Focus

Focus is an important part of learning because it makes everything else more efficient. Distractions are costly to the brain, making you work less efficiently, for shorter periods of time, and less creatively¹. There is literally a biological cost for switching contexts, which I find really cool. It is harder to learn when you do not focus. One reason not given in a book, but from my understanding of neuroscience from livewired is that focus makes it easier for your brain to identify what it needs to change in order to attain its [[goals]].

Focusing can be done in the environment by reducing the amount of noise. (Noise in this case can be audio noise, but it can also be things like having your environment be a mess, there being some distracting stimuli, etc.).

Another part of this chapter is [[arousal|arousal]]. It is important have the proper arousal for the task at hand. When you need to be [[Creativity|creative]], arousal needs to be low. This is because you need to think more and have your attention drift to other parts of your brain so you can come up with a creative solution to the problem. On the contrary. working on things that require less thinking and more straightforward solutions often benefit from higher arousal because it staves off boredom.

Advice to conquer [[Procrastination|procrastination]] is to have a "warm-up" [[Routine|routine]] so that your brain gets into the habit of focusing and allows you to get started. If, after getting started it is difficult to continue, the [[pomodoro-technique]] is a way to train your brain to stay focus for longer that works.

A final note about focus is that it is not an infinite resource, the longer you need to focus the harder it becomes and the more you lose focus, by taking short breaks it allows you to regain your focus and be [[productivity|productive]] again.

Footnotes

1. [[deep-work]] ↩