The Art of Concentration

My career in education has spanned over fourteen years, it would be natural to assume that I've become an expert in maintaining concentration. I'm going to be honest, the reality of the situation is that I often find myself staring at the blank wall, completely forgetting I had very important work to get done and staring at the mass of papers on my cork board is doing nothing to help. I think it's fair to assume most of us are like this. In the world of technology their are millions of distractions just coming from one tiny machine - our phone. (or in my case the wall which is neither new or as interesting as social media). 

A few weeks ago, I sat in a 'tips for revision session', not going to lie, I was excited for this session. Yes it was aimed at students three years younger than me but skills can be transferred across the years. The only downside? The person running this session graduated university in 1997. Now, this is where everything went wrong. If you want to give students tips on how to concentrate don't relate the stories back to your educational career because I can guarantee your experience was very different to what we are going through now. Adults like to do this fun thing where they insist that "we have it much better now" "exams were so much harder in our day". First of all: Don't listen to these people. They are wrong and misguided. Education isn't easier, it's just different. We are more aware that students learn differently and that education cannot be streamlined. Education has become more fair and inclusive. Nevertheless, someone who graduated UNIVERSITY in 1997 (aka 19 years ago) should not be telling me how to revise without getting distracted by my friends wanting to hang out, because you don't even have to leave your room now to talk to your friends. How anti-social. Needless to say this session was a bit of a disappointment.

I definitely believe university has developed my ability to independently learn. The reality of the situation is if I didn't do everything independently I wouldn't be learning very much. So here are a few tips I've found that help me study:

Tea.

A good cup of tea is the way to prepare the mind for studying. Or something like that. Personally, making a cup of tea is a good way to start doing your work. Make a cup, set it down at your desk, open up the computer and your ready to get started. It's also an excellent break time activity. Want to stop working for five minutes? Make a cup of tea. You leave your work station, move around a bit, and you hopefully get to chat with another human, if your near an animal you probably get to give that a cuddle. When I'm revising I drink so much tea it might be unhealthy, but I always find tea helps in every situation. (Obviously tea doesn't have to be the drink of choice)

Environment

Usually, I work at my desk in my room but recently (as mentioned in the starting paragraph) I've found myself getting distracted whilst sat at my desk. As problematic as this is (because I quite like my university room), I have found other areas that are great for working. For some reason this term I've found our living room a really good place to work in. In fact, I'm writing this in my lounge. Another good place is the library. Specifically the library in the evening after dinner. I sometimes spend two or three hours there in the evening and then come back to the flat, feeling extremely productive and then I feel happy to spend the rest of the night watching Netflix or hanging out with my flatmates. Obviously, wherever you chose to work, I've found my space has to be tidy. A messy work space is so inconvenient and distracting. Tidiness is the key thing here. Work in a tidy area and everything will be fine. 

                                                                                      Destroy Social Media. 

No, do not study in something that looks like this

Okay this is a bit dramatic but seriously. I have not perfected the "don't go on social media when working thing" but I'm trying. Just don't go on it. Tumblr is a dangerous thing and you can scroll mindlessly for hours and not notice. Just don't.

Breaks

Don't work for hours straight. just don't. Do you remember the tea thing? Yeah go make a drink or get a biscuit. Or lie on your floor for ten minutes and contemplate life. Whatever you want to do, go do it. For my birthday my friend gave me a colouring book which will be my break time activity for revision. The moment you start to feel tired and bored? Move away from your work. It will feel as if you're wasting time by taking breaks but you will work for much longer. Sometimes as a break I change study locations. I move from my flat to the library. That's a decent fifteen minute walk. 

                                                                                       Music

Doesn't this look so much better wow. 

Do you listen to music or not? To be honest I have no idea. I usually listen to music just because I find silence very distracting. But at the same time I do turn my music off because I need to concentrate in silence. Science probably has something to do with this. Spotify is great thing and I 100% reccomend downloading it, playing a playlist with unknown music is a great way to concentrate because you don't know the songs and you can find new artists. Multi-tasking right there. 

Friends

From past experience I've found studying with friends often results in conversation and no work. So at university I've just avoided it completely, unless we go to the quiet areas in the library because then there is no way for us to talk. 

Snacks

A good biscuit or grape is a good way to go here. If we're talking about food in general, plan to have really exciting food for lunch and dinner. That way you have something to look forward to. 

Stationary

I love a good set of stationary, nothing gets me more excited to be honest. Just have nice pens and notebooks. it will make everything look and feel better. 

Time and Perspective

It's like time is slipping through my fingers. The moments between September and March feel like nothing at all. I'm desperately trying to press pause, just to get everything to slow down so that I can keep up. It's like I'm constantly in a crowd of thousands. They're bustling and pushing and rushing for no reason at all. But the reality of the situation is that I'm sat with maybe five people in a very large room but I can't seem to focus. Autopilot is activated and I don't know how to stop it.

I look back to August, when I lived in the town that had been my home for eighteen years. Everything was the same and it was so frustrating. The streets used to have me longing for something different and new. I wanted to get out and do something exciting. I now look back and feel fear. I wanted this change and wanted it to happen now. Well it is now. Now everything around me is different but also nothing has changed. I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for. What I have now is 'it' but it also isn't 'it'. I don't even know what 'it' is. I feel both overwhelmed and underwhelmed.

Writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story describing his two selves. I can't help but relate. It's as if there are two of me, the person everyone see's and then the thoughts inside my head that just can't belong to the same individual. People throw around adjectives and I just can't connect them. The string is broken, frayed and torn. And then I remember that society teaches girls to think negatively about themselves and maybe I'm just a product of that teaching. I know it's wrong but 18 years of practice and I should almost be perfect. Everything is fine really, but I sometimes lose myself and its like I've returned back to 2010. I think I know who the 'real' me is but I also think I'm taking this way too seriously.

I'm trying to outgrow the 'looking negatively at life' thing but watching others live with closed minds and narrow hearts tires me out. Watching people who've grown up with so much more than I have, and have had so many benefits to their life but still can't see the positive in situations is exhausting.

I'm slowly realising that trying to get these people to think differently is futile.

The negative mindset is addictive and dangerous. But then again reminding yourself that no matter how hard life feels, being alive is amazing and exciting can't be so difficult. Or maybe the ability to separate one's self from a situation and evaluate it is a skill I'm taking for granted. Maybe a little more human understanding is in order.

I've learned that most things are mind over matter. The mind tends to overreact and exaggerate everything. Time moves whether you want it to and something that caused life to look so bleak and dark will hopefully turn into light one day. No matter how much I look back to August, I don't really want to be back there. And although it absolutely terrifies me, the speed at which my life is travelling is exciting. It means I have to get things done before my time here runs out.

I'm almost a year older, and although I wrote a letter to my younger self last year, I can already see differences between that author and the person writing this today.

Time is strange, but perspective is even stranger.