how to Become More Observant in Life: 51+ proven Ways

Observation has invariably prevailed as an essential component of human existence. The more we are adopting technological innovation in our life the less we are paying attention to our surroundings.

If you’re also thinking of expanding your choices, here are some applicable tips for you. To make you more observant of the surroundings. 

Ways to Become More Observant in Life

Start thinking that both your safety and your skill of observation go hand in hand. You will start sensing even danger and risk before you by observing things.  

Always follow your instincts. Everyone gets instincts that can’t be put to words. Learn to accept those instincts. 

Be Aware if someone is keeping his eye on you. An attentive person notices the looks and intent of every person he meets daily. 

Follow the intention of the people you meet. Not only one should look at the eyes of the person they meet. But similarly, the style of talking and every other detail also you must watch. 

Never ignore things that are making you uncomfortable. Most of the time we simply walk away from the things which are making us uncomfortable. But very few take the effort to sort out the reason for such feelings.

Have a watch on every unusual happening. If any day you found that something is not going what usually goes then the emphasis on those events.

Always try to be curious. It’s better to have a desire to know things around us. You can take action accordingly.

Try to ask questions. If you don’t know anything about something then never suppress your curiosity. Instead, always look for the answers to your questions.

Approach people personally if you are confused with their actions. Sometimes it’s better in clarifying our doubts in person rather than loudly asking anyone.

Raise questions to yourself also. You should not only ask other questions. But at the same time get accustomed to questioning yourself also. It will help you sufficiently to be attentive and sharp.

Notice every minor detailing in a room. If someone has visited your friend’s room or partying in a room then he must keep his eye on everything. For example, among all how many people are wearing a tie in the room.

Try to adopt both listening and visual skills in parallel. Often simply viewing or listening to things can deceive us. So, to be safe, we must pay attention to both looks and talking. 

Don’t use gadgets frequently. Using things like earphones with high volume will gradually weaken your hearing power. You soon will feel disinterested in the world.

Avoid distractions to be a good observant. Almost all devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops divert your attention from the world. Soon you will feel like cutting off from the rest of the world. 

Don’t play videos or audios with high volume. Often people fail to notice the scenario around him when he is engaged in watching a cute baby’s video. 

Avoid watching television for long hours. It’s natural for you to blindly follow your favorite program on television. But in between something serious can happen in your place. So, lower your habit of watching television daily. 

Don’t divorce with the source of entertainment you have. It is so because being too harsh on yourself and avoiding every medium of entertainment will bore you. And as a result, you will find a lack of interest in the world. 

Have a good sleep cycle. It is biologically proven lack of sleep can cause nausea and headaches which will make you less interested in the world. 

Read good detective and spy books. Famous books like Sherlock Holmes have always remained a good source of inspiration for making people observe the reality. 

Learn to read body language. For example, the way a  person moves his hand, the way he eats among others speaks a lot about his body language.

Notice the appearance of the person you approach. Always keep a look at the dressing pattern of the person you meet. It helps a lot in understanding his character. 

Don’t submerge any of your senses. All your senses are an assistive kit that is present to you to know the world. Don’t ignore any of them.

Never rely on a few dominated senses. Sometimes trusting only a few senses makes you blind. It presents to you an incomplete picture.

Watch daily news. Observation is much more than mere noticing of things. It helps you to see a picture in a larger context rather than only knowing the half information.

Update yourself about all the local developments. Most of us are ignorant about the scenario even in our neighborhood. It prevents us from actually being observant and alert.

Try to accumulate as much extra knowledge as possible. Often we do project research work. And when we are researching we only try to gather information as much as the project requires. But to be a true observant we should not remain satisfied with that much research. Rather we should try to gather even more information. 

Don’t imprison yourself in a closed room. The world is much larger. And in no case, we should suffocate ourselves in a closed room. It kills all our curiosity to know the outer world. 

Learn to be patient. As a restless mind can never concentrate on a particular thing for much longer, try to be patient. With this, you can observe things for hours long.

