How to Concentrate on Studying and Any Other Activity

We live in an age of perennial distraction. You, me, your neighbor, your teacher, everyone.

We are all constantly immersed in an unstoppable flow of information, stimuli, feedback, and entertainment that mix with each other, transforming into a digital and analog tangle together from which we are unable to detach ourselves.

The benefits of living in this flow are indisputable, but the risk is, in the long run, of losing the ability to truly stay focused on one thing at a time.

And then it happens that when you want to study, learn something, or work, staying really present on what you are doing becomes a business. You struggle to express your ability to focus, to use your mind to its fullest on one point at a time.

In this article, I will explain the 4 pillars of concentration and teach you how to take control.

Intentionality

This is the first prerequisite. Intentionality means that every operation you have to carry out, every step, every reasoning, must be carried out with a direct and explicit will to act.

Yes, nice words, but what does it mean in practice? It means three things:

That you have to train yourself to recognize exactly when your focus is required and when it isn’t. You don’t always need to be in “deep work” mode, and there’s no point in doing it unless absolutely necessary. Ah, baby, spoiler: when you study it is practically always necessary;

That when you really want to concentrate, and focus, you have to banish automatisms. Automatic and unconscious operations are great for optimizing time when we are carrying out tasks that do not require all our concentration, but when you have identified a really important and complex task, you have to go there one step at a time, without running, without shortcuts, without giving nothing for granted;

That you must set precise and concrete objectives at every step of the way. Concentration is a precision instrument, it is a scalpel, and before you pick up a scalpel and put someone to quarter you need to know exactly where you will cut, how deep, why, etc., etc. We do not concentrate “at random”, we always concentrate only with one or more specific objectives in mind. Better if you write these goals before you go into it, which I don’t trust.

Removal of Distracting Stimuli

Here, this second point recalls what I wrote at the beginning about not trusting willpower. We are designed to notice when new stimuli arise in our environment, you can not do anything about it, no discipline takes.

If you are there studying at your desk, all pretty sure, and the phone in your pocket is vibrating, you can’t help but get distracted. It’s impossible. You can, with inhuman effort, force yourself not to look at the notification, to resist the temptation, but this effort and the initial distraction will have already acted, taking you out of that state of immersion, of “flow” as the Americans say, that yes gets with true focus.

This is why you need to take control of your work or study environment or anything else that requires your full attention, mercilessly eliminating any potentially distracting elements. All away.

Think of it like this, it’s like starting a weight loss diet and spending your time in a room full of milk chocolate bars. (If you are among those who prefer dark chocolate you can also close here, that is the door! Hello eh, good bitter life). Either way, your diet won’t be very successful.

If, on the other hand, you don’t have chocolate at home, you don’t buy it at all, on the contrary, if you throw it away, there will be nothing left to distract you from your chicken and white rice. Do we understand each other?

Renunciation of Multitasking

Multitasking is one of the evils of our century, I was talking about it just a week ago in this life on my YouTube channel. It is perfectly fine when we talk about trivial, daily, repetitive, and automated operations, but it is deleterious when we talk about reasoning, creativity, learning, in short, higher-order cognitive operations.

Moreover, Cal Newport himself talks in his book about something called residual attention, is that it is the concept that when you jump from one operation to another, an unconscious trace remains in your brain from the task you were doing previously. So you are unable to express your full potential.

Do one thing at a time and get it right, which I know sounds like mom’s boring and mundane advice but it’s a revelation that will drastically change your results.

Taking Care of Your Psychophysical State

We have just ascertained: that focusing is tiring, it produces stress on your system, and it needs the best possible starting condition to be put into practice.

You have to sleep a lot, well, consistently, as I explained to you in this article in which I talk about the importance of sleep, you have to take frequent breaks from studying as I explained in this other article, you have to take care of yourself, maybe do some physical activity every now and then, which certainly doesn’t hurt you, make sure you have a sensible diet and so on.

All of this is the very fertile ground on which to let your ability to concentrate flourish. Don’t underestimate it: no strategy will work if you are perpetually a sleep-deprived zombie, or you are out of energy because you eat too much or too little and badly, or your body is in a pitiful condition.

Additionally, if you’re feeling completely miserable from studying, then you’re probably burned out, which is extremely bad. This means you need some time off. In such a case, consider getting a research paper writer to help you while you take a breather.

Lastly…

And this was the last, the last pillar, but there is still another thing to say: if you want to improve over time and consolidate your renewed ability to concentrate, you will have to transform it into a habit and create a series of rituals, triggers. if you want, they can help you summon it in an instant.

Schedule fixed moments for your “deep work” and gradually learn to maintain this state for longer periods of time. Go slow, don’t rush, and don’t give up on initial frustrations, which are sure to get you in the way at first. It’s normal.