Hey guys, what do you think about this framework for thinking about focus? Does it reflect your experience or no? I wanted to try something different and build a solution to the question from the ground up (roughly speaking). Keep in mind that I am using a hedonic frame of reference or lens (to use a term I’ve used in other videos) here. I feel that looking at the problem of focusing through this lens gives the user a relatively comprehensive and flexible mental model. This framework can also be scaled up to include multiple people which is why I think it is so powerful. Imagine that you run a company of 10 people, and you ask yourself: how can I make everyone more focused? You can use the same model. Start by reducing stressors (black holes): hiring people who are not toxic, giving fair wages, etc. Anyways, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you use a different model for focus? Let me know. Thanks for watching! - Justin
Freedom in Thought do you have a specific point system? I'm thinking of adding priority points to my day plan template, if it weren't for the concern of over thinking and spending too much time in that blissful state of planning.
Not hiring toxic people will in a way push them somewhere where they will have more bad influence, because their toxicity won't be recognized. Better to hire and keep them in check or even help them. But yeah, that's just theory :D I probably wouldn't be that strong to do so myself.
I prefer "Freedom Will" concept. This concept original came from an article I read related to Immanuel Kant (philosopher) (I believe, but I'm not sure). This is what "Freedom Will" means (I simplify it to make it simple) : 1. Your outside "action" (what your body real action) might driven by your Will (in your mind), or other reason (in your mind too). I will keep explaining more about this below. 2. An "aim" is an objective existence thing, it is anything you can do. It can be finish your collage degree, get a dream job, winning a trophy, anything, but it is objective thing, doesn't necessary to be good or bad. 3. If your Will (the state you intend to do something) is driven by other reason than the "aim" itself, your Will "is not freedom", because the thing controlling your Will is not that aim, but those "third party" reason, your Will is not driven by the aim itself. 4. If your Will (the state you intend to do something) is driven by the "aim" itself, your Will is freedom, what your Will want to do is just getting that aim done, nothing else, not by any other "third party" reason. Actually in this state, "your will is the aim itself", your Will "is freedom", to make your Will freedom, your will has to be the aim itself. At the same time your final outside action will affect by this Freedom Will too, not by other reason. For example, you turn on the TV when you are meant to study. The outside "action" is turn on the TV, your "Will" "is not freedom", because watching TV is not your "aim" (you don't watch TV because you aim to watch TV itself, unless watching TV is your aim, e.g. you know your brain need to relax after 3 hours studying, you force yourself to watch it), you watch it because other reason - you want to fill up the satisfaction and joy. The way to achieve this "Freedom Will" is to BE RATIONAL as possible, no matter when, where, what. And I want to mention another thing, "Freedom Will" is not identical to Willpower, for example "I CAN'T eat candy now" vs "I DON'T eat candy now", the former one is by using Willpower to achieve the aim, which get depleted at the end of the day, but the latter one is by using Freedom Will, which might be more powerful.
Summary: 0. Be stress free, destress. Try meditation. 1. Prioritize tasks, create priority list, score each task and should add up to 100. 2. Allocate 80% time on long term gains and 20% on short term. Take breaks for short term stuff. 3. Create Not-ToDo list EVERY DAY. 4. Tasks that are directly fun are more easier to focus; job vs video game. 5. Set time limit for work session, it keeps you on toes and motivated.
Watching the first 30 seconds of this video made me realize that I wasn't focusing and I went back to finishing whatever I was previously working on. Very efficient and effective.
One sign of good speaker is passing information in concise & punchy manner. This was the total opposite. I personally do not have time listening 16 minutes about fucking robots.
This is some real awesome stuff, even for some struggling with attention deficit problems. Sometimes there's nothing 'wrong' with how we are, we just need to learn new ways of managing ourselves. And for that purpose, this video is phenomenal.
exactly what i needed! the internet can be such a distracting place and focus seems to become rarer and rarer... i use youtube to get more people interested in my business, but often times i end up being side-tracked while working on my content. this is definitely something i need to work on...
I used to be first in class in high school, but for the past 2 years I've been able to focus on school work unless i pull an allnighter for the exam next day. It feels like I've forgot how to concentrate, how to study...
"Sometimes, the students who perform the best are the ones that are the most stress-free and not the ones that are the most intelligent." Now you know how to improve your test scores.
as a hippie going through an existential crisis as to whether or not putting in this work matters or not, I found this highly profound. kudos to you mayne
I feel ya. “What’s the point” Well what I’ve learned from trying that hat on, is that the discomfort of not living a purposeful isn’t worth it. The feelings that come with a checked out mentality, are brutal. Even incorporated prescription drugs to try to maintain a voluntarily loser mindset. Didn’t work for me.
You touch on a good point.. where do we consciously focus.. due to our memory we act consciously towards what we think will maximize our desired emotional state.. but we dont have to.. its very limiting to only focus on known patterns.. we even put these learned responses so deep into our behaviors that they become second nature.. or unconscious.. this is a terrible shame as we loose the ability to act according to new situations.. we project old situations onto new situations out of habit..as your trying to point out very correctly,, we should always be searching to get the balance of what we remember and looking for new possibilities.. trying to see things in different ways..
Increasing Focus Requires Practice, and Practice makes Perfect, or should I say Perfect Practice makes Perfect. If you practice the wrong way than you're only ingraining bad habit, I see this video a guide on how to practice increasing my focus, it teaches me which way to practice, but it's by no means a supplement to practice. 👍
My teacher likes to say "Practice makes Permanent" i.e. you'll become really good at doing the thing you practiced, the way you practiced it, but if you practice incorrectly, you'll become really good at doing the task badly.
This has easily become one of my fave channels around here. I've also listened to the podcast. Keep up the good work. I really love your format! Still waiting for the new podcast though.
I agree, with a few caveats. First off, one person might find an activity incredibly enjoyable while another person might completely detest the same activity . And second, some activities can provide both short term and long term pleasure. Those are the best things to engage in.
Your videos are so great. You where my first subscribes along time ago. But now I come back and see these great videos that add great value to my mind set. Dude you have no idea how good this is. Keep it up man, until people are smart enough to value your videos and what you are sharing.
