By Alice Olins

How to Get Your Focus Back When Everything Competes for It

The Learning Digest

How to get your focus back when everything competes for it is one of the most quietly urgent questions of modern life. Not because we’re lazy or undisciplined – but because the systems around us are designed to fragment our attention, one micro-check at a time. In this honest, first-person essay, AllBright’s editor reflects on what happened when she removed Instagram from her phone – and discovered the problem went much deeper than one app. What followed was a recalibration: more depth, more creativity, more presence. Less restarting. This is not a productivity hack. It is a considered, pragmatic account of what it actually feels like to reclaim your attention – and what becomes possible when you do. If you’ve ever felt like your focus has quietly eroded, this one is worth reading slowly.

“Being reachable isn't the same as being effective. My constant availability was crowding my thoughts, and my state of calm too.”

I am going to start this article with a small caveat: the title is too definitive. Writing it in the past tense makes it sound like I have got this challenge done and dusted. That is not true. I am merely three weeks in. But my 2026 Gentle Course Redirection (also known as a goal) is already having a noticeable effect, hence me mentioning it already.

Let me explain what on earth I’m talking about.

Like many of you, I quietly took stock of my life in those languorous days between Christmas and New Year. Not in a loud, set-myself-up-for-a-fall type way. Rather, I tried to analyse my weaknesses with kindness, and more importantly, pragmatism.

As a forty-something mother of three, who has a full-time job, a husband who deserves attention, and plenty of lovely friends and family, I’m not exactly laden with spare time. What I do have is enough wherewithal to recognise that some Gentle Course Redirections might serve me well as I move into 2026.

And after a truthful look at my bad habits, number one on the list: removing Instagram from my phone. I know, I know, that old hack. But I’ve thought more deeply about this whole removal situation.

First, as you may have read, I did an end-of-2025 reflection, in which I focused on a multitude of seminal moments, beautiful realisations, and the odd thorn in my side. What it did not cover was the 90 minutes or so, every evening, that I lie on the sofa, half-watching another BBC documentary but actually feeding my online shopping habit by way of a heavy Instagram addiction. There, I said it.

For ease, we can just call this an utter (expensive) waste of time: mindless doomscrolling. Because that’s what it is. And while, as someone who has done a lot of research on procrastination, I know we all need to allow a tiny bit of vice into our lives, this was becoming a problem.

Also, I have professional aspirations, people. And they include launching a kickass new editorial website for you this March, which means I have to be the best of the best at my job. Yes, I have nearly 20 years of journalism under my belt, but this industry moves at pace: I want to become the ultimate editorial Ninja. And to do that, I figured I needed to find some extra time in my life. You see where this story is going…

So, not only have I kicked Instagram off my phone, I have also planned how to spend the extra time I’ve bought back each evening. In short, a few nights a week, my evenings now include 15–20 minutes of extra reading; the rest is for pure rest and thinking. By filling every spare moment with external stimuli, what I noticed was that I had built a life with no time to critically think. And it was holding me back.

Because while Instagram has become the posterchild of this story, already I can see that the problem transcended every part of my life. So much of my days became shaped by micro-checking, which meant constant mental restarting, as well as a low-level habit of always being slightly available. Always a little bit elsewhere. Always one glance away from the thing I am actually trying to do.

As I write this (in one interruption-free sitting!) I am already learning to carry and nurture the ability to stay with something long enough for it to move. Whether that’s practically – words onto a page – or abstractly in my mind through how I approach my life. It feels like a new skill, truthfully; my 20,000-word history dissertation did not write itself. This is a superpower I’ve let erode.

For the "how to get your focus back" article, a close up of a woman's hands in a blue blouse checking the time on her watch

“Momentum doesn't always come from adding more. Sometimes it comes from noticing what's getting in the way and quietly removing it.”

So, while ditching Instagram definitely takes willpower, it’s also made me much more aware of how disruptive my habit of micro-checking really is.

And to finish off, here are a few observations I’m holding onto as part of my own time-related recalibration. These aren’t rules; they’re optimistic knock-on effects I’ve seen emerging.

1. Depth, on many fronts in life, struggles to survive with constant interruption. And depth is the bedrock of good decisions, growth and so many other positive metrics. Likewise, momentum depends on fewer restarts.

2. Being reachable isn’t the same as being effective. My constant availability (phone usually in hand or pocket) was crowding my thoughts, and my state of calm too.

3. Quiet system improvements change behaviour more reliably and consistently than good intentions. Removing Instagram, rather than just adding a time limit (done that, failed the hard way), has made things harder for me to circumvent. Yes, telling myself not to waste time helps, but putting proper barriers in place works even better.

4. Being more present creates a different kind of energy in me. I am a calmer parent, a steadier wife, a more fun friend. I can see and feel this shift, and it is warmly enriching.

5. While I recognise the irony in announcing this publicly, you don’t need to quit or shift things loudly for them to matter. Some of my most powerful shifts have worked best when they’ve remained private.

In conclusion, I’m realising that momentum doesn’t always come from adding more. Sometimes it comes from noticing what’s getting in the way and quietly removing it.

For me, that’s meant fewer interruptions, more continuity and a little more trust in where I place my attention. You may find it shows up differently for you. Either way, it’s a gentler place to start.