A few days ago I was interacting on a Facebook group that was involved in helping students find a solution to their academic problems through peer support. I interact in the group conversations around three times a week and in that period of time, I've realized that a lot of students are having issues related to concentration. While many complain that their time span of concentration is not enough, there are some that have told me that they couldn't concentrate at all. This is a growing issue with many of our students and in fact, a problem that I have been facing myself. The amount of time that I can spend on a particular task is at the most 45 minutes. After that, I get super frustrated and I tend to lose concentration, therefore this adventure is not only for you but for the both of us. With that being said let's jump into some interesting facts that you as a student should be aware of.
According to research conducted by the University of Toronto, the average concentration time for an adult before their brain starts to wander off is approximately 45 minutes. It has been found out that after this time, the person involved in the task usually feels fed up with the task or is interested in doing something else. Enhancing your brain's concentration level will boost your motivation to stay focused on the work you are doing and of course, it will help you do the task with much better quality.
The three founding pillars
(David Jakab)
One's ability to focus and have the highest state of efficiency in any given task is solely dependant on three important factors. I like to call these the founding pillars of focus because they provide you with the necessary skills to improve the way you process information and react to different situations. Mastering the three founding pillars will set your life on a different scale and you will be able to see the difference in the classroom or even in your social life. As I mention in all my blog posts, nothing comes easy and the pillars require a lot of effort as well. Concentration is something that requires patience and you will build that if you put effort into making the three founding pillars as part of your character.
Confidence: " A feeling of self- assurance from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities." - Dictionary.com
The first founding pillar as you see is confidence. This is one of the most important pillars that influences whether you have good concentration when you study or not. It has the ability to make you ace a test on a Monday morning or make you forget every single thing that you learned. Strong self-confidence is the foundation of powerful learning and provides you with the skills to remember important material. Kids in high school and college face the biggest challenge of not being confident with their level of work. For example, I've witnessed many people say "I'm gonna fail so bad" right before the exam. I don't know if you do this or have seen someone do this but some of my friends have gone into an exam saying that they're gonna fail even when they've studied so well. When I asked them why they said that, they replied with the dumbest answer saying that they would jinx it if they said they're gonna ace the exam. I don't believe in such superstition and I know for a fact that if you work hard enough with the correct amount of confidence then you will for sure walk out of an exam knowing that you'll get a hundred. There is also another factor that you must always consider and that is called humbleness. Confidence is a very important thing but showing off and going around telling people all about your business is going to affect your performance. At one point in time, it will make you think that you are too good to study and cost you a win. The only way to gain confidence is by practicing the methods that are mentioned in the blog to study well.
Imagery: "Visual symbolism" - Dictionary.com
Imagery is another very important pillar that we have to look into for sure. Imagery is an effective way to improve concentration as it makes you visualize the things that you are learning. Blind memorization is the best method to get you nowhere. Blind memorization gives you the facts but takes away your capability to understand. When you memorize something without understanding it, the information get's stuck in the short term memory. On the other hand, when you are able to visualize something and understand the concept by relating to real-life events, that's when the information stays in your long term memory. Having material stored in your long term memory proves to help you solve problems that are connected to what you learned. It gives you higher thinking capacity and improves your overall response to different issues. Imagery helps you go beyond the box. It helps you to connect dots and create something from nothing. The way in which one can improve their imagery is by taking time in reading. Reading is a key element that allows you to visually go along with what is being written. Reading novels and great fantasy books can make your brain spin and imagine things like never before. The imagery that is especially portrayed in fantasy books is crazy as the author literally guides you to see the same picture as him or her with elaborate detail. When the author does that, this makes that image be stuck in your subconscious brain and someday it will pop up when you hear or read something similar. That is the power of imagery and long term memory.
Relaxation: "The state of being free from tension or anxiety" - Dictionary.com
I don't know about you but I love this word. I also love to use this word and actually mean it when I tell someone that I'm relaxed in my work. So many people these days are stuck worrying about the events that are going to occur in the future. People veil themselves from the mistake that they are making that instant and they think about all the ways they are going to fail in the future rather than thinking about how good they are going to do in life. The biggest mistake that people do is waste time thinking about how bad their future is going to be while having all the time in the present. You see time does not wait for nobody and the only time that we have is now. The present is the only aspect that you can work on to make your future better so why are you wasting it worrying about the future. Relaxation in my terms is intertwined with imagery. Relaxation is obtained when you imagine yourself being successful instead of failing and you take time to paint the picture in your head of the path you need to take and that automatically becomes a method of relaxation. When you have clear plans that's when you will have a clear mind.