Even though I am a youtuber myself, I rarely subscribe to any channel, rarely post comments, rarely click like and rarely activate notifications for a channel. Well, your channel and particularly this video is one of the exceptions. That's what I've been learning and telling people about in the last 18 months or so... You approached the topic really well. My goal is to be able to make videos with the same quality for my channel... It will take a lot of work but when I get there I hope to be able to spread this message to as many people as possible. Thanks a lot for another great video and when I sign up to Brilliant it will be through your link.
as someone with ADHD, having this fine of a control over my focus, and switching between generalized focus and narrow focus on demand is almost impossible
Agreed, have you tried choosing your 3 item for the day that NEED to be done and only focus on those. If you can try whittle it down to one primary focus for the day, In terms of getting into focus. I start with a 5min timer. then incremently notch that focus time up 5mins a time as a progressively switch over into a more focused mindset. Also with adhd, stay away from all the high stimulus breaks(social media, videos, games), that stuff will suck you in and you have little to no regulation on how to pull yourself out of it because adhd favors the short term rewards over the long term on a neurological level, it has little to do with discipline or motivation. Coming from an ADHD person myself, its really difficult but take the time to research productivity systems, methods and techniques, its not a one shoe fits all but its better to iteratively try new things that just resign yourself to being out of control. Its a journey but you can definately incrementally train yourself and develop a system that works around your neurodiversity.
@@lukehereart Wow thank you - that was very encouraging. As I've been getting older - I've found that developing systems and forming habits around those systems has been the key for me to move past my limitations. It seems like such a subtle and silly thing, but in retrospect, it really does make a difference. An important step in improving (for anyone - not just someone with ADHD) has been self-awareness - and the more I've come to know myself the more I can tailor systems that work for me and the more I'm able to recognize the pitfalls that I have and consciously act towards ways of avoiding them. I definitely still struggle with avoiding highly stimulating activities, to the point where it definitely interferes with my job but I can say I'm definitely better at it than I was 5 years ago. Since the time I made this original comment I went from a couch-surfing drug addict college dropout to a sober, well-paid software engineer living independently - So to anyone else who is reading this and is facing similar challenges - I promise there is hope - and even the smallest improvements can accumulate and snowball into something life-changing over time.
tip: any time you have a distracting thought or random idea you want to explore/google/look into, write it down on a post it note. by the end of your revision period you'll have a list of things you're finally allowed to look into - this means you don't waste time looking at it during revision but you also don't forget what it was you wanted to look into
I have been doing Pomodoro for a few years now but have been learning about the 80/20 list. I'll start incorporating that into my daily routine. It will give me a clear-cut idea of what I need to get done and what pleasures I can indulge in with my remaining time. The quitting time is another that I hadn't thought about. Great in-depth video with many practical points. If anyone is thinking about starting this take it slowly first such as making priority lists than gradually building to Pomodoro and blocks of time for work.
Brilliant video! It does makes a lot of sense after all. I'm constantly finding myself battling against my urge to procrastinate and making efficient use of my time. I've been working of my list of "best practices", but still find myself failing in following them at times. I realised the reason why I've been failing while watching this video. It's mainly because some of the ideas outlined in the video were missing in my routing (like not-do-to-list, restricting time for short-term pleasures, point-prioritising my activities). They need to be there to complement our routines. Thanks for taking the time to produce this quality material. God bless.
SUMMARY: Why we can't focus & their Solutions: 1. Stress ___ SOL: Limit Stress In your Life) 2. Doing Things We Dislike ___ SOL: Extrinsic pleasures are hard to focus, so chose intrinsic pleasurable work) 3. Constantly Seeking SHORT-TERM Pleasure ___ SOL: HABIT#1: Implementation of these three habits No1: Meditation, No2: Deep Work, No3: Not to do List HABIT#2: Controlled Injection of Pleasure(4 Practices) Practice#1: Controlling MEdia( carefully select times when you check social media, watch movie etc.) Practice#2: Have a Quitting Time( after it no more work) Practice#3: Blocks of Work( structure period of intense focus followed by breaks. ex. promodoro) Practice#4: Priority List( all activity should add up to a total score of 100, follow 80-20 rule: 80% time long term pleasure & 20% short term PLeasure) I watched a lot of how to focus videos, but it's one of best that's why I wrote the summary. HOPE THIS HELPS.
Reason not to focus: 6:28 Stress 7:36 Doing things we dislike => Find intrinsic pleasure 9:25 Seek short-term pleasures => Abstain seeking habit: - Meditation => Stay calm - Deep work - Create a Not-to-do list => Inject a controlled amount of short-term pleasures: - Control media - Quitting time - Blocks of work (pomodoro...) - Priority list (score the priority)
Practice makes Perfect, or should I say Perfect Practice makes Perfect. If you practice the wrong way than you're only ingraining bad habit, I see this video a guide on how to practice increasing my focus, it teaches me which way to practice, but it's by no means a supplement to practice. 👍
It is a flimsy metaphor from the outset to make human attention span akin to that of an AI. Humans tire and their attention wanes; robots do not. What's more, to suggest the key to better focus is just to do whatever pleases us is also pretty unsatisfactory. By definition, we can't suddenly enjoy things which are intrinsically unenjoyable e.g. "Wow, I enjoy doing my tax returns soooo much." You're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly have a burning passion to do homework or wash dishes. Learning to suddenly love tasks which are, by their very nature, boring is like waiting for a ship at the airport. Secondly, simply being free from stress doesn't guarantee focus either. If anything, being under no stress at all encourages the mind to wander even more easily. You're under no duress to think critically or focus on anything so why would your mind waste the resources? Their is nothing to encourage you to do otherwise. When you have all the time at your leisure, what urgency, what need is there that something in particular requires your undivided attention? Abstaining completely from pleasure isn't just impossible but also an exercise in self-harm in the long term. Unlike the robots in your analogy, Humans fail, tire, grow despondent, unhappy, need sustenance...etc. Robots, however, will continue doing whatever job they are programmed to indefinitely without fatigue or complaint. Humans are not robots. Attention, like any skill or faculty, must be trained if it's going to improve and therefore needs time and deliberate effort. Nothing worthwhile will happen overnight. Like any faculty, one needs exercises and regimes to train them and then simply the consistency to do them regularly. From my own experience, the conclusion that doing what I've always done gave me what I've always gotten and that "if nothing changes now, when will it?" are instrumental in changing old habits. I particularly like the ideas of the "Not to do list" and "Priority List" , I'm gonna try them out and see what results I get.
