Staying Focused: Tips for Maintaining Focus while Studying
You’ve sat down at your desk. You have everything you need on your table or somewhere around you. You start to work. You think, “this is going well,” until a notification pops up on your laptop screen. And then another notification pops up on your phone. And during that period when your eyes were off of your study material, you also noticed a bag of chips, a magazine, your unfinished journal spread, your roommate bobbing their leg up and down and up and down, the pattern of the wood on your bookshelf, a text message, your bed … suddenly you can’t remember what you were supposed to be doing but instead think about how much you want to sleep. Or how hungry you are. Or how much you want to go hang out with your friends. Or your entire life choices.
I’m sure we’ve all been there. Sometimes it’s really difficult to stay focused while studying, and with all the distractions that surround us, it really isn’t surprising. However, there are ways that you can minimize the chances that you’ll give in to those distractions and focus on your work instead. Here are some that have worked for me:
The first thing you should do is clear your space. Don’t have things lying around that could make you distracted - put all your food where you can’t see them, your phone inside your bag, etc. However, there also comes a time when you have a thought that’s super important, but you can’t extend that thought or you’ll get sucked into a chain of other distracting thoughts. I like to have a notebook or piece of paper nearby where I can jot down these compulsive thoughts that I’ll get back to later - this is usually my bullet journal.
You could also find a study space where you’re the least prone to distraction. For me it’d be a cafe, since I would only have the things I brought with me. My dorm is where a lot of the distractions are: my books, all my journals and stationery, and my bed. Some people like studying in the library, but personally I find it distracting when other people around me are studying as well (especially when it’s super quiet and you can hear every pen click and page turn).
In addition, you might also want to do things like have a snack, go to the bathroom, and check your phone before you start your study session, so you won’t have the urge to do those things during your study session.
Block out your time and assign specific tasks
I’ve found that whenever I have a very vague schedule - like “I’ll study [ subject ] from 3 to 5 or something” or “I’ll complete these 5 tasks in 4 hours” or even worse “I’ll learn the whole syllabus in the next 2 months” - I don’t get as much done as I could. It’s hard to focus when you don’t really have a specific thing to focus on. You know how on the weekends especially, you have a whole list of things to do but every time you do one thing you get distracted by the thought of another? That can be solved by time blocking. Set aside a specific period of time to do a specific task, and eventually, those will accumulate into more productive hours.
It’s even more efficient to block smaller periods of time - 5 or 10 minutes or so. For example, even though I use the pomodoro technique of doing a task for 25 minutes then taking a 5-minute break, I break up those 25 minutes. If I were studying my flashcards, I might set a goal of finishing one stack - usually one topic - in 10 minutes (depending on the thickness of the stack). If I simply assigned 4 pomodoro sessions to review all my cards, this would make me prone to stretching out the amount of time I spend on a single stack, and in that stretching of time comes a loss of focus. It is a lot easier to focus for 10 minutes on one thing than 25 minutes on 3 things.
Note: What has helped me study for exams is scheduling out my time in months, and then weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes, so I’ll know the direction I’m going in, but I also won’t be overwhelmed by the amount of tasks I have to complete since I can do one small task at a time.
Practice, practice, practice
Like everything else in life, in order to be good at something, you have to practice. Learning to maintain focus is the same. At first, focusing for 25 minutes might feel hard and maybe even painful, but as you complete more pomodoro sessions, you’ll find that focusing for 25 minutes is effortless (or whatever period of time you usually work/study for).
Another way to practice focusing is by meditating. Meditating is part of my morning routine, and it’s definitely helped me stay focused in other activities, so you might wanna give that a try.
I can tell you that of all the group study sessions I’ve had with my friends, most of them are much less efficient than if I had chosen to work alone. (The exception was when I was stuck with a bug in my code and my friend helped me figure it out.) Friends are very distracting, and even when you promise yourselves you’ll work on assignment or that you’ll only discuss the topic you’re studying, your conversation will inevitably stray from that.
When you’re tired, you’re sure to be distracted, so one way of combating that is to take breaks. It refreshes you so that you have more energy to focus during your next study session.
Aside from that, you should schedule your distractions during your breaks - go to the bathroom, grab a snack, go on your phone, or during longer breaks you can talk to your friends, take a nap, etc - so that you won’t give into those compulsions during your study sessions. Because you’ve already done those distracting things, when you’re studying, you’ll end up thinking something along the lines of, “Oh, I’ve already checked Instagram five minutes ago; my phone can wait,” or “I just had a snack, I can go get another one once I’m finished.”
That’s all the tips I have for you right now about how to maintain focus while studying. I hope this has been helpful, but as usual, if you have any questions, or some of your problems aren’t covered in this post, feel free to reach out to me by dropping an ask or sending me a message. Also, linked below are several of my posts that you mind find helpful. Have an awesome day!
How to Beat Procrastination
The Mandatory Midday Break
Getting Stuff Done: How to Deal with Lack of Motivation
