In modern days learning is a fundamental skill for anyone who wish to become successful in any career. From early student ages we were taught that to become more successful we need to concentrate more on our task at hand. I can remember I used to train, or at least practice some meditation in order to help myself to concentrate more on studies. It was hard!
Outline:
Imagine the following Scenario.
Imagine you are studying, math. It is hard right? After a while tackling with a problem, you will feel tired. And you would not want to continue. But initially, you stated with high level of motivation. You wanted to continue with a six-hour study session. Now after a half an hour six hours seems to be overwhelmingly big task. Even after taking a break, you would not feel like coming back to the same problem. You would want to give up. What does your mind would do in this scenario. Definitely it is not going to come back. You have lost the battle and mind will distract itself with Television, social media or some other tasks.
Now after years into my career, I learn that that was really not necessary. My mind wondering away from the book was actually not a problem at all. If you find your mind wonders away from the text, like mine, keep on reading you will find some answers to why.
It is recognized that thinking happens in us whether we liked it or not. Thinking happens every time even if we study or not. So, what is the difference, why is it hard to study, and studying feeling overwhelming?
Understanding focused mode of thinking and diffuse mode of thinking?
During studying we tend to do a focused mode of thinking. While in relaxed mode, we do a diffuse mode of thinking. As you have guessed focused mode of thinking is energy consuming, and it gets us exhausted in few minutes. Diffuse mode of thinking on the other hand is like drifting clouds over the sky. It carries on without any exhaustion. Often when we study, we count our success by measuring how much material we covered and how much we understood. However, this mental process has its own limits when we use our focused mode of thinking. How can we get maximum use of these two modes? What other differences are there in these two modes?
Focused mode is more creative, as it has access to different information from the past.
Our brains do not store information in a single place. It is usually all around. Remember you had light bulb moment when you tried to find an answer to a problem. Often or not, these light bulb moments happens when someone is in relaxing mode. Really speaking Thomas Edison, himself who made this light bulb, knew how to tap into diffuse mode of thinking. Nowadays we try to fill our lives with distractions when we have the opportunity to find out what our minds will provide if we are able to listen to it. you will find more on diffuse mode tips down below in the article.
In focused mode,
We are thinking in a small context, trying to understand a concept or memories a concept, solve a problem. It is energy consuming, hence tiring. It is like trying to solve a maze while you are inside the maze.
In diffuse mode,
We are relaxed, particularly not thinking about anything but we are getting on with our lives and there are plenty of unrelated things come into our mind than what we are currently studying.
Often, we label diffuse mode as bad, and waste of time. However, there is another school of thought which gives more value to the diffuse mode of thinking.
Benefits of diffuse mode of thinking
It is argued that diffuse mode of thinking allows us to be more creative, and during this state we can access the background knowledge and make connections to existing knowledge to new ones. If you know about blooms taxonomy and higher order thinking, you will understand that the power of diffuse mode of thinking is allowing us to create connections with existing ideas inside our brain. This is very helpful in providing us higher order thinking skills. Namely, analyzing, evaluating and hypothesizing. To put it into an analogy It is like looking at a maze from above from the sky, then trying to solve it like a flatlander on the surface. It is like having 3d vision in a 2d. world.
Maximizing Study Efficiency: Understanding the Focused and Diffuse Thinking Modes
Using Focused mode of thinking
Focused mode of thinking is efficient when distractions are less, hence try to minimize distracting activities during this period of time. Try avoiding background music if it is distracting and do studying in a dedicated place with similar non-distracting environment, if you cannot find a library. (Why we get hooked, by smartphones)
Find out the duration of your focused mode can go on. If you start to feel tired during focusing that is time to stop. Rather than continue. It is not a race against your brain. When it needs time out, it needs time out.
Once you find out the duration of your study period, focus on the time. You can use a pomodoro techniques to do this. Advantage is you will get away without feeling overwhelmingly tired before next study period. There will be feeling of accomplishment even if you do not complete the dreadful math problem you are working on. (On Pomodoro and growing trees)
Using diffuse mode of thinking in our studying
Taking breaks. During study sessions, it is important to take breaks and relax. This allows our brains to into a slow gear and wonder with the new information. Allows time to settle down and make connections.
Let's imagine you are stuck at some point in the text, or feels it doesn't make it stick, that is the best time to break the cycle and fall back into relaxed mode. You can start in a different section of the text and come back to the difficult part later.
More importantly you can write down the topics of new concepts you learned, keep it a small piece of paper in your pocket. When you are relaxed later at your coffee, or even during a walk, just have a look at your paper and think about it. It doesn't mean you carry your work everywhere. But you will understand how much you have learned and not learnt if you do that.
Embrace silence. Sometimes even in diffuse mode of thinking, distractions can be a problem. I would suggest silence will help. Think of it as a form of meditation. Watching the mind. As our minds contain all the information you gathered from the past, it always outputs something. So, to find out its output it is necessary to stop the process of input and try to listen to it instead. More on being silence is found here. (Embrace Silence to empower mindfulness)
following video by Barbara Okley on diffuse mode of thinking. Where she described how she learned mathematics, how Thomas Alva Edson used to sleep during his thinking and tap into novel ideas using diffuse mode of thinking.
In summary:
Focused mode of thinking is about concentration, diffuse mode of thinking is relaxation.
Diffuse mode of thinking is creative, and it can combine our previous knowledge with current knowledge to help with higher order thinking.
In simple steps you can tap the power of diffuse mode thinking to enhance your study.
Thank you for reading. "Maximizing Study Efficiency: Understanding the Focused and Diffuse Thinking Modes".
You may also like to read Focused attention as a distraction, magician's trick
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