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How to Stay Focused While Studying - Evidence-based Tips

2023-03-01 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:47 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time (also: Health, sleep and habits) · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Aimed at students, Evidence-based framing, Feel-Good Productivity thesis, Lesson from a book, Family, Sponsor segment present

Ali's five-part framework for staying focused while studying: a growth mindset that makes study fun (friends, Zoom coworking, the daily adventure), the Pomodoro technique and no task switching, the phone in another room and welcome distractions, the basics of sleep, caffeine and routine, and identified motivation, left for another video.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Shrinking attention spans and the five-part framework

  • ★★ Ali cites studies showing that around 49% of people feel their attention span is shorter than it used to be, and that 50% of people check their phones on average every 12 minutes. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Ali says focus can be developed and learned rather than being innate, so students need a growth mindset about focusing. — 00:00:29 · growth mindset

00:00:35 — Part one, mindset: focus can be learned, make it fun, study with friends, the daily adventure

  • ★★★ Video games are fun and energising, so Ali has no trouble focusing on them; he approaches anything he needs to focus on, such as studying for his pathology exam, by asking how to make it more energising and fun. — 00:00:53

  • ★★ Ali does not like the approach in Muhammad Ali's line about suffering every day in training for 10 years to become a champion; he would rather enjoy the journey: journey before destination. — 00:01:22 · journey before destination

    “It's about journey before destination.”

  • ★★ Enjoying the journey is basically what Ali's whole book is about; he says the book is coming out later this year (2023). — 00:01:52 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ Ali says studying becomes way more fun if you do it with friends. — 00:01:52
  • ★★ At university Ali set up the Pomodoro Society, a group of friends doing different subjects who all did the Pomodoro technique together. — 00:01:52 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Doing Pomodoros together in the Pomodoro Society made studying much more energising for Ali and his friends and helped them all focus, because they were working around other people. — 00:02:21
  • ★★ Studying with others need not be in person, Ali says: during lockdown especially he often joined Writers' Hour, a free Zoom coworking session run by the London Writers' Salon. — 00:02:21 · Zoom
  • ★ Ali says Writers' Hour happens four times a day, at eight in the morning in different time zones, with a few hundred writers on the Zoom call. — 00:02:21 · Zoom
  • ★ Ali used to run Zoom coworking sessions himself during lockdown. — 00:02:50 · Zoom
  • ★★ On the mindset front, Ali finds it helpful to frame what he is doing as an adventure. — 00:02:50 · daily adventure
  • ★★ Ali used to ask himself each day what his most important task was, an idea he took from Ben Franklin's morning routine of asking "what good shall I do today?" — 00:02:50
  • ★★★ Ali used the daily highlight from the book Make Time for a while, then realised he was missing a trick and started calling it his daily adventure: what is the adventure he is going on today? — 00:03:19 · daily highlight, daily adventure, Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali's adventure for the day of filming is doing the edits for chapters one and two of his book, going through a Google Doc to approve or reject suggestions. — 00:03:19 · Feel-Good Productivity (book), Google
  • ★★★ Ali makes a boring task such as book edits easier to focus on by framing it as an adventure: he goes to the local coworking space, grabs a coffee on the way and plays Lord of the Rings music on his headphones. — 00:03:48
  • ★★ Ali has started wearing a pair of trainers only in the house: it makes the day feel more like an adventure, and with their bounce he feels he has more energy walking around. — 00:03:48
  • ★★ Ali's main technique for focus is the Pomodoro technique, because there is a ton of evidence that the brain struggles to focus for long periods of time. — 00:03:48 · Pomodoro technique

00:04:23 — Part two, technique: the Pomodoro technique, Rize, task switching, do not disturb

  • ★★★ Ali finds 25-minute Pomodoros really good: long enough to get a reasonable amount of work done, but short enough that the break feels just around the corner. — 00:04:38 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ A Pomodoro creates a mini deadline, Ali says, and a little time pressure makes us perform better, while too much time pressure detracts from performance. — 00:04:38 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ For really long sessions that need intense focus Ali increases the Pomodoro to 45 minutes; working on his book and video projects, he turns on the Pomodoro technique whenever he struggles to focus. — 00:05:07 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Ali runs his Pomodoros in Rize, an automatic time tracker that shows him how much time he actually spent in Google Docs on his book or scrolling Twitter, his most common pastime. — 00:05:07 · Twitter
  • ★★ No fancy app is needed for a Pomodoro timer, Ali says: search Google for "timer 25 minutes" or use an hourglass; setting a timer is unreasonably effective. — 00:05:36 · Google
  • ★★★ Task switching is generally a bad idea, Ali says: studies show that responding to a notification or answering an email in the middle of work leaves attentional residue. — 00:05:36
  • ★★ To avoid notifications, Ali holds Option and clicks the clock on his Mac to turn on Do Not Disturb; only his girlfriend, his mum, and his brother and sister-in-law, his housemates, get through in case of something urgent. — 00:06:05 · Taimur Abdaal
  • ★★ People who struggle to focus, Ali finds, always have their phone in front of them and keep checking notifications; checking an email in the middle of work shoots your ability to focus in the foot. — 00:06:34

00:06:48 — His Skillshare class and the Skillshare sponsor read

00:08:30 — Part three, environment: the phone in another room, welcome distractions, an inspiring atmosphere

