Most of us carry various projects between hands at the same time. When I talk about projects I do not necessarily mean great achievements such as learning a language or finishing a degree.
Small things like take out your summer clothes, fix that closet that has been making noise for months or plan a trip during the holidays. Take the test and count the things you have in your hands. Both large and small. At least you will reach 10 unsolved projects.
If you are a bit foolish, you may not be too concerned about having so many open fronts. If, on the other hand, you are like me and are uncomfortable with uncertainty and poor organization, those unsolved projects will infiltrate your thinking at the least opportune moments, such as when you try to study.
Surely more than once you have opened the book and after a while you continue to stare at the same page but your thoughts they are elsewhere. You suddenly realize your mental pie and try to get back to reading. However, the more you try to focus, the less you succeed..
A study has shown that unfinished projects aren't really what makes us lose focus. What makes us lose the thread is the uncertainty that arises from not having created a plan (even if it is in our mind) to solve our project. That is to say, what deconcentrates us is not having the project unsolved but rather the not knowing how to solve it.
Told a bit in a summarized way, in a first phase During the experiment, the participants were asked to read some books. They were also asked to write down on a sheet of paper any intrusive thoughts about unfinished tasks that arose during the reading..
They then asked them to try to come up with a plan to solve these projects in their mind. For example, a person had intrusive thoughts while reading about a travel I still had to plan. The experimenters asked him to come up with a plan to organize everything, such as looking for flights that afternoon and booking hotels the next day in the morning. These actions were not carried out in a concrete way, simply planned to do them.
In a second phase of the experiment, all subjects (including our traveler) reread the books. Supposedly all the subjects had already devised a plan to resolve the intrusive thoughts that had arisen during the first reading. The results were clear: during the second reading, the number of intrusive thoughts decreased and as a consequence they were able to read with greater concentration..
This study may seem like a no-brainer. However, what strikes me is that our mind does not distinguish between a finished project and an unfinished but planned project. When you make a detailed and specific plan to solve a project, it automatically disappears from your mind and you stop worrying. Many times we feel overwhelmed by the amount of things that we have in hand and really all we need is a little organization.
The organization and planning Not only do they allow you to make efficient use of your time, but they also allow you to focus on each thing during the present moment without the rest of the projects contaminating your concentration.
When you are studying and some repetitive thought begins to infiltrate your mind, you should close the book automatically. Then take a sheet of paper and spend 10 minutes making a detailed plan to solve that other project. Surely when you reopen the book, the thoughts will have stopped bothering you. You will have made your mind believe that the project is already solved.
Source: Psyblog
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