You’re working on an assignment and suddenly you see an email notification pop up on your iPad screen—you toggle over to quickly check the incoming message and suddenly half an hour has gone by with you attempting to clear your Inbox. Or you feel like you’ve reached an impasse while writing an essay, and before you know it you’re flopped on the couch with your phone, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. Or you’re doing a practice paper, but your mind is on brown sugar milk tea with pearls.
We’ve all been there. I’m guilty of all of the above, and much, much more. Recently, I’ve been getting the sense that I’m increasingly distracted while doing work—perhaps due in part to the nature of some of my commitments, which require responding in a timely manner to messages and emails.
Feeling discontent, I looked back and realised that much of JC—and most prominently the A Levels period—was a time when I was most focused and productive in my work.
My A Levels study routine
So what exactly was my study routine during the A Levels period? It’s nothing extraordinary, really. In fact, it can be summed up in just one sentence: focused studying for all waking hours of the day, except for meals and other essential activities.
What a typical day looked like: I’d wake up at 5.50am, get my short burst of exercise for the day, take a quick glance at my revision timetable for the day’s agenda, then settle down to study. From that time on, the rest of the day essentially comprised unbroken periods of studying, with breaks for meals in between. I’d make sure I got to bed early, perhaps at around 10.30pm.
The funny thing is, this routine worked perfectly for me. I never felt burnt out or unmotivated. I never had the urge to go on Instagram or start binge-watching YouTube videos. The former I attribute to good sleep, the latter probably to mindset and my state of mind at that time.
As I’ve mentioned before, I dislike studying for the sake of exams. So it amazes me a little now, remembering how I’d do and review practice papers, day after day, and never grow tired of it. I guess part of it was that while I was studying for the exam, I never saw it as studying for the sake of the exam. The concepts were still interesting to me, the questions got me thinking, and as I was reading up for GP, CSC and H3 Bio, I remember distinctly thinking how much fun this would all be if I didn’t have a high stakes exam looming ahead.
The value of deep work
I’m a chronic “overscheduler”. Yet, despite my propensity to drastically underestimate the time needed for every task and therefore overfill my agenda, during the A Levels period, I could more or less complete what I’d set out to do each day—or at least accomplish a satisfactory amount of work.
This is in great contrast to my current state. How was I able to do it then? What was my “productivity hack”? It wasn’t really the long hours of studying, but rather, the focused and uninterrupted studying, free from all distractions.
This is the idea at the heart of Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.
I found myself nodding at many points as I listened to the Deep Work audiobook. It mirrored my own experience. I realised that, without giving a name to it, I had been practising “deep work” in my most productive and effective times as a student. Indeed, it is the single most important time management principle I stand by.
Concrete actions to take
To truly maximise our productivity (and without you having to read a whole book to glean the benefits), let’s concretise whatever “deep work” is into actionable steps. It’s really just about developing “deep work” habits. And while Cal Newport may be writing for a more general audience leaning towards adult knowledge workers, the tips below are highly applicable to students at any level. A general rule is stated followed by specific actions:
- Schedule your time. Divide the hours of your day into blocks and assign activities to the blocks (e.g. 9-11am: Chemistry practice paper 2, 11-12pm: …)
- Avoid multitasking. Assign a single task to each time block. Give your undivided attention to this one task.
- Eliminate distractions. Have a dedicated study space. Keep all mobile devices away from your study space (switch off or switch to flight mode if required). Delete all social media and entertainment apps (or limit screen time). Set fixed times of the day to check email and messages (e.g. before or after meals only).
- Get sufficient rest. Ensure at minimum 7 hours of sleep every night (8 to 9 hours would be optimal). Wind down at the end of the day or before going to bed.
The power of a stopwatch
One practice I’ve found useful recently is to start a stopwatch when I begin my deep work/study session. This helps to quantify the amount of time I spend working deeply. Knowing how much time I take for each task also helps in my scheduling (so that I will set more realistic time frames and not overschedule).
Above all, it motivates me to keep going. Some days, I experience really bad and frequent lapses of concentration. Knowing that I’ll have to reset the stopwatch if I succumb to a break—and as a result clock fewer hours of uninterrupted work—I grit my teeth and push through.
A tip is to keep the stopwatch in a highly visible position so you can see the time accumulating—be it a physical stopwatch on your desk or a digital one at the corner of your computer screen. Sometimes, just having a tangible goal can boost our motivation. I guess it’s akin to unlocking achievements in online games.
Up till now, I would simply reset the stopwatch after each session. I’m now thinking of recording down, each day, the hours of deep work for every session. Besides tracking my progress, these will act like the “Achievements” or “Trophies” for me to work towards. I’ll update again if this has helped me reclaim my “deep work” way of life.
The importance of rest (and sleep)
When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.
Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Some of my friends who did exceptionally well in their A Levels were watching dramas during the period leading up to our papers. Of course, they didn’t watch obsessively, but did so during breaks or while eating lunch, for instance. This is important! I’m not asking you to watch dramas in preparation for A Levels, but instead, to realise the importance of rest.
For me, I stuck to exercise, listening to audiobooks and TED talks, and sleep. For you, it could be watching dramas and sleep. Or it could be reading and sleep. Or scheduled time browsing through social media and sleep.
The one thing you cannot sacrifice is sleep. To avoid sounding preachy I will stop right here. But sleep is non-negotiable. Sometimes I really think sleep is my only secret to scoring well in exams. And I suspect that the true culprit behind my recent waning productivity is not an increase in distractions but a lack of sleep (university and hall life…) But more on that another time.
Whatever it is, find a routine that works for you and develop “deep work” habits. I’m writing this for myself as much as for you. This is my A-Level self speaking to me now, because I know from experience that the principle of “deep work” can be nothing short of life-changing.