A writer for the Paris Review once asked
the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury
where he did his writing.
His response?
"I can work anywhere.
"I wrote in bedrooms and living rooms when I was growing up
"with my parents and my brother in a small house
"in Los Angeles.
"I worked on my typewriter in the living room
"with the radio and my mother and my dad and my brother
"all talking at the same time.
"Later on, when I needed an office and wanted to go write
"my novel Fahrenheit 451 25 years ago,
"I went up to UCLA and found a basement typing room
"where for 10 cents, which you inserted into the typewriter,
"you could buy yourself 30 minutes of typing time."
Now this seems a bit surprising at first, especially
given all the other famous writers who had
a very let's say, particular writing habits.
For instance, the author Gertrude Stein chose
her writing space on whether or not she'd be able
to see a cow walk by.
But Bradbury's ability to work anywhere makes more sense
when you hear his answer to the interviewer's followup
question about whether or not he enjoyed writing.
"Yes, it's obvious that I do.
"It's the exquisite joy and madness of my life
"and I don't understand writers who have to work at it.
"If I had to work at it, I would give up
"because I don't like working, I like to play."
This is the kicker.
Bradbury's intense love of writing is what enabled him
do drown out all distractions.
He wrote because there was nothing else he would rather
be doing at the moment.
You can probably think back to things that have consumed
your attention in a similar way.
For me, at different points in my life,
those things have been UI design, programming,
and most recently, playing the guitar.
When I'm playing guitar, nothing is going to distract me
because that's exactly what I want to be doing
and I get into it, but there are always less interesting
things that we just have to do like calculus assignments,
ironic essays about the Virgin Islands, and crucially,
as you're interest in the work diminishes, the more
important the optimization of your work environment becomes.
So today, I want to explore what goes into creating
the perfect study space, one where you can easily slip into
the flow state, resist distractions, and actually
get your work done fast enough to have some time
left over to play Cave Story before you got to go
to bed.
And when it comes to creating a great study space,
the first thing we need to talk about is context.
You have a ton of choice when it comes to study spots.
You got libraries, you got coffee shops,
you got basements of academic buildings that nobody else
knows about, and then there is your dorm room
or your bedroom, but wherever you decide to study,
you want to make sure that the place you select
is exclusively for studying and nothing else.
That's because context is everything.
Environmental factors influence a lot of our behavior.
So if you put yourself in the place where the purpose
is ambiguous, you're going to be a lot more likely
to slip into the path of least resistance
which is usually taking quizzes to find out what your
Hogwarts house is.
Now this is definitely easier to do if you select
the library or the academic basement, as you probably
aren't going to go there for any other reason.
But if you happen to pick your dorm, it's much more
important to consider.
So for example, check out how my friend Martin set up
his study space.
He did decide to study and work in his room,
but he divided that room up with a Shoji screen
so that way he had one isolated area
that was only for work.
Now you definitely don't have to go all out
and buy a Shoji screen like he did.
In fact, he didn't even buy it.
It was just laying around, but you can use his example
to tailor your own study space.
One alternative method would be to turn your desk
into a corner of the room and make sure that all of your
fiction books and your video games and any other
distracting materials are just out of your field of view.
That will make sure that what you're looking at
is exclusively about the work you're supposed to be doing.
Secondly, think about the quality of your lighting
because it really can affect your productivity.
Now if you can get natural light, that is definitely going
to be your best option, but if you have only artificial
light to work with, you can work to control that
because it does make a difference.
While I was doing the research for this video,
I was especially interested in a German study
that looked at the affects of color, temperature,
and light intensity on the productivity of students
at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences.
Now this study only tracked 50 students,
so this area of science could definitely use
more fleshing out, but what they did find
is that students were more creative under warm light
at about 3,000 kelvin and they were able to concentrate
better under colder light, at about 6,000 kelvin.
To add to those findings, another study done
at Cornell University found that light that was too dim
or too bright also negatively affected productivity.
So with those findings in mind, it might be a good idea
to experiment with lighting in your study area.