On the other hand, try to do some exercises to build your relaxation strategy. Remember to breathe really well when you get anxious or scared about the future. Breathing is such a good help as it tells your brain to take a chill pill and think about the logical steps you must take to get to your goal. When that fog clears away, you will be able to take the right steps to achieve relaxation. It is also great to drink water, as hydrating your body prevents you from things such as headaches that can affect your work mode.
Focusing to succeed
(Jonas Svidras)
There are some key habits that you must have in your life before you leap into the main methods of successful concentration. These habits will help your mind get out of a lazy state and make you prepared and alert to do your work. An interesting fact that I learned after reading so many success books is that people who schedule their day, week, month or year in advance are the people who have peace of mind. People who are able to keep their room organized, their notes organized, and their clothes organized are the ones who show great potential in being able to solve complicated problems in life. When you have your foundation organized, there is nothing that you cannot fix. Life is already messy, why don't you organize things that you have control over so that you are not at a disadvantage.
Organizing to enhance your focus
(Mike)
The concentration that is required to succeed is usually obtained at a higher level when everything about your life is organized. Chunking and Scheduling are two keywords that describe the life of a successful student. Being able to schedule the correct time to do certain tasks enhances people to think and operate at a higher level. Problems are solved much better when you schedule times in which you know your brain will be the most alert. If you schedule solving physics questions for the last hour before bed, you're probably going to have less success compared to doing the problems right after the class. It is crucial that you understand when your brain works best. During each scheduled study time, it is also best to chunk the work rather than rush almost all of it. If you have a presentation due, break it up into chunks and schedule them in at the correct time. For example, you can work one hour on the design part of the presentation and the next day you can focus on the content. This scheduling and chunking will help you focus way better and will keep anxiety and stress away.
There is something that many of us do which really ruins the point of working so hard. We all work towards perfection but when we don't reach that level, we get so upset and fed up with ourselves and create a disliking towards that work. This is because tasks are meant to be done with an aim for improvement and not perfection. Perfection is actually the end of the line, but when you look and aim for improvement it's better than perfection! Aiming to improve is aiming to be better than perfect, so you can decide now whether you want to beat yourself over things that didn't go exactly to plan or working towards obstacles to always make improvements. Evaluate yourself and the mistakes that you are making when your efforts are not closer to the bullseye.
(product School)
Avoiding distractions is one of the biggest steps that you can take to improve your focus. You have a lot of work but you also want to spend time with your girlfriend so you decide to study with her but you are not able to get things done because you guys are too busy talking. You really want to be able to do the work with her as well so what do you do right now? There are four reasons why you are not able to concentrate. Number one, you have an impulsive and emotional mind, number two, you have a deficiency of motor centers in your brain, number four, you have an untrained mind and finally the most common, number four, you are providing a distractive environment for yourself. You might have any of these issues but the best advice I can give to you is that if you don't have an opportunity to study in a quiet place, find a place with less number of people or find study groups with people who are focused. Your environment influences you a lot so try to use it to your advantage.
The secret: PATS Model
(Judit peter)
If any of you know this method and have used it please comment below about your positive experience with this model or your negative experience and why. That will help us to get some feedback and help more people who visit the blog. Anyhow, getting back to the topic, I would like to first give credit to the University of Toronto and their academic advising and career center for introducing me to this model. I have attached all the resources in the bottom of this page so please go and check them out for more detail.
So the PATS model is basically a useful tool that you will have to kind of integrate into your studying pattern to see the most effective outcomes. It will require you to be consciously doing these tasks so that you can move these skills from your short term memory to your long term memory. Once you are able to do that, these methods will subconsciously take form whenever you study. The methods that are mentioned in this model, once again, are not entirely new, so most of you might be reading the same titles, however, the content within them and how I interpret them could be different and in fact useful for you. So pay attention and don't skip it because there might be small details that could change a big factor in your study routine.
Pick: Pick the best environment to study in. The best environment to study in usually depends on the person but as far as I've researched a human is most productive while working alone in an area that is quiet or has less visual distractions. If you are a person who never gets anything done alone then it's fine to be studying with a few friends but make sure that these friends are concentrated and are not chit-chatting about the latest gossips. Being in an environment where other people are constantly working can also give you the motivation to fit in and start working as well. If you know that you will get distracted if you meet up with people, try to make sure that you study in a place where there are fewer people with less noise. Conversations of other people are the quickest distractions while studying so try to plug in music that doesn't have lyrics to avoid hearing people talk.
