Day 10 - Found The Rhythm Again! (New Study Technique)

I think I found my rhythm again.

In the last post, I talked about how I'm going to try to shrink the two UWorld blocks a day to one UWorld block a day. Now, I didn't even do that today. But after some careful reflection, I realized that the problem wasn't just that I was doing to do too much, too fast, to enjoy it.

The problem was also that I had unreasonable expectations for what I can expect in a day. Plus a secondary problem that I encountered later on.

Here, let me explain:

Problem #1

I was reading a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport. He's a computer scientist at George Town, and the book refers to this idea called "Deep Work". If you haven't heard of it before, it's basically time spent in maximum focus.

Now if this book, praised by multiple CEOs, Industry leaders, and medical YouTubers said this. Maybe there was some truth to it.

Now Cal talked about the limits of how much Deep Work we can possibly do in a day, and the number he used was 4-5 hours. He says that after 4-5 hours of continuous focus, your ability to gather new information and focus declines rapidly.

So instead of trying to squeeze out an entire day of productivity, maybe I can set more reasonable expectations.

The Solution: Lets set the goal to hit at least 5 hours of productivity per day. Now I know that Cal said that was the maximum, but I have bigger aspirations.

My idea is that if I am able to hit at least 5 hours of productivity, I have crossed the threshold for what is considered to be a very productive day, by the majority.

Problem #2

The second problem was that I had been gauging the productivity of the whole day as a total. Meaning at the end of the day, I'd ask myself: Was this day productive? Yes/No? Why or why not? etc.

The problem with this was that while it gave me a general understanding of the day, it didn't give me any more detail to work with. Specifically, it didn't give a timeline.

The Solution: Split it up into smaller hours. Instead of trying to assess my day altogether, I began to use a Pomodoro timer set for a 50/10 split, to gauge productivity by the hour.

I didn't have to be productive for the whole day, I just needed to do it for 50 minutes. This might not influence the total work done, but it will absolutely influence my perception of my productivity.

The Result

5 hours of productivity, split into 50-minute chunks, means I have to hit at least 6 Pomodoro sessions to complete both goals. That's where I started the day.

Now, I'm typing this after having finished all my reviews that have been piling up recently and went over an old UWorld block from before. Success?

To be honest, any other day I would've left the day feeling like it was...meh. I didn't do even do a single UWorld block I was aiming to do every day.

But that's not what's happening here. Despite not accomplishing that part of the to-do list, I know that I've been 90-100% focused for every single 50-minute stretch of time.

Objectively, this has been a very productive day.

Final Thoughts

Now, this is an N=1 sample size. I cannot make the assumption that this works until I can test it out more times. So that's what I'm going to do.

Until then, good luck ✌️

Additional Thoughts:

• I found that ChatGPT tends to give you long, dragged out answers when you ask questions. A solution I found to combat it was to ask for a chart of information instead of asking it outright.
  Example:

• I use YouTube a lot to look for videos, and often get distracted when I see an eyecatching thumbnail, but I bought this app called UnTrap that hides all the YouTube recommended for you. Helped me a ton today without even realizing it. Recommend!