Learning to concentrate is an important investment which will reward you time and again throughout your life. It is a skill we finely hone when we are at school
as children, and good concentration skills allow us to collect and process information quickly as it is delivered to us.
Research into the ability of school children to concentrate on lessons has repeatedly shown that highest achievers show a particularly competence in concentration, and are not distracted easily from the topic of study. In fact, many people showing a strong ability to focus on the task in hand will quickly develop a level of interest in the subject to such a level that they can think beyond the information they have received. This process allows the individual to fit the new knowledge into their existing understanding of the world, which provides a sense of relation to the subject matter.
You will often hear people referring to children soaking up information 'like a sponge' and this is an ability which most of us lose as life progresses. It can almost be thought of as our brains filling up to a point that we stop collecting every piece of information that we possibly can, instead selectively choosing what we record in our memory. Of course, much of what we learn happens subconsciously; remembered and processed without even realising we are doing so.
The mind is a brilliant tool for the storage and interpretation of knowledge, something which computers are still nowhere near matching. The human mind has an incredible talent for deciding whether or not it 'likes' particular information, and this ultimately shapes our beliefs and interests, and separates us as people with unique personalities.
The people we become are heavily influenced by how we collect and process information and the details we store are dependent on the level of concentration we can develop in a given situation.This amazing balance means that two people with exactly the same experience may easily develop a completely different understanding and opinion upon exactly the same situation!
