How to maintain focus

There's of course several answers here.

Some people would advice to open more tables and focus only on the poker, but I'd personally suggest staying with a number of tables you are comfortable with as more tables without feeling ready/able for that amount can lead to leaks growing and automation in your play, which is a bad thing.

Something that I believe TwiceT has mentioned a few times is (And I may paraphrase a little) "I may not study as much as some other people off the tables anymore, but when in a hand my thought process is going through all options and alternatives and I spend far more mental energy considering contingencies during the hand", this is another great way without increasing tables to increase your involvement and focus on each table while also evolving your game and optimizing your play. Obviously this requires more attention(which means you wouldn't have time to look at funny pictures and post on the forums), and as a side effect of this it may lead to your mental energy running out faster and your sessions growing shorter until you get used to it.

Suggestion/Answer #3 is an important one for anyone who ever wants to ever succeed in online poker. Short and to the point, I present: "Discipline!"

There are many more options no doubt, and surely we're all guilty of some level of letting ourselves be distracted(except maybe some of the pros :P), but the single worst alternative is to do nothing about it, for sure.

It'll be interesting to see what other users can offer, perhaps depending on the turnout and exposure of this thread, if needed we may later move it to General Poker Discussion and see if that'll spark more interest, but I believe it's well placed where it is for now.

Regards,
Richard

In my opinion prepositions of increasing tables or try to go into more detailed thought process through hands while playing is not the solution. Both of these should be the outcome of the skill to focus and not the means to achieve it. Somebody should perceive focus as a skill which must be obtained separately from any particular action, in order to achieve progress in anything he does. So once the individual have realized the true nature of focus as a skill then he can work on this. But. In order to achieve any kind of skill you need another important element as very well stated by Fruktpuff.. you need Discipline. Discipline is sth that everyone have learnt to talk about and use very lightly when give advices to others. But very few know that discipline is the mighty skill somebody will need in order to achieve any other kind of skill. And how somebody can obtain it?? There is only one way. Studying As a wise man said. Somebody has to learn two things in his life. How to run and how to read. cause there is no problem a man can have that someone else has not written about its solution in a book

my 2cents

Hows the focusing coming along ytsoP?

I used to be exactly the same, eventually I realised that when Browsing, posting & chatting all whilst playing poker was causing me to lose. You want to win right? Then stop! ♦

Think of it like Gears, do you kill someone then quickly hide and browse then net? You go on to find the next kill, in ours case, the next pot! If you're too bust hiding, you'll never find him, the pot.

Personally I focus on hands I folded when im bored, and act as if they were still live, picking the action I find best on each street. Might sound wierd but it can help your game develop