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2 Habits That Are Literally Killing Your Focus, Backed By Science

Stop letting them get in the way of achieving your goals

Maria Esposito
5 min readFeb 26, 2022
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

When I was a teenager, I found it incredibly easy to sit down and focus on a task.

I knew what I had to get done. I sat down and focused until I had completed the work. Then, I moved on to another task.

I felt my concentration abilities shift in college.

I could not seem to sit still and focus for more than a few minutes. I would spend entire days at the library and manage to read just a couple of articles.

Fast forward to today, there’s a list of things I have to do before I even get started on a task if I want to get enough concentration to complete it:

  • fill up water bottle
  • put phone on airplane mode
  • play lo-fi playlist
  • set up Pomodoro timer

Even that isn’t guaranteed to stop my thoughts from wandering.

At some point, I began blaming myself. “It’s that damn phone” — I started thinking.

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Maria Esposito
Maria Esposito

Written by Maria Esposito

A (disillusioned) young international development professional. Southern Italian. Ridiculously hardheaded. 25.

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