Non-drug strategies for improving concentration when depressed?

Here's what I take for my depression, and it seems to be working well for me: Vitamin D3 (because it's that time of year) 5-HTP (200 mg per day) Fish oil (2000 mg per day) B-complex (one every other day, though that's idiosyncratic--once a day is better) And progesterone cream during the two weeks after ovulation (unique to perimenopausal hormone crash issues, so YMMV) Yoga and/or zen meditation. Walking the dog for an hour a day. And I use the Strict Pomodoro extension for Chrome, which helps me stay focused.

Geocaching. The quiet outdoor activity which gets little publicity, but which millions of people do. Anecdotal evidence, http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=267359, that it is a useful thing for people with a wide range of depression and cognitive problems. It's good for many reasons. It's very cheap or free (need an app, and an account on e.g. geocaching.com). As a displacement activity at work, you can plan and research geocaches to find. People of all abilities and ages can, and do, geocache. You get outdoors, and get some exercise in a variety of places. The problem solving parts of the brain are worked, as are the bits that deal with literacy, maths, geography, environments. There's a nice sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, in finding caches, that increases the more you find. You see lots of interesting things outdoors that you would never have otherwise noticed. The geocaching community is friendly and positive. You can geocache in isolation, or with other people. Here's the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4VFeYZTTYs. Use the map to http://www.geocaching.com/map/; there are nearly 2 million geocaches worldwide so there should be some within distance. Here are some http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22cool+geocache%22&oq=%22cool+geocache%22.

I get anxious about work and this often affects my capacity to focus at work (it's a nasty catch-22). The thing that helps me most when I get to a point where I can't concentrate on work is to... Take time off. Do you have any vacation days you could take? (Aim for at least a week). Otherwise, on a day to day basis, here are some of my strategies: When I get really unproductive, I leave my desk and go for walks outside. This helps me avoid feeling frustrated and hitting the wall of what some work psychologists have called "diminishing returns". If you're expected to stay at your desk, you might want to go for walks at lunch or quick walks during your breaks. Otherwise, I try to do 20 minutes of light yoga in the morning. This really helps me have more focus and energy at work. I also often bring or buy a fruit smoothie which helps me stay energized. I've also had blood tests done that revealed I have an iron deficiency. My focus has improved since I started taking supplements. I also take, on the advice of my MD, vitamin D. I recommend doing a blood test if you haven't done so already. But more importantly, be kind and patient with yourself.

Go outside every day, eat food, and exercise. I feel better when I play an instrument regularly and stay off the Internet.

Get up every hour and run up and down a few flights of stairs.

Meditation with all the new-ageyness and spiritual stuff removed? It's practicing concentration. That's it. The idea is that practicing focus - practicing controlling your attention - will improve your life. Chade-Meng Tan wrote a book called http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062116924/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/; he's an engineer at Google, and has honestly made meditation-for-engineers a life's work. He asks for at least ten seconds a day, which, well, is a pretty low bar for giving it a shot.

Is there anything you can do to create a bit of pressure? Like, if you are working on report x but having trouble getting motivated, schedule a meeting with someone to discuss it, with the understanding that you will present them with a draft. Even if you don't report to them but could feasibly use their input, it could help give you that extra push to buckle down so that you have something to show them when you meet. Make a point of talking to other people. If there's no break room this might mean walking over to other people's desks and saying "Bob, how was your vacation," or even "I'm Pat, I work on this floor but I don't think we've met yet." Connectedness really helps me feel less depressed. The Pomodoro app really helps me with the displacement activity you describe. I tend to want to look at my iPhone during work, but when I see the red tomato and the countdown number I think "oh, another 11 minutes before I can take a break" and then I go back to work. If you aren't using a to - do list, that will help. Keep it reasonable, even small, so that even if you aren't perfectly focused you can still mark off most of the list and feel proud. I like to keep a cumulative list - I tend to forget all the little stuff I accomplish on a day-to-day basis, so it's really good to have it written down. If I forget to put stuff on the list at the beginning of the day, at the end of the day I write down what I've done and cross it off. Another thing that helps is to make a commitment with a friend. I send an email announcing my intention. Which might literally read "I am announcing my intention to do X and Y today." And then I follow up when it's complete.

Firstly you might consider practices such as Zen meditation which can work to strengthen the concentration, working in much the same way that practising scales does in music. Traditionally this has resulted in people staring at their thumbnails for long periods of time. You don't need to take that much interest in your own thumbnail, but you get the general principle. Secondly, it is important to find strategies for quantifying what you are doing and what you want to do. That is to say, being able to set specific goals, so that you are aware of having met the goals or not. For example, the Pomodoro technique, which alternates set, timed periods of activity, with set, timed periods of rest. Unless there quantifiable aims, it is very difficult to know where one has succeeded or not, opening the door to a general sense of unease and an achievement. In both cases, it's a question of setting up a framework of committing oneself to activities for a fixed period of time, and not allowing oneself to wander away from that.

like hellojed's example, make to-do lists. It is almost excruciating to stop and take time to make them when you are unfocused and behind on your work. But getting into the habit is essential. Not just because it organizes your work, but because it gives you an overview of what's going on. You will be able to see that things aren't as bad as they seem, or that they ARE as bad as they seem and you can make a plan to get out of the hole. You have to experiment with the level of detail that works for you. And use a process like hellojed's to document things that distract you while you are working on something. One, so you don't forget those things, and two, writing them down sort of takes the life out of a distraction. Instead of wasting energy on trying to remember it, you know that you've made note of it and will get to it later. (This works for meeting too. Write down questions for later, and tell others to do the same.)