If you have a short attention span, you’ve probably always considered it to be one of your drawbacks. It makes it difficult for you to focus on the task at hand.
However, it does have its benefits, though it is mostly going to help you in the long run, not in the short term. A leaky attention span can help you come up with greater creative ideas over time, allowing you to return to them when you have the time to dedicate to them.
You may get an idea for a project or notice a home school website that might help or see a book that it might be good for your child to read. There are all sorts of distractions that might come your way. You might even see a sale on school supplies you need. Stay focused. Write the idea down and keep moving on in your day.
Those who are more easily distracted have been shown to be more creative in a number of studies. The problem is, you can’t be creative all the time and still get home school done. You need to have time to be creative, but most of your time is likely spent doing physical work or work that’s bringing home school ideas to life instead of making new ideas. Focus first on bringing your old ideas to fruition.
The workaround here is to have a system set up for quickly logging your ideas that pop into your mind so that you can return to them later, and spend time focusing on the task at hand in the present.
You could use something as simple as a little notepad with a pen. Anytime you’re working and get pulled off track by an idea, quickly jot it down and you can return to it later when you have time.
You’d be surprised at how much you continue to be distracted by ideas just because you don’t want to forget them. Once you know they’re written down and can be returned to later on, you can return to focusing on what you’re doing.
It’s beneficial to have all of these little ideas stored away, because at some point you might try to brainstorm something to work on, and you might not have anything coming to mind. Then, you can reference your notebook and use one of those little sparks of imagination to fuel a whole new project that you might’ve otherwise forgotten.
By keeping tabs on your overactive imagination like this, you retain all of those smaller sparks of creativity that can blossom into wonderful, big home school projects – while still working diligently to bring existing ideas to fruition.