Understanding can suddenly lead to a burning passion for something previously boring so I wouldnt agree that suddenly enjoying things that had been intrinsically unenjoyable. For me, focus has always been about cursiosity and understanding. Stress is just a factor that can be positive and negative as different situations require different levels and types of focus and actions (e.g. Playing football vs. Solving equations). Generally, i focus most easily and effectively when a task is fun and challenging, so instead of writing "Not to do lists" I just focus on having fun before I start with any task that requires active focusing. If that doesn´t work for some reason, I artificially increase the difficulty to force my brain to focus. I agree that the human behavior is not easily compareable with AI behavior as we don´t have indicators telling us the exact input and output values relevant to solving a problem, but understanding the differences leads to a gain in knowledge which will automatically have an impact on your future behavior as it changes your neural network. Since humans wrote the code AI will contain some human attributes, but that does not make robots stuffed with AI human-like. Which is good, because they are built to be great at everything humans can´t efficiently do. Obviously, robots do not tire like humans do, but their memory and processing capabilities decrease over long periods too until the system is reset (e.g. full ram), further robots do not work indefinitely as they need regular maintenance and updates that they are yet unable to do autonomously. So while AI robots might run longer and are better at self-evaluation, humans are better at intuition and directing focus dynamically to match conscious or unconscious thought- and behavior patterns to the environment. AI is just not able to understand the environment without being told to and how in the first place by the programmer, which makes modern AI practically less intelligent than ants. But just like AI humans need several tries to optimize the inputs to reach any desired output repeatedly as the neural network saves information in its structure directly so it can be reused to improve the inputs - which is why it can be frustrating to watch toddlers fail at tasks that adults would perceive as easy, they just miss all the knowledge adults gained from failing (such as: "Abstaining completely from pleasure isn't just impossible but also an exercise in self-harm in the long term.").
Thank You so much! I needed this. Also* I worked with classmates that had laser sharp focus. Students with laser sharp focus would set their eyes to focus on the item they want to focus on.
9:50 I disagree. Maintaining directed focus is, in my opinion, the most rewarding and pleasurable way to spend your life, when done deliberately. Having the ABILITY to step back and make changes to better fit your interests is important, but to train yourself to live in the moment, or in a flow state, is a blissful way to live. That's sort of what Taoist philosophy points to. Living in your senses, free of anxiety, without overcomplicating things.
this was the best video about focusing .thank you.i don't get the negative comments about how long the video was and analogy of the robot.it was a great analogy.Keep posting videos
Focus is definitely decreasing in our society, and if you have the ability to concentrate to do deep productive work that can't be automated, then you most likely have the best chance at being successful.
I engaged in the pomodoro technique today for the very first time. I didn't know it was a legit thing until watching this video. I honestly did it because it felt peaceful and relaxing. Today will be the first of many days that I break my habit of procrastinate in 2 weeks of commencing third year uni. Last semester really awful, my meds made me depressed and droopy and I an willing to do my very best I know I have it in me. I've been searching for a study technique for about 4 semester now. Better to learn later than not at all.
I often struggle with focusing on tasks that I don't like. This video has been so insightful and easy to understand. I feel motivated to get back to work now. Thank you so much!
The video is great. I was reluctant to spend 16 minutes watching but the production quality encouraged me. I played it twice as fast and I spent 8 minutes ... Still a lot of time for a video. I would recommend you to speak faster and develop your ideas in shorter terms. Examples are good but they shouldn't make your video longer than 10 minutes. Other than that, thank you your content is amazing and gave me a couple good concept to apply in my life. Keep it up. Subscribed.
Nelson Barbosa i agree with what you said. Great value , contain and quality. But too long so i watch 8 min the day before and 8 min the day after. XD i love this channel because of it quality not quantity. It has good research.
I remember when I decided to get serious about my schoolwork. I thought that RUclips, Video games, Movies etc were the things distracting me, so I put them all away for a month so that I could focus on school. The result was that instead of watching movies/playing video games 5 hours a day, I instead spent 5 hours doing nothing, reading boring predictable news, taking excessively long with my coffee or making small trips etc. Basically, I found the cause of my procrastination was not the pull of distractions such as movies or video games, but rather it was my utter distaste for schoolwork in general that pushed me away from it and made me come up with basically every possible excuse to avoid it, even doing boring activities. I solved the problem eventually not through any attempt at abstinence, but rather constantly forced myself to work & trying to tell my brain repeatedly that schoolwork could actually be enjoyable till it became more of a habit. Apparently it was not so much the distractions of modern day(which I'm good at ignoring), but rather an intense dislike of schoolwork that had carried with me from childhood that I had to deal with. Things will become ridiculously easy once you are actually capable of enjoying them.
Amazing job! You were very through in your video and didn't use absolutes (like you have to do this if you want to win) or make it click bait. Your voice is also so calming! You sound like the type of person I would want as a friend!
Bro this is by far your best video, and you have a bunch of great videos. It's detailed and completely relevant. This is exactly what I have be looking for. So thank you and keep up the good work.
In fact, this video shows you how to build the function you need to maximize your pleasure. Once you "code" yourself the right way in order to do that, you'll have a non mathematical but logical function that aplies to you.
Dan K that certainly is a common pattern that has been around for centuries, but I think its a bit ignorant to say that its the only way of achieving happiness, and to imply that it always works.
