How to Focus and Tackle Distractions?

The COVID-19 pandmeic has brought in a load of uncertainty for students. Not knowing what the future holds for us is a scary feeling. However, if you think about this while you have your study book hand, it won't be helpful to your growth at all. You might be sitting for 10-12 hours aday but what matters the most is the productivity in those hours. Input is important for any work but the output is much more important. For an excellent output, you need to understand the reason behind your lack of concentration. 

There may be days when you are not able to study anything or keep up with the concentration and there may be days when you're doing just great. What is the reason behind this inconsistency? What are the reasons behind your distraction?

1.     Distraction from Mobile phones and digital media:

The digital world, although offering uncountable advantages has always proven to be an obstacle for the concentration level of a student. You may think of studying but instead, you take your mobile and surf the social media. It's not that we don't realize the deleterious effect of digital noise on our productivity. We do. Yet, we don't escape. Use your electronic gadgets in an effective way, watch online classes, and learn something new. Remember, social media and other pleasurable distractions won't pay your bills. Meaningful work will.

2.     Procrastinating and piling up work:

 Another big problem among youngsters is piling up work for the last moment. While this may be a human tendency, piling up work for the last moment increases our burden and we end up doing more harm than good.

 It is not possible to concentrate on more than one task at a time. If we keep on doing this, we are simply switching between different tasks and we can never match our energy level and focus on any of the tasks. This slows down the efficiency.  

3.     Lack of Motivation:

 Lack of motivation. Lack of interest. Lack of purpose. You can call it as per your liking, but it's the single biggest and pivotal factor behind most distractions. You don't procrastinate when you've to play video games. You're already on to these things big time on your own because they interest you. And when it comes to things that matter to your academic and professional future, it's the opposite. You're disinterested. That's the fundamental reason why you get distracted so easily.

 Above, we discussed a few reasons for distraction. Now let's move on to discussing various things that we can do to effectively tackle those distractions and level up our mental stamina:

1.     GET ORGANISED:

 Being organized means try to make a 'to do' list and complete your work according to that schedule. Match the difficulty of the task with your own ability, and then only assign yourself daily targets to be completed. Discipline plays a very important role, be it while studying, managing work, or in life. Juggling multiple works and subjects can be stressful. You can help organize your deadlines and manage your time more efficiently with a proper schedule. Figure out when you're most productive and set time aside for homework and activities. Professional courses like CA/CS require discipline as well as proper follow up to proceed.

2. DIVIDE VAST SUBJECTS / CONCEPTS:

Defeat procrastination by breaking a vast subject or concept into small topics. It's easier to motivate yourself to do something in smaller tasks rather than jumping into a huge one. If you're having a difficult time studying or getting work done, break up your time effectively. Try giving yourself a 10-minute break for every 45-50 minutes of work you do. 

3.     BEST ENVIRONMENT:

 The atmosphere in which you study and the aura around you matters the most while concentrating on your course. Choose the environment which is suitable to you and study through online lectures which will create an atmosphere of learning. Some students work best with a little background noise, while others need complete silence. Get to know your work style and the type of atmosphere you prefer. Try a few different spaces and see how each study session works out.

          4.   DISTRACT YOURSELF TO NOT GET DISTRACTED:

Don't give up on distractions, because you can't. You only need to bunch them together instead of spreading them through the day, especially during your productive sessions. So, schedule distractions. After you've put in a few sessions of undistracted work, go and satisfy your urge to surf the internet, text, and chat. If you're constantly doing self-study, you may take a break and go and watch CS online classes, it will definitely reap some productive fruit.

 Conclusion

 To sum up, we can conclude that somewhere our social media and mobile phones are a great distraction and they hamper our concentration level. So, we can always try to convert our distraction into a way of learning and it is possible if we start investing the time of social media into study hours.  In our increasingly connected world of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and high- speed internet, distractions are everywhere. You'll need to make a deliberate and committed effort to stay on task. Make a proper plan of what you are supposed to study and try sticking to it. With a proper plan in hand and a desire to curb your distractions, we are sure you will be successful in increasing productivity.

-Ashish Parikh