Learning meditation helps us to be more observant. When we do meditation we all used to focus at the tip of our forehead for a particular period. And automatically maintaining your focus for a continuous period helps you to be good at observation. 

Try to keep a note of things around you daily and cross-check it the next day. You can compare your everyday observation and soon you will turn out as a good observant. 

Own a camera. After buying a camera you will automatically get inclined in observing every detailing of things.

Take inspiration from a photographer. The label of a good observant goes to a photographer. The way a photographer sees the world truly needs attention. 

Learn to take perfect shots. Through the help of different angles and focuses get yourself clicked a perfect picture. It raises your observation skill.

Try to match the original texture of a thing with that in a clicked photo. In a clicked photograph often we missed matching the color background of the photograph with reality. But such actions resist us from becoming observant. 

Start figuring the world differently. Try to look at the world in front of you from a completely different angle. It helps you to beautifully realize the world.

Don’t always be in a rush. Make yourself stable and look out at things without any hurry. 

Try avoiding always wearing a watch. Whenever we are having this round dial in our hand automatically our attention will shift towards it. But disowning it sometimes will help us to look at things completely without any kind of worry. 

Be Aware of who you are. The very first step to becoming a good observant is knowing who you are. You can only know others after your self-awareness. 

Give extra observation to others than yourself. For those who pay more attention to self appearance and all, it becomes almost impossible for them to look at others. 

Appreciate the beauty of others. Never feel jealous of someone that you become blind to look at their beauty. It reduces your skill to observe things. 

Never get too self-conscious while speaking to someone. You can keep a check on this problem by watching how you are behaving next time when you are having a conversation with someone. 

Always keep your brain busy when you are watching or doing any kind of activity. When you are doing an activity don’t allow your mind to lobby around. Instead, the complete focus should be on the task you are performing. 

Examine yourself by giving silent tests. A silent test is not what we give to get a degree. A silent test is very different. It’s a test which you will give to yourself to judge how much you are progressing in the observant report card. 

Try to pay attention to only one thing at a time. If we start concentrating on multiple things then our mind will get deviated and we will get confused.

Ask someone to hide your phone. Being engaged in the smartphone is the most convenient way to escape yourself from the world. It makes people in our surroundings irritated and makes us completely unobserved. In such a case if someone hides your phone even for a few hours a day then also you can train yourself to be attentive. 

Try to focus on everything. Train your mind to start observing and hearing almost everything. For example, listen to even the middle line of reading by someone.

Get rid of everything that deviates your attention. Leave out all those things that are resisting you from concentrating and seeing things that are in front of you.

Learn to focus on multiple steps. It’s not an easy task to focus altogether on an in-depth thing. Therefore, you can be attentive to multiple initiatives. Slowly you can train your mind to become observant. 

Don’t interrupt while someone is talking. Every human being inborn nature is to interrupt in between while someone is speaking. Avoid doing so as it breaks the person’s emotion behind his statement when you distract him.

Only make comments or nod your head whenever it is necessary. Only make your remark or add up something in a conversation whenever it is truly required. Otherwise don’t interfere as it distracts both you and your partner from focussing. 

Start to know the emotion of a person with the help of his appearance. Being attentive implies besides only hearing the statements an individual tells. It signifies looking into how someone looks and functions for awareness of his feelings.

Analyze an individual’s mood. Try to compare an acquaintance’s usual behavior with the mood with which he is approaching you. It will reveal to you many things. 

Get used to wordless expressions. Human nature is very complicated. A person can be both annoyed, sad, spirited at the same time. And they don’t need to express those emotions in words to you. Therefore, watch him for a longer time to know his mood. 

Employ all your five senses to observe everything. We are gifted with five senses but we hardly use all of them together. We use two to three senses at a time. It leads us to be less observant. Instead, use all your five senses together to get a better outcome. 

Utilize your eyes to scan things in your surroundings. Our eyes often catch the main scenarios and left-outs the rest. But proper use of the eye can help us to capture all the intricate detailing around us. 

