As students, yeah, we’ve all been there: trying to study but ending up on your phone or fiddling with pencils or whatever you have near you. And the process of online learning doesn’t help, we have our laptops, smartphones, and other devices right in front of us. Distraction is literally a few inches from your hand! If you’re reading this, you most likely want to find out how you can enhance your focus for your studies or even other activities — and in this article, that’s what I’m going to help you achieve.
A common tip you’re going to hear from a lot of people is to put your phone away. Like, really far away from you. While this proves effective for some people, it does not work for everyone as most other people just stand up and take their phone from the position they left it in. This means it’s not fully efficient yet. However, we could enhance this solution by just a bit to make it prove and give more astounding results. If you want this tip to work, you have two choices: one is to just put your phone somewhere far from you (which I already mentioned earlier) or two is to download focus apps on your phone. Yes, focus apps. Whether you’re going to the App Store or the Play Store or anything in between, just search up ‘focus app’ and once downloaded, you’ll find yourself ready as ever to work! The way these focus apps work is that you set yourself some time away from your phone, and then place your phone down. If you manage to go all the way down without disrupting the timer and moving to other apps, you’ll get a reward (in most apps). However, if you don’t, you won’t get a reward. And we all know reward > no reward, isn’t it? So go, try any focus application you see on your downloading facility now.
Next, while we’re on the topic of rewards, reward yourself every now and then. Remember that you’re only human and you need support and encouragement from anyone in any way possible. And if no one’s going to be there for you, be there for yourself. By rewarding yourself with such things as chocolate bars, decorative markers, or play time on your phone whenever you finish a small chapter, lesson, or revision, you’ll be more encouraged and more pulled toward your end goal. This has proved effective for more than 80% of the population, so if you haven’t already, you should try this. Since you’re setting your own rewards, make them enticing. And since you’re in charge of your own studying, remember to control. For example, if you think you didn’t quite understand the lesson because you chose to rush reading for the reward, go back and try again. Out of all the tips I’m going to share today, I think the number one basis for all of them is control. Once you have that, you’re good to go. Let’s move on now, I personally favor this next one.
Because you’re a student, you’re most likely going to have to remember a lot of stuff — not only for yourself, but also for your future; which okay, it’s also going to be for yourself. This next tip tells you to have a notebook or a journal with you AT. ALL. TIMES. You may have a ton of notebooks for different subjects already, but if they’re still in use as of the moment, they’re not going to do anything for you. Instead, try to reuse one that you used in the past but didn’t really fill up the pages. This is now going to be your personal notebook. Your journal. Possibly even your diary, if that’s your sort of thing. In this notebook, you’re going to jot down everything you want to remember for future purposes, such as: terms, definitions, facts, processes, etc. But not only those! You could also write down anything you have in your mind to clear up some space in there. Scribble down grocery lists, to-do checks, ideas, questions to do research on later, or even — get this — feelings! Treat it like your best friend; don’t hold back, and just write. It’s yours, and it’s going to help you with so much.
There. Three tips for studying that you should go and try right now. There’s no harm in trying, after all, so go. For sure, you have storage on your phone for the focus app, games or treats in your home to reward yourself, and a spare notebook for your own personal journal. Try all of them now. —Jon Zaccary C. Regala, Grade 10
