Dear LPG, 

I have a problem and I am not sure if it is one of those which people put down to age.  During the past year or so I have, like most other older people I suspect, spent a lot more time at home eating more than I should have, watching television more than I should and making promises to myself about all the things that I was going to sort out at home while achieving very little.   

I have decided that all that time at home has made me lazy and I am making a point of measuring my attempts at exercise and doing a bit each day.  Getting out is something else that I have managed to get lazy about now that we are allowed to again, but I am now improving on that score, and I have even bought myself one of those smart watches so that I can check how active I am each day.  Although I’m not trying to do 10,000 steps a day at my age, things are improving in most areas of my life now that the world is gradually starting to get moving again, and I can see the difference in nearly every aspect of my life… except one. 

I am finding that it is taking me so much longer these days to concentrate enough to achieve anything.  I can do the washing up while watching telly and make reasonable headway, but it is taking me longer to do anything that demands a certain amount of concentrated brain power.  When I try to do things like reading a book, writing a letter or filling in a form, my mind is more ready to wander while I find something on the television or radio to distract my attention and to stop me for far too long.  

I know that the answer is to eliminate the distraction and turn the telly off, but it has become my companion and I do keep the volume low.   If I turn that off I find myself something else to distract me before I know it.   I gaze out of the window for far too long and there is a mobile phone game that has me hooked too.  It was reading the post that DP wrote (►►►)  that got me thinking more about how much time I don’t properly utilise.

I know that I am a pensioner and have more time on my hands because at our time of life there is no hurry and we can please ourselves more than the younger folk, but I sometimes feel that I am wasting far too much of it, so I looked online and found a lot of information that might be of interest to anyone who feels that they have my little problem.  

I also found a website that claims that it can help to measure how fit your brain is and I have decided to try that too.  

VI, Croydon. 

VI found us some information on how to optimise our brain power… 

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…and offers a possible online way of assessing and improving your concentration threshold… 

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