Maybe get a lamp for your desk and experiment
with different color temperature in the bulbs that you
choose for that lamp.
And on the brightness end of things, you definitely don't
have to go out and buy multiple bulbs at different levels
of brightness to figure out what works for you.
Instead, for about 10 bucks, you can go to your local
hardware store and get a lamp side dimmer and if you get
a dimmable bulb, you can experiment just by toggling
the switch and seeing what works.
Now in addition to the color temperature of your light,
the actual temperature in the room matters a lot as well.
Not only can an environment that's too hot or too cold
consciously distract you and make you look up
and daydream and not want to do your work,
but it can also unconsciously cause you to make mistakes
while you're actually working.
That same Cornell study that I referenced a couple
of minutes ago also looked at temperature
and they found among other things, "when temperatures
"were low, 68 degrees or 20 degrees Celsius,
"employees made 44% more mistakes than at optimal
"room temperature, 77 degrees or 25 degrees Celsius."
So if you have access to the thermostat in your study
area, make sure you're setting it to an optimal
temperature for studying.
And if you don't, maybe try a different location.
Regardless of where you decide to study,
you want to make sure that you have access to all
the things you need for the particular task
that you're doing.
That includes notebooks, textbooks, index cards
if you're going to make flashcards for studying,
and pens and pencils.
And on the note of pens and pencils, make sure
that what you're writing with is something that you actually
enjoy writing with.
Now some people definitely go away further
than I would go with this.
In fact, there's an entire podcast out there
with literally hundreds of episodes
call The Pen Addict that's all about pens,
but I would say don't go for the cheapest pens
that are a pain to write with because they're just
going to distract you and make the process of writing
notes down unenjoyable.
Additionally, make sure that you have a somewhat
comfortable chair to sit in or maybe even experiment
with a standing desk.
Now I've got a standing desk In my room right now
that cost, well, it cost a lot of money.
But back when I was in college, I actually tried to
build a much cheaper standing desk using tables
from Walmart and screws and a little bit of ingenuity.
But I'm going to be honest, it wasn't enough
ingenuity because that standing desk kind of sucked.
But luckily, there are now standing desks for about $25
like the Spark standing desk that are made of cardboard
that you can set up very, very easily,
so that might be something to try out.
Also, one additional thing that you might not have thought
of having with you while you study is a notebook
or piece of scratch paper or maybe an app where you
write down things that come to mind or distract you.
One of the things that can completely wreck
my concentration and absolutely kill a study session
for me is if something comes to mind that I just
can't get out of my head, and it could be something stupid
like needing to do the laundry, but if I take the time
to write that down in a system that I trust
where I know I can come back and see it later,
that allows me to get back into my work and let
that thing go.
Additionally, that piece of paper can also be a record
of the things that distract you.
Maybe your environment is really prone to having people
come in and ask you to do things, or maybe it's just
really noisy.
I you write those things down, you can start to
consciously make improvements and maybe just select
a different spot altogether.
Now in addition to the things that you need to have
available to you, you should also consider the things
that you shouldn't have available to you.
This is often why your room is often not a good
study area and why you have to work hard to make it so
because remember, it's context.
Your room has your video games, your room has your bed,
your room has your nine foot tall stack of Cup O' Ramen.
It's not always the best place to study.
And speaking of things that you don't need
while you're studying, the big elephant in the room
is the thing that you're using to watch me right now,
which is the internet.
Now I know what you're going to say.
I need the internet for research, I need the internet
to get on my math lab.
And yes, sometimes you do, but remember, tasks can almost
always be broken down into individual sub tasks
or mini tasks.
This video that you're watching right now is a good
example of this because to make this video, I had to write
a script, which is basically like an essay
and writing a script isn't a singular task.
It's a sequence of sub tasks.
There's the research phase, there's idea generation,
there's the rough draft writing phase, and finally,
the editing phase.
And guess what?
I only needed the internet for one of those phases,
the research phase.
So during the other three phases, especially
that rough draft writing phase where I'm very prone
to distractions and I don't really want to be writing
for a lot of it, I will often turn the internet off
or I'll use an app like Cold Turkey Writer
which will literally block my ability to do
anything else but write.
