The Secret To Becoming More Productive
In my previous blog titled The Blind Spot, I talked about how I fell into the habit of reading after putting my preconceived notions that I carried with me from school aside and trying it on my own terms. Here, I want to highlight a few of the reasons I continue reading almost daily and why I think it’s a valuable skill to have. Though I want to take a non-academic approach to it and tell you the benefits from a productivity standpoint. We all know reading can help you write better research papers and improve your comprehension for college and your career, but there are other benefits to the habit I have discovered that aren’t mentioned as often.
1. Focus, Focus, Focus
In his book The Productivity Project, Chris Bailey devotes an entire section to the idea of being mindful when you work on your tasks. In one chapter, he talks about “single-tasking”, the opposite to multitasking. In order to get more done in less time, it is important to be spending all your attention and energy on one thing and avoid working on multiple tasks and bouncing between them. Though, this is becoming increasingly difficult in the modern world. We have a constant influx of stimulation in the palm of our hands via our smartphones, and studies show that this is destroying our ability to intensely focus on a single task for long periods of time, hence, making us more prone to multitasking. (In this case, “long periods” could be anything more than 10 minutes!)
Many people might argue that they can simply disconnect from the internet when needed, but this doesn’t solve the problem. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport sites a study conducted by Clifford Nass, a Stanford communications professor, where he found that people who constantly multitasked were chronically distracted even when disconnected from the internet. Cal Newport says,
The ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained… In my experience it’s common to treat undistracted concentration as a habit like flossing… This mind-set is appealing because it implies you can transform your working life from distracted to focused overnight… But this ignores the difficulty of focus and the hours of practice necessary to strengthen your “mental muscle”
Focus is something that must be trained overtime by deliberately practicing the art of single-tasking, and one way of doing this is by reading books. Sitting down for a certain period of time, turning your phone off and simply trying to turn all your attention towards the content of a book trains your brain to concentrate intensely on a single activity - it’s like taking your brain to the gym. Whenever you start to feel your mind begin to wander, simply refocus your attention and keep going. Doing this exercise everyday will allow you to gain more control over your focus and attention so you can tap into it when working on an assignment, listening to a professor during class, or even enjoying a conversation with another person. It also allows you to be more productive when working on personal projects and completing tasks on your to-do list.
2. Books Are Wiser Than Video
I’ve talked about how I got into books because I wanted to learn about productivity and learning principles, but before that I used to watch YouTube videos. However, there came a point where the amount of good content about the subject on YouTube had runout. I had watched a lot of the popular videos on the platform, and the rest were too boring or not very helpful. This is when I realized something: Books have been around for a lot longer than videos. There is probably vastly more information wrapped-up in books than videos, and if I could increase the volume of books I read, I could consume far more information on a subject overtime. As someone who likes to learn about different topics, this was a huge - albeit, in hindsight, very obvious - breakthrough for me. There are a couple of other reasons why I think, in most cases, books are better than videos.
Videos (and other forms of modern media) have very high production quality compared to writing. I’m not saying it’s easy to write, but the amount of effort you need to put into your writing to grab a readers attention is usually lower than if you were trying to grab the attention of a viewer. Videos are much more than the content - the presentation is arguably way more important. I have watched long videos about shallow topics simply because they were entertaining to watch due to the visuals. I didn’t walk away learning too much from the video, but I still spent time consuming it because my brain was stimulated. On the other hand, I’ve probably ignored or clicked-off a lot of interesting and fruitful videos simply because it didn’t grab my attention due to the thumbnail, visuals or the audio quality. Put two books in front of me, one with a ton of information about a topic I’m interested in and one with a simple introduction to a topic I am not interested in, and I will most likely pick the longer one. Here, the cover of the book or whether or not there are colorful diagrams matters less than the actual content within the pages. This can be a factor, but it isn’t the first thing we look at when selecting what to read. People who are in the habit of reading for information are less likely to pass-up information because it’s not stimulating enough for their brain. This is because readers - as mentioned in the previous point - have better attention spans and don’t need colorful animations to focus on the content being presented. On the other hand, if someone who primarily learns through video sat down to take a course on, say, programming, they may find it hard to focus if the video isn’t filed with flashy animations and background music. They’ll likely quit even if the course would’ve taught them a lot.
Another reason why the information within books are better than videos is that writing is a lot more accessible than video creation, especially to professionals in their field. As most modern technology is difficult for the older generations to grasp, it makes it harder for them to make quality content that can keep a viewer engaged. If a professor of psychology wants to publish a book on learning, they can do that much easily than if they wanted to create a course that would sell well. The authors of books are usually vastly more knowledgeable about the topics they write about because they are usually academics, or seasoned veterans in their fields who know how to write and communicate, reassuring the reader that they are receiving quality information (for the most part).
