You have read some section of a chapter. Good.
Now ask yourself that what you understood from this section.
This will give a challenge to your mind to think what you have read recently. Your brain has a task to do and all thoughts will get disappear now.
If you don’t summarize what you read, then take a look at it again. It may be because you were distracted by thoughts and didn’t read it with attention.
Use this as a quick check to see whether your reading session was productive and also you can cover what you missed previously.
3. Make your reading laser focused
a) Set a visual timer
I first learned this time saving tactic in the Make Time book by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.
Trust me it is phenomenon.
Before it, I used to work without timer. As I started applying this tactic whenever I sit for focused work, It made me laser focused.
I was just focusing on the work in front of me without ‘interrupting thoughts’ till the timer ends.
When you set a visual timer in front of you, your mind gets so focused on your present work knowing that you have to finish this work before the timer ends.
Thoughts are gone, you only do the work till the timer ends.
So when you sit for reading, set a timer for x minutes and tell yourself that I have to get focused on the reading till the timer ends.
I use this Free Timer application on my desktop. Most of my work is on pc that’s why for me its better. Use it and get familiar with this then if you need you can also buy this physical timer that Make Time book author recommends.
b) Use Focus music while reading
I have been using this tip for past 6 months. I used to tell myself that ‘I can’t get focused on the work while listening to music’. But I was wrong.
When someone told about its effectiveness, I give a try and the results were – my focus was increased by 3 times.
When you are starting on this tip, you’ll feel little distracted but as you do it daily and make a habit to listening focus music when you do reading or working, you’ll know the power of this tip.
I don’t use it on phone. I use it on pc.
What focus music you should choose?
You should not choose high beat or high bass songs as they will disturb you instead of helping you get focused. Dancing songs or songs that contains human voice, these songs can’t help you in the reading.
Choose sounds that are calming, instrumental, having no human voice. When you listen to it, you feel thoughtless and fully present.
You can just search on youtube ‘Deep focus music’, you will get many good results. Choose the music that you like, download it.
When you are going to read, put earphones and play this song. Now also as I am writing this post, I am listening to a focus music and writing.
c) Make a list if something comes in your mind
It’s normal to get thoughts of some work or todo or something that you have to do later in your day – ‘Oh I need to order the groceries, ‘Today I have to pay the Wifi bill’ , ‘Ya I have to call Mark at 2 PM’.
Your brain reminds you that you don’t miss other tasks.
This disturbs the flow of your reading. Also you can forget the task later.
So whenever you get a thought about it while reading, quickly note it down on the short notebook.
Deal with it later without breaking your focus now.
When you’ve noted it, now you can focus better on reading as you know you have noted that todo to not forget it and you will get it done later.
d) Keep your phone out of sight
Even when you are not using the phone, seeing the phone in front you makes you less focused.
Your mind starts to think ‘Oh I have to send a message, upload the file, install an app’ but then you fight with your mind that you have to focus on reading.
This process takes your attention and you get distracted easily.
Simply keep your phone out of your eyesight, so that you can’t see it and when you can’t see it, you can’t think about it.
From past 8 months, I made a habit of keeping the phone in my bag net pocket. I only take it out when I have some real work to do.
How long should you focus on reading
From the Andrew Huberman video, the ideal length of time to focus, he said our brain ideal duration is about 90 minutes or less. But push yourself to 2hr or 3hr focus.
Take breaks after reading.
You read for 30 or 40 mins straight, now you need to take a break and comeback after 5 or 10 mins.
You have to learn delebrate defocus to focus longer.
Now you want to do something that doesn’t require more focus or concentration. This is called the State of Idle.
And this is essential to increase your ability to focus. It’s same as you do rest between the sets when you exercise.
Do that unfocused thing(don’t use your phone) for 10 or 20 mins. So that when you come back on reading. You can focus again better.
Take that period of rest after every period of straight focus. This will prepare you to focus repeatedly throughout the day.
Final Thoughts
Everyone faces this problem while focusing not only on reading but on other things too.
Don’t think that you have to stop your thoughts. You can’t.
Just practice how to deal when thoughts come.
Find what works best for you and make it a habit while you read to not get distracted by thoughts. Try out new things in your reading to make your reading productive and enjoyable.
Be patient with yourself. Getting better at focusing takes time and practice, but it’s worth it.
