Defeating Study Distractions

Cliffhanger (Photo credit: ©hris ®evel)

So I left you hanging in the last post. Well, let go and let's see if you the falling distance is fatal or not. Defeating distractions to your studying takes preparation and dedication, and more than a smidgeon of self-discipline. Sometimes, you have to make decisions long before situations arise so that when they do arise, your mind is already made up, and your choices are then relatively straight-forward. So let's dive straight into it and examine seven military strategies you can adapt to defeat study distractions.

History (Photo credit: photosan0)

1. Strategic Objective

Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious operation ever launched in the history of warfare. It was the invasion by the Western Allies of Nazi-occupied France in 1944. Without an overall Strategic Objective, it would have been pointless to even begin trying to defeat the Nazis. Translating that into your studying is simple : if you don't have an end-point, or a goal in mind, then you are already defeated.

2. Offensive

Seize, retain and exploit the initiative. Start the year how you want to finish it. Implement the types of study strategies and lecture strategies that you want to carry on throughout the year. Seize the initiative in terms of your time, your energy, and your resources. And do so right from the start. Don't let the first few weeks take control of you, but rather take controlof those first few weeks, and use them to your best advantage.

English: Crop of old military map, rendered in gold (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. Maneuver

The flexible application of combat power. We continue our analogy and apply this to studying by saying that you need to learn how to maneuver your social life strategically. You don't want to end up being lonely and isolated, but you also need to be very selective about who you befriend, and what type of social life you are prepared to lead. If you want to do the all-weekend partying with every second week-night pub-crawl, your college life-span will not be very long. By the same token, you can become so involved in so many "worthy" causes (such as Chairman of the Tree-Hugging Society) that your studies suffer equally. You need to find a happy medium where you are not a recluse, but you are still maneuvering to achieve your overall Objective.

4. Unity of Command

Petraeus at Georgia Tech (Photo credit: hectorir)

You make your decisions. Whilst you take other people's advice, you need to take responsibility for your own actions now. You aren't a child anymore. You are maturing and you need to realize that your new found freedom comes much greater responsibility, and thus you need to start making decisions yourself. If you are far away from home, lots of decisions that used to be made by your parents are going to have to be made by you now. When you realize that you are responsible for you own actions, you will start being able to identify and defeat those things that are distracting you from your studies.

5. Logistics

"Guard the Supply Lines" - NARA - 514428 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Supply lines, and management of resources are essential to the functioning of armies. Like-wise, to cope with distractions, you will need to have the resources to be able to do it. Sometimes you won't be able to do it on your own. Maintain strong links with your family, even if they are far away. Find fellow students with similar goals in mind and with similar morals and ethics, spend time with them and even try get into digs with them. In his world-famous Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki says that it is critical to surround yourself with people who excel in their specific field in order to make your business flourish. You can easily apply this in your studies. Surround yourself with friends who are diligent and committed to academic and moral excellence.

6. Simplicity

This military doctrine talks about keeping plans and orders short, clear and simple. You can directly apply this to your studies by simplifying your study environment. Switch off all your devices, unless you are typing or researching. If you have to use a device, be ruthless with yourself and shut down everything that you don't need. Close ALL the tabs in your browser you don't need. Turn off you iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, sound system (unless you want to play some gentle Baroque music, which has been shown to enhance your brain waves during studying). Keep It Simple Stupid. (No offense) Are there any other suggestions that you can think of that you have employed to defeat study distraction? Please share so we can all benefit.