I think I spend too much time watching random youtube videos, honestly about 4-5 hours daily. I don't think that it is exactly maximizing "pleasure", but then again, if I did not do it, I would never have found this video and thought about this
well made video, however I there is a mistake when you were talking about breaks during the pomodoro tehnique. When you are doing deep work with intense focus for 25 min and then take a break, during those 5 min you must not mindlessly browse the web or the use the phone at all. During the break your brain must rest and looking at instagram or fb on your phone is still straining your thought process and it only solidifies bad habbits that. Look into Tristan Harris's work about influences that tehnology has on our brain. www.timewellspent.io/. For me the best work/rest combo is 60 min of work then 10 min of just resting, or taking a bathroom break or go somehting to eat. No checking phone or social media until later at night.
Over about a half a year of wasting time I've come across a similar set of ideas. However there is a interesting self-loathing problem that occurs. I tried to think of those kinds of ideas to improve my 'productivity', but there is a short term desire in those moments of 'break' from procrastination that tells me to stop thinking and just go ahead and work, after a few days I end up coming back to my time wasting routine. It requires quite a lot of effort to find out about ideas that would help one apply that effort towards a goal, so, focus. This video is a good reference. I've been failing at that kind of thing, so any useful, and moreover, such well sorted info is a god mine for a right kind of mind.
I can see that, if you're passionate about the topic then it's definitely much easier to have motivation to get stuff done and write papers, I guess that's why it's so hard to stay motivated for all the required classes in college/high school, because i'm just not interested in the topic at hand. I thought I might ask, what college classes are these essays for exactly? 👍
Jim I’m also doing politics but I like learning it not writing papers on it. You’re lucky you like doing the work I certainly don’t but I love readings
tedious, verbose, and most importantly- off topic. "how can a person focus?" "lets talk about something else" "we find higher stress stuff more interesting" and we find distractions and stuff we engage with more interesting than tedious monologues... *cough* "our robot would never do extrinsically pleasurable things" backwards. it would only do those. it would only see pleasure in those with explicit hard coded values, if you told it to do something without giving a pleasure value, it wouldn't be able to sort it with the rest. seriously this is false advertising.
You could cut out %90 of this video and end up with the same amount of valuable information. Its funny that you made a video so convoluted and time wasting about the ability to focus in a on one thing while simultaneously making this video a bore by just wasting the viewers time with unneeded complex analogies. This is not the way to get people to watch your video.
Directed focus - Directing attention at a single thought or action. A narrowed attention Providing an undivided attention while ignoring environmental stimuli.
Hey guys, what do you think about this framework for thinking about focus? Does it reflect your experience or no? I wanted to try something different and build a solution to the question from the ground up (roughly speaking). Keep in mind that I am using a hedonic frame of reference or lens (to use a term I’ve used in other videos) here. I feel that looking at the problem of focusing through this lens gives the user a relatively comprehensive and flexible mental model.
This framework can also be scaled up to include multiple people which is why I think it is so powerful. Imagine that you run a company of 10 people, and you ask yourself: how can I make everyone more focused? You can use the same model. Start by reducing stressors (black holes): hiring people who are not toxic, giving fair wages, etc.
Anyways, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you use a different model for focus? Let me know. Thanks for watching! - Justin
Freedom in Thought do you have a specific point system? I'm thinking of adding priority points to my day plan template, if it weren't for the concern of over thinking and spending too much time in that blissful state of planning.
How do you know what to prioritize if you are indecisive about the hundred of things you want or would like to do?
Not hiring toxic people will in a way push them somewhere where they will have more bad influence, because their toxicity won't be recognized. Better to hire and keep them in check or even help them. But yeah, that's just theory :D I probably wouldn't be that strong to do so myself.
I prefer "Freedom Will" concept.
This concept original came from an article I read related to Immanuel Kant (philosopher) (I believe, but I'm not sure). This is what "Freedom Will" means (I simplify it to make it simple) :
1. Your outside "action" (what your body real action) might driven by your Will (in your mind), or other reason (in your mind too). I will keep explaining more about this below.
2. An "aim" is an objective existence thing, it is anything you can do. It can be finish your collage degree, get a dream job, winning a trophy, anything, but it is objective thing, doesn't necessary to be good or bad.
3. If your Will (the state you intend to do something) is driven by other reason than the "aim" itself, your Will "is not freedom", because the thing controlling your Will is not that aim, but those "third party" reason, your Will is not driven by the aim itself.
4. If your Will (the state you intend to do something) is driven by the "aim" itself, your Will is freedom, what your Will want to do is just getting that aim done, nothing else, not by any other "third party" reason. Actually in this state, "your will is the aim itself", your Will "is freedom", to make your Will freedom, your will has to be the aim itself. At the same time your final outside action will affect by this Freedom Will too, not by other reason.
For example, you turn on the TV when you are meant to study. The outside "action" is turn on the TV, your "Will" "is not freedom", because watching TV is not your "aim" (you don't watch TV because you aim to watch TV itself, unless watching TV is your aim, e.g. you know your brain need to relax after 3 hours studying, you force yourself to watch it), you watch it because other reason - you want to fill up the satisfaction and joy.
The way to achieve this "Freedom Will" is to BE RATIONAL as possible, no matter when, where, what.
And I want to mention another thing, "Freedom Will" is not identical to Willpower, for example "I CAN'T eat candy now" vs "I DON'T eat candy now", the former one is by using Willpower to achieve the aim, which get depleted at the end of the day, but the latter one is by using Freedom Will, which might be more powerful.
sir can you please tell a way by which one can remove negativity from one's mind.... coz it's affecting my health and studies...plz help..
Summary:
0. Be stress free, destress. Try meditation.
1. Prioritize tasks, create priority list, score each task and should add up to 100.
2. Allocate 80% time on long term gains and 20% on short term. Take breaks for short term stuff.
3. Create Not-ToDo list EVERY DAY.
4. Tasks that are directly fun are more easier to focus; job vs video game.
5. Set time limit for work session, it keeps you on toes and motivated.
ThunderousGlare Thx boi
ThunderousGlare HERO!
Thank you 😊
ThunderousGlare thanks
your forgetting how he differentiated intrinsic and extrinsic pleasure which I thought was pretty usefull
watching this while procrastinating from studying
just start, just take one small step
I know, the irony, me too.
Kyoyin Shirui thanks, ypu just motivated me to start :)
xD
Devzio same broo
When you get unfocused to watch a video about getting focused.
