Focus Tips!

Today I had to watch general conference with my family. Usually I enjoy this opportunity, but today I found myself unfathomably bored! Of course, there were some moments where I was truly intrigued, but for the most part I found myself wishing I could be somewhere else. I was stuck. I knew that this was important not only to me, but to my parents as well. I, being the eldest, need to set an example to my younger siblings. Sure I have lots of practice with boring lectures, I have them in school all the time. But this was important to me and I needed away to sustain my attention so that I could gather at least a few lessons from eight hours of conference. So, I came up with a few tips for myself on staying focused when bored out of your mind. Weather in school or in church.

Tip #1: Write stuff down- Even though you're bored, there has to be a few phrases or ideas that catch your attention. Write them down. Then, as the talk goes on, you can find things that tie to that phrase or idea. You could even carry that phrase or idea over to the next talk and listen intently to that one to see if it has any similarities.

Tip #2: Look for Humor-Most speakers try to put at least a little humor into their talks or lectures to help people pay attention. Some, unfortunately,  do not. For example, I have a teacher at school who, if he were reading out of the textbook it would probably be more entertaining, and I would most likely learn more. More often than not I find myself falling asleep in his class, so to help me focus, I look for unintentional humor. He may have a slip of the tongue and say something that he did not mean, or maybe something he says sounds like something else. It is easy to find these little humors if you are listening, and then, well your listening. One piece of advice I would give with this tip though, is that you might not want to laugh out loud! :)

Tip #3: See if They Use Anything You Had Previous Knowledge of- This is a tip I use frequently during school. Although they seem diverse, a lot of the subjects they teach us during school all connect in one way or another. Math and Science of course, but also Math and English. Even English and a foreign language you may be taking. Looking for, and finding these similarities can hold your attention for hours on end no matter how the teacher's voice may drone on and on!

These are just a few tips I use to keep myself awake during school or during any other boring lecture I need to listen to. Granted that it does take work to pay attention, I hope these tips will help you as they have helped me. Of course, you could always just sleep through everything, but where's the fun in that?