The top 5 distractions to studying and how to defeat them

Johannesburg General Hospital in the foreground

When I used to work at Johannesburg General Hospital, first as a medical student, then as a Community Service Doctor, one of the things that I used to do if I had a few moments was to look out the windows and view the whole of northern Johannesburg. Sometimes it would be during the daytime, and sometimes it's would be at night. One thing never ceased to amaze me. No matter what time I looked out over the huge expanse of the metropolitan area, there was always movement. Cars, planes, helicopters, lights, people. We live in a world of constant movement and activity. New York is known as the city that never sleeps. I think that most major cities in the world are like that. And the busiest age group are late teens through to late twenties. This includes students. Add to this delicious dish the fact that school-leavers at college have new-found freedoms. So, when it comes to the act of studying, there are so many distractions. And if you are not prepared for these distractions, they can take you by surprise and torpedo your study efforts and your parents' money. A word of warning. For the most part I am going to be fairly lighthearted, but some of the points are dead serious and blunt. Some things are difficult but need to be said and discussed.

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

1. Social networking

We live in an age where checking Facebook, Twitter, and all the others is a deeply ingrained habit. It is so deeply ingrained that people can get withdrawal symptoms from not using them. It is now being called Information Deprivation Disorder. And this social networking can be a huge challenge to students while they are studying. It is an extremely common sight to see students studying with their iPhone or iPad or Blackberry right next to their textbooks, and every minute or two they check Facebook. Social networking is a huge distraction to your studying.

2. Social Life

Those new-found freedoms I was talking about above? Yip, they can be a terrible distraction. Imagine a police dog that has just been released from its leash and it blasts off towards its target. That's what it is like for freshmen as they embark on their first academic year after school. They have immense new liberties, and the social life can be an incredible temptation. Parties, gatherings, pub-crawls. The list is endless. But one big aspect that often suffers is academics.

English: Diagram of the HIV virus. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. "Romance"

The reason I put this title in parentheses is because I really meant to say "sex". I had to say it because, as a doctor, all too often I have seen the aftermath of the combination of number 2 and number 3. Usually, when there is lots of number 2 above, there is little preparation and little precaution, and I have young adults, barely out of school, sitting in my office terrified either of two lines on a urine test or of a few positive blood tests. Unwanted pregnancies and Sexually-transmitted Diseases happen. A lot. A lot more than you realize. If you think they are uncommon, either you are being naive, or deliberately ignorant. These can not just ruin your academics, but they can seriously alter your life-course. Be warned.

4. Loneliness and isolation

This is especially true if you have had to move to a city far from home and don't know anybody. I really struggled when I moved to Johannesburg to study medicine, and it really did affect my studies quite drastically. These can easily lead down the road to anxiety and depression.

Buckley and Eddie. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

5. Poor living conditions

Sharing a house with well-motivated, neat, helpful students is great. But, all too often you end up with one or two slackers who don't pull their weight. They don't cook. They don't do the washing. They don't do the cleaning. They leave the place a mess. Their portion of the rent is always late. Trying to study while dealing with difficult digs-mates can be incredibly distracting.

Defeating Distractions

I'm going to defer this til the next post! Ha! Sorry!

Studying : in it for the Long Haul : Part 2

Image from an MRI examination of the knee with a displaced patella (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember her very well. She was about 15 years old at the time, and she could hardly walk. She hobbled into my office, hanging onto her mother's arm. She was a longstanding patient of mine (excuse the pun), and she had hurt her knee the day before during a hockey match. She managed to climb onto the examination couch with my help and showed me where her knee was painful from the twist it had sustained. When I asked her to move it voluntarily, her range of motion was extremely limited. But then I told her to relax completely, and I gripped her leg and knee firmly and promised I would not move it suddenly and would stop the moment I hurt her. Slowly, I began moving her knee. I gingerly moved it past the point of her maximum voluntary range but continued. As I moved it further and in different directions, the expression on her face changed slowly from being scrunched up expecting pain to one of disbelief. Finally, after I had moved it fully, she said "I felt no pain". She got up off the couch and walked normally. Her brain was so used to the pain from the twist that it anticipated the pain to such an extent that it actually partially felt the pain. Her brain had tricked itself. Today, we are going to look into ways you can learn to trick yourself in order to help you survive studying for the long haul.