11:01 - Fail! HAHAHA
U got me
AAhahhshshshshshahsh
That’s exactly what I did
but... the long term benefits of this knowledge?
*stares at orange juice cartoon because it says concentrate*
Continual Improvement nice one
Continual Improvement excellent ability to focus.
humaygaaah hahahahahahahhaahhahaha
Classic joke
Wakakakaka
Potentially life changing video
yet probably not...
DrSuperpump the
Exactly...if implemented.
the video is so cool,it was better than what i expected from youtube
Watching the first 30 seconds of this video made me realize that I wasn't focusing and I went back to finishing whatever I was previously working on. Very efficient and effective.
*the main part* of the video
starts at 10:10
PLANET Thank you so very much! I almost missed getting great information! :)
Nicole Lacy Welcome! 😊
Thanks.
@Ethan Nelson , Welcome!
Thanks a lot PLANET!
For someone with ADHD, this example lost my focus pretty quickly...
Slim Kilam
Excuses
then start your hyperfocus, and become obsessed, either focus or don't lol
Slim Kilam iiiikko
Slim Kilam read "faster than normal" by peter shankman.. good stuff
One sign of good speaker is passing information in concise & punchy manner. This was the total opposite. I personally do not have time listening 16 minutes about fucking robots.
This is some real awesome stuff, even for some struggling with attention deficit problems. Sometimes there's nothing 'wrong' with how we are, we just need to learn new ways of managing ourselves. And for that purpose, this video is phenomenal.
exactly what i needed! the internet can be such a distracting place and focus seems to become rarer and rarer... i use youtube to get more people interested in my business, but often times i end up being side-tracked while working on my content. this is definitely something i need to work on...
I used to be first in class in high school, but for the past 2 years I've been able to focus on school work unless i pull an allnighter for the exam next day. It feels like I've forgot how to concentrate, how to study...
The aesthetics of your videos are amazing.
"Sometimes, the students who perform the best are the ones that are the most stress-free and not the ones that are the most intelligent."
Now you know how to improve your test scores.
Wow
don't expose me, I'm that one super burned-out gifted kid that is sure to fail school in a span of two years.
I have been viewing productivity videos on RUclips for a while (like half a year) and this was the best of them! Thank you for such a great work.
Your channel is one of the very few which is very dear to my heart.
as a hippie going through an existential crisis as to whether or not putting in this work matters or not, I found this highly profound. kudos to you mayne
I feel ya. “What’s the point”
Well what I’ve learned from trying that hat on, is that the discomfort of not living a purposeful isn’t worth it. The feelings that come with a checked out mentality, are brutal. Even incorporated prescription drugs to try to maintain a voluntarily loser mindset. Didn’t work for me.
4 years later, has your existentialism gone away? Mine has been with me since 15 years (28) and I don’t think it’ll ever go away 🥴😩
You touch on a good point.. where do we consciously focus.. due to our memory we act consciously towards what we think will maximize our desired emotional state.. but we dont have to.. its very limiting to only focus on known patterns.. we even put these learned responses so deep into our behaviors that they become second nature.. or unconscious.. this is a terrible shame as we loose the ability to act according to new situations.. we project old situations onto new situations out of habit..as your trying to point out very correctly,, we should always be searching to get the balance of what we remember and looking for new possibilities.. trying to see things in different ways..
Increasing Focus Requires Practice, and Practice makes Perfect, or should I say Perfect Practice makes Perfect. If you practice the wrong way than you're only ingraining bad habit, I see this video a guide on how to practice increasing my focus, it teaches me which way to practice, but it's by no means a supplement to practice. 👍
My teacher likes to say "Practice makes Permanent" i.e. you'll become really good at doing the thing you practiced, the way you practiced it, but if you practice incorrectly, you'll become really good at doing the task badly.
I really like your videos. I just keep watching them, just because of the animations, the style of your animations are really neat and relaxing.
This has easily become one of my fave channels around here. I've also listened to the podcast. Keep up the good work. I really love your format! Still waiting for the new podcast though.
This is an exceptionally logical and holistic approach, the best I've seen
I agree, with a few caveats.
First off, one person might find an activity incredibly enjoyable while another person might completely detest the same activity .
And second, some activities can provide both short term and long term pleasure. Those are the best things to engage in.
Your videos are so great. You where my first subscribes along time ago. But now I come back and see these great videos that add great value to my mind set. Dude you have no idea how good this is. Keep it up man, until people are smart enough to value your videos and what you are sharing.
Even though I am a youtuber myself, I rarely subscribe to any channel, rarely post comments, rarely click like and rarely activate notifications for a channel. Well, your channel and particularly this video is one of the exceptions. That's what I've been learning and telling people about in the last 18 months or so... You approached the topic really well. My goal is to be able to make videos with the same quality for my channel... It will take a lot of work but when I get there I hope to be able to spread this message to as many people as possible. Thanks a lot for another great video and when I sign up to Brilliant it will be through your link.
Canal do Mundo - Rafachannel y
But you used the word rarely quite often than rarely..
Why do the same as what already exists ? Kinda paradoxical to what you're saying you're about.
as someone with ADHD, having this fine of a control over my focus, and switching between generalized focus and narrow focus on demand is almost impossible
Agreed, have you tried choosing your 3 item for the day that NEED to be done and only focus on those. If you can try whittle it down to one primary focus for the day, In terms of getting into focus. I start with a 5min timer. then incremently notch that focus time up 5mins a time as a progressively switch over into a more focused mindset. Also with adhd, stay away from all the high stimulus breaks(social media, videos, games), that stuff will suck you in and you have little to no regulation on how to pull yourself out of it because adhd favors the short term rewards over the long term on a neurological level, it has little to do with discipline or motivation. Coming from an ADHD person myself, its really difficult but take the time to research productivity systems, methods and techniques, its not a one shoe fits all but its better to iteratively try new things that just resign yourself to being out of control. Its a journey but you can definately incrementally train yourself and develop a system that works around your neurodiversity.
