Name: How To Stay Focused Longer
Uploaded: 2020-11-13T15:29:54.000Z
Duration: 6 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

If you saw someone who was really really out of shape.

To-infinitive

And if I were to ask you – how do you think this happened?

You'd most likely say, “hmm they probably didn't get enough exercise and they probably

If you're someone who can barely focus for more than 5 minutes.

If you're getting urges to click away from this video already.

Then you're basically in the same position.

But instead of your body that's in an unhealthy state, it's your mind.

If you want to fix this – all you have to do is take care of your mind the same way

you would take care of your body in order to get in shape.

There are essentially only 2 things that you have to do.

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The first is to get regular exercise for your mind.

Just like how when you go to the gym you have to lift heavy weights to increase your physical

When you want to improve your mental strength, you must force yourself to do something that

requires a lot of focus and mental energy.

Such as reading a book / studying / working / writing / or even practicing a skill.

It varies from person to person, but the rule of thumb is that any task that you are currently

having issues focusing on is a task that you can train with.

Once you've decided which task to train with you need to figure out your current strength

Let's say you decide to train by reading a book.

Your next step is to set a timer and see how long you can read, before you start getting

extreme urges to check your phone or to do something else.

Once that happens, stop the timer and make a note of that time.

This is your current focus strength level.

Let me know where you currently stand in the comments down below – I'm a bit curious.

Now that you know where your current level is at, you need to start working out your

You need to set aside a block of time everyday just for this focus training.

Just like how you would set aside a block of time just to workout at the gym.

Your job is to try to do 5 sets of this task everyday, and try to do it for slightly longer

So if you're currently getting urges at 5 minutes when reading then just aim to read

for 5 and a half minutes or even six minutes.

Once you do, you can take a little break and play on your phone for like one or two minutes

– just like how you would rest a bit between doing sets in the gym – and then you would

And you repeat the process over at least 5 times.

Do this everyday – and at the end of the week, test your focus strength level again

– test to see how long you can read before getting strong urges to do something else.

You should see a gradual increase in this number over time if you are consistent with

You should also change the exercises from time to time.

Instead of reading you can choose to focus on studying or writing or if you really want

to strengthen those focus muscles you can try and solve some problems.

Which is why today's episode was brought to you with the help of the guys at Brilliant.

Brilliant offers a wide range of content from interactive courses on mathematical fundamentals

to scientific thinking to programming and even machine learning.

They teach by putting a focus on problem solving where you solve fun and interactive problems

Personally I've been learning by using the Logic section of their platform.

I have a strong belief that one should hone their logic skills as it makes it easier to

make the right choices in life and to see the truth that exists in the world.

Brilliant's logic course helps you develop the critical skills necessary to discern the

If you're looking for a great way to strength train your focus and also to improve your

skills then I highly suggest you to go to www.Brilliant.org/improvementpill to sign

up for a free trial - the first 200 people to sign up will get 20% off the annual Premium

The best way to train your focus muscles is by building a habit that automatically does

For example: I don't need to set aside time everyday to go to the mental gym because I'm

I'll usually write for 30 minutes or so and then take a break and then go back to writing.

So basically I am training and maintaining the health of my focus muscles because of

This is something that you should consider doing when you get your focus strength level

Because at that point you can start getting work done.

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The second thing you have to do to improve your focus is to fix your diet.

See we consume food with our bodies – but we consume content with our minds.

Delicious, high calorie, extra sweet foods are the junk foods of the physical world.

Which means that short, extra stimulating, fun to watch pieces of content are the junk

It's fine to enjoy it every once in a while, you could even do it everyday.

But if it's the ONLY thing that you consume – then your attention span will shrink to

The primary source of this junk food is social media.

A study found that on average people only spend about 10 seconds on each post on Instagram.

Other social media platforms like twitter, facebook, tiktok, and even reddit probably

It's all content that we spend mere seconds on.

Even longer form content like videos on YouTube fall victim to this.

Although the problem here is stimulation.

Many of the videos that go viral have tons of edits and sound effects, they cut to a

new scene every 5 seconds, these are videos that we watch because of the stimulation it

brings – the endless novelty releases a ton of dopamine in our brain causing us to

want to watch more all while decreasing our ability to focus on less stimulating things

What you want to do is consume content that is long with little stimulation.

A great example of this are education videos like Ted-Talks and interviews.

These are pieces of content that are slow paced and focus on only a few topics throughout

their entirety which make them a good addition to your mental diet.

Other variations of content such as audio books, blog posts, podcasts, and even documentaries

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