Focus is something we all struggle with and it's an interesting concept. Most things get easier with more time spent. But with focus, the longer we try doing it, the harder it becomes. Why is this? Well, as humans we are novelty seeking, we like to shift our attention, distractibility is entrained into our very DNA over millions of years of evolution. Once I realised and accepted this, I was able to hack it and actually use human tendency for distraction to my advantage and use it to help me study for 12 hours a day with absolute focus. Here's how I did it.

Today I want to talk about how I designed a study routine that allowed me to stay focussed and revise for 12 hours a day without burning out. By following this plan for a month before exams, I managed to perform the best that I have ever done in my 6 years at Cambridge. So, I'll first begin by setting the scene and walk you through the 12 hour study routine I followed in the 2nd year of University. Then I'll talk about the 5 principles at the core of the routine that actually allowed to stay focussed and work effectively throughout this time. As always, there'll be timestamps for everything I'm going to be talking about so you can jump to whatever section you're most interested in. Now, I don't want you to take away from this video that you need to study for 12 hours a day, instead I want you to take away the 5 principles that allowed me to focus and use them to help you design your own study routine that will allow you to focus and work effectively for longer.

Study Routine

Let me now explain how I studied within each study session and how I spent my breaks. So, in terms of the study sessions.

I went through this routine just to set the scene and give you guys some context, but now let me explain the 6 core principles behind the design of this study routine that allowed me to stay focussed and work effectively for 12 hours.

That was my intense, but highly effective study-routine. Whenever I tell people about this, they always look so shocked "like how the hell did you manage to stick to that?!". And I never really had a good answer. But over-time I've managed to workout the 6 principles behind its design that allowed me to work effectively for 12 hours and stay focussed. These principles are: forecasting, hard boundaries, operative-shifting, physical breaks, technology limitation and contact minimisation.

Forecasting
One key aspect of each study session is knowing in advance exactly what lectures I need to cover for that 1.5 hour session. I did not use any complex algorithms or difficulty ratings, instead I repeated cycles of lectures from the first to the last lecture for each subject, covering 3 lectures of that subject per study session. So for example, on day 1 6.30-8.00, I'd do neuro lectures 1-3, then 15.30-17.00, I'd do lectures 4-6. Then the next day, 7-9 and 10-12. Then so on until I finish all lectures then repeat. Throughout the day this would happen for the other 3 subjects (path, pharm and HR) also. Essentially, this system was a practical and intuitive spaced repetition design. By knowing exactly what I was going to cover and at what time, there was no time wasted on deliberating or decision making. By forecasting, I had maximised efficiency on the day. This forecasting also relieved my anxiety as I knew that if I followed this routine, I would cover everything 3 times over before the exam. So I highly recommend, when planning study routines, to forecast, not just for the next day but for a whole chunk of time as I did for the whole month in the run up to the exam. This will minimise time spent on decision-making on the day, reduces anxiety and contributes to habit formation.

Hard-boundaries
This refers to having hard self-imposed mental deadlines. I had allocated realistic but fixed time to each study session and break, and I had also fixed specific tasks for each. So, I would only leave the desk after finishing the 3 allocated lectures for that subject, but I also would try and do it within the allocated time. If I hadn't then I would use part of my break (5 minutes or so) to finish up the last part. No one was forcing me to stick to these time slots, but I had mentally forced myself to think of the time slots as final, just like when the examiner would say put your pens down. You know that the time is up, but you can finish up the sentence you're on.

So when designing you study routines, think of the time slots you create as hard boundaries and when time is up, try and finish up the allocated work quickly and move onto the next slot of your day.

Operative-Shifting
Operative shifting was the main principle I used to hack my human tendency for distraction. Instead of fighting it, I essential fed the beast and made it work for me. So how did this work? Well, operative shifting had 2 parts: 1) shifting between different subjects and 2) separating each study session with purposeful breaks. I'll explain this in more detail. The first part of operative shifting is inter-subject shifting. This is the switching between different subjects. I never studied the same subject in close-succession. For example, I started the day with neuro, but did 3 other subjects, before going back to neuro in the afternoon. This concept of interleaving or operational-shifting has been shown to aid both retention and focus. And even intuitively, it meant that I fought a degree of mental boredom and fatigue, as I'm constantly shifting. Just like if you watch a video on youtube, people on average are more engaged and watch for longer when the video has a lot of cuts and moves from one scene to the next. The second part of operative-shifting is form-shifting, which refers to imposing purposeful breaks between study sessions. Each study session was followed by either a utility or physical break, allowing enough mental rest and time for my focus to recharge. Each break also involved getting up and moving away from my desk, contributing to a sense of progression throughout the day and providing a mini scene shift.

