and all you have to do is avoid going into youtube by tolerating boredom and if you can avoid opening up something on your computer loading up a game like loading up whatever reddit like whatever right i use those because that's what i get distracted with if you can just learn to sit with that boredom your mind will naturally coalesce back into study so there's a particular skill which if you can learn then you will be far far more productive and that skill is the ability to tolerate boredom i know it sounds kind of weird but i want you guys to think a little bit about the process of how you get distracted and where your days go okay so this is where um so i want you guys to think about what's going on when you try to work okay so like here's you and then like here's the book oh god i can't write a book i can't draw a book this is a book okay you're so you're trying to read a book so you're looking at the book all right and so generally speaking what happens is your mind tends to be like one pointed right so this is going to be like a one pointed mind and you're looking at the book for a few seconds like let's say a minute or two you're like reading the book and then something interesting happens your mind goes from this to like a scatter okay so this is one point in mind and this is a scattered mind all right so like you guys know what i mean like you're because you're like i'm reading the book and then your mind is like oh like let's think about random crap and so then when your mind becomes scattered then then what it starts to do is it starts to go in like all these different directions right so it's going over here it's going over here it's going over here and and then what used to happen is that over time you'd like your mind would wander like five minutes would pass you'd be sitting at a library and then the mind eventually like coalesces back into a one-pointed mind and then you're focused on the book again and if we think about the process of studying what it is is like it's like focus mind and then it scatters again and then it goes back to focused and then it scatters again and on good days you know your focused mind is is longer and then the scattering is shorter right so like generally speaking as you study this is the pattern of mind does that make sense so your mind kind of coalesces and then it's like one pointed again and then you know there are some things that can help this like you know caffeine helps this process usually unless you have too much you know so like stimulant medication from adhd helps this process um and so there are all kinds of things that can kind of cause you to coalesce your mind so we also taught um so another uh important part of this process is something called dharana and pratyahara so we've talked a little bit about these but that's not going to be our focus today these we can sort of explore a little bit later okay so dharuna's focus so these are like meditation techniques that train your mind to become one pointed pratyahara is sensory withdrawal so these are practices that um essentially cause you to restrain the senses so let's like think about this for a second what are the things that shatter um a one-pointed mind so like let's say i'm studying the library and then someone brings in like a plate of barbecue right so then like i smell the barbecue and then my mind shatters okay let's say that i'm uh studying and um you know like i hear a ping on my phone someone just texted me so bbq you know sound from phone notification right so and then what this does is shatters my focus so the reason is because my focus gets shattered by the indriyas or the sense organs so pratyahara is the practice of restraining your sense organs so like keeping your eyes focused on what they should be focused on getting your nose under control getting your ears under control like basically restraining your attention where you want it okay that's not the focus today so all of these are about moving from here to here okay but what i'm gonna what we're gonna focus on today is not moving from here to here we're gonna focus on this phase right here because this is where a lot of people kind of mess up so let's think about what happens when your mind is scattered okay so the mind enjoys being focused and the mind enjoys being entertained so mind enjoys focus right and if we think about mind enjoying entertainment what is entertainment entertainment is simply a sensory experience that sort of makes it very easy for your mind to be focused so if i play a video game like like the whole point of like playing dota is that dota cos causes my mind to coalesce into this right video games do this so if we really think about it what we see is that our mind actually really enjoys being focused like the common element is that the mind appreciates focus and then even when we when we think about studying like i don't know if you guys have had this experience but like sometimes studying can be fun like you're kind of in a groove and you're like learning stuff you know in your mind is kind of focused it really enjoys that so where does the problem rise like why is studying so hard studying is so hard because our mind gets distracted right and so it shatters into this again and in this moment we're bored because you like like i don't want to study like your mind is like oh let's look at the book let's look at the book and then you're like there's another part of your mind that's like no i don't want to do that and this is where i think that studying has gotten so much harder for people like we hear this so much more now that you know video games are addictive i'm addicted to