

Need Help HN: Big time Focus/Attention problem - maheshs

Hi,
   I ma having a problem of Attention while working on small - small things.
For example  - I write mail to people and do double check it sometime three or four time. Latter once I go back in my sent item and check again I found I did something wrong like spelling, Name or some grammar.<p>Same thing happens while reading stuff and miss read loads of words.<p>These kind of problem waste lots of time and some time its become humiliating.<p>I am quite frustrated now due to this problem which happens with me regular basis.<p>How can I Improve my condition? Please help.
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hackerblues
I believe that a common problem for people who are proof reading documents is
the brains tendency to complete patterns based on partial information. This
causes a person to read not what is actually written but instead what they
expect to read.

For example, if you had seen the cliched sentence "The cat sat on the mat"
tens of times over your lifetime then you might tend to skim ahead and miss
the mistake in "The cat sat on the met."

One approach to reduce this problem is to consciously direct your attention in
such a way as to reduce your own expectations. Some common tactics include:

1\. Take a break in between writing the text and editing it. The common advice
for writing essays in school is to leave your draft shut up in a drawer for a
few days before returning to it.

2\. Examine each word in the text in a way which separates it from the context
of the sentence it is written in. You could do this by physically pointing at
each word with a finger/pen as you read it, or by reading the text backwards
from the last word to the first.

The above might increase your ability to spot a spelling mistake but will do
little to assist whole-sentence grammatical mistakes. My best advice for that
task is to read the text out loud. I find it much easier to hear such a
mistake than to see it.

For the problems with reading you might wish to do some research on "active
reading". Reading with a question in mind can help you to properly concentrate
on the material.

The question might relate to a specific piece of information, eg skimming
through a tutorial to discover "What arguments does the make_widget command
take?"

The question could also be focused on the structure of the text, eg "What is
the main idea of this paragraph?", "How could I rewrite this complicated
sentence in my own words?", or "How does the evidence introduced in this
paragraph relate to the claim stated at the beginning of the chapter?"

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conductr
Just reading this post, it just sounds like English is not your first
language. The best advice I can give is to just not stress over it, us native
English speakers can infer your grammar and spelling as an accent. We are
pretty used to it these days with the internet and all. If you really want to
polish it, maybe take some advanced English and writing classes, it seems like
you have the basics.

