Szymon's Zettelkasten

TK P: Full focus is imperative to learning

Reference:: PC: Huberman Lab | X | Episode 6, [[R: [Blink] Your Brain at Work by David Rock]], [[R: [Blink] Learn Like a Pro by Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe]], [[R: [Blink] Limitless by Jim Kwik]]

Focus determines how much mental capacity you can apply. The stronger you can focus, the more you'll get out of your learning session. Focus does to your thinking, what a magnifying glass does to light – if you focus hard enough, it can burn ships, it can even become a laser. It's a muscle. Focus determines your applied intelligence. It the part of intelligence you actually can control, and most people are bad at it.

TK P: Learning is the dance between the focused and diffused state it works in a dance with the defused mode which is better for creativity for mixing, combining.

With each focus session you're excavating new teritory, which can then be harnessed during your diffused mode (during sleep, nsdr, mind wandering, etc.)

Or focus can be compared to sowing, and the defused can be compared to growing. After some cycles you can harvest the products. Focus is like preparing the soil

Or an analogy in cooking. Focus is preparing the ingredients – selecting, washing, cutting, etc. Defuse is the cooking itself – the mixing, baking, etc.

Focus acts as a spotlight. It tells the brain, this area should grow. This way you open up neuroplasticity. When you focus hard, two chemicals are relished in your brain: epinephrine and acetylcholine. These chemicals basically tell your brain "focus here and growth this area"

You need high levels of alertness. Sleep, caffeine, following the 90 min cycle, following the time of the day when you have the most energy. Spacing out your learning cycles not to slip into automatic mode.

How to increase focus

Remove all fucking distractions. Every time you switch attention, you're burning mental energy because refocusing takes time and energy. Oh and one thing that I forgot is that distractions are hindering your focus because the researchers need it for focus is getting drained every time we become distracted and need to refocus.

Pomodoro latency and recency

Visualization: mental focus follows visual focus.

This also relates to the environment; to reduce everything that distracts us from the field of vision.

You can increase your focus by looking very intensely on a small point in a distance of the thing you wanna learn for 90s.

Goals, small and big, increase focus due to dopamine.

It's like a muscle. It'll grow, if you use it.

Relevant notes (PN: )/questions (Q:):

Add a note about the environment for learning using the FBM, to make it a side product of your environment.

Q: How to learn shit

TK P: Full focus is imperative to learning