Do you find yourself powering through work one minute and watching cat videos the next? That sounds about right: A study last year by Microsoft discovered that the average attention span is eight seconds. (Curse smartphones!) Refocus with these four adjustments.

1. Take a break

Give yourself two short breathers over the course of an hour. While that may sound counterintuitive, research shows that periodic diversions make it easier to zero in on one thing for a longer amount of time. Why? The brain gradually gets habituated to whatever the stimulus is (say, doing your taxes), so you need to stop and “reactivate” your goal from time to time to maintain your concentration.

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2. Turn off your cell phone

It’s not just making a phone call or sending a text message that distracts you from what you’re doing: A study out of Florida State University revealed that people who merely received text or call notifications committed more mistakes on a computer task they were working on than those who did it free of phone interruptions. On deadline? Put the iPhone on silent and stash it away.

3. Reel in your multitasking

Eating dinner, watching TV, and also skimming a report? Stick to two activities (or one!): Your brain can’t handle more than two big tasks simultaneously, suggests a 2010 study in Science. Why? A part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex helps divide the work so that half the region attends to one task while the other focuses on the second one, leaving no room to juggle a third.

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4. Practice mindfulness

During breaks at home or on the job, take some steady, deep breaths and simply concentrate on your inhalations and exhalations. The Buddhist technique has been shown to improve mental performance by helping ground your mind in the present, instead of letting it wander throughout the day.

A team of psychologists recently published findings in the journal Self and Identity that help explain why some of us are prone to do the latter.

For the study, 161 adults between the ages of 17 and 34 completed a questionnaire that measured their capacity for self-compassion. They also filled out a survey about their values, including what they wanted out of life, and the behaviors or traits they believed were necessary to achieve those things.

Finally, the participants were asked to imagine themselves in two scenarios: One in which they acted with self-compassion, and another in which they were self-critical. Then they described how they would feel about themselves after each scenario.

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The researchers found that across the board, the study participants recognized that self-compassion is generally a good thing—but not necessarily for themselves.

Participants who were less self-compassionate thought that practicing self-care would negatively impact their performance. They said being kind to themselves after a failure, rejection, or loss would make them feel less conscientious, less ambitious, and less motivated. They also saw self-criticism as “a sign of strength and responsibility.” In other words, they believed being tough on themselves made them tougher, better, and more driven.

But those folks might want to start cutting themselves some slack: The researchers note that people who are rich in self-compassion typically possess better emotional health. They benefit from higher life satisfaction, and a lower risk of depression and anxiety. They also tend to have a sunnier outlook, and to cope better when crap (inevitably) happens.  

If you're in the habit of treating yourself harshly, try shifting your perspective on what self-criticism actually does for you, suggests Ashwini Nadkarni, MD, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was not involved in the study. “You might think [being self-critical is] motivating, and in the short term, it can be. But in the long run, the things that you tell yourself—I should be a better mother, I should have a better job—are demoralizing,” she explains. Over time, that type of self-flagellation can lead to burn out, and keep you from reaching the goals you were pushing so hard to achieve in the first place.

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Below, Dr. Nadkarni offers her four-step plan for practicing more self-kindness and understanding:

Be aware. In order to change a behavior, first you need to be convinced it’s a problem…