@@lukehereart Wow thank you - that was very encouraging. As I've been getting older - I've found that developing systems and forming habits around those systems has been the key for me to move past my limitations. It seems like such a subtle and silly thing, but in retrospect, it really does make a difference. An important step in improving (for anyone - not just someone with ADHD) has been self-awareness - and the more I've come to know myself the more I can tailor systems that work for me and the more I'm able to recognize the pitfalls that I have and consciously act towards ways of avoiding them.
I definitely still struggle with avoiding highly stimulating activities, to the point where it definitely interferes with my job but I can say I'm definitely better at it than I was 5 years ago.
Since the time I made this original comment I went from a couch-surfing drug addict college dropout to a sober, well-paid software engineer living independently - So to anyone else who is reading this and is facing similar challenges - I promise there is hope - and even the smallest improvements can accumulate and snowball into something life-changing over time.
Wow, what a beautiful online exchange! I dig it.
@@tjs200 congrats mate that’s brilliant. I’m a developer myself :)
Please make more podcast. I love your work. You are amazing dude!
I was so focused watching this video my house burned down :(
Chris?
@@habanerojones2169 Tony?
@Blah Bleh Jones?
@@megans5566 Habanero?
@Blah Bleh Blah?
This channel Is like a gold mine . Love the simplicity and the value you give in each video.💯💯🔥🔥🔑
Thank you so much for your videos. I have recently started college with ADHD and your videos help me a lot. Please keep doing what you're doing.
Holy crap this is such a loaded video!! it's like all the personal development videos I've watched this year COMBINED! Brilliant content!!
tip: any time you have a distracting thought or random idea you want to explore/google/look into, write it down on a post it note. by the end of your revision period you'll have a list of things you're finally allowed to look into - this means you don't waste time looking at it during revision but you also don't forget what it was you wanted to look into
I have been doing Pomodoro for a few years now but have been learning about the 80/20 list. I'll start incorporating that into my daily routine. It will give me a clear-cut idea of what I need to get done and what pleasures I can indulge in with my remaining time. The quitting time is another that I hadn't thought about.
Great in-depth video with many practical points. If anyone is thinking about starting this take it slowly first such as making priority lists than gradually building to Pomodoro and blocks of time for work.
You are a great human being. Thanks for inspiring me with every video.
Brilliant video! It does makes a lot of sense after all. I'm constantly finding myself battling against my urge to procrastinate and making efficient use of my time. I've been working of my list of "best practices", but still find myself failing in following them at times. I realised the reason why I've been failing while watching this video. It's mainly because some of the ideas outlined in the video were missing in my routing (like not-do-to-list, restricting time for short-term pleasures, point-prioritising my activities). They need to be there to complement our routines. Thanks for taking the time to produce this quality material. God bless.
SUMMARY:
Why we can't focus & their Solutions:
1. Stress
___ SOL: Limit Stress In your Life)
2. Doing Things We Dislike
___ SOL: Extrinsic pleasures are hard to focus, so chose intrinsic pleasurable work)
3. Constantly Seeking SHORT-TERM Pleasure
___ SOL: HABIT#1: Implementation of these three habits
No1: Meditation, No2: Deep Work, No3: Not to do List
HABIT#2: Controlled Injection of Pleasure(4 Practices)
Practice#1: Controlling MEdia( carefully select times when you check social media, watch movie etc.)
Practice#2: Have a Quitting Time( after it no more work)
Practice#3: Blocks of Work( structure period of intense focus followed by breaks. ex. promodoro)
Practice#4: Priority List( all activity should add up to a total score of 100, follow 80-20 rule: 80% time long term pleasure & 20% short term PLeasure)
I watched a lot of how to focus videos, but it's one of best that's why I wrote the summary.
HOPE THIS HELPS.
THIS VIDEO IS JUST AWESOME!!! I'm fully delighted. If I knew all that in high school, I would have done so much better
This is one of the best video on this topic.
You made my day.
Can't thank you enough 👍👌
These videos could help so many kids that grew up poorly. If I had viewed these I could have used my time more wisely in school.
Video is about how to focus intensively but length is too long
Weird
The _New_era I fell asleep watching
Too long didn't read
a lot of unnecessary talking and examples that weren't very good. this video could have been 4 minutes long.
Are you serious?? cant watch a 16-minute video...
Yeah way too long and technical
You are so good at what you're doing. This channel is the only few channels that I love and benefit from. Keep it up!
The education system needs to teach this way. Dear god we would have a much happier population who produce more and improve the world.
Right!
Reason not to focus:
6:28 Stress
7:36 Doing things we dislike => Find intrinsic pleasure
9:25 Seek short-term pleasures
=> Abstain seeking habit:
- Meditation => Stay calm
- Deep work
- Create a Not-to-do list
=> Inject a controlled amount of short-term pleasures:
- Control media
- Quitting time
- Blocks of work (pomodoro...)
- Priority list (score the priority)
Yes with practice anyone can have intense focus 👍
Practice makes Perfect, or should I say Perfect Practice makes Perfect. If you practice the wrong way than you're only ingraining bad habit, I see this video a guide on how to practice increasing my focus, it teaches me which way to practice, but it's by no means a supplement to practice. 👍
Ethan Nelson 👍
Its nice to hear this....i have never watched productivity video for more than 5 min....i was suprised with this one. Straight 16 mins
It is a flimsy metaphor from the outset to make human attention span akin to that of an AI. Humans tire and their attention wanes; robots do not.
What's more, to suggest the key to better focus is just to do whatever pleases us is also pretty unsatisfactory. By definition, we can't suddenly enjoy things which are intrinsically unenjoyable e.g. "Wow, I enjoy doing my tax returns soooo much." You're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly have a burning passion to do homework or wash dishes. Learning to suddenly love tasks which are, by their very nature, boring is like waiting for a ship at the airport.
Secondly, simply being free from stress doesn't guarantee focus either. If anything, being under no stress at all encourages the mind to wander even more easily. You're under no duress to think critically or focus on anything so why would your mind waste the resources? Their is nothing to encourage you to do otherwise. When you have all the time at your leisure, what urgency, what need is there that something in particular requires your undivided attention?