Note: The only time I use videos to learn something is when the content is not very conceptual. For example, I would not recommend learning a new programming language through a book because language features change a lot and you’re mainly learning syntax; there is no broad concept involved. However, if I was learning about object-oriented programming - a style of programming that can be done in many languages and is more concept, design and technique based - I would use a book because there are seasoned programmers before me who have written about the topic in detail. I do also use videos to supplement my learning, but I try not to rely on it.
3. Your Personal Mentors
Right now, one of my struggles in life is trying to find direction in my field of study. I have no one in my family who has studied computer science, therefore, trying to navigate the field and figure out what companies are looking for in a candidate, what I should be studying and spending time learning, and how I am going to make a successful career out of this are all problems I am actively solving on my own. These answers would be a lot easier to find if I had someone guiding me. If I have a question or am stuck, I could turn to them for answers. One place I’ve been able to find these mentors are through books. In the summer, I stumbled across a programmer called Bob Martin, aka “Uncle Bob”. He is a well-known programmer in the tech space and has written books and given lectures about topics in the field of software engineering. When I was stuck trying to figure out what skills to learn next, his book Clean Architecture helped me find a new direction. This was the summer after my first year of college, and I felt the workload slowly beginning to crush me and knew I had to change something before I went back in the fall. So, I read The Productivity Project and Deep Work. Both authors, Chris Bailey and Cal Newport, helped me manage my productivity which allowed me to stay on top of my assignments, maintain my GPA, while also focusing on side projects. What’s more is when I got cold feet from posting blogs on Learner’s Loft in the middle of this semester, and almost shut the site down entirely, Austin Kleon **stepped-in via the book *Show Your Work* to remind to to keep posting and sharing my ideas for myself, if not for anyone else.
The authors that write books can be people who you look up to. They can be the source of inspiration or answers you need to make decisions, keep you focused, and keep you creative. They can be your mentors when you feel uninspired, scared or without direction. It gives you a glimpse into their world and how they operate, which may give you the answers you need. It’s good to have in-person mentors who you can speak to, but understand that you can buy a mentor at your local bookstore for under $20, and keep them on your shelf whenever you need them.
4. Disconnect
In her book A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley talks about how our brains have 2 distinct modes: the focus mode and the diffuse mode. Briefly, the focus mode is used when we are actively thinking and focusing on solving a particular problem or learning a new concept. It’s the analytical part of our mind governed by the prefrontal cortex where critical thinking occurs. The diffuse mode is used when we break away from a task and simply let our mind wander and chew on the ideas and information presented in the focus mode. This allows us to make connections that we didn’t see before because we are letting different parts of our brain speak to each other rather than restricting our thinking to a very specific domain. Being able to switch between focus and diffuse mode is crucial to learning and solving problems.
During study sessions, while working on personal projects, or learning new information, you need a way to safely engage the diffuse mode while not overstimulating your brain to the point that it becomes difficult to reengage your focus mode and come back to the task at hand. For example, if you study for 25 minutes, then go on Instagram for 5 minutes, you may find it difficult to come back to studying after the 5 minutes is over. This is because social media reels-in your attention and overstimulates your brain making it harder to put your phone down and go back to your work. One activity you can do during these breaks is reading. Reading is an activity that both lets your brain forget about the content of what you were focusing on enough to engage your diffuse mode, yet doesn’t overstimulate your brain, allowing you to refocus your attention after the break is over. While writing a blog, if I get stuck somewhere and don’t quite know how to put my thoughts into words, I’ll stop, pick-up a book and read a couple of pages. Then, I’ll go back to my work and usually continue writing. This can work for homework assignments and personal projects too. Reading allows you to disconnect from your work and go down to an idle state, while ensuring you aren’t completely shutting your brain off. It’s like switching from sprinting to jogging - the intensity decreases, but you keep your blood pumping. If you want to read more and can’t find the time, you can even use this strategy to start building the habit.
Conclusion
The blog summarizes the key roles reading plays in keeping me productive. It helps me train my attention muscle to allow me to focus on the task at hand, provides me with information and new content to learn about, helps me find mentors, and allows me to accelerate my learning by entering my diffuse mode of thinking while on short breaks. These are points that are rarely talked about when marketing the habit to others, yet I think they are just as important (if not more-so.) Reading is not just an academic tool. It can help you develop skills that are valuable when working on your personal tasks too. For that reason, whenever someone asks how they can start walking towards a more productive life, I tell them to pick-up a book and start reading.