being able to stay intensely focused when you're studying is it's almost like a superpower because
someone who is trained on how to study with extreme focus often has to only study half
the number of hours as someone who when they study they keep zoning out and getting distracted right
so we're facing this kind of focus epidemic where productivity is suffering due to the
constant distractions we're faced with not just daily but on a minute-by-minute basis
whether it's checking social media opening a new tab and browsing the internet checking emails or
receiving notifications on our phones again it's this idea of studying smart which i talk about a
lot on this channel for good reason because it's important this idea that you should be aiming to
reduce the number of hours you're studying by studying smarter but one of the most important
things you need to do to be able to achieve this is what author cal newport calls deep work and
i've read this book maybe three or four years ago now but i definitely recommend it this concept of
deep work is about simply being able to work or study completely uninterrupted where you're 100
focused on the task at hand now obviously that's easier said than done right so in this video i'm
going to go through several ways in which i'm able to reach this kind of state of intense
focus when working and hopefully will give you some ideas on how you can improve your focus too
when you're studying study in short bursts this is something that i've been thinking
about quite a lot recently so most people just work for eight hours right from nine to five
but just a few months ago i started breaking my work day into three chunks i'd work for a few
hours in the morning a few hours in the middle of the day and a few hours in the evening and
those work chunks would be separated with rest time so i'd go to the gym i'd do smaller tasks
like grocery shopping that kind of thing and by doing that instead of trying to get all my
work done within one work session of like 9 or 10 hours i'd spread it out throughout the day so it
gives my brain time to rest and recover because depending on what study you read the brain can
only stay fully focused for 20 to 45 minutes at a time and after that we start to slowly lose focus
so i used to work from about 8 a.m to about 6 p.m every day because that's kind of how society has
trained us right nine to five working hours has been generally accepted worldwide but for me at
least since changing two free work chunks spread out throughout the day so working a few hours
in the morning a few hours in the afternoon and a few hours in the night time rather than doing all
my work in one go it has significantly improve my ability to focus and enter into this state
of flow because i'm not feeling as much fatigue as i was before and i know that i just need to
stay 100 focused for a few hours and then i can have a fairly long break to rest and recover so
i talk about this strategy in way more depth in the transform your grades course i've just added
two mini courses to it so one on how to significantly boost your productivity and another
on how to beat procrastination i'm constantly improving the course and adding to it and just
making it better for you guys there's a link in the description below if you want to check it out
mindfulness so obviously distractions are a major issue when it comes to extreme focus
alongside procrastination it's up there as one of the biggest obstacles that students face
so how do you combat this and how do you stop yourself from getting distracted all the time
when your mind just wants to wander somewhere else and this is where mindfulness can really help so
mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment while calmly
acknowledging and accepting one's feelings so the first step to stopping yourself from getting
distracted is actually realizing that you're getting distracted right sometimes it can be
really easy to be studying then you open a new tab and start procrastinating on something completely
different but we don't even realize that we're doing it we're almost in like a zombie-like state
of procrastination so your mind needs to be in the present with your mind relaxed and focused on the
work in front of you and this is where meditation can be really powerful so i started meditating
around 2017 2018 and when you meditate your mind just naturally starts to wander and you start
to think about everything and anything it's just natural it's what your mind will automatically do
if you sit there essentially doing nothing but what meditation teaches you is that when your mind
starts to wander you just slowly calmly bring it back to the meditation no judgment no pressure no
stress just calmly bring your concentration back to the meditation and after a while of meditating
you get really good at just kind of bringing your mind back into focus and it's the same principle
with your studying when you're studying and you realize you're starting to get distracted you
just calmly and patiently bring your mind back to the task in front of you and the more you do
it you'll realize that the better you'll become at staying focused for longer periods of time
but yeah mindfulness is huge when it comes to being able to stay focused choose one task so
there's two kind of directions that you can take your study the first is what i call
dynamic studying and this is where you study one subject for just one hour and then another subject
for the next hour and then another subject for another hour and you just kind of keep switching
it up like that it keeps things interesting and slows down the likelihood of you getting fatigue
