Wow; do I ever get distracted…with emails…incoming snapchats….Facebook posts….and just the overall buzz of the omnipresent internet. There is so much NOISE that takes up so much of my TIME that I seem to get so LITTLE done. That's particularly true for me in preparing for exams because, to be honest, I am a big-time procrastinator…with a CAPITAL P!
In fact, I was just fretting about how much I had to do today (which, of course, is related to my procrastination issues) when I came across an article by Lucette Lugando describing how surgeons stay focused during organ transplants. Hum…That's what I need. To Focus. To Stay on Task. To Just Get Something Meaningful Done Today! http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-surgeons-stay-focused-for-hours-1479310052
So, here are a few thoughts that I gleaned from Lugando's article that might be especially handy as law students (and myself) begin to prepare for final exams.
1. First, put away my cellphone. Turn it off. Hide it. Ditch it. As detailed in Lugando's article, "Transplant surgeons, whose work includes stitching minuscule blood vessels together, minimize their distractions. No one checks cellphones in the operating room during surgery." No one checks their phones? Really? Are you kidding? Of course not, at least not during surgery. And, exam preparation requires us to do surgery, so to speak, on our study tools and on loads of practice exams. Thus, as I create study tools or as I learn by taking practice exams, I can help myself mightily by placing my focus on my work at hand… rather than the cellphone that is so often in my hand…by removing the "cellphone temptation" out of my grasp. Who knows? It might even lower my anxiety to stop looking at it constantly.
2. Second, sharpen my field of vision to the bare essentials (working on my study tools, practicing lots of exam questions, and looping the lessons learned from my practice problems back into my study tools) by creating an environment that is free of my own personal distractions…so that I focus on learning rather than the noise that is so often around me. As Lugando points out, "The surgeons often wear loupes mounted on eye glasses to magnify their work, which limits their field of vision to a few inches." In other words, with respect to final exam preparation, maybe I need to limit my field of vision to the "few" essentials, namely, creating study tools, testing my study tools out through practice exams, and then editing my study tools to incorporate what I learned about problem-solving through the practice exams. Practically speaking, that means that I need to remove all the other objects of distraction within my field of vision, first, by scheduling my study tasks (and not just my study hours) and, second, by setting up a place where I will not be distracted by the environment around me.
There's a saying, apparently by Winston Churchill, that says: "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks." Or, as Bruce Lee put it, "The successful warrior is the average [person] with a laser-like focus." So, instead of having the cellphone bark at you constantly, you might just try out what surgeons do…and turn your focus into a laser for several hours a day by getting rid of distractions during your study periods as you create your study tools and practice final exam problems. (Scott Johns).
