Study Hack: Improve Focus by Tweaking your Senses

It should come as no surprise that attention is closely linked with how much we remember.  If you daydream in class, you don’t learn much… it seems simple enough.

If you’re like me, your attention tends to drift during your study sessions.  Frequently I find myself watching the traffic while listening to a language tape or flipping through songs while doing flashcards.

I’ve begun to experiment with a few rather… unique methods for improving attention (hint: you can expect to see the use of neural computer interfaces in my next experiment).  Until recently, though, one of the more obvious ideas escaped me.

On a recent episode of The Colbert Report the author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything explained some of his techniques.  What really caught me was all of the “focus-enhancing” gadgets that he employed to improve his recall.  By restricting his senses, he helped himself to focus better.  If you’re concentrating on audio learning, why do you need to see?  Furthermore, as with sleep, sports and just about everything else in life a “routine” or “ritual” is an exceptionally powerful tool.  With all this in mind, I created a study routine which requires only the contents of my sleep kit.

1. Stop all activities a couple minutes before beginning a study session and perform a menial task (eg. make a pot of coffee, wash hands, etc.)
2. Choose a location for your studies that is comfortable (I choose to lie flat on my back in bed, but if this makes you feel tired you might want a more active position)
3. For audio studying, use a sleep mask to block out light and headphones (noise-canceling, if possible)
   For visual studying (eg flashcards), use earplugs to block out noise (no music!) and, if possible, turn out the lights and close other applications on the computer/mobile device (to further reduce distractions)
4. Study for no more than 30 minutes at a time (here’s why)

Right away I can say that I definitely have noticed that I am paying more attention to my studies.  It is not a small difference, either.  I walk away from each study session, now, feeling as though I truly learned something.  Of course, in my next experiment (to learn French) I’ll be publishing more quantifiable data about just how much I was able to learn in how much time, and how much these techniques helped.

Tags: hack, languages, learning, productivity, study

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