  • ★★ Ali cites studies, among them the paper "Brain Drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity": just having your phone on your desk reduces your ability to focus compared with having it in a different room. — 00:08:30
  • ★★★ When studying, Ali keeps his phone face down rather than face up with notifications showing, but says it is even better to keep the phone in a different room. — 00:08:30
  • ★★★ Ali advises embracing welcome distractions: some distractions, such as a random Twitter notification, are bad, but others are good, such as your kids coming in to talk to you. — 00:08:59 · Twitter
  • ★★ Most parents Ali knows have regretted, as they got older, spending too much time on their work and not enough with their kids. — 00:08:59
  • ★★ As a welcome distraction at university, Ali always kept his door propped open and invited in any friend who came by. — 00:08:59
  • ★★★ About five years after graduating, Ali does not at all regret failing to squeeze out 1% more focus and efficiency while studying; instead he is fond of memories of friends dropping in for conversations, board games or FIFA. — 00:09:29
  • ★★ Sometimes distractions are a good thing, Ali says: life is about more than trying to focus and be productive; it is also about health and relationships. — 00:09:29
  • ★★ Ali says some studies show that green plants nearby, in your office or on your desk improve creativity, which he calls tangentially related to focus. — 00:09:58
  • ★★ An inspiring atmosphere makes Ali far more likely to focus: he enjoys coworking spaces like WeWork, where others are working, the vibe is good and the design nice, and coffee shops with a little hustle and bustle. — 00:09:58
  • ★★ Much of the advice on focusing, studying and personal development, Ali says, comes down to finding the balance between two extremes. — 00:10:27
  • ★★★ Ali advises treating an inspiring study atmosphere as nice to have rather than an absolute requirement: requiring one means getting a lot less done. — 00:10:27
  • ★★ The human factor in focus is the basics, Ali says: rest, sleep, exercise and nutrition; many students he has spoken to who struggle to focus do not prioritise their sleep. — 00:10:56

00:11:07 — Part four, the human factor: sleep, caffeine and the basics

  • ★★ Neglecting sleep, food and exercise is easy when you are young because you recover, Ali says, but it completely damages your brain and your ability to focus. — 00:11:25
  • ★★ Ali says his team is working on a video about effective sleep. — 00:11:25
  • ★★ Ali points to his video Why You're Always Tired, with an interview with Professor Russell Foster, which has done super well: it gives practical ways to improve your sleep, and better sleep improves your ability to focus. — 00:11:55
  • ★★★ Looking at the evidence in a video two or three years earlier, Ali concluded that caffeine is broadly good for you, with about three cups of coffee a day a good amount to get its benefits. — 00:11:55
  • ★★ Ali calls caffeine basically a wonder drug: unless caffeine triggers profound anxiety or tachycardia in you, it improves your ability to focus without any major side effects. — 00:11:55
  • ★★ Because caffeine's half-life is, some people say, between nine and 11 hours, Ali generally tries not to have caffeine after around 2 or 3 p.m. — 00:11:55
  • ★ Ali says a small percentage of the population, maybe 10%, is not affected by caffeine at all and can have it whenever they want. (hedged) — 00:11:55
  • ★★ Ali has not tried study drugs: there is a lot you can do before relying on pharmacological methods to improve your focus. — 00:12:45
  • ★★★ Ali's basics for focus: take breaks between work sessions, have a decent shutdown ritual at the end of the day and a reasonable morning routine, get seven to eight hours of sleep, sleep at roughly the same times, and walk in the mornings. — 00:12:45
  • ★★ Ali walks to get his morning coffee, which does a lot for his ability to focus, and recommends morning sunlight, pointing to Andrew Huberman's podcast. — 00:12:45
  • ★★ Ali calls Andrew Huberman's podcast amazing, with some 10 hours of episodes on improving focus through such basics, and says getting the basics right is ridiculously helpful. — 00:13:15
  • ★★★ Ali's fifth point for staying focused while studying is identified motivation, which he calls genuinely life-changing for staying motivated and disciplined in studies or anything else. — 00:13:15 · identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali says he talks about identified motivation in another video and will see viewers there. — 00:13:15 · identified motivation

00:13:29 — Part five, identified motivation, left for the next video

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali says the video on identified motivation that he mentions at the end will come out shortly: he filmed it before this one but did not edit them in the same order. — video description · identified motivation
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Told that the video on identified motivation is missing from the end screen, the channel says it has not been released yet and will hopefully come out that weekend. (hedged) — creator comment · identified motivation
  • ★★ To a viewer who studies eight focused hours one day and nothing the next, Ali says it is more important to come back to studying every day, so avoid doing so much that you do not work the next day. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked whether being alone with no group of friends can help you focus on studies, the channel answers sometimes, depending on what you like. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: caffeine · daily adventure · Pomodoro technique · welcome distractions

Also: People: Andrew Huberman · Benjamin Franklin · Jake Knapp · John Zeratsky · Muhammad Ali · Russell Foster · Taimur Abdaal

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Make Time · The Lord of the Rings

Organizations: Google · London Writers' Salon · Pomodoro Society · Twitter · WeWork

Concepts: daily highlight · growth mindset · identified motivation · journey before destination

Products: Articulate · Google Docs · Rize · Writers' Hour · Zoom

Also centred on caffeine: Is Coffee Good For You? · My Evidence-Based Sleep Routine

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