Focus
How to use your attention
Summary
01
Visually focus for mental focus to follow
02
Protect your sleep and be hydrated
03
Be specific on work/goals
How many bounces???
Want to know how to focus and why it is important? Give the video a quick watch (and don’t look at the comments!) to see something cool about your attention.
Missing Monkeys
The above video shows that when you are living your life, your brain is filtering information. Sometimes this can filter small things, or even big ones like the person in the monkey costume. We can use our focus for study, and this section will cover tools for that, but keep in mind it is also very useful in how you live your life. What you focus on shapes how you think. See more in Reframing.
Tools
Walk for flow. By taking a quick walk before mental work, it helps our brains get ready for focus. It is important you are not looking at your phone for this! This is explained in the next point.
Visual Focus. You know when you daydream your eyes are not really focused on anything? Well our brain (technically our eyes are part of our brain) will focus mentally on what you have focused on visually. When looking at a small area, our brain thinks it is important. When taking a break from studying, this is another reason the phone might not be the best idea. You are looking at a small focused area and it doesn’t give your brain a chance to decompress and recharge.
40HZ beats. This is a sound on YouTube I listen to when doing mental work. Not everyone will love it, but there is science showing it can help you focus.
Hydration. Even being 1% dehydrated can cause your mind to perform worse. Make sure to be hydrated to a healthy level when working mentally or physically.
Specificity. If I told you to just focus, your first question would probably be “on what?” Try to be specific in your tasks so you know what to focus on.
Task Switching. If you only listen to one point, listen to this! When we switch from one task to another, e.g. going from study to check our phone, our ability to focus suffers badly. Think of it like a car with slow acceleration and every time you task switch you add in a speed bump. The longer you focus the easier it can be to sustain but task switching makes it so much harder. 90 minutes of focus is generally a good block but try to find what works for you.
Exercise & Sleep. This one is quite straight forward, your brain runs better when you exercise and you sleep well and this includes focus. Basically everything runs better with these two.