Both inter-subject shifting and form-shifting contributed to recharging and maintaining focus throughout the day, helping me to study effectively throughout each study session. So I highly recommend incorporating these features in your own study routines.

Purposeful Breaks

So, I've spoken about operative-shifting and using breaks to split up study sessions. Now let me me talk about how to design purposeful breaks and how to strategically time them to give you a sense of progression, whilst allowing for mental rest and recharge. Now, I want to talk about the principle of purposeful breaks, meaning that the breaks that I was taking all served a purpose other than just mental rest. I categorised my breaks as either utility breaks (using the bathroom and eating food) or physical breaks.

Utility breaks
The utility breaks are essentially fundamental parts of my day that I had to do and by incorporating them into the study routine as breaks, I was not only allowing time for mental rest but also accomplishing another non-study must-do task of the day. So these were breakfast, lunch, shower and dinner. The first 3 (breakfast, lunch and shower) were designed to be short 30 minute breaks leaving just enough time to do the task, but dinner was a longer 1 hour break. I felt that having this longer break at the end of the day gave me something to look forward to work towards, helping me with motivation throughout the day.

Physical Breaks
The second category of breaks were physically focused breaks meaning that I would do some form of physical exercise during these breaks. This would be a break for sit-ups in the morning, gym in the afternoon and free-weight exercises in the evening. These breaks provided me with physical stimulation which translated into a healthier body and mind. It truly contributed to maintaining good mental health throughout the run up to exams and it boosted my ability to concentrate though out the day. I strategically varied the form of physical exercise to give myself a sense of variety and progression. I also strategically varied the length of each break, with the abs and free-weights designed to be 30 minutes and the gym time in the middle to be 1.5 hours. These lengths gave me something to look forward to in the middle of the day and also acted as a divider for my day. The "morning" half before gym and the "evening" half after gym. Again this strategic timing gave me a sense of progression, accomplishment and helped with motivation and focus throughout the day.

So the takeaway for designing your own study routine is to incorporate purposeful breaks that are strategically timed, instead of vague 5 minute breaks to check the phone. And the other takeaway is to incorporate physical activity into some of your breaks.

Technology Limitation
The next principle that helped me stick to this routine was technology limitation.
 I severely limited the amount of technology involved in my revision work-flow. Almost everything I was studying from was a physical paper. The only piece of technology I had with me was a electronic tablet with no social media apps, just Google chrome for me to search up things quickly without risking being distracted by social media. Alongside this, I also put away my phone beside my bed on Do Not Disturb, out of physical reach. This minimal technology study process or work-flow, massively helped me escape procrastination and counter-productive distraction. I would of course check my phone right at the beginning and end of my purposeful breaks but otherwise, I made sure that checking my phone or going on social media was as impossible as possible. Now, this is something I wouldn't be able to replicate today because of my heavy reliance on technology for all my work. And my move to a paper-less work-flow. However, the fundamental principles are still translational. For example, not having my phone within reach of my desk. Then not having social media apps on the device I'm using for study and making sure they are as minimal as possible. Most laptops allow you to have more than one profiles, so I recommend creating a work profile that has just an internet explorer like google chrome in the dock and only your study material on the desktop.

Contact Minimisation
This last principle, contact minimisation, is the saddest and most difficult thing, but for me was highly necessary, just because my biggest weakness is social distraction. So contact minimisation is the idea of essentially cutting off physical contact with friends as much as possible. I would completely avoid relaxing with friends, going for dinner or anything remotely social, because I knew that I would find it incredibly difficult to get back to work after it and I also knew I would have very little control over timings. So as difficult as it was, I cut off all physical contact with even my best friends during the month running up to exams. This allowed me to have total control over my day, it allowed me to be brutally inflexible without affecting anyone else's plans. This was incredibly effective but very hard and could have potentially had a massively negative impact on my mental health. I think the reason I managed to maintain good mental health even during this time, was to incorporate physical activity and maintain contact with family through video-calls. But even then, had this gone on for longer than a month, I strongly believe the consequences would have caught up. This is one principle that I do not recommend you enforce in its entirety, but what you can do is to adopt a mentality that you should try to have as much control over your day as possible during this time. So when you do relax with friends, try to set allocated time that everyone is aware of and happy with and the try and stick to it strictly.

Final Thoughts

Try using these 5 principles when you plan your study routine and see what effect it has on your ability to focus and work effectively for longer. If you'd like more information on effective study tips then you might like to check out these videos. And if you've found this useful, then don't forget to like and smash that subscribe button. But, that's it from me for today and I'll see you guys next time.