How I Trained Myself to Focus From 10 Minutes to 8+ Hours — Transcript

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1. 0:00For the past 5 years, I've spent a
2. 0:02stupid amount of time trying to figure
3. 0:04out how to focus better.
4. 0:06I've tried the apps, timers, blocking
5. 0:08websites, changing how I work. I
6. 0:11probably spent more time learning about
7. 0:13focus than actually focusing.
8. 0:15But somewhere along the way, I went from
9. 0:17struggling to focus for 10 minutes to
10. 0:20being able to now work for 8 plus hours
11. 0:22on a good day.
12. 0:23And looking back, a lot of what I tried
13. 0:25really didn't matter.
14. 0:26So, I want to walk you through what
15. 0:28actually stuck in roughly the order that
16. 0:30I figured it out.
17. 0:31Starting with the boring stuff.
18. 0:33Lesson one,
19. 0:34make distractions harder to reach.
20. 0:37Put your phone away.
21. 0:38Block websites that you keep opening.
22. 0:41Basically, add friction between you and
23. 0:43whatever keeps pulling you away.
24. 0:45I still do this now. Not because I have
25. 0:47zero self-control. I just don't see the
26. 0:49point in testing it 50 times a day.
27. 0:52If my phone is sitting beside me, every
28. 0:54time I want to check it, I have [music]
29. 0:55to make a decision not to.
30. 0:57If it's in another room, there's barely
31. 0:59a decision to make.
32. 1:01That helped immediately.
33. 1:03But removing distractions doesn't give
34. 1:04you a good attention span. It just
35. 1:06removes the easiest ways to escape.
36. 1:08I could have absolutely nothing around
37. 1:10me and still want to stop working after
38. 1:1220 minutes.
39. 1:13So, this is where I started treating
40. 1:15focus differently.
41. 1:16Lesson two, start where you are.
42. 1:20Instead of asking how I could force
43. 1:21myself to focus for hours, I started
44. 1:23with whatever I could actually handle.
45. 1:25If 20 minutes was difficult enough, I'd
46. 1:27just do 20.
47. 1:29Then, I'd push slightly past it. Once
48. 1:31that stopped feeling particularly
49. 1:33difficult, I'd push it again.
50. 1:35Basically, progressive overload, but for
51. 1:37my attention span.
52. 1:38You don't go to the gym for the first
53. 1:39time and lift 300 lb. You start small
54. 1:42and work your way up.
55. 1:43Focus is the same.
56. 1:45You can't barely focus for 20 minutes
57. 1:47and suddenly decide tomorrow you're
58. 1:48going to do 3 hours.
59. 1:50This was a much slower process than I
60. 1:52originally expected.
61. 1:54I had to actually spend time focusing
62. 1:56over and over again.
63. 1:57This is where people can get stuck,
64. 1:59endlessly
65. 2:00their setup or playing with [music]
66. 2:01their desk when what they really need is
67. 2:04the reps.
68. 2:05As those sessions got longer, I realized
69. 2:07getting distracted wasn't really the
70. 2:09problem. The problem was letting a
71. 2:1030-second distraction turn into 30
72. 2:12minutes.
73. 2:14Which brings me to lesson three.
74. 2:16Get good at coming back.
75. 2:18Instead of trying to never lose focus, I
76. 2:20got better at returning quickly when I
77. 2:21did.
78. 2:22I didn't become impossible to distract,
79. 2:24I became harder to keep distracted.
80. 2:27Because focusing for 8 hours doesn't
81. 2:29mean staring at your screen for 8
82. 2:30uninterrupted hours. I can't do that. I
83. 2:33take breaks. I'll get distracted.
84. 2:35Sometimes our brain just doesn't want to
85. 2:36cooperate anymore.
86. 2:38The important part is that those moments
87. 2:40don't completely break your day.
88. 2:41And that led to another change.
89. 2:44Lesson four, protect your momentum.
90. 2:47I became much more careful about what I
91. 2:49did between focus sessions.
92. 2:51Because not all breaks are equal.
93. 2:54If I get some food and walk around for a
94. 2:55bit, it's usually pretty easy to
95. 2:56continue where I left off.
96. 2:58If I spend that same break scrolling
97. 3:00through a bunch of completely unrelated
98. 3:02stuff, I've now filled my head with
99. 3:04something else.
100. 3:05Coming back feels way harder.
101. 3:07So, when I'm trying to actually have a
102. 3:09really focused day, my breaks are
103. 3:11honestly pretty boring. And that's
104. 3:13intentional. I want to rest without
105. 3:15completely leaving the mental world I'm
106. 3:17working in.
