How to stay focused for long hours during your prep

Our minds are known to wander off even as we struggle to stay focused on studying. Whether it is doodling in the margins of a notebook or simply staring at a wall, we tend to drift away while trying to study — studying for longer hours can especially get very tricky.

At the same time, it is necessary to put in lots of time to learn and understand concepts. These tips can help you concentrate on your studies and stay focused for long hours.

List your distractions

The first step is to know what is distracting you from your studies. Take some time to think and identify the distractors. After recognising your distractors, take a sheet and make a list of these. If you know the root cause of the issue, you can do a better job at managing your priorities.

Manage distractors

A very common distractor is social media. It often becomes difficult to manage time on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, where one can endlessly scroll through photos, videos and messages. An ideal way of dealing with this is using timers on the media apps. If this does not seem helpful, you can also try deactivating your account, or temporarily deleting the app.
Unwind with games
Spending time playing games, indoors or outdoors, can help boost your study sessions. While playing games is a good way to unwind and reset your mind, make sure that they don’t come in the way of your study schedule and end up becoming another distractor.

Take breaks

The human mind gets dull if it works for too long without sufficient breaks. In order to make sure that you remain productive throughout your session, take ample breaks in between. One particular technique suggests that you should study for 25minutes, and then take a 5-minute break to refresh yourself. This way, you get work done and you get mental refreshers too. The technique also recommends that after the fourth cycle of studying, you should take a longer break, generally lasting 10 to 15 minutes.

Change subjects

Last, but not the least, a change of pace can help you remain refreshed. Studying one subject for too long can get monotonous and your brain may not even soak all the information. If you switch up subjects every once in a while then you will be able to focus better. For example, after studying Current Affairs, you can take up a Quant Topic. This will keep you interested and prevent your mind from wandering off.

Miscellaneous

Apart from these, it’s necessary for you to maintain a good sleep schedule. Sleep deprivation tends to reduce the attention span. Instead of staying up late to study, do your best to finish it in the day time. Try to eat healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables to avoid laziness and lethargy. Sitting at a desk for too long can also hamper concentration; an hour of exercise will help keep your blood flowing. The most important thing is to have confidence that you can do it. Stay motivated to stay focused.

— Aishwarya Jain