The top 1% use THIS to unlock INSANE focus

1. Class Overview: What You'll Learn: On a scale of one to ten, how much does this statement describe you? When I am working on a task, I stay completely focused until completion. Now, perhaps you're the perfect human specimen and have unlimited focus, but the rest of us could probably use a bit of help getting and staying focused. My name is Austin Schrock, and I run a YouTube channel focused on productivity and personal development. There I've been going through a series where I am testing practices from peak performers to see what I can learn and apply to my life. And then I take those things that I've worked, and I share them with you. During that process, I found tools that you can use to unlock insane amounts of focus. Some are free and instant, others cost money and take time. It all depends on what fits your need, and also how much you're willing to invest to unlock instant focus, even on tasks that are quite boring. So in this class, I'm going to give you a toolkit that you can use to unlock deeper focus and stay dialed in for longer amounts of time. We all have different situations, which is why it's so important that we have a variety of tools so that we can adapt. There's just no one size fits all when it comes to focus. For the project, we're going to create a visual representation of the methods of focus. You can use whatever medium you want, such as notion, Canva, pen and paper, et cetera. At the end, I'll show you my own and also give more details on how to never forget these practices. Watching a class, no matter how amazing it is or what you learn is useless if you can't remember what you learned and how to put it into practice. 2. Stop Setting Deadlines : When we set parameters for ourselves, we tend to stay inside of them. This is called the Parkinson's law. And focus is no exception. So instead of a deadline, we need to set a duration. This is the agreed upon amount of time that you are going to focus. So set a timer for the agreed upon amount of time that you decide you are going to focus, and then set it somewhere where you can watch it tick down. In fact, I'm using this right now. I have a productivity timer that I just set a certain time for, and I watch it tick down. And it just always amazes me how well this works. You can use your phone productivity timer like this, or if you want to get fancy and be like Ali Abdaal, you can download a software called Rise. The benefit of Rise is that it automates everything for you. So it sets timers for your deep work sessions, your breaks. It blocks certain distractions, and it even catalogs and rates how good your focus time was. So if you find yourself doing a lot of work on your laptop, I would recommend finding a software or something similar to that that you can use to build a timer straight into your focus session. Most people go wrong with this is they set deadlines and expect focus to automatically come to them. But here's the thing. Focus isn't as much a result as it is a decision. So instead of saying things like this project has to be done today and then expecting focus to follow, it's better to set reasonable goals like today, I'm going to do four 1 hour focus sessions on this project. This is almost always how I plan my day. I almost never put something like finish video script on my to do list, because I can't control that. What I can't control is how many focus sessions I do. And for me, I don't know, but there's just something really, really effective about having a agreed upon amount of time that you have set, and then watching that time tick down. Because then if you ever feel like, I want to get up and do something else or I get distracted or whatever, you have a very visual representation of exactly what you agreed on. Because human beings have this amazing capacity to endure a lot of frustration and annoyance and pain and whatever else if it is for a designated amount of time. If it feels like it's forever and there's no end in sight, that's when it becomes unbearable. 3. Building Focus Momentum: Five minute turn is something that I coined after listening to Cal Newport and Andrew Huberman. This exercise lowers the amount of time that it takes you to switch your focus from one heavy task to the next. And we understand this when it comes to physical activities like running or working out, that there's a warm up period, a preparation phase that we need to go through to allow maximum output. In the same way, we can't expect ourselves to drop immediately into deep focus. It takes a lot of energy to focus and sudden redirecting of that energy on something else requires a process. So here's what that process looks like, and this comes directly from Cal Newport and Andrew Human. Right before I start a deep work session, I take a few minutes to just sit quietly and slow everything down. I take deep breaths and try to clear my head as much as possible, trying not to think about anything specific. I'll stay like this for a few minutes focusing on my breath. Just letting the mental momentum slow down. The most important part is after I'm done with this, little brake session or slow down session, I get up and immediately start the thing, whatever it is that I'm supposed to be working on next. I've learned that you don't want to do anything before you start creating momentum in the new direction that you're focusing on. Think of your thoughts as a runner. If the runner is running at full tilt and he's going in a straight line, and you take that runner and you turn him 90 degrees to the left, it won't work because his forward momentum is carrying him forward. So if you turn him 90 degrees, he's going to fall over. Our thoughts work very similarly. We have what's called thought momentum, and we need to allow time for our thoughts to make that turn, for our mental energy and focus to adjust and turn into the next thing. Now, not everybody has 5 minutes to sit down before every single work session to do this. Maybe you have kids, or you have responsibilities, or you work in a busy office or a coffee shop, who knows? But what I can tell you is that even doing just a little bit of this helps seriously. 30 seconds can make a pretty significant difference. If anything else, it's a very conscious choice that, we're stopping all of this and we're starting something new. And the conscious realization of that can be really, really impactful. 4. Maintaining DEEP Focus: The third key is maintaining or keeping this insane focus, and it's called implementation intentions. It's a fancy term for a if then statement, which you might have encountered if you've done any work on habits, for example. This is what helps you stay focused so that when pesky distractions arise, you can ignore them. Here's how we do this. Before you begin, identify the top three things that could distract you or cause you to lose focus. And then what you want to do is create a if then statement for each of them. Here's an example of me doing this from a few days ago. On this particular task, I usually don't struggle getting started. I usually struggle like staying focused for a longer amount of time. So what I did is I identified the top three ways that I think I could lose my focus during this process. And I created a if then statement for each one of those. So the first one is, if I feel the urge to check how my video is performing. I will close my laptop, do ten push ups, and return to work. So just get some exercise, clear my head. The next one is if I see a video that I really want to watch, then I'll simply add the video to my watch later so that I can easily find it, and it'll still be there. And then I'll refocus, return back to work. And if I get tired or bored, then I'll take a short active break, maybe take a walk, something like that, and then return to work. Now, what's interesting about this practice is it helps you stay focused. It helps you mitigate the distractions that come. But it also helps you begin the task a lot easier. There's less friction. You'll find that it's so much easier to start after you sit down and make a little bit of a plan for what you will do if you get distracted or if this happens. By doing this, you create a little bit of momentum in that direction. So then after you're done with, you know, a minute or two of saying, if this happens, then I'll do this, it's so much easier to just start because you've already created a little bit of momentum in that direction. And this hardly takes any time to do, but it's very effective. 