the problem with that approach though is that every time you switch subjects it will take you
a small bit of time to get back into the state of flow and that's why i prefer just choosing one
task and sticking with that one task until it's complete that's when i can really get in the zone
and kind of build up this extreme level of focus and cal newport in his book deep work looks at the
price of destruction in an increasingly digitized world and he also argues that to be able to
be at your most productive we need to be in a zone of just doing one task because multitasking
just doesn't work but often when we're working or studying how often do we focus on just one single
task without checking email without opening another tab on your browser without checking
your social media right and it's this constant intrusion of technology that cal newport argues
is frequently disengaging us from our deep focus and thought because if we're not thinking deeply
then we're not working deeply either right become unavailable now this is super important it's about
priorities if you're aiming to enter into a state of flow then you need to prioritize your task at
hand higher than everything else going on around you all communication outside of your one single
task that you're doing can wait until you're done right and this is where a kind of mini
social media detox can help so for me i usually get about three hours of work done the first thing
in the morning three hours in the afternoon and three hours in the evening and i aim to achieve
deep focus in all of these work chunks so what i'll often do is put my phone in another room or
enable the do not disturb mode and i'll make sure that i don't get tempted by checking email on my
browser the idea is to really just disconnect from everything else and i actually went on my
first social media detox a few months ago and it was only for four days but it was the first
time in years that i've not touched social media for that long and it was incredible it's kind of
difficult to articulate but in my mind it was just peaceful i guess there was no nagging feeling that
i had to check my phone i didn't have to break my focus whenever i received a new notification
i didn't need to check my emails multiple times a day it was just a really relaxing time i guess but
yeah becoming unavailable is incredibly important when it comes to deep work and just as a side note
when you are studying with deep focus for any length of time it's important that you do it in
a healthy and sustainable way so i made a video recently on exactly that how i study 12 hours
a day the healthy way you can click on the pop-up banner above to watch it optimize your environment
finding where you study best is an essential part of deep focus but it's something that is
often overlooked now i'm not going to talk about it too much here because it's fairly
obvious right and i've covered it quite a lot on this channel but just super quickly you've got to
find out what works best for you is it the library a coffee shop your bedroom everyone has their own
environmental preferences just try and find somewhere with as few distractions as possible
obviously studying in your kitchen when you have family members walking past you constantly
is probably not the best option when it comes to trying to achieve deep focus establish rituals so
willpower will only get you so far it will help but you can't expect to rely on self-discipline
all the time because naturally some days you're going to feel productive and in the mood to study
and then other days you're not going to right but that's where establishing rituals can really help
so for me like i mentioned earlier i work in three trunks throughout the day and that's just a habit
for me so as soon as i wake up literally the first thing i do is i sit down at my desk and i get at
least two hours of solid working and because i do it every day it's just a habit now i don't even
have to think about it and in the middle of the day at about 2 p.m i'll get another few hours done
and the same at night time you see if you study at the same time every day it kind of trains your
mind and your body that that's just what you do at that time every single day you go and study and it
becomes a whole lot easier to get into the zone of studying and enter into a state of flow optimize
your downtime long stretches of intense focus should be balanced with good rest and i don't mean
the kind of rest where you're just mindlessly watching youtube videos or mindlessly scrolling
through social media because that's a kind of low value habit that doesn't really add value to your
life but i mean where you make an effort to opt for quality engaging experiences like pursuing
hobbies learning a new skill reading that kind of thing reaching this state of intense focus
takes some effort to get going but it's about training your brain into being able to deep focus
for longer and longer periods of time so at first it might be quite difficult but the
more you practice the better you'll get at it and if you are struggling with distractions and
self-discipline and just making yourself go and study in the first place i made a video called 13
ways to be more self-disciplined as a student you can click on the card on the screen it's probably
one of my more important videos because i don't make many videos specifically on self-discipline
alternatively i made another video why it's so hard to sit down and study in the first place
again you can click on the card on the screen and whichever video you choose i'll see you over there