107. 3:18I'll even leave work slightly unfinished
108. 3:20sometimes.
109. 3:21If I stop at a point where I already
110. 3:22know exactly what comes next, there's
111. 3:24basically no friction when I sit back
112. 3:26down.
113. 3:27I don't have to figure out where I was.
114. 3:29I just continue.
115. 3:30And that's when I stopped thinking about
116. 3:32long focus as one giant session.
117. 3:358 hours isn't one focus session. It's a
118. 3:37bunch of sessions that I've gotten
119. 3:39pretty good at connecting together,
120. 3:40which also changed how I measured my
121. 3:42progress.
122. 3:43Lesson five,
123. 3:45raise your baseline, not your record.
124. 3:47I stopped caring about the longest I'd
125. 3:49ever focused because you can have one
126. 3:52insanely [music] productive day and then
127. 3:54do absolutely nothing for the next two.
128. 3:56That doesn't mean your attention span
129. 3:58suddenly improved.
130. 3:59What I I caring about was my baseline.
131. 4:02How long can I focus on a completely
132. 4:03normal day?
133. 4:04No huge deadline, no random burst of
134. 4:06motivation.
135. 4:07Just a normal day.
136. 4:09That's the number I wanted to move. And
137. 4:11that's what took years.
138. 4:13Not because I was constantly trying to
139. 4:15break some focus record. I just kept
140. 4:17repeating the same process until what
141. 4:19used to feel difficult started feeling
142. 4:21normal.
143. 4:22Then I'd push it a little further.
144. 4:2410 minutes stopped feeling long.
145. 4:26Then an hour stopped feeling long.
146. 4:28Eventually, spending most of the day
147. 4:30working stopped feeling completely
148. 4:31ridiculous.
149. 4:33And if you actually want to put all of
150. 4:34this into practice, I've taken the
151. 4:36system and tools I use to train my own
152. 4:39focus and put them together into
153. 4:41something called the A Better Mind Focus
154. 4:44System.
155. 4:45It's not some huge productivity planner
156. 4:47that you're going to download and never
157. 4:48use.
158. 4:49I intentionally kept it simple because I
159. 4:51want you to spend less time learning
160. 4:53about focus
161. 4:54>> [music]
162. 4:54>> and more time actually training it.
163. 4:56Here on YouTube, with these videos, I
164. 4:59can explain the ideas that helped me
165. 5:00improve my focus, but I don't always
166. 5:02have time to show you exactly how to
167. 5:03apply them to your own life.
168. 5:05That's exactly what this is for.
169. 5:07It helps you figure out where your focus
170. 5:09is right now,
171. 5:10gives you a simple system to train it,
172. 5:12and lets you actually track your
173. 5:13progress as you learn to focus for
174. 5:15longer and get distracted less.
175. 5:17And I'm not going to pretend it'll
176. 5:18magically fix your attention span.
177. 5:20You still have to do the work, but if
178. 5:22you follow this system and consistently
179. 5:24put that work in,
180. 5:26I genuinely believe you'll see a
181. 5:27significant improvement in your ability
182. 5:29to focus.
183. 5:30Instead of spending years figuring all
184. 5:33of this out through trial and error like
185. 5:34I did, this gives you the system I wish
186. 5:37I had when I could barely focus for 10
187. 5:39minutes. The same process that I
188. 5:41eventually used to help me work my way
189. 5:43up to 8-plus hours.
190. 5:44And if you do decide to pick it up, it
191. 5:46also directly supports the channel and
192. 5:49helps me keep making more videos like
193. 5:50this one.
194. 5:51So, if you want to see where your focus
195. 5:53is now and start training it, I'll leave
196. 5:55the A Better Mind Focus System link
197. 5:56below.
198. 5:57Go check it out.
199. 5:59But product aside, if I had to relearn
200. 6:02how to focus from scratch, these are the
201. 6:04five things I do again.
202. 6:06Make distractions harder to reach.
203. 6:08Start where you are and slowly increase
204. 6:10what you can handle.
205. 6:11Get good at coming back when you
206. 6:13inevitably lose focus.
207. 6:15Protect your momentum between sessions
208. 6:17and stop chasing your best ever focus
209. 6:19day. Raise your baseline instead.
210. 6:22That's really what the last 5 years did
211. 6:24for me.
212. 6:25I didn't suddenly figure out how to
213. 6:26force myself through 8 hours of work.
214. 6:29The amount of focus that felt normal
215. 6:30just kept getting longer.
216. 6:32So, if 10 minutes is where you are right
217. 6:34now, don't worry about 8 hours. Just
218. 6:36focus [music] on making 10 minutes easy
219. 6:39and go from there.