Back to the on-screen lesson ·
List what pulls at your attention, around you and inside you, and remove, reduce or plan around each demand before a task starts.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will list the demands competing with a task, sort each as around you or inside you, and give it one move — remove, reduce or plan around — before you start.
This course is optional practice for ordinary tasks at home. It is not therapy or treatment, it does not score anybody's attention, and every scene in it is invented. If you work with a therapist or clinician, their advice comes first, and anything new or changing about your attention or energy is theirs to hear about.
You already know the experience this lesson starts from: sitting down to one small job and finding it far harder than it should be, because the room, and your head, are full of other things.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Task | The one job you have sat down to do. |
| Demand | Anything else asking for your attention: a sound, a screen, clutter, a person, hunger, a worry. |
| Around or inside | Where a demand comes from: the room around you, or your own body and thoughts. |
| Remove | End a demand completely: switch it off, move it, close it. |
| Reduce | Make a demand smaller: shut the door, eat first, write the worry down. |
| Plan around | Choose a time, place or length of work that fits a demand you cannot change. |
The support in this lesson is a short written list, made before a task starts. At the top goes the one task. Underneath goes everything pulling at you: sounds, screens, clutter, people, and the things inside — hunger, a worry, being cold, being tired.
Beside each item goes one word: remove, reduce or plan around. Then you act on the list, and only then do you start.
Keep the pad beside you while you work. When a new thought arrives — I must call the dentist — write it down and carry on. The thought is safe on the paper, so it stops asking to be held.
Attention is selective: at any moment it is on some things and not others. It is also limited. Whatever is asking for it — a television, a buzzing phone, a worry about tomorrow — takes a share, whether or not you respond.
That is why just ignore it works so badly. Ignoring is itself work: some attention goes on not answering. Removing a demand costs a few seconds once. Resisting it costs a little every minute.
Demands come from two places. Around you: noise, screens, clutter, other people. Inside you: hunger, pain, worry, tiredness, a thought you are trying to keep. Both kinds count, and a list with only the first kind is half a list.
Another way: story
Imagine a table with one job on it and five people each tapping you on the shoulder now and then. You can refuse to turn around, but every tap still lands. Asking four of them to leave the room is quicker than refusing four hundred taps.
Another way: steps
The review of rehabilitation evidence this course follows (the ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation Task Force; Cicerone and colleagues, 2019) recommends that attention practice be paired with strategies a person chooses and checks for themselves. Cutting down what competes with a task is one of the plainest of those strategies, and it comes first here because it changes the task's surroundings rather than asking more of you.
The order of the three moves matters. Remove first: a demand that has gone needs nothing more. Reduce next: a demand turned down still takes a little. Plan around last: when something cannot be changed, you change the when, the where or the how long of your task instead.
In a lab study (Stothart and colleagues, 2015), people did a task that needed steady attention. Some were sent phone notifications during it, which they did not answer. Their performance dipped compared with their own run without notifications, by a margin similar to people who actually took a call or read a text.
The lesson for an ordinary afternoon is small and practical: a phone that is face up and buzzing is a demand even when you never pick it up. A drawer in another room, or a Do Not Disturb setting, removes it.
Nearly every adult in the United States owns a cellphone (Pew Research Center), and both iPhone and Android phones have a built-in setting — Focus or Do Not Disturb — that holds notifications back for a set time and can still let chosen callers ring.
Picture Ben, a fictional retiree, sitting down for a three-hour afternoon of sorting his late father's papers. His phone usually shows about eight notifications an hour. Over three hours that is 8 × 3 = 24 taps on the shoulder. He turns on Do Not Disturb and lets through calls from his daughter and his brother. Two calls come in, so 24 − 2 = 22 notifications were held back until he finished. He reads them at the end, in one sitting, with nothing lost.
Nothing about Ben changed. What changed was the number of demands that reached him while the papers needed him.
"I'll just concentrate more." It sounds responsible and it leaves every demand exactly where it was.
"I'll clear the demand by doing it." Answering each message so the phone goes quiet turns one task into two, and the switching between them is its own cost, which the next lesson takes up.
