What are some ways to improve concentration? I can't focus even if I play 30min

What I mean by "I can't concentrate" is:

• My mind just wanders off, so that I can't concentrate on something for longer than a couple of seconds. It's like physically exhausting for me to focus on a single thing for longer than 10 seconds.
• I "hyperfocus", correctly calculate one possible line, but ignore the other ones which surprises me and makes me lose the game.
• Sometimes I think that my opponents pawns are going up and not down, which leads to missed opportunities or simply blunders. Or I think that e.g. my opponent's king is on the black square, use the black square bishop to check, but it's actually on the white square
  
  
• Sometimes tunnel vision, but it seems to be a smaller issue for me

I don't have ADHD diagnosed, nor do I think that I actually have it. But what are some ways I could improve my concentration (besides maybe lots of energy drinks and coffee)?

Actually, I recommend against energy drinks and similar.

What you describe is a learning curve. Everyone experienced tunnel vision when starting chess, or missing possible lines from the opponent. It gets slightly better with practice and experience. In the meantime, just try your best and try to identify why you made a particular blunder. If you forgot that the pawns move the other way, then something like this could be "fixed" by double checking your move BEFORE you play it. This is easier said than done, but taking a few extra seconds to think about your move can prevent a lot of errors and especially if the time control is long enough to allow this, such as playing a 30 min game.

Good luck with your chess, but know that you aren't alone. Everyone experienced similar when they were first starting out too

My first instinct is to address the 10 second maximum attention span.

• This could be due to ADHD. It's unclear whether you have it. You haven't been diagnosed. Statistically you are more likely to have it, though, but that's only because people that don't have it never need to mention it and people that need to mention they don't have it are more likely to have it.
• If you indeed are not capable of concentrating for more than 10 seconds, then chess is not the game for you. It's absolutely impossible to evaluate positions in less than 10 seconds. Experienced players can make decisions in under 10 seconds when they have seen a position before or if they can rely on other forms of pattern recognition. But all of them have at some point spent more time analyzing these positions. You can play a position as often as you want, but if you play a move after 5 seconds every time, you won't learn anything at all.

My advice

• To play fewer games, so you can focus more of your energy on each game.
• Make sure you sleep enough. It's not common or normal for a player to forget if pawns go up or down or not to see if a piece is standing on a white or a black square. If more sleep doesn't work, a neurological test might be in order.
• Talk to yourself out loud while playing. Just to trigger yourself to make more conscious decisions. For example, ask yourself before you move: "Did I check for checks, captures and attacks?". Or alternatively, say to yourself: "These 3 moves X, Y and Z were my candidate moves and I am going to play move X, because I have calculated that's the best one".
• Contrary to what I said earlier about playing fewer games, you need to play more games. Not too many one after another, take your time to focus. More in the sense that you have only played 500 games, many of them Blitz and Bullet games. Most of the positions you will see in your games are new to you, Even when you encounter positions that you have seen before, you won't have spent more than 30 seconds analyzing any of them. It will take a long while before you will develop a better understanding of how to play them.

Isn't there a chess streamer who has ADHD and is like 2600?

Either way, I already talk to myself out loud while playing actually! I pretend that I'm live streaming or something, trying to comment my moves and my opponents plans, and this kinda works actually, but after a couple of minutes, I basically forget to do this.

I do sleep enough, but I still mix things up and think pawns are going up and not down etc. I basically forget what position and situation I'm in, it's like I can't hold a lot of things at once in my head so to speak.

In general, I suffer from a lack of focus in life. When people talk to me, I can't pay attention to what they're telling me sometimes and I get myself into a lot of misunderstandings. Lectures at university are basically useless for me because I simply forget what the Professor has said when he starts a new sentence. I still manage to get very good grades and a scholarship because I simply study on my own, but it still kinda sucks. I feel like I'm living life stoned all the time

Energy drinks, coffee and other stimulants will only help if you actually have ADHD.

... and even then, self-diagnosis and self-medication are BAD ideas.

I'm just now starting at this site but it is really good. There is a section called vision exercises. This may help.

Have you read Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess? It doesn't waste time and is very engaging. It is take it in whatever bite size you wish.

Chess is a sport. It is physical activity that requires physical effort. Eat your peas . Lots of lutein which clears the oxidation products created in your brain when you think. For real. I have read about more than one chess genius that suffered mental breakdown. It may just be that we damage ourselves by pushing too hard while having too little protection. Males in particular push into damage and benefit with muscular hypertrophy. Perhaps this behavior crosses over to mental effort, but perhaps there is no neural hypertrophy, just damage.

The Max Plank Institute did an interesting study where they imaged blood flow in the brain. The greatest blood flow by far was while daydreaming. They got the same pattern of flow when having people watch a video of someone walking into a room and obviously searching for something. So your self study may be using that mental state.

I get up and walk around. It helps while playing and studying and gets the blood flowing. It's good to look at the board from differing distances.

Your "problem" may be an advantage. Trash in, trash out. You may instinctively filter out garbage and do a better job yourself. In performance, it is generally believed that teaching yourself is a prime goal.

Perhaps you can use your defocus. Walk away then walk back with a fresh look. It can be powerful. Looking for mates and checks first is recommended. A lot of games are lost from missing simple mates. So using your brief time well may improve efficiency.

I just don't see how my lack of focus can be an advantage.

Its the beginner syndrome. I went through something similar and beat it. I was stuck at 700-800 level forever not being able to make all my moves even in a 30 minute game and losing on time. and the following thing helped me.

I recommend playing less and relearning from the basics from youtube. I definitely improved when I understood the game more either from beginner books or youtube lessons. I can recommend a playlist if you're interested. (NM Robert Ramirez From beginner to) I forgot the rest but its a great gift to youtube for all beginner chess players. I learned better in my regional language than English. Maybe try learning the game from Polish chess teachers on youtube.

Lastly, free puzzles on lichess. As little as you can or as many as you can. It grows your game like plants growing without us noticing. You will play considerably way better and you will not be able to figure out why. Its the puzzles. Do a little. Do a lot. But just do it.

Less youtube, tv, mobile apps etc. More walks, reading books and so forth.

Also less energy drinks and coffee. Maybe more tea or beer or something like that.

I think problems with concentrating are getting more common because people get all this instant messaging, snap this snap that, lightning speed mega internet so you can watch a 4K ultra HD movie without having to wait a single second marketed to them. People get used to everything happening instantly and this leads to problems concentrating.

Chess games used to be played without a clock and take hours. Now people think it is the end of the world when their opponent ”stalls” in a 3 minute blitz game.

One move should take around 10 minutes, not a whole game. That is when real chess is played.

I just don't see how my lack of focus can be an advantage.

In itself, well it isn't. But using two things to compensate, efficiency and purposeful use of more than one perspective for each move, will compensate somewhat. So as you hopefully find how to improve concentration, you will have some really good habits that will continue to compensate and are good habits even if there is no perceived lack of focus.

Plus your brain responds to dopamine like ours. So getting a dopamine reward will cause you to pay attention in some fashion. So that's why endgame drills may be good. They can be very efficient and fast. And they will likely give you the most reward both in the short and long term.

Sometimes just a little certainty about something will provide a toehold for finding meaning. That bit of certainty can be a foundation. We often see an abandonment of focus in the general population when someone approaches a subject and initially grasps nothing. It's just like staring into an abyss. So having bits of certainty to work from benefits anyone.

So endgame drills and perhaps physically score booking every game on paper are two things off the top of my head that may fit in your situation and can help. Score keeping on paper only takes a second each time but adds a perspective on patterns in the game at a glance. A bit of certainty that's easy to acquire.