Now the internet and its many, many cat pictures
is probably the greatest threat to your concentration,
but there are many other things that can derail you as well.
So before you settle into your study spot
and start on your first task, make a mental note
of all the potential things that could derail you
in the future.
If you're going to get hungry or thirsty during study
session, make sure you bring a snack or water bottle
with you.
Or if you need your laptop for a task
and it has a really bad battery, make sure you've packed
your charging port.
I've had several times in my life where I go to a coffee
shop, I have every intention of working hard
for several hours, and then, of course, I forgot
the charger, so I derail.
Also, when you finish studying for the day, make sure
you clear your space to neutral.
Bring it back to its clean, pristine state
because the next time you come to it, you don't want
to have to clean it up because it's likely
to make you procrastinate.
You want to be able to just smoothly roll into the work
immediately.
And lastly, this is a bit of a weird one, but try
to view your study space as a work in progress.
I know we kind of talked about making the "perfect"
study space here, but if you're always seeking out
perfection, you're never actually going to use
your study space to get work done, so just view it
as a work in progress that is constantly improving,
but that will never be perfect and that's okay.
And one idea that might help curb that perfectionism
and make your more productive is to switch locations
in between tasks.
This is something that I really enjoy doing myself
and I'm not alone.
The author Cal Newport does it as well and he calls it
the concentration circuit.
Here's what he has to say about it.
"Something about arriving in a new and novel location,
"somewhere different than where you normally work
"provides a boost to your motivation and aids concentration.
"Over time, this effect will wane, but if you keep
"switching locations, you can keep re-stimulating
"this reaction again and again, maintaining
"an average level of concentration that's potentially
"much higher than if you had slogged through
"the deep task in one literal sitting."
All right, so because we covered a lot of ground
in this video, I want to do a quick recap,
just like we did last week.
First, make sure that your study spot is exclusively
for studying.
Context is king.
Second, keep your lighting in mind and opt for natural
lighting if you can.
Try studying near a window and if you can't,
at least experiment with your light's color,
temperature, and intensity until you find something
that works for you.
Third, if you have control over it,
try adjusting the temperature of your study space as well.
Ideally, somewhere around 77 degrees fahrenheit,
but it might vary for you.
Fourth, before you start studying, make sure you have
access to all the materials that you're going to need
and make sure that access is easy and quick,
but number five, also make sure you don't have access
to things that you don't need because they are likely
to destroy your concentration and make you procrastinate.
Number six, make plans in advance to deal with possible
derailments in your productivity and number seven,
try switching up locations in between tasks.
Now taken by themselves, these tasks will hopefully
help you make some meaningful improvements to the place
where you work, but it is also sometimes helpful
to be able to see how other people work and to get
inspiration from them.
So to that end, I've set up the following website
called Study Spaces where you can see other people's
study spaces and even submit your own.
Now the idea for this site popped I my head while I was
writing the script for this vide and once I realized
I could use the .es extension to get that cool-looking
domain name, I was able to get it registered
in just about 30 seconds over at Hover,
which is exactly where you should register
your domain names as well.
Hover makes it incredibly easy to find and secure
basically any domain name that's out there and available
for the taking.
With extensions including the classics like .com
and .net and cooler ones like .es like I used here
and .me.
When you want to actually build a website for that
domain name, Hover's connect feature will easily
let you hook it up to tons of different web services,
including Square Space and Shopify.
And if you want to create a professional-looking email
address attached to that domain, then you can do that
easily with Hover as well.
So if you have an idea for a fun side project that needs
a domain name like I did, or if you haven't yet
secured a professional domain name for yourself
in your job search, give Hover a try.
And if you're among the first 100 people to grab
your domain with the link below, you're going to get
10% off of your first order.
I want to give Hover a big thanks for sponsoring
this video.
And guys, as always, thank you so much for watching
as well.
I really hope you found this video useful.
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Anyway, thanks so much for watching and I will see you
in the next video.