Make usage of ears to hear voices. Use your ears thoroughly so that you can properly distinguish between different voices you meet regularly.

Touch others to know their emotions. Like if you shake your hand with your friend and he is sweating. Then maybe he is feeling nervous due to some reason. 

Take the guidance of your nose to find the aroma of a place. Like if you visit a flower garden you can easily figure out which plants are planted there with your strong smelling sense. Similarly, you can figure out the unusual smell in a place like if something is burning in your neighbor with the help of your nose. 

Focus on things that are not being said. We should also learn how to observe those things which are not being told to us. For example, if your friend is all excited about a Sunday trip but the day of the trip if he cancels the trip then surely there’s some reason behind it. Maybe he is not feeling well or something more severe. 

Give confidence to your friend to speak his heart out in a conversation. Many times while in a frank conversation your friend skips some important part of the conversation. Maybe because he is disappointed with some sensitive issue. Observe it and give him enough confidence so that he can speak his heart out to you. 

Learn to know people’s body language. Suppose a person is ready to take any difficult task without hesitation then maybe he is in a good energetic mood. But of course, it depends on the other kind of person he is.

Pay attention to materialistic things also. While becoming attentive you should not only notice the body language and way of talking of a person. But also at the same time, you must be conscious of the things and other animals surrounding you. Like the color of the building near which you are standing, the biodiversity of the region, etc. 

Train yourself to notice things when you are alone on a walk. The best time to observe things is when you are not accompanied by anyone. And you are all alone by yourself. 

Try to be creative. An artist is much more creative than all other normal people. His way of observing things is much aesthetic and in-depth as compared to others. 

Join a painting class. In a painting class, you will be expected to paint an object or person which is in front of you. In this way, you will learn to capture in your mind every color, shape, and posture of objects you visit daily.

Do mandala art to get to know the intricate detailing of an object. The mandala form of art is both engaging and seeks attention at the same time. 

First, listen to what someone is saying rather than only predicting based on body language. Sometimes, what a person is speaking and his body language becomes completely different. You must have enough patience to hear him carefully. 

Teach yourself to observe people from a distance. When we have time rather than only spending time unproductively if we visit the coffee house near our destination we can learn to observe things from a distance. We can watch for instance how a couple is behaving there, and workers face expressions there to train us for adopting good observation skills. 

Try to solve difficult crossword puzzles or a Rubik’s cube. Expending time solely completing a puzzle will smarter your senses and memory. It will also make you see the aesthetic beauty of every object. 

Give a try to watch a regional or foreign movie without the help of the subtitles. If you know any foreign language then there’s a greater chance to increase your observation skill. When you watch a movie without any subtitles then automatically you will be aware and attentive.

Take dance class from trained personalities. Getting admission to a dance academy will make you conscious to mimic exact moves like your trainer. You will learn to know the detailing of every move. 

Practice yoga daily. Yoga makes a person’s spirit much stronger. By doing yoga you will learn to focus on things, develop patience in you.  In totality, it teaches you to live the moment. However, if by any chance you do not become successful on the first attempt. Don’t lose hope. 

Takedown notes daily. Noting is not a typical classroom thing. But in your personal life also it must be followed. Whenever you notice any unusual thing happening around you jot it down. 

Do a little appreciation for yourself. Sometimes your skills for observing things can only be boosted up when you applaud your minor observations. It encourages you to do future observations, which can be more detailed. 

Train your mind to become more attentive by playing memory games. It’s proven that these types of games help your mind to be more attentive and active. 

Start thinking about every small observation.  After coming back home from the office, think about every small detail you witness in a day. 

Recollect the entire day before your night sleep. Before going to sleep it will be a great exercise if we take out only five minutes to recollect the entire day. 

Set miniature targets/goals. If we at the beginning itself set bigger goals then hardly we can succeed to be observant. We will get nervous but instead, if we cross small milestones every day we can healthily activate our brain. 

Thus, following most, if not all tips will help you to become more observant in life.

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