Abstaining completely from pleasure isn't just impossible but also an exercise in self-harm in the long term. Unlike the robots in your analogy, Humans fail, tire, grow despondent, unhappy, need sustenance...etc. Robots, however, will continue doing whatever job they are programmed to indefinitely without fatigue or complaint. Humans are not robots.
Attention, like any skill or faculty, must be trained if it's going to improve and therefore needs time and deliberate effort. Nothing worthwhile will happen overnight. Like any faculty, one needs exercises and regimes to train them and then simply the consistency to do them regularly. From my own experience, the conclusion that doing what I've always done gave me what I've always gotten and that "if nothing changes now, when will it?" are instrumental in changing old habits. I particularly like the ideas of the "Not to do list" and "Priority List" , I'm gonna try them out and see what results I get.
Best comment on here.
Higginz1991 lengthy reply, lost focus half way through
Higginz1991 verbose
Understanding can suddenly lead to a burning passion for something previously boring so I wouldnt agree that suddenly enjoying things that had been intrinsically unenjoyable.
For me, focus has always been about cursiosity and understanding. Stress is just a factor that can be positive and negative as different situations require different levels and types of focus and actions (e.g. Playing football vs. Solving equations). Generally, i focus most easily and effectively when a task is fun and challenging, so instead of writing "Not to do lists" I just focus on having fun before I start with any task that requires active focusing. If that doesn´t work for some reason, I artificially increase the difficulty to force my brain to focus.
I agree that the human behavior is not easily compareable with AI behavior as we don´t have indicators telling us the exact input and output values relevant to solving a problem, but understanding the differences leads to a gain in knowledge which will automatically have an impact on your future behavior as it changes your neural network. Since humans wrote the code AI will contain some human attributes, but that does not make robots stuffed with AI human-like. Which is good, because they are built to be great at everything humans can´t efficiently do. Obviously, robots do not tire like humans do, but their memory and processing capabilities decrease over long periods too until the system is reset (e.g. full ram), further robots do not work indefinitely as they need regular maintenance and updates that they are yet unable to do autonomously.
So while AI robots might run longer and are better at self-evaluation, humans are better at intuition and directing focus dynamically to match conscious or unconscious thought- and behavior patterns to the environment. AI is just not able to understand the environment without being told to and how in the first place by the programmer, which makes modern AI practically less intelligent than ants. But just like AI humans need several tries to optimize the inputs to reach any desired output repeatedly as the neural network saves information in its structure directly so it can be reused to improve the inputs - which is why it can be frustrating to watch toddlers fail at tasks that adults would perceive as easy, they just miss all the knowledge adults gained from failing (such as: "Abstaining completely from pleasure isn't just impossible but also an exercise in self-harm in the long term.").
Robots need oil baths though :)
Thank You so much! I needed this. Also* I worked with classmates that had laser sharp focus. Students with laser sharp focus would set their eyes to focus on the item they want to focus on.
9:50 I disagree. Maintaining directed focus is, in my opinion, the most rewarding and pleasurable way to spend your life, when done deliberately. Having the ABILITY to step back and make changes to better fit your interests is important, but to train yourself to live in the moment, or in a flow state, is a blissful way to live. That's sort of what Taoist philosophy points to. Living in your senses, free of anxiety, without overcomplicating things.
this was the best video about focusing .thank you.i don't get the negative comments about how long the video was and analogy of the robot.it was a great analogy.Keep posting videos
It's kind of ironic how this video distracted me from studying.
But it's for a good cause.
You wouldn't be watching it if you were studying.
Use it
Maaaan!!! you have come a long way ,I remember subscribing to your channel when subscribers were under 1000. Amazing channel :)
Focus is definitely decreasing in our society, and if you have the ability to concentrate to do deep productive work that can't be automated, then you most likely have the best chance at being successful.
Watching these at 2x speed to procrastinate by learning how to stop procrastinating twice as fast
Such a beautiful video, thank you.
I engaged in the pomodoro technique today for the very first time. I didn't know it was a legit thing until watching this video. I honestly did it because it felt peaceful and relaxing. Today will be the first of many days that I break my habit of procrastinate in 2 weeks of commencing third year uni. Last semester really awful, my meds made me depressed and droopy and I an willing to do my very best I know I have it in me. I've been searching for a study technique for about 4 semester now. Better to learn later than not at all.
Amazing job, you have definitely improved... kudos to you
My teacher told me to watch this and it turned out to be a big help
Watching this video gave me the short term pleasure I was seeking... Good graphics and content, but I'm supposed to be writing code.
Hahaha
Quality content, quality audio-visual presentation! Simply beautiful! Keep it up!
Very informative. Great video man.
Pick carefully.
Divineshot 314 happens kn
I often struggle with focusing on tasks that I don't like. This video has been so insightful and easy to understand. I feel motivated to get back to work now. Thank you so much!
I paused my homework to watch this video, soo... I am not very good at this concentrating stuff...
The most honest subscribers!
The video is great. I was reluctant to spend 16 minutes watching but the production quality encouraged me. I played it twice as fast and I spent 8 minutes ... Still a lot of time for a video. I would recommend you to speak faster and develop your ideas in shorter terms. Examples are good but they shouldn't make your video longer than 10 minutes. Other than that, thank you your content is amazing and gave me a couple good concept to apply in my life. Keep it up. Subscribed.
Nelson Barbosa i agree with what you said. Great value , contain and quality. But too long so i watch 8 min the day before and 8 min the day after. XD i love this channel because of it quality not quantity. It has good research.
One of the very very few videos that forced me to give a 'like'.
Potentially life changing video!
8:28 They're smiling but their heart's broken
When you find a good video like this one, watch it twice. Take notes.
Added to Watch Later
Daniel Regassa did you watched watched the video?
I remember when I decided to get serious about my schoolwork.
I thought that RUclips, Video games, Movies etc were the things distracting me, so I put them all away for a month so that I could focus on school.
The result was that instead of watching movies/playing video games 5 hours a day, I instead spent 5 hours doing nothing, reading boring predictable news, taking excessively long with my coffee or making small trips etc.
Basically, I found the cause of my procrastination was not the pull of distractions such as movies or video games, but rather it was my utter distaste for schoolwork in general that pushed me away from it and made me come up with basically every possible excuse to avoid it, even doing boring activities.
