I don’t know about the rest of you but all of my life I have struggled to maintain any form of attention when tasked with doing anything that required me to stay still for long periods of time and just focus on something in front of me. Laid out below is a list of things that I have found to help me substantially at maintaining this focus for a bit longer.
- Distractions: For once distraction is good for study, in the case of having something mindless to do whilst you watch a lecture so that you can make it past that 3-minute mark. In my case I have discovered that leaving sticky notes on my desk for me to draw on allows me to prevent myself from getting bored whilst still being able to focus on the lecture, it also makes for a pretty interesting sketchbook once they all get added. I have also found knitting to be really good. So I would suggest sticking to your guns, find something that you enjoy or your good at or even try to incorporate other tasks that you need to do today such as 20 minutes on the stationary bike or tidying up your room. As long as you can still clearly see and hear your lecture at all times it should be a good fit.
- Put your phone away: A lot of the time all it takes for me to find the motivation to do the study is to remove the other things from the room that I would be doing instead. So maybe this means leaving your phone in another room, closing the other tabs on your computer and not studying in bed, because then you’re one step further away from just going back to sleep.
- Set timers: I’ve found a good motivator, as well as a way to keep myself accountable on the amount of time that I actually study for, is to have timers set up. The app multi-timer is good for this as it allows you to set multiple timers up at one time. With that, I’m able to set count up timers for each of my subjects to see how long each week I spend on each subject and therefore make it a competition for myself to see if I can beat the previous weeks times. As well as this the clock app on your phone will also help for your typical timer next time you sit down to do some study or watch a lecture set a 1-hour timer and challenge yourself to maintain solid study for that time.
- atmosphere: Sometimes the space you’re in is just not set up for study. I know personally if my room is a mess I cannot get myself into the mindset to do anything and so I must spend the day cleaning, I’ll reach the end of the day, my rooms finally at a decent state to do some study but now I’m tired so I figure maybe I should go to sleep start study early in the morning so, the neatly folded clothes of the day before are pushed from my bed to the floor, and the cycle repeats the next day. End this cycle by prioritising study, remove yourself from the space, go to the library, or the park or even just out into the living space of your home, and take the time to clean when your not doing solely as a form of procrastination.
- todo lists: Now if you’re like me you’ll sit down to study get about 1 minute in and your mind starts to wander starts to think of all the other things you need to do, or you start having the most wonderful ideas for some art project you starting three years ago and haven’t touched since, instead of getting up and fulfilling each of these whims as you have them write them down allow with a time, corresponding with your set timer or the time left on the lecture, whereupon when you reach that time you with reward yourself with doing this task. This is also a good way to combat the earlier problem of a messy room and needing to study, as opposed to doing the room first and then studying doing them simultaneously watch 10 minutes of lecture and pick up 20 things or make your bed etc.
- breaks: Make sure that any scheduled breaks you have you are using effectively. Do not stay in the same room that you’ve been studying in for the past hour for your break if you’re going to have a break give yourself a proper break, go outside, take a walk, go and talk to your family or friends don’t just switch to the youtube tab in your browser, your you probably won’t make it through your next study period.
That’s about everything that I have managed to find for myself so far, hopefully, I can continue to add to this list and if anyone reading has any other suggestions please let me know. On a side note to try and avoid those distractions in point 5 make sure that you bring everything to your desk you think you’ll need and always have a bottle of water handy.
StudentLife 