This is my debut article in CCI and it gives me an immense pleasure on presenting it to you all. The mechanism of doing a fully focused study is what a major concern for many of the aspirants who pursue a professional course. Here we will discuss about the ways to eliminate the distractions we come across while studying and to make a concentrated study.
How concentration is important?
Concentration adds value to any work we do. It determines the ultimate quality of the work been done. From my point of view, it is the concentration level which is the foremost aspect which determines the performance of a student in a professional course than any other. It can make or break the result which a student might get in an exam. To cite you a case, let us make a self analysis that everybody of us would have been in an exam hall. At examination, irrespective of the level of our knowledge and preparation we have the optimum concentration every minute we sit there due to high pressure conditions and we can hardly afford to get distracted. That amount of concentration is necessary, not just on the exam hall but from the very first moment we start our preparation and throughout its progress. This article aims at that.
What happens when we actually sit to study?
Let us assume, a student, with having three months to exam, in his so called preparation leave, sits to study (say “Portfolio Management”) at 10.00A.M on a fine day. A guy at the roadside starts his bike and accelerates. Our student couldn’t resist it and peeps out of the window and watches him speeding off. Now let us observe the chain of thoughts which goes through his mind.
“My God! He does this every morning. Just with a 125cc bike he shows off this much. Ha ha!! Poor guy! He doesn’t know I have a 220cc rocket – ah!! How good is my bike!! – The risk of two stock portfolio is – Hmmm but I have a red color bike, Black would have been even cooler – Oops I made my booking late, Black ones never loses its demand – Markowitz theory says – which is the new arrival in the market? The next time I book a bike it must really be a black one” …and it goes on and on and the time is 12.30. And further information is available that our student goes through a many wonderful study sessions like this. And result? Well, it’s up to your best judgment!
The Zero Distraction Mechanism:
With this scenario many of us struggle to stay focused while studying and we end up wasting a huge amount of time unutilized which leads to frustration. “Love the subjects you study! You can concentrate well!”, “Show more interest!” “PRESUME you are doing your most favorite thing, you will focus easily” Dozens of advices like these flood us every time when we seek for concentration techniques. But I did not find this practically working. Subjects are no NFS or Harry Potter so that we naturally love and focus. Unfortunately SFM and ISCA are what they actually are. Nevertheless here are the ways which is all required to reduce our distraction levels to zero every time when we study. Perseverance and utmost honesty is inevitable for this method to work. It goes as,
1. Sit for a study session as normally as how you do.
2. Apart from the regular study materials, you take a white paper and a red color pen alongside. Let us name it as “Distraction Sheet”.
3. Distractions never happen with our permission. 99.99% we get diverted without our own notice. (Not to blame anyone. Our mental system is such that.) Therefore every time when you come to notice that you have gone out of track you make a red mark (say like this ‘-‘ ) in your distraction sheet. This ensures that your every ‘distraction and come back’ is actually recorded.
4. It is advisable to break apart every study session separately in your distraction sheet.
5. Now, after your first study session your distraction sheet may be full of red marks. It may be discouraging at first, but if you stick to this method honestly and proceed with the same perseverance, it can be assured that the red marks in the sheet will be gradually declining and on some day you may finish a full study session with the sheet as white as how it was.
The very reason behind the assurance is that once when the picture of the sheet with full of marks gets registered, the alarm system of our human brain starts working from that and increases the caution levels and it starts working on its own and we need not push ourselves towards the topic we study. It actually pulls us.
Quality comes first:
No matter how many hours the books were in our hand; it is the quality of preparation which actually counts. If we are efficient enough to be with books for 10-12 hrs a day, we should be equally effective enough to make that study a qualitative one. Ensure you add value to every minute of your preparation. Things like self confidence; high morale naturally spring out when we stay focused and when the exam nears we will always be in the comfort zone.
Hope this article is useful and thanks for making me share this with you.
Regards
Hareesh Iyer
CAclubindia
