TROUBLE FOCUSING? A STUDY FOUND YOU SHOULD SET MORE GOALS

A new study at the University of Texas and the University of Oregon found that if you want to stay on task, you should try breaking things up and setting more GOALS.

Researchers had people take tests to measure their reaction time.  Each series of tests lasted 25 minutes, and the tasks got harder as they went.  When people were just told to do them as fast as possible, their reaction time started to get worse as time went on.  However, setting goals for each task helped.

They’d tell people to see if they could react to each thing within different amounts of time, like half a second or a third of a second.  And when they set specific goals like that, people were able to focus for a lot longer.

They didn’t get into how you might be able to use that information at any specific job.  They said it just shows that, in general, whether you’re working or studying, setting small, specific goals can help you stay focused longer.