Use your mind to trick yourself

Visualization

I don't want to get all pop-psychology on you, but there is some evidence to show that visualization does have some value when we need it. Try to imagine yourself at your graduation, and in your dream job afterwards. Picture your family and significant other congratulating you and surrounding you with love and affection.

Become an Incremental Theorist

Say what?! An Incremental Theorist believes that their abilities are malleable and can improve (which research shows is the case, by the way). This is opposite of Entity Theorists who believe their abilities are fixed and can't be improved (which has been shown to be false by research). You can improve. You can get better at your studies. You can develop newer skills. These are the central themes of an excellent book called Mindset : How you can fulfil your potential by Dr Carol Dweck. So how do you become an Incremental Theorist? Essentially, instead of accepting something bad happening to you as being the end of the world, rather ask yourself, "What can I learn from this experience?". Those who are Entity Theorists think that "risk and effort are two things that might reveal your inadequacies and show that you were not up to the task." How sad it would be if you let that type of mindset control your studying!

Studying : in it for the Long Haul : Part 1

: Roasted coffee beans Español: Granos de café tostado (natural). Bahasa Indonesia: Biji kopi alami yang telah disangrai. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a big confession to make. I absolutely adore coffee. I cannot stomach anything except filter coffee at the very least. At home we often grind our own coffee beans, and we source our beans from different shops. There is a farm in our area that makes coffee called Assagay Coffee which, in my opinion, could compete with the best in the world. It is earthy, rich, and deeply flavorsome. About a year ago my wife and I with my in-laws had the chance to visit a coffee farm and see how coffee is made, from seedling to cup. It is a looooooooong process! But, the end result is well worth it! So it is with studying. Whilst studying, it can seem like your studies are a life sentence behind the prison bars of the college campus, but it is essential you keep the end result in mind. Let's kick off this series of helping you keep that end-goal in mind.

Turn it into a Game

Thanks to the book Mindhacker Location 3721 and following on Kindle for this reminder. See also my post How I Conquered Russia. This was one of my favorite ways of keeping myself going. I created a wargame out of my studies. Each town I conquered correlated with a section studied. Mindhacker : 60 tips, tricks and games to take your mind to the next level has some really good ideas.

LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 26: In this photo ...

LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 26: (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

First

The website www.stickk.com allows you to bet against yourself failing at doing certain tasks.

Salvador Dali

Second

A game called Metaphorming allows you to create your own reality around you, essentially to make your whole environment a game of your own creation by creating your own experience of life your own metaphor. You can read the original article here. So, you can become your very own Salvador Dali, weird mustache and all (except you ladies).

Third

Another game is called Oulipo Groceries. This originates from the French literary collective that is short for "Ouvroir de litterature potentielle" or "Workshop of Potential Literature". This means writing a short novel without, for example, the letter E. The application here would be to photocopy a chapter of your textbook, then blank out an often repeated keyword, and then try study from those pages. Sounds crazy huh? But you would be amazed at how your brain will fill in those blanks and stimulate you to make extra special note of their importance!

Fourth

Do not think about the story of the tortoise and the hare. I told you don't think about it! Sorry, it was impossible for you not to after I had mentioned it. But this is a bit of a game. There was a moral to this story that was taught us when we were kids that was supposedly noble. We must be noble and plod like the tortoise. But, come on! Who wants to plod like a tortoise? No, you need to be a strategic hare. Another game to play. Develop strategies in your study plans that allow you to be a plodder at times, and also allows you the freedom to do a hundred metre dash in 9.8 seconds if need be.

Five

Create a study group and act out skits that teach the sections you are studying to yourself and others. Make it fun! See Surprise Yourself!

Rationale

So, what is my reason in this first post in this series for suggesting you help yourself keep the end in mind by turning your studies into games? Quite simple. We need to mix pleasure with business. By doing this you are reducing your overall stress levels, which in turn increases your Serotonin and Dopamine (your "happy hormones") in your brain. This also causes your Amygdalae to function better because their neurotransmitters are being replenished quicker, thus increasing your ability to learn. And, Voila'!

