How to improve my observation?

Question

I have noticed that I do NOT notice the details which others seem to notice without any efforts.
My mind is too occupied in its own thoughts to notice the fine details.

Are there any ways to improve my "observation".

Answer 1

I'm going to give a controversial but scientific answer.

The reason some people are more "observing" than you lies inside the brain. The reason is not that those people simply have "learned" to observe, or that they use certain techniques, but that their brain chemistry is different from yours.

More specifically, how closely you observe the world around you has been linked to norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) levels. With low NE and DA, you are confused and all over the place, unable to direct your attention. With high NE and DA, you are attentive, and can easily focus your mind on all sorts of things going on around you, including small details.

So how can you boost the levels of these neurotransmitters? One way is drugs like amphetamines, Ritalin, Cocaine and so on, but my guess is that's not what you are looking for. A more healthy and natural way to boost your attention is physical exercise, which has been proven to boost brain norepinephrine as well as dopamine and serotonin, so you'll improve not just attention but also energy, motivation, happiness, calmness, and so on. High-intensity exercise such as HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is especially beneficial.

Do not make the extremely common mistake of thinking your mind and your body are somehow separate; they are not. Get a perfect body, and you'll have perfect brain.

Answer 2

One good exercise is to use breaks. You can do it everywhere:

Close your eyes.

Ask yourself: What would you see when you open your eyes? Try to make a mental list of as many details as possible. Afterwards you can open your eyes and compare your mental list to the reality.

Answer 3

An excellent example is the Institute of Anvanced Motorists training (based on Police Roadcraft) where as you drive you continuously narrate risks as you first spot them, their development, and when you are clear of them.

This process, practiced over your training sessions, helps you improve your observation skills, not just in the area of risks to you, but in general as you are consciously having to assess and talk about the important ones.

It helps with all visual observations, not just while you are in a car - I would recommend something like this exercise as a high value to any driver anyway, but it could help you.

Answer 4

You could find exercises like An exercise to develop your observational skills that may help shift how you see images or do practices like "Where's Waldo?" as these could be useful for developing the skill assuming that the observation you seek is improvement in visual acuity. This is quite different from assuming you are wanting to improve skills in emotional intelligence in regard to social awareness or relationship management where you are trying to interpret body language cues from people so do beware this question could be interpreted in at least a couple of ways.

Answer 5

Every human being has an observation skill and they can improve it with time. Observation has a feature of daily life make your life easier. In business life, women-men relationships etc.. It is the starting point, most of the time without realizing we did, we decided in the face of some cases of self-judgments. And keen observation requires a clear mind.

There are some side effect for improving your observation;

• body language
• to pay attention to details
• a memory that it can compare what you saw.
• speech
• sentences
• choice of clothing
• choice of colors

One of the best skill who has a great observation is, they don't early comments on a situation based a few things and they don't act with prejudice. Observation's most important feature is it's never stop. It's continue end of the situation and step by step improve itself.

Here's some advice;

1. Try to make eye contact with everyone as much as possible. Mutual eye contact is a sign of someone engaged and observing back.
2. Body language shows willingness and desire to communicate between people.
3. Feel free your brain to make immediately process and release normal information.
4. Take note abnormal and suspicious things, people and their actions. Try to watch for changes in or absence of normal activity and things regularly what you saw.