Always: Always reduce visual distractions. Like I mentioned before visual distractions will keep getting you distracted. Sometimes it is best to just sit and study facing a wall because you will definitely get bored looking at the wall and would feel more interested to do your work. Make sure that there are no items like images, TV's, people and most importantly put your phone on "do not disturb" mode and leave it in your pocket. Phones are of the devil when it comes to studying because one notification can throw off your flow of thought. For example once when I was studying I got information from my university and instead of leaving it on silent and focusing on my task I started looking into the notification. Once I found out that the notification was about how much I had to pay next semester, my flow of thought was gone. Now I was thinking about all the different things I had to face like getting a better job, saving money, getting the right textbooks, and so on. The point is, make sure that even though you get important notifications on your phone just leave them out of the picture until you finish that work in the given time slot.
Try: Try to eliminate the noise around you. Did you know that noise is a much bigger distraction than visual distractions? During visual distractions, the information that you see goes straight to your brain and it's faster to comprehend because you can see it happening. But with audible distractions, the noise goes into your ear, then your brain tries to comprehend what that is and while it is doing that it fills up your main line of focus with different images. You won't turn around necessarily but if you hear a beautiful girl's voice in the background while you are studying you are most likely to start imagining how she would look like, or you'd have thoughts related to that person. During these situations getting back on track will be super hard because you'd want to know what the person is talking about and so on. The best way to avoid all these problems is by including two things in your study time. It's quite hard to integrate both, therefore you should choose only one. The first one is complete silence. Getting a room that is completely silent will make your thoughts seem much louder and it will be easier to focus on the task at hand. On the other hand, you could listen to classical music. The slow tempo or the repetitive sound will enhance your brain to work on the task without getting distracted.
Self- talk: Self-talk to control internal distractions. Evaluation is key in becoming a better version of yourself. Billionaires always evaluate themselves to fix the mistakes that pull them of course. Higher-level concentration requires that too and as we mentioned earlier it is not perfection that you are trying to reach but a stage of improvement. So talk to yourself or maybe right it down whenever you feel like you did bad or you did something that didn't feel good then write it down. For example, yesterday I had to go to the office and get information for a friend of mine who was trying to join a university but I had so much work and I got a small break only for half an hour. There was also just another half hour left before the office closed so I put it off and took a break. Later I felt really bad because I could have helped his application process be done faster but I got lazy and delayed the process. I wrote it down in my journal and today I went early morning to the office and got him all set.
It is also important to know when you are going off course. When your mind starts to drift that's when you know that the time that you are doing the task is not appropriate or the amount of time that you spent on that task is all you can do. So think of ways in which you can improve that factor and practice again and again. Find the best time that gives you the energy to do that work. Know yourself so that you can work to your best potential. It is also important to read out loud what you are reading in a book. Sometimes you can wander off if you are reading a book in your mind so make sure you read out loud to make the best out of that.
If any of you know this method and have used it please comment below about your positive experience with this model or your negative experience and why. That will help us to get some feedback and help more people who visit the blog. Anyhow, getting back to the topic, I would like to first give credit to the University of Toronto and their academic advising and career center for introducing me to this model. I have attached all the resources in the bottom of this page so please go and check them out for more detail.
So the PATS model is basically a useful tool that you will have to kind of integrate into your studying pattern to see the most effective outcomes. It will require you to be consciously doing these tasks so that you can move these skills from your short term memory to your long term memory. Once you are able to do that, these methods will subconsciously take form whenever you study. The methods that are mentioned in this model, once again, are not entirely new, so most of you might be reading the same titles, however, the content within them and how I interpret them could be different and in fact useful for you. So pay attention and don't skip it because there might be small details that could change a big factor in your study routine.
Pick: Pick the best environment to study in. The best environment to study in usually depends on the person but as far as I've researched a human is most productive while working alone in an area that is quiet or has less visual distractions. If you are a person who never gets anything done alone then it's fine to be studying with a few friends but make sure that these friends are concentrated and are not chit-chatting about the latest gossips. Being in an environment where other people are constantly working can also give you the motivation to fit in and start working as well. If you know that you will get distracted if you meet up with people, try to make sure that you study in a place where there are fewer people with less noise. Conversations of other people are the quickest distractions while studying so try to plug in music that doesn't have lyrics to avoid hearing people talk.
Always: Always reduce visual distractions. Like I mentioned before visual distractions will keep getting you distracted. Sometimes it is best to just sit and study facing a wall because you will definitely get bored looking at the wall and would feel more interested to do your work. Make sure that there are no items like images, TV's, people and most importantly put your phone on "do not disturb" mode and leave it in your pocket. Phones are of the devil when it comes to studying because one notification can throw off your flow of thought. For example once when I was studying I got information from my university and instead of leaving it on silent and focusing on my task I started looking into the notification. Once I found out that the notification was about how much I had to pay next semester, my flow of thought was gone. Now I was thinking about all the different things I had to face like getting a better job, saving money, getting the right textbooks, and so on. The point is, make sure that even though you get important notifications on your phone just leave them out of the picture until you finish that work in the given time slot.