"Only noise counts." Hunger, worry and tiredness compete as surely as a radio. A demand list with nothing from inside is usually missing something.
Write the task at the top of the pad.
Task: fill in the parking permit form.
The audit starts from the task, so everything else can be seen as competing with it.
List what pulls from around her.
Around: loud radio; phone face up on the table.
Sounds and screens are the demands most people list first.
List what pulls from inside.
Inside: worry about the car registration; hungry.
Inside demands compete as much as the radio does, and are easy to leave off.
Give each demand a move and act on it before starting.
Radio — remove (off). Phone — remove (bedroom). Worry — reduce (on the pad: check registration Tue). Hunger — reduce (a cookie first).
Each move takes seconds, and none of them needs willpower once the form is started.
Write the task and list the demands.
Task: check the week's bank statement. Demands: family cooking dinner nearby; dishwasher running; tired.
The list comes first even when it looks as if nothing can change.
Look for anything that can be removed.
Remove: none — the family and the dishwasher stay.
Some demands belong to other people, and asking them to stop is not always fair.
Reduce what can be turned down.
Reduce: move to the bedroom desk, door closed.
Moving yourself is often easier than moving the noise.
Plan around what is left.
Plan around: tiredness → check only this week's page, 20 minutes, the rest tomorrow morning.
When a demand cannot shrink, the task changes size or time to fit.
Name the task and the demand.
Task: sort the mail. Demand: TV on loud.
The audit always names the one task first.
Decide where the demand comes from.
TV: around him.
It is a sound in the room, not something inside him.
What is the move, and when does he make it?
A fictional evening. Maya sits down to write the grocery list for the week. The television is on in the same room, showing a game show she half likes. What is the strongest first move?
A fictional morning. Before paying the water bill online, Joe lists 8 demands. 2 of them can go completely and 1 can be turned down; the rest he has to plan around. Complete his worked audit.
Write the task at the top and every demand under it.
Task: pay the water bill. Demands listed: 8
A demand that is not on the list cannot get a move.
Remove what can go, then count what is still there.
Removed: 2. Still there: a
Removing comes first because it ends a demand for good.
Turn down what can be reduced.
Reduced: 1
A snack, a closed door or a note on the pad makes a demand smaller without ending it.
Count what is left to plan around.
Plan around: b
What cannot go or shrink decides when and for how long Joe works, so it is counted rather than ignored.
A fictional Saturday. Leon is about to sort a shoebox of receipts. He has listed four demands. For each, write where it comes from (**around** or **inside**) and its move (**remove**, **reduce** or **plan around**).
| Comes from | Move | |
|---|---|---|
| TV on in the room | ||
| Skipped lunch | ||
| Worry about the bill due Friday | ||
| Road work outside all week |
A fictional afternoon. You are about to fill in a library card form. The radio is on, your phone is face up on the table, and a worry about tomorrow's bus keeps coming back. Clear the ground and start the form, without ever starting while a demand is still there.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
A fictional afternoon. Ben's phone usually shows about 9 notifications an hour. He turns on Do Not Disturb for a 2-hour job, letting through only calls from his two favorite contacts, and 2 of those come in. How many notifications did the setting stop?
Notifications stopped: a
A fictional April afternoon at a public library. Grace plans to finish her federal tax return. Mark the one sentence that is a competing demand her plan does nothing about.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A fictional weekday. Rosa is about to phone the gas company to start service at her new apartment. She has listed four demands. Write the move for each: **remove**, **reduce** or **plan around**.
| Move | |
|---|---|
| Laptop open, videos playing | |
| Tired after the move | |
| Dog barking next door | |
| Unopened mail on the table |
Before your next small job at home, write the task at the top of a scrap of paper and list three demands under it, one from inside you. Give each a move and make the moves before you begin. Next: one task at a time. This is optional practice at home, not treatment and not a test of attention. If anything about your attention, energy or eyesight is new or changing, tell your own clinician. Stopping is always allowed: close the page, and the lesson reopens where you left it.
12. Your turn: Omar is sorting the mail and the television is on loud, step 3
Remove: switch the TV off, before the first envelope is opened.
A switch ends it completely, and the move comes before the task, not halfway through.