What
if I gave you three simple tips that will help you increase your concentration
on studies for long hours and what if I told you that this one single act of being able to focus will single-handedly take you to the path of success
that working.
Today we're talking about how to increase your focus and
concentration on your studies for long hours.
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 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 your 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.
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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. 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 for our problems? Now, our 🙋 brain is a superpower, control, it rules your distraction and direction and is
inversely proportional. When one goes up the other one comes down. Now the
reason I call this programming is that 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. 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.
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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 to 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 guess 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. Be in a room where you enjoy
studying. 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 5-7 textbooks. Remember, we're only talking about ten minutes to 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 on your side,
Come back and study. Write down the thought, come 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. Like all exercise, the first day is usually a bit unusual, but it's possible that what you've accomplished in 13 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.
There are only three rules that you need to follow to make this activity a success.
Rule
number one:
Every
time a distracting thought enters your mind write it down on that distraction
sheet lying on the side.
Rule
number two:
Every the time you think you're totally lost concentration switch it off, close your books, and move out. Don't worry about the timer and rule number.
Rule
number three:
Never
ever get your phone into this space. This is a sacred space where you always
focus. The moment you allow the distraction into 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. 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.
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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 a superfood 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.
The third thing-
you need to look at is exercise. A good exercise routine increases blood circulation, which carries oxygen to the brain to help us focus and concentrate.
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 be 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. They say more you sweat in peace the
less you bleed in war, the more you practice mindfulness and concentration in
the little, 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.
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How
to increase your focus and concentration tip number four is called passion. Now
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 www.abhiguru.com video you can go to a Biology 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 first to train your
mind to first get interested in the topic and then open the textbook again and
again. Here, we will not read cover to cover, we'll use the smart. The second
idea to help you develop passion is to give yourself rewards. Now when we train
our minds, we need a reward, in 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 make notes another time go to a video a third time and try
different-different things and
BONUS
Finally, for the three bonus tips that I had promised to give you.
1) A
bonus tip number one is focused 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 to look at your C priority, but Warren Buffet's says that he
writes down all his priorities into A B and C and he only goes for A. He actively dissuades you from looking at a B and the C and he says those are the detractors so Bill Gates says himself that the reason for success is because he focuses on
fewer things.
2) Bonus tip number two is that
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 goals very clearly in one month. What is it that I want to
achieve?
3) Bonus tip number three is called
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 you’re a priority list say no.
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