Hey,<\/p>\n
Do you get distracted trying to study? Find it hard to follow lectures, or drift off in the middle of a reading?<\/p>\n
When I asked you what your biggest learning challenge was, I heard one response, again and again: focus. How do you stay focused so you can get more done and stop wasting time?<\/p>\n
In this email, I’ll explain why learning is hard to focus on and how you can change that, increasing your ability to concentrate. What Makes it Hard to Concentrate?<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m not writing to you to give generic advice on overcoming distractions like find a quiet studying location, turn off Facebook, or don’t take your cellphone. If you’re having “problems” focusing, but you stay with your Facebook-enabled laptop and have text-messages pinging your phone, you simply aren’t being serious.<\/p>\n That said, even dedicated learners who know to avoid the most caustic and obvious distractions, still can suffer from a difficulty concentrating.<\/p>\n Years ago, before I learned this trick, I remember even falling asleep while reading my textbooks. Focus isn’t just about distractions–it was also about the method you used.<\/p>\n Discovering the distinction made it possible for me to learn without losing significant focus from 6am to 8pm, without more than an hour break, while I was involved in my challenge to learn MIT’s physics course in under 5 days. Had I still been learning my old methods, I would have lost focus after only an hour or two.<\/p>\n Why Learning is Hard to Focus On<\/strong><\/p>\n I always found learning to be frustrating, because it was so difficult to sustain a momentum. Normal tasks, like writing code, designing graphics or penning an essay could keep me engrossed (once started) for hours. Then it would only be distractions or a creative block which would kick me out of my flow.<\/p>\n Learning wasn’t like that. I could read a textbook, but after 45 minutes I’d start to feel bored or tired. I could sit in a lecture, but after half an hour, be itching to leave. What gives?<\/p>\n The distinction, I eventually learned, was the difference between passive and active tasks.<\/p>\n Passive VS Active Tasks<\/strong><\/p>\n Active tasks naturally generate flow. You’re engaged in them, so unless you get distracted or have a creative block, it’s easy to keep going for hours. If you know that experience of “flow” where you are completely engaged in your work, that’s a common sensation from active work.<\/p>\n Passive tasks tend not to produce flow in the same way. A book or lecturer can be engrossing, but usually only because the subject is interesting to you. This criteria doesn’t hold for active work, where even something fairly routine can be engaging.<\/p>\n My guess is that the difference has something to do with feedback. An active task (solving a problem, designing, creating) constantly generates feedback which, if there are no creative blocks, creates a positive feedback cycle, making you more and more motivated to work.<\/p>\n A passive task (reading, watching, skimming, listening) doesn’t generate feedback. You simply let the information wash over you, and only later do you find out whether you understood it deeply or not. Feedback, if any, is weak, so you never get that positive cycle.<\/p>\n Dramatically Increase Focus Through Active Learning<\/strong><\/p>\n The solution to focus is to somehow convert all your passive learning tasks, into more active counterparts. By doing this, you can flip on a feedback cycle and make it easier to stay engaged.<\/p>\n Reading is a perfect example. How do you make reading an active task? In Learning on Steroids I teach a module specifically called “Active Reading” which goes through my own adaptation to convert reading from a passive, easy-to-distract task, to a task that is productive and easy to focus on.<\/p>\n The full method is more flexible, but the basic idea is that you want to combine active thinking about what your reading, instead of just passive consumption. Simply integrating a set of side notes that you jot down your own ideas after reading each short section can make a big difference.<\/p>\n Here are some other examples:<\/p>\n How to Make Active Tasks<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s several main ways you can turn a passive task into an active one. I’ve already mentioned the main method–adding feedback. But there’s others:<\/p>\n TAKE ACTION: Start Learning Actively<\/strong><\/p>\n You’ve read about the distinction, now take action:<\/p>\n Go out and try it now, even if just for 10 minutes. It’s easy to read things and never implement them, don’t be one of those people!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey, Do you get distracted trying to study? Find it hard to follow lectures, or drift off in the middle of a reading? When I asked you what your biggest learning challenge was, I heard one response, again and again: focus. 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