I solved the problem eventually not through any attempt at abstinence, but rather constantly forced myself to work & trying to tell my brain repeatedly that schoolwork could actually be enjoyable till it became more of a habit.
Apparently it was not so much the distractions of modern day(which I'm good at ignoring), but rather an intense dislike of schoolwork that had carried with me from childhood that I had to deal with.
Things will become ridiculously easy once you are actually capable of enjoying them.
Huh, I forgot this channel was in my subscriptions.
ezekiel Reiner Leveriza same
Same
ezekiel Reiner Leveriza Begone traitor!
Same here 😂😂
Amazing job! You were very through in your video and didn't use absolutes (like you have to do this if you want to win) or make it click bait. Your voice is also so calming! You sound like the type of person I would want as a friend!
"controlled injection of pleasure"
nope, that's not a euphemism at all guys
...
Use heroin to focus got it
Bro this is by far your best video, and you have a bunch of great videos. It's detailed and completely relevant. This is exactly what I have be looking for. So thank you and keep up the good work.
What if the robot sets the building on fire in order to save people and gain more points ??
Robots are not program to do, they only do fro what they are programmed
That would be equivalent to a high stress environment that you constantly put yourself through. You would most likely literally "burn out"
Great video! The idea of balancing long-term pleasure and short-term pleasure periods is phenomenal!
That moment when you watch videos of "how to focus"or "how to study"
Instead of ACTUALLY studying.
What's wrong with me?!🤦
I felt the negativity of staying unfocused leave me as I watched this video. This is a masterpiece. Thanks for teaching
The irony is that this video is too long to stay focused while watching it.
Believe it or not, for the first time ever i was able to sketch out my routine, thanks to your video. Much Gratitude
There's gotta be a math function to find out how to maximize pleasure within a lifetime.
Clean Toast Haha that would be great...but our lives are too complicated to be boiled down into an equation or function
In fact, this video shows you how to build the function you need to maximize your pleasure. Once you "code" yourself the right way in order to do that, you'll have a non mathematical but logical function that aplies to you.
Dan K that certainly is a common pattern that has been around for centuries, but I think its a bit ignorant to say that its the only way of achieving happiness, and to imply that it always works.
I just found your channel through this video which was way way way better than I expected
I think I spend too much time watching random youtube videos, honestly about 4-5 hours daily. I don't think that it is exactly maximizing "pleasure", but then again, if I did not do it, I would never have found this video and thought about this
This is the best video I have seen in years on many levels
well made video, however I there is a mistake when you were talking about breaks during the pomodoro tehnique. When you are doing deep work with intense focus for 25 min and then take a break, during those 5 min you must not mindlessly browse the web or the use the phone at all. During the break your brain must rest and looking at instagram or fb on your phone is still straining your thought process and it only solidifies bad habbits that. Look into Tristan Harris's work about influences that tehnology has on our brain. www.timewellspent.io/.
For me the best work/rest combo is 60 min of work then 10 min of just resting, or taking a bathroom break or go somehting to eat. No checking phone or social media until later at night.
Over about a half a year of wasting time I've come across a similar set of ideas.
However there is a interesting self-loathing problem that occurs.
I tried to think of those kinds of ideas to improve my 'productivity', but there is a
short term desire in those moments of 'break' from procrastination that tells me
to stop thinking and just go ahead and work, after a few days I end up coming back to my time wasting routine.
It requires quite a lot of effort to find out about ideas that would help one apply that effort towards a goal, so, focus.
This video is a good reference. I've been failing at that kind of thing, so any useful, and moreover, such well sorted info is a god mine for a right kind of mind.
Is it weird that I get pleasure from doing my university essays more than I would from drinking in the university bar?
That is weird, born to be an intellectual I guess. 👍 Well good job for you, I wish I enjoyed writing essays for college classes.
Ethan Nelson Maybe it's just because I really enjoy what I'm studying and I've never liked the whole nightclub atmosphere of uni bars.
I can see that, if you're passionate about the topic then it's definitely much easier to have motivation to get stuff done and write papers, I guess that's why it's so hard to stay motivated for all the required classes in college/high school, because i'm just not interested in the topic at hand. I thought I might ask, what college classes are these essays for exactly? 👍
Jim I’m also doing politics but I like learning it not writing papers on it. You’re lucky you like doing the work I certainly don’t but I love readings
Dan exactly. Honestly school makes learning pretty boring when it can otherwise be fun.
Final 5 minutes are life changing
Cool infos in addictive videos = FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 😎⚡
Give me more !!
One of your best videos my man!!! It really helps me structure my life better... Keep up the good work and I also love your Instagram quotes! :)
tedious, verbose, and most importantly- off topic.
"how can a person focus?"
"lets talk about something else"
"we find higher stress stuff more interesting" and we find distractions and stuff we engage with more interesting than tedious monologues... *cough*
"our robot would never do extrinsically pleasurable things" backwards. it would only do those. it would only see pleasure in those with explicit hard coded values, if you told it to do something without giving a pleasure value, it wouldn't be able to sort it with the rest.
seriously this is false advertising.
A very underrated channel
One word: Modafinil
Светослав Славов lol, maybe
I loved the priority list idea! And intro to Brilliant. Thank you for sharing
You could cut out %90 of this video and end up with the same amount of valuable information. Its funny that you made a video so convoluted and time wasting about the ability to focus in a on one thing while simultaneously making this video a bore by just wasting the viewers time with unneeded complex analogies. This is not the way to get people to watch your video.
Taylor Bryan You completely misunderstood the video. How in the world is the analogy complex? If I had to be honest, it was fairly simple tbh
I have only recently subscribed to your channel and it's been a great help in getting my life together and improving myself. Thank you!
These videos are candy for my soul.
Directed focus - Directing attention at a single thought or action.
A narrowed attention Providing an undivided attention while ignoring
environmental stimuli.
Its a perfect blend of science and spirit!
Well explained.. you have covered so many topics like setting priorities, time boxing, focussed work etc.
Much needed video at this point of time in life...