What’s on the Attention poster
A definition and 6 facts worth remembering.
Focused attention is a limited resource that depletes with use and recovers with rest. What feels like doing two things at once is rapid switching, each switch losing time and accuracy.
- Task switching can cost meaningful time and increases errors.
- Recovering deep focus after an interruption takes many minutes.
- A visible phone reduces available attention even when unused.
- Focus works in blocks; most people sustain 45–90 minutes.
- Genuine breaks — not a different screen — restore it.
- Time in nature restores attention measurably better than indoors.
- Block — 45–90 min
- Break — 10–15 min
- Phone — out of sight
- Checking a message during focused work costs far more than the seconds spent reading it.
Protect against interruption before optimising anything else. The cost of the interruption exceeds the task.
Questions about the Attention poster
- What’s on the Attention (Sleep & mind) poster?
- A definition and 6 facts worth remembering. Focused attention is a limited resource that depletes with use and recovers with rest. What feels like doing two things at once is rapid switching, each switch losing time and accuracy. Task switching can cost meaningful time and increases errors.; Recovering deep focus after an interruption takes many minutes.; A visible phone reduces available attention even when unused.; Focus works in blocks; most people sustain 45–90 minutes.; Genuine breaks — not a different screen — restore it.; Time in nature restores attention measurably better than indoors.; Block — 45–90 min; Break — 10–15 min; Phone — out of sight; Checking a message during focused work costs far more than the seconds spent reading it.. Protect against interruption before optimising anything else. The cost of the interruption exceeds the task.
- Who is the Attention (Sleep & mind) poster for?
- Attention (Sleep & mind) belongs to the Body & health section rather than to a school year, because health is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning sleep & mind can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Attention (Sleep & mind) poster?
- There is no multitasking, only switching — and every switch has a cost. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Attention (Sleep & mind) belongs on the wall where that health work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Attention (Sleep & mind)?
- Breathing Techniques, Burnout and The Body Clock sit alongside Attention (Sleep & mind) in the Body & health section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Breathing TechniquesBurnoutThe Body Clock
- Is the Attention (Sleep & mind) poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Attention (Sleep & mind) downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Body & health section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Attention (Sleep & mind) poster print at?
- Attention (Sleep & mind) is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Attention (Sleep & mind) loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Attention on the same wall.
Browse every Body & health poster, or start from the full catalogue.