How to increase focus and concentration
we're talking about how to focus and concentrate on your studies for long hours and in this I will give you three tips and at the end of the article I will also give you three
bonus tips so keep reading but before
that let's look at the real problem
- I get bored and feel sleepy!
- This subject is just too boring!
- I keep checking my phone!
- l just can't sit and read for more than 2 minutes and more.
Let, me tell you a secret people that are successful don't feel any of these problems but the question is how do we become like that? And tip number one is called programming.
1️⃣
Now imagine you're driving in a car down this beautiful mountainous track now what if you're sitting in the back seat of the car chances are initially you're going to be looking out to see what's the scenery or you're going to be looking in front to see that can I keep track of the route but after some time I guarantee you you're gonna get bored and you're gonna either start looking at your phone or you're gonna fall off to sleep or you're going to be asking the driver how long is this going to take.
Now just imagine that you are in the driver's seat now no matter how many distractions are there how much you feel hunger thirst or your phone is ringing you're going to cut out
everything and focus entirely on every oncoming vehicle and hairpin Bend now. why such a big difference?
The question is in our lives are we in the driver's seat or is someone else driving our vehicle are we taking charge or are we blaming someone else from our problems now our brain is a superpower control it before it rules you a distraction and
direction is inversely proportional .when one goes up the other one comes down now the reason I call this programming is because every day you think it's easy but every day when you wake up chances are you're gonna slip right back into your old way of thinking and which is why each morning when you wake up ask yourself. Am I in the driver's seat of my life have I taken responsibility for everything that happens to me today and soon it's going to become a habit?
2️⃣
How to increase your focus and
concentration tip number two it's called
practice now no one ever taught you how to concentrate your parents just tell you "Do concentrate" but no one tells us how to do it now attention is a muscle and just like every other muscle in the body it requires training.
"Malcolm Gladwell said that in order to become an expert at something you need to spend 10,000 hours learning"
It now guesses what happens to us every day we spend about 15 to 16 hours being distracted we're talking to someone we're checking the phone we're reading a book with checking our laptop and guess what you're becoming an expert at distraction so today I'm going to teach you something
that you will follow initially just for 10 minutes in your day and eventually you're going to become a master at your own focus and concentration today take out.10 minutes of time where you can be alone and comfortable in a room and which is a room that you enjoy studying in now finish all your eating and drinking before you go into that room and keep your phone and laptop outside since this is your first training session we're going to start with your favorite subject so take one textbook don't take five six seven textbooks to remember we're only talking about ten minutes. Take one textbook one notebook a couple of pens if you like colored pens and take one extra sheet of paper which we're going to use as a distraction sheet take a timer with you and when you think you're ready to begin switch on the timer now pick up your textbook and read actively read aloud shut the book and ask yourself some questions maybe you want to make some notes try to see if you can remember what you've studied highlight underline and you're going to find that suddenly something pops into your head saying hey you need to call somebody or you need to respond to somebody's message now whatever distracting thoughts get into your head put all of that down on this sheet that's lying to your side.
Come back and study write down the thought comes back instead and towards the end of ten minutes just shut the books switch off the timer close everything and walk away from that room and like all exercise, the first day is usually a bit unusual but it's possible that what you've accomplished in this ten minutes is as deep as what you would have accomplished in a whole hour we try to increase the number of these slots that you take don't be in a hurry to increase the length of the slot there are only three rules that you need to follow to make this activity a success.
Rules are:-
1. Every time a distracting thought enters your mind write it down on that distraction sheet lying on the side.
2. Every time you think you're totally losing concentration switch it off close your books and move out don't worry about the timer.
3. Never never never get your phone into this space this is a sacred space where you always focus the moment you allow the distraction into the space you pollute the space when you follow.
These three golden rules you will be able to sit for at least about 45 minutes and concentrate with full focus and to keep your mind sharp and focused.
We also need to have a healthy body so here are the three things you need to look at one is your diet eat a diet of healthy food drink a lot of water cut down on sugars because that makes us sleepy second is sleep sleep is brain food it's not only brain food it is super food for the brain so if you can get about seven to seven and a half hours of sleep every night you're going to actually increase the ability of the brain to focus and concentrate and the third thing you need to look at is exercise a good exercise routine increases the blood circulation andbcarries oxygen to the brain to help us focus and concentrate and there's one more little practice session that you need to do every single day it's called mindfulness some people call it meditation but don't worry don't afraid of those big words all it means is doing one single task at a time and focusing on it so for example you're talking to someone only focus on the person don't be checking your phone at the time if you're drinking a glass of juice think about the glass of juice don't be looking at television at the same time so the goal is that in every activity that you do during the day do one thing at a time with full concentration and your mind starts getting trained to focus on the activity that is taking part in and they say more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war the more you practice mindfulness and concentration in the little things every day that attitude is going to carry with you to the high-pressure situations of a heavy competitive exam you're going to be able to focus beautifully in that three-hour competitive exam without a problem.
3️⃣
How to increase your focus and concentration tip number three is called passion now a passion to like focus can be cultivated and I'm going to give you three quick ideas on how you can cultivate the passion the first thing that you need to do is don't start reading the textbook right away on a new chapter a new topic cover to cover textbooks are not thrillers they are boring so before we open that textbook how about we had an interesting higher-level perspective on the topic that makes us super interested in actually reading a textbook so a couple of things you can do you can go to a lot of apps which you will found on Google Play Store or Apple store you can go to a Nat Geo video if that's what your subject area is you could also listen to podcasts and they sometimes give you this big picture interesting.
Overview but the idea is the first train your mind to first get interested in the topic and then open the textbook and again the textbook we will not read cover to cover we'll use the sq3r technique which we've discussed in the Previous Article and you can go back and read that as well the second idea to help you develop passion is to give yourself rewards now when we train our mind we need a reward at the end allowing yourself to make that phone call to a friend it could be playing
with your pet or it could be grabbing that small piece of chocolate once in a while and a third idea that's going to keep our interest in that subject is to vary our study techniques if you're reading from a book one-time making notes.
Finally for the three bonus tips that I had promised to give you a bonus tip.
#1
Focus on fewer things yes a lot of people will tell you to write down all your priorities in A B and C and they'll tell you that go for the A priority right now try to do the B later and you
know if you get some time look at your C priority but Warren buffets say that he writes down all his priorities into A B and C and he only goes for A he actively dissuade you from looking at a B and the C and he says those are the distractors so Bill Gates says himself that the reason for success is because he focuses on fewer things.
#2
Sometimes the reason we are not able to focus on our goal is that we haven't written down our goal clearly enough so how
about we take a piece of paper and write
down our goal very clearly in one month, what is it that I want to achieve.
#3
Start saying no yes it is a lot of people will tell you that you need to say yes to everything you need to be positive but I'm saying to you start saying no and this is in tandem with a focus on fewer things when somebody comes up to you with an idea and chances are it's like hey this is so exciting how about I go ahead and do it tell the person to let me think about it and I suggest sleepover that idea wake up the next morning and unless it is exactly in line with those 1 2 3 items that you had in your a priority list say no and that's all from me.
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