Improve your concentration while studying

Published on March 11, 2023

You know the feeling: you still “have to” do an enormous amount for your studies in a short time. That means long days of studying.

But how do you do this effectively? You want to remember just as much at the end of the day as at the beginning. You want to be able to work with as much focus as when you started.

That is effective studying!

Most blogs give you the standard tips: put your phone away, drink enough water, and so on. Those things certainly apply, but here we will go a little deeper.

Ultimately, focus is also something you can train. And when you train your focus, you can use it for everything, not just your studies.

The goal: focus and relaxation

“The greatest effort is not concerned with results.”

~ Atisha

Especially when you have a lot of demanding material to master, it is worth finding a way of studying that you can sustain.

If you study reluctantly, you make it far too hard for yourself. You really want to get to work WITHOUT resistance, focusing on the process rather than the result or its consequences.

You achieve this way of working by:

1. Limiting distractions so you can train your attention.

2. Starting the day well, so your “battery” is full for studying.

3. Removing every form of resistance, both physical and mental.

Distractions

“Distractions are like mosquitoes. They may be small, but they can be deadly.”

~ Chris Bailey

Remember that state of being focused and relaxed at the same time? Every time you respond to a push notification, you step out of that process.

But that is not all! You also TEACH yourself that being distracted is desirable. Being distracted then becomes the norm.

You are always training something, whether you want to or not

You get better at everything you do. That is essentially what training means. If you play a lot of games or do a lot of sport, for example, your technique quickly improves.

Unfortunately, the same also applies to things you do unconsciously. You can see this in your habits, for example.

Suppose you study for two hours a day. You are training yourself to focus for two hours. What do you do during the other sixteen hours you are awake?

How many hours a day do you scroll through Instagram Reels? How long do you spend in Telegram news groups or your Twitter timeline?

Those are all moments when you are practicing being distracted.

Fortunately, you do not have to give up Instagram Reels entirely. You can schedule time for them, save them and share them later.

Schedule distractions

You do not have to be productive 100% of the time if you do not want to. You decide the rules and the results you want. Just be deliberate about it. Scroll when you want to scroll; work when you want to work.

It can help to deliberately schedule time for distractions such as Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. Choose a specific starting and ending point.

It helps to make the ending point the start of a new activity, and to define a small first step for it.

For example:

1. After I get home from work, I zone out with Instagram for a while.

2. When it is 6 p.m., I put my phone away and open my textbook where I left off.

Limit distractions

When following the strategy above, it is important to limit distractions outside those blocks of time.

The best thing is to keep your phone completely out of sight. Leave it somewhere you can only pick it up later. Another option is to turn off Wi-Fi or switch to airplane mode.

I have turned off all WhatsApp and Telegram notifications myself, so I have to actively check for messages.

You can also set schedules for this. I can imagine wanting to see all your friends’ messages at the weekend, but not during the week.

Again, it is your party, so you make the rules :)

Limit short-form content

Another option is to limit short-form content.

What short-form content such as reels and tweets does is train you to consume. You consume content and generally learn nothing from it, let alone start doing things differently.

Sometimes you do get useful insights, and this blog started with one such insight, but they are scarce.

Do you find it difficult to avoid content such as Reels and YouTube Shorts? There are a few more things you can do:

1. At least try to limit it in the morning and evening.

2. Use an app timer.

3. Create a new account where you only follow useful accounts. Think of study-related accounts or tutorials about the sports you do, for example.

Now that you have some tools for getting a grip on things that take your attention away, you can actively start training your attention.

How to train yourself to focus and stay focused

The good thing is that everything you do is already a form of training. So really, it is enough to do everything you do attentively.

True focus is not forced. It comes from keeping your attention on what you are doing. When your attention wanders, notice it and bring it back without judgment.

Single-tasking

“When you do two things at once, you do both of them halfway.”

Using your phone mindfully

There is nothing wrong with your phone! I use mine to write content in spare moments during the day, for example. It is an incredibly productive tool. This is single-tasking on your phone.

Your phone has its place, but not in the following situations:

1. While eating.

2. When sitting outside a café with friends.

3. When you are also half-watching TV.

That is practicing being distracted.

