Back in college

I never concentrated in class.

I spent most of my time chatting with friends, playing video games, or dozing off during lectures.

This resulted in multiple failed classes and a 2:2 CGPA.

On the other hand, the top-performing students were the ones who paid attention in class and took detailed notes.

A common trait in losers is indiscipline.

A common trait in winners is dedicated focus.

I have found this to be true and consistent in every facet of life.

There are three layers or three levels to developing laser-like focus:

1. Repairing your focus

2. Strengthening your focus

3. Protecting your focus

1. REPAIRING YOUR FOCUS

One of the major struggles that everyone has these days is an addiction to social media. These applications spend millions of dollars on research to keep you as addicted as possible.

Doom scrolling puts your mind in a zombie state where you keep doing something without any conscious effort. In the long run, it damages your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that handles cognitive performance.

How do you repair this psychological damage that these apps have been doing? The same way you break a sugar addiction - by retraining your taste buds to love things that do not contain sugar. You eat foods that are bitter, sour, or tasteless. Likewise, to save your mind from these social media vampires, you must learn to enjoy things that don't bombard you with cheap dopamine. Find better habits to replace mindless scrolling. Read, journal, or listen to a podcast. They are boring but infinitely more beneficial for your mind and soul.

The next step to repair your brain receptors is to stop multitasking. You have to be doing something with steady concentration for at least 20 minutes to activate flow state.

Break the habit of task switching. Make a list of things that you need to get done and tackle them one after the other. If another important thing pops up in your mind, write it down and attend to it later.

The better your focus, the better your output. If you have a hundred tabs open, your browser is going to lag and crash. The same is true for your mind. Close all mental loops when it’s time to work. Focus on one thing at a time. Every other thing can wait their turn.

2. STRENGTHEN YOUR FOCUS

• Stimulants: The easiest way to intensify your focus is to consume stimulants. Find what works best for you. Whether it’s green tea, ginger, coffee, energy drinks or nicotine. Experiment and find which one brings out the best in you. Give yourself a competitive advantage.

• Assiduity: This term was coined by Charlie Munger. It is the art of sticking with a task for a long time and getting it done. It's about sitting down and focusing on one thing without getting distracted. You can start with just 30 minutes a day, specifically for doing deep work. Gradually increase until you reach 2 hours or even 4 hours. No force on Earth can stop you at that level of focus.

• Anchoring: Set a certain place in your house for performing certain activities. As you do this repeatedly, your brain creates the association between this location and this action. This associative effect will help you get into a flow state faster. Another way to do this is through music. Listen to a certain music when it’s time for deep work. I use Hans Zimmer or White Noise. My mind understands that whenever this music comes on, it's time to get serious. The key here is to stay consistent with it to solidify the association.

• Meditate: Meditation, by definition, is the ability to focus on one thing at a time. Therefore, it is the only way to directly refine your mind and improve its ability to focus. The mind is constantly oscillating between the past and the future. Meditation is the art of observing the mind whenever it's drifting away from the present moment and restoring it to the present moment. You do that by finding a mental anchor that grounds you in the present moment. The best anchor that you can use is your breath because your breath is always with you everywhere you go. Every single breath you take happens in the present moment, which makes it the most effective mindfulness anchor there is. If you are serious about improving your focus, you need to be meditating at least 15 minutes every day. The longer you can sit in silent meditation, the sharper your mind becomes.

• Napping: Nothing rejuvenates the mind faster than a short nap. Your naps should be kept between 10 to 20 minutes. This gives you the maximum benefits of alertness, wakefulness, sharpness, awareness, and calmness.

3. PROTECTING YOUR FOCUS

This is a simple process of filtration, elimination, and management.

• Filtration: Build a firewall around your mind that’s strong enough to prevent all forms of negativity. Curate the things that you expose your mind to.

• Elimination: Most of the things that we say or do are unnecessary. You must distinguish the important from the unimportant and focus all your energy on the former. You must also banish unnecessary thoughts and beliefs from your mind; anxieties, impostor syndrome, doubt, fear, and insecurities. You have the power to control your thoughts whether you know it or not. Would you rather allow thoughts that fill you with negative emotions, or would you encourage yourself to choose thoughts that fill you with joy, happiness, and creativity? All it takes is for you to pay conscious attention to your mind.

• Management: Ideally, you should eliminate any social app on your phone that serves no specific purpose in your life. The algorithm is so perfectly designed that your willpower stands no chance. It’s easier to cope with their absence than to curb the addiction. If you can’t do away with them, then install some applications that can help you manage your screen time. One app I recommend for this is “One Sec”. What I love about this app is that it creates a gap between the impulse to open an app and when the app opens up. It forces you to take one deep breath, which is going to train the meditative anchor we spoke about earlier. And finally, when it's time for you to do deep work, always put your phone on "Do Not Disturb." Work in time blocks and honor those time blocks. Let nothing disturb your flow state.

  If you do everything discussed in this article, I guarantee that you are going to develop superhuman focus by the end of the year.

  Feel free to reply with any questions or comments you have.

I elaborated on this even further on YouTube. This was my first time making an explainer video. Thanks to the Twitter fam for putting me up to it. Now I think we might stick with it for the rest of the year. Looking forward to your comments. Watch it below:

Go hard on your dreams. Go easy on yourself.

Stay Inspired

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