English: Salvador Dali with ocelot and cane. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Coffee Consumption Strongly Linked To Preventing Alzheimer's

Learning in 20 minute bursts

: Nose of a Handley-Page manned by three men (Photo credit: National Library of Scotland)

Anyone who is familiar with the First World War will know that in the early stages of the flying part of the war, the aeroplanes were notoriously difficult to fly, and their weaponry evolved from rocks being thrown at

English: Royal Flying Corps Sopwith Camel in 1914-1916 period. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

each other, to the use of hand-guns, and finally to the fitting of machine-guns. The planes then evolved into different types : bombers would drop their deadly load and fighters would protect them. But the life-span of new flying recruits averaged 20 minutes. Hence the name "The Twenty-Minuters". Quite sad. But in our context, 20 minutes is about the best length of time for you to spend studying a section. We have mentioned before, the Amygdalae in the brain are the gateways to your ability to memorize information, but when the neurotransmitters inside the Amygdalae dry up, your ability to learn more information shuts down. That's when you need a change of scenery.

English: St John's church, Hilltown (2) The clock is only two minutes slow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why Twenty Minutes?

I'm not actually making 20 minutes an exact number here for you. It will vary from one person to another, but the average length will be 20 minutes. These are the steps to follow in the 20 minutes.

1. Gather your chunk of information.

This will be the chunk of information of between 5 and 9 facts. Make sure that they flow in the grand scheme of your studying progress. They mustn't be isolated. If they are isolated they are doomed.

Information overload (Photo credit: Martino!)

2. Connect the information with previous information.

Make obvious connections before learning and memorizing the information.

3. Make sure you understand the information.

It's pointless learning the information if you do not even understand it. Memorizing something for the sake of rote learning makes your brain a simple USB flash-drive. It stores information. It doesn't make it a fully-functional integrating, thinking and solving, living entity it was made to be.

4. Memorize the information in as many ways as possible.

Don't use just one way. If you are good at drawing, draw crazy pictures. For example, when I was studying Psychiatry, when I was learning about the medication called Sertraline, I drew a Search-Light : do you see the connection my brain made? Sertraline sounds like Searchlight? At least it did to me. Maybe I'm just crazy. Anyway. Moving along. If you draw good mindmaps, then use those to their maximum potential. Write a quick rap song. Act out the facts in a small skit. Use multiple ways to learn the facts.

John_Deere_4630_Tractor.jpg (Photo credit: file039)

5. When your eyes glaze over, stop.

Teachers will recognize this point very easily. Eyes become glazed over, bodies change positions and become slumped, people begin looking elsewhere. If you notice your mind start wondering, then stop. If you haven't finished your total number of facts - this has given you an idea as to where to set the bar for how much to learn in one sitting. When this happens, those Amygdala neurotransmitters have been all used up. This whole process usually takes around 20 minutes or so, but can vary widely, depending upon each individual person, subject being learned, and the type of exam being learned for.

Take a Break

This is essential. If you were to try and carry on learning now, your Amygdalae would simply bounce off all incoming information away from your learning centres. This break should be about 5 to 10 minutes and consist of you physically getting up, moving around, refreshing yourself with something to eat and drink (I personally don't have an aversion to good filter coffee here!). Go outside into the sun, stretching your legs. But don't do this for more than about 4 or 5 minutes.

Do the same again but differently

Now that you've given your neurotransmitters a chance to rebuild, you now go back and do the exact same section you have just done. The difference now is that you are going to do it in completely different ways to ways that you have done before. If you learned the facts in , let's say 3 different ways previously, I want to now to find 3 or 4 different ways to revise it. They must be crazy, different, and way-out. You must feel out of you depth and you must feel way out of your comfort zone. This is when you will remember your work.

Keep doing this over and over

Keep this cycling over and over. Give yourself a 30 minutes break for every two hours of studying you have done. After studying for about six hours, you must give yourself at least one hour's break and you must go out somewhere and do something different.