5. Questions That Drive Focus: Five ys. One of the biggest reasons that we don't have focus is we have no idea why we need to focus. Intense focus follows extreme clarity. And the five ys is a technique or practice designed by the founder of Toyota and offers profound clarity. Many times our focus is perfectly fine, but because we aren't clear on why or exactly what we're supposed to be focusing on, get fragmented and we split our focus and attention, and then we say, Oh, I'm just so bad at focusing. It's like, No, you just need to realign. Here's how we use this practice to get extreme clarity, which will allow us to get back in line, and get back in that deep focus. Okay, so I've been working on this for a while now and definitely feel a drop in focus. So I'm going to run through what we just talked about and show you kind of how it works. First thing we need to do is identify the command, which for me, is Austin, you need to get this video done. So now I'm going to ask why five times each time to the answer of the previous one. Like, I need to get really clear on this because what happens is we get really tired and exhausted, and we begin to lose focus because we lose sight of where we're going and why we're going there. And reclaiming that clarity is a really good way of maintaining that intense focus. So I wrote down my questions and answers, so I'll just read through them, so it's a little bit more simple. Austin, you need to get this video done. Why? Because if you don't, you'll miss your upload schedule. Why would that be bad? Because if you don't stay focused on your channel, it will slowly die along with your dream of becoming a full time YouTuber. Okay, why does that matter? Because if your channel dies, so does your dream and your goals. Why does that matter? Then you'd have to get a job working for someone else with no control of your schedule, which is very important to me. I'd be trading my time for money. So in doing this, you can see that I'm actually identifying one of my biggest fears, and that is that I'll fail, and that I'll lose the control and the autonomy that comes with this job. And with the threat of failure impeccably clear and the results of that. It just gives me another burst of energy. Like focus almost happens automatically after that. And sometimes you do this, and the whys are not negative. Sometimes they're really really positive, like, why? And Oh, I'm going to do this. Why? Oh, Because it's going to lead to this, which is going to be really cool. And that's going to lead to that. And it creates a very positive motivational force. Sometimes the lack of focus is a physical tiredness, and it's hard to push through that. But other times it's just like, I'm just so scattered. And something like this just like, like really brings me in. When it really comes down to it, we need to have satisfactory reasons. So many times we just expect ourselves to be focused or be disciplined, just because we told ourselves to do it. Idally, yes, we would be able to do that, and it's something to work towards. But until then get really clear on why you're doing what you're doing. Whenever I talk about this with people, I always think about a child, right? When you tell a child to do something, one of the first things that they do is they ask you why, because they need a reason, they need to understand why they need to do something. And if you don't give them a reason, usually the result is less than satisfactory. But if you give them a satisfactory reason, one that they can get behind, then motivation, focus, everything just happens for them almost automatically. And we're older and more mature than that, but there's still a piece of that that's true. There's still a piece of us that needs a satisfactory reason. We can't just be bossed around with no explanation and expect us to have satisfactory results. Now, I don't use all five of these all at the same time, but it gives me a tool kit that I can pull from when I need it. For example, sometimes you need to focus on a project at work. Then a few hours later, you need to focus on something totally different. Then maybe you come home and you sit down and you need to focus on learning a piano song or something. There's just no practice that encapsulates everything. That's why we need multiple tools so that we can change and be adaptive. 6. The Class Project: The project for this class is designed to help lock these five practices into your memory. Here's what we're going to do. Create a visual representing the five methods of focus. You can use whatever medium you want, like notion, Canva, pen and paper, et cetera. It's kind of up to you whatever you feel like will help represent that for you. The first thing you want to do is write the titles of each of the methods that we covered. But underneath that, give a brief description in your own words of what each one of those is. Then lastly, write down how and when you're going to apply this to an aspect in your life. Here's an example of what I came up with. I personally used a three by five flash card. And so by doing this, it will help show that you understand the information that we've covered. And if you ever forget it, you'll be able to return back to this and have a very clear representation of everything that you learned, encapsulating the different practices. And like I said earlier, you can learn the most incredible piece of information. But if you can't remember it or remember how to put it into practice, then you didn't actually learn it. What's the point? This is part of an exercise called active recall, which is where you take something that you've learned and you explain it in your own words. And when you do this once or twice, it just it locks it into your memory. Your time is valuable, and I don't want to waste that. So that's why this project is really important. And what I would recommend is whatever system you end up using or whatever visual that you come up with, just take a picture of that and upload it into the class project, that way other people can see it. And then if someone is struggling to come up with their own and they need a little bit of inspiration, then they can look at other examples and see how other people interpreted what this class was about. 7. Final Thoughts: So much for watching this class. If you have any questions about anything or something just wasn't clear, comment down below or send me an e mail. I would love to hear your feedback on what you learned and whether this class was worth your time investment. My goal is to provide value. So if there's a way that I can improve, please tell me. Thanks again. I'll see you in the next one.