Are you easily distracted? This lesson plan is copied from the New York TImes. You can find it here. When you have a homework assignment to complete, a book to read, an instrument to practice or a room to clean, is it easy for you to stay focused and do it, or does your mind wander? Do you quickly begin to daydream, check your social media feed or think about what you want to eat? Are you distracted by constant dings and pings from your phone? In short, do you find yourself thinking about everything but the task at hand?
Do you wish you could improve your focus and learn to avoid distractions? If so, you are not alone. And, we have an exercise to help you.
In today’s lesson, the featured New York Times interactive invites you try an experiment and spend 10 minutes with a single piece of art: No distractions, no notifications — just a full 10 minutes of attention. Afterward, you will reflect on the experience — whether you make it to the finish line or not — and explore what the experiment reveals about your, and our, ability to pay attention in a world of distractions. In Going Further activities, we provide other ways to cultivate your powers of concentration. Source: New York Times
Activity: The Focus Experiment
How long do you think you can focus on something before you get distracted?
30 seconds? Three minutes? More?
Let’s find out!
This experiment is based on an exercise by the Harvard art history professor Jennifer Roberts, who asks her students to go to a museum, pick one piece of art and look at it for a full three hours. But, don’t worry, we are only asking you to do 10 minutes. (You can try the full three-hour version in one of our Going Further activities!)
The painting you will be looking at is called “Nocturne in Blue and Silver” by James McNeill Whistler, which he completed in 1871. However, you don’t need to know anything about the artist, the painting or art in general. You will just need to look.
To begin the experiment:
1. Find somewhere you can sit comfortably.
2. Put your pen and paper to the side; you should not take notes during the experiment.
4. When you’re ready, click on the picture below.
So how did you do? Did you make it to the full 10 minutes?
Take a few minutes now to reflect on the activity. In writing or through discussion with a partner, respond to these prompts:
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What was your experience like? How did you feel doing the experiment? Was it hard to focus for so long? Were you bored? Did you find your mind drifting? Or was it easier than you had expected? What kept you engaged, or, ultimately led you to hit the “I quit” button?
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What did you notice during the activity? Did you discover anything in the painting that you hadn’t readily observed, for instance, something about the colors, the composition, the subject matter or the details?
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What questions arose about the painting, art or the act of looking and focusing?
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What do you think was the point of the experiment? What, if anything, did the exercise teach you about attention span and about yourself?
Questions for Writing and Discussion
Read the rest of the interactive article. Then, as a class, in groups, in pairs or in your journals, respond the following questions:
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Thousands of Times readers tried the same experiment you did above. A graph in the interactive shows how long readers looked at the Whistler painting, revealing that 25 percent hit the “I quit” button in less than a minute, while another 25 percent made it the full 10 minutes, or longer. Are you surprised by these results? How did your time compare with those of other Times readers?
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7,000 readers responded and told the Times how it felt to focus. Many said they found the first few seconds or minutes pointless and even excruciating, and the last few minutes delightful, or serene. Here are a few examples:
“Interesting, then boring, then interesting again.”
— Stacey Morris“Relaxing, peaceful, also little bursts of joy when I discovered something I hadn’t noticed in the first few minutes.”
— Susan Fine