Start the day well

“The early bird catches the worm.”

Starting the day well sets the tone straight away. If the first thing you do in the morning is reach for your phone, you immediately set the tone for being distracted.

Have a clear morning routine. Make studying part of it, straight after breakfast.
There are a few things you can do to make it easy to start studying in the morning:

A good day starts the evening before

Get all your materials ready the evening before. You can take this as far as you need. Have your book open at the right page, with your notes, pen and paper beside it. You can even prepare your water bottle.

It is also important to have a clear plan. Where will you start? When will you have done enough?

I have found that setting myself deadlines does not help. Focusing on “I have to know four chapters tomorrow” puts far too much pressure on yourself.

Make the steps to getting started as small as possible. Mindset is part of this too.

“The results paradox: focus more on the process than the result, and you get better results.”

Creating a study ritual

It helps to be explicit about your study process. That way you learn what works for you and what does not.

Instead of blindly plowing on, sometimes it is much better to release the handbrake.

There are many study methods, but the Pomodoro technique generally works very well.

Applying the Pomodoro technique to learning

The Pomodoro technique is very suitable for learning. It has starting and ending points, breaks, and a way to deal with distracting thoughts.

In brief, the Pomodoro technique works like this:

1. Work on your studies for 25 minutes.

2. Write down everything that comes to mind that you want to do later. That gets it out of your head.

3. Take a five-minute break.

4. After four pomodoros, take a longer, fifteen-minute break.

5. Review your list of distractions at the end of the day and cross out anything that is no longer relevant.

A few tips specifically for studying:

1. Use the first five minutes of a pomodoro to review what you learned in the previous block. This helps it stick.

2. You can vary the length of the blocks or gradually build it up. You can train this too.

Read more about the Pomodoro technique here.

Even with the Pomodoro method, starting a truly difficult study task can be hard. Think of your master’s thesis or a major assignment, for example.

Fortunately, a little awareness and a change in mindset can help solve this.

Removing resistance to starting your studies

I remember from my own student days that getting started on difficult things could take quite some doing.

These days I am fairly good at it, but that has not always been the case.

Resistance to starting is actually a fairly simple phenomenon. Your brain generates it to protect you.

Something that is, or seems, difficult can potentially carry a lot of risk: social risks, failure or physical risks, for example.

Our brains are still a product of biological evolution and are not 100% compatible with modern society.

Resolving this sort of resistance therefore takes some attention and a reframing of your mindset.

Resistance does not come from the subject, course or task

If you think about it more deeply, resistance does not come from the task itself, but from how you think about it.

You generally have no trouble with something you consider easy, but big assignments are harder.

Reframe the assignment

When you look at the top of the mountain, it can be very intimidating. Looking only at the next step makes it much easier.

As long as you set out prepared, you will reach the top of that mountain.

There are plenty of resting places along the way, and the route up is known. You are rarely exploring something completely new.

So to climb the mountain, all you need to do is take the first step, then the next.

This is not about climbing mountains!

Be conscious of your words

Your use of certain words often gives away your thoughts about a particular task.

And how you think about something, or about yourself, has a big influence on how much resistance you experience.

The system in your brain responsible for this is the reticular activating system. It looks for information that matches what you have told it is important, regardless of whether that is good or bad.

I am guilty of this myself: “Oh, I have to do this, I have to do that.”

No! You chose to do something. There are always alternatives, even if those alternatives are often less desirable.

It is worth pausing to consider this and using your language differently. Frame things truthfully, but constructively.

Here are two more common examples:

I am bad at this
It may be true, but it does not help you. Another aspect of being bad at something is that you do not understand it YET.

Other frames can also be true while being constructive:

1. This needs a little more practice. The focus is on “I can get better at it.”

This subject is difficult
This may be true, but does it help? The aim is to make it easier by gaining knowledge. Thoughts like this keep you stuck on the fact that it is difficult, creating resistance!

Try reframing it in the following ways:

• What do I not understand about this?

• Up to which point did I still understand it?

• What is the next logical step?