Last semester, me and one of my students started a project together. It went well for a couple of months. I used to review the progress and demos, and it was going good.
Then exams came. Then holidays came. After that, the project lost track.
Recently, I was at their campus and I stumbled by this student. I asked about the project. The student said as much as they wanted to do it, they found themselves losing focus and getting distracted.
It is not that students can't focus
Many people say current students have lost the ability to focus. I don't agree with this. I strongly believe it is not that they can't focus. It is the system built around them that is taking away their focus. There are so many things pulling at them now.
A senior Sales leader I spoke to put it well. He said the system is built in a way where everyone is a customer of someone - including the Sales folks themselves. This means there are people trying to take your attention away, using all kinds of means, to sell their services, goods, products. And the means to do this have only increased over time.
Take YouTube for example. One of its success metrics could be something like average watch time - the number of hours a user watches content on YouTube in a day. Their whole system is built to optimize and increase that metric. YouTube's success metric is not going to be the average CTC of its users, say the way most college campuses advertise these days :-).
You cannot fight 100 things at once
With all this happening around us, how can one not lose focus?
I prefer to think about this problem the other way around. Instead of worrying about the 100 things trying to grab your attention, think about how you can build defenses around yourself so that these distractions don't hit you in the first place.
There are many techniques out there for this. What works for me might not work for you. But I want to share one defense technique that I have found quite useful.
The wallpaper trick
I use a wallpaper on my mobile and laptop that subtly reminds me of my current goal.
Last year, my goal was to push myself to get going to the gym and exercise. This year, it is to remind myself to spend more time with family. Every time I unlock my phone or open my laptop, that reminder is right there in front of me.
Give it a shot. This technique might work for you too.
Reclaim your focus.
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