Study Hacks: Last weekend, I decided it would be an interesting experiment to start tracking the hours I spent in a state of hard focus. I only counted hours where I was mastering new material (e.g., with the textbook method), engaging in a serious research discussion, or trying to formally write up new results.
14 comments:
This is probably true. Looking back at my week the work does not seem to be as overwhelming as it does in the moment. It is probably true what they say about time flying when you're having fun and vise-versa. After reading this article I will probably try to keep more relaxed during times of great stress and manage my time wisely and effectively as well as efficiently.
I feel like I work a LOT, so much in fact that I do not feel like I have time to actually set up a tracking system. However I do find this an interesting concept. In my old job I found myself working in two categories: “Doing Things” and “Thinking or talking about doing things or thinking or talking about things that were just done.” It is a clear separation of management and labor. I was doing both. It was easy to see and bill my hours of doing things. It was much more difficult to track the hours of thinking about doing things; i.e. planning. This leads me to a great moral life choice. Often planning does not feel like doing. If an activity takes 4 hours to do, how much planning time am I justified in allowing myself? A 4 hour install may take 40 hours of planning. It is easy to bill out the 4 hours of work in the space but how do I account for the hours of planning which in the end, makes completing the task in in 4 hours possible. Any thoughts?
This article really helped me put things into perspective. As a student you think about how much time you spend doing work, and during that time, how much of it is productive? And the even more pertinent is whether or not we are being efficient with the way we manage our time?
I know that pending on the severity of my workload, and how near my deadlines are is really what get's the most work out of me. Seeing how much time I spend (or waste) versus how much time I actually spend working is hopefully going to inspire more productivity in the future!
This article definitely holds true for college students. There are so many distractions between on-campus clubs, student government, and social activities. As if that isn't enough, the internet and television distract college students up the wazoo. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram... The list goes on and on. Many people find themselves on these websites subconsciously, and I am an offender of this myself. Forcing yourself to spend real, quality, committed and focused time is harder than it may seem. However, once you do, the work may get done sooner than you think.
This article definitely hinted at things that I have thought about before, in regard to the amount of work that I actually have. When we constantly are doing more than one thing at once, the ability to actually focus and get the job done can be slightly difficult. I've found that if I can get myself to concentrate only on the task at hand, I become much more productive.
I think that counting your hours hours is a great idea, and it would be hard to dispute that working more at your skills makes you better faster. I have a little experience with this because I very quickly realized last semester that if I did not take full advantage of my weekends I would never be able to keep up with my work. So I started giving myself a schedule and forcing myself to tick to it. Assuming that I maintain the schedule I always know how much I have worked. This has also helped me use my time better on the weekdays, I now find many things, the internet primary among them, far less distracting.
I think that counting how much you feel you actually work is a great method to improve your productivity etc. Many times activities don't require complete focus but can be done multitasking. It would be interesting to see what really could be considered working or really focusing.
I have actually tried this experiment before, and I got similar results. To combat this I have found that breaking my time in to half hour units and doing and task per unit is very effective at getting me to use all my time. As is so often the case in life just spending some time thinking about what you are doing can save you lots of time when it comes time to do the doing.
i definitely waste way more time than i realize, which is sad because i know i waste a ton of time. I generally am pretty good at realizing when i need to be doing more than i am or just time management in general but still again doing these comments and reading articles about how much time is wasted is semi inspiring me to waste less time at the moment.
Isn't keeping this tally a form of distraction? I couldn't quantify the amount of time that I am "Focused". That is like saying "get your game face on" to an athlete. What does that mean? I agree with Dale there are categories of working. I am not sure that we should be embarrassed by the fact that we spent only 3 hours in hard focus - maybe you got more done in the other 21 hours of the day just by being present.
I think that counting the hours would make me less productive and may actually make me stressed about how unproductive I can be. It's not that I would be unproductive its that only counting the time I'm only concentrating on one thing wouldn't be a lot because I constantly multitask.
The key phrase here is "hard focus". There's dozens of little things we do in a day that help our work in some way that would not be 'hard focus'. There's also a lot of work itself that needs to be done that is not 'hard focus'.
What is this article supposed to prove? There is only a certain amount of time people can stay fully focused, absorbing as much knowledge as possible and getting the most out of that time. It's different for everyone, but there is a point in time where you basically use up your mental resources, your alertness naturally fades, and you need a break. There is nothing wrong with doing the things you need to do, other than work, that keep you sane and hopefully happy. In fact, I would argue that that balance is more important than figuring out how to work intensely for forever and ever.
Also, why do we suddenly live in a culture where the main objective is to work, work as hard as possible, as intensely as possible, for the longest length of time possible?
This is an arbitrary study of one person who is making inconclusive conclusions from data that means little anyway.
This is really an interesting conversation piece. On one hand it is most likely true. However how does one quantify what we really do? It's one of the reasons I've never liked being paid by the hour. It's such a rigid and unyielding system that makes people cram productivity into a set amount of time when I think we all work at different paces and different times. It's one of the reasons I enjoy our industry.
I also think about thinking about working to much, instead of actually getting my head in the game and doing it. It is a vicious cycle. I think that evaluating how long you spend productive, marking that time and taking a hard look at how you can improve your productivity is really important. So tally charts are good! I don't think it should be a long term thing though, the tally charts might actually distract from fulfilling your productivity goals and improving them. That being said, I think this is a healthy solution but one that shouldn't drag through an entire routine/ take away from actual work.
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