Try: Try to eliminate the noise around you. Did you know that noise is a much bigger distraction than visual distractions? During visual distractions, the information that you see goes straight to your brain and it's faster to comprehend because you can see it happening. But with audible distractions, the noise goes into your ear, then your brain tries to comprehend what that is and while it is doing that it fills up your main line of focus with different images. You won't turn around necessarily but if you hear a beautiful girl's voice in the background while you are studying you are most likely to start imagining how she would look like, or you'd have thoughts related to that person. During these situations getting back on track will be super hard because you'd want to know what the person is talking about and so on. The best way to avoid all these problems is by including two things in your study time. It's quite hard to integrate both, therefore you should choose only one. The first one is complete silence. Getting a room that is completely silent will make your thoughts seem much louder and it will be easier to focus on the task at hand. On the other hand, you could listen to classical music. The slow tempo or the repetitive sound will enhance your brain to work on the task without getting distracted.
Self- talk: Self-talk to control internal distractions. Evaluation is key in becoming a better version of yourself. Billionaires always evaluate themselves to fix the mistakes that pull them of course. Higher-level concentration requires that too and as we mentioned earlier it is not perfection that you are trying to reach but a stage of improvement. So talk to yourself or maybe right it down whenever you feel like you did bad or you did something that didn't feel good then write it down. For example, yesterday I had to go to the office and get information for a friend of mine who was trying to join a university but I had so much work and I got a small break only for half an hour. There was also just another half hour left before the office closed so I put it off and took a break. Later I felt really bad because I could have helped his application process be done faster but I got lazy and delayed the process. I wrote it down in my journal and today I went early morning to the office and got him all set.
It is also important to know when you are going off course. When your mind starts to drift that's when you know that the time that you are doing the task is not appropriate or the amount of time that you spent on that task is all you can do. So think of ways in which you can improve that factor and practice again and again. Find the best time that gives you the energy to do that work. Know yourself so that you can work to your best potential. It is also important to read out loud what you are reading in a book. Sometimes you can wander off if you are reading a book in your mind so make sure you read out loud to make the best out of that.
Table of attention enhancement
One of the most important and mind-boggling resources that I came across while researching for this topic was a document known as Training Strategies for Concentration (2005 Wilson, Peper & Schmid). I have attached it in the resources area and this document deals with training athletes to obtain their maximum level of concentration. It has many psychological concepts and ideas that can help you understand how the human brain works. It is a document that you must download and read in your spare time.
Anyhow, this research document provided me with some great info about how to enhance your brain activity and also your focus. There was a table attached to it and that provided me with different situations that you could be in and the steps that you should take to obtain a high level of focus during that time. The table was made for athletes, in particular, however, I altered the material a little bit and made my own so that you guys could connect it better with academics.
Summary of how to enhance attention
What
|
When
|
How to
|
Intention
|
Before every study session
|
Repeat purpose. State your
goals and reasons you need to do this well. Watch motivational videos
|
Narrow focus
|
Need to focus highly on a
single material or task
|
Be in an area of less visual images. In front of a wall or in an area with less distraction
|
Broad focus
|
Be able to think beyond:
for example in a classroom situation
|
Be able to relate all
information to real-life situations
|
Open awareness or no focus
|
Skill is automatic
|
Open and see all
|
Increase arousal
|
Attention is drifting
|
Move your hands and shake
yourself up.
|
Decrease arousal
|
Hyper/too aroused
|
Slow breathing six breaths
|
Hope this helps
I truly hope that the information that was shared today helped in some way. As I mentioned before a lot of college students believe that they are not performing well enough and they keep on penalizing themselves for not reaching their true potential. Don't worry too much about the things you missed but be sure to not miss it the second time. As I mentioned before it is the improvement that really matters and not the idea of reaching perfection because with the intention of improvement you will become better than perfect. Once again thank you all for taking your time and reading this. I know for sure that you all will do great in the future and if you want me to provide you with more information about anything please feel free to comment in the section below. Check out the references for more information on this topic.
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References:
Reference 1: Concentration and memory- University of Toronto [Download]
Reference 2: Training Strategies for concentration- Personal growth to peak performance 5th edition [Download]
Reference 3: The power of concentration- Jogena's eZine and eBook Directories [Download]
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