youtube like i spend hours watching youtube i have no motivation etc because now actually something existed that didn't exist 30 years ago which is algorithmic entertainment so what used to be so like let's think about like you know like in the 1950s if i'm at the library and i get distracted what would my mind do i pull out my comic book and i read my comic book for like 10 minutes okay and then eventually my mind kind of scatters again and then i focus back on studying but now we have something that's like way more devastating which is that when we enter these board states we log on to youtube we get on reddit you know like we get on these things we get on like let's say you know instagram whatever twitter and the problem is that these things are not gonna like occupy your attention so the comic book occupies your attention let's say for 20 minutes the problem is that the second you open these up you're gone for three hours right because with algorithmic entertainment what happens is like youtube is going to suggest things to you that will keep your mind like focused in that direction reddit is like this is the crazy thing i know this sounds weird but i want you guys to really think about this for a second you are tailoring these websites to pull your attention towards them right you're giving them like a cheat code to keep your attention occupied so when you log on to reddit and like i have all of my favorite subreddits that i'm subscribed to over time i'm making the website more addictive to me youtube this isn't just youtube's fault it is like also like your fault because as you subscribe to more content it's going to be like more entertaining right as you watch youtube videos like youtube's job is to make you like enjoy like have a good experience on youtube like you're not going to like if you open up youtube and like it's a bunch of nanny vlogs and you're not interested in that it's like that's a failure of a website right so that's they're doing what they're supposed to do and it just has this really bizarre consequence which is that you're training youtube to be more predatory towards your attention you're making it more addictive by subscribing to [ __ ] and if you subscribe to a bunch of subreddits that you don't like or watch a bunch of youtube videos and they get all this crap that you don't care about posted on your youtube then you're not going to use the website right so this is like the really tricky thing is that when we become bored for a second this is the real loss and we get distracted and there's algorithmic entertainment boredom plus algorithmic entertainment means three hours of your life gone and no productivity gg go next right get rekt so the question then becomes without oh wrong one oh um the question then becomes like what do we do about this right so like once we slip down this road we're gone the three hours is the price that you pay because reddit is designed youtube is designed to restrain your attention so what they're gonna do is they're gonna take your attention away from studying okay because that's what they're gonna do so then the question becomes like and then people ask like you know oh how do i stop watching youtube like you can't it's going to be really hard like once your attention is over here to like pull your attention back towards studying this is going to require a lot of effort and so then what happens is we look at people and we say oh my god this person is so disciplined because some people can watch youtube for like 10 minutes and then they go back to studying okay so this is study and so then we say this person is disciplined good night what's and then we say i'm not disciplined i'm lazy so this is where the lazy person goes so question is okay what do you do so last week we talked about building conscientiousness okay so how to become how to move from lazy to being disciplined but there's a real real important secret here which is right here because if you can avoid this step right here then you don't need to be disciplined you guys get this and so then the question if you can avoid opening up youtube because once you go once youtube is open it's designed they pay like people millions of dollars like reddit whatever all of these companies right um they pay these like they pay millions of dollars to different engineers to like make the website more usable by the users like creating a good user experience i don't think that they're like being you know evil about it that's just like they're like hey we want to make a website better and so the key thing is that once you go over here you're you're screwed finished so how do you avoid this step and then the answer is to learn to tolerate boredom okay so what you guys need is patience if you're lazy if you're good at sitting around and not doing anything that's totally fine we're just gonna double down on that and let's see what happens when you do that okay so i'm studying then my mind fractures okay so what happens if i just sit with it right you're gonna have all these thoughts and impulses you're gonna be thinking about barbecue then you're gonna be thinking about gaming you're going to be thinking about laundry you're going to be thinking about how this guy is such a noob and your mind is kind of wandering and then eventually your mind will sort of start to coalesce okay it's going to go into this and then eventually it's going to go into this and then eventually it'll go right back here to study so this is what you guys need to do you have to understand that your mind is like a burden flight right so it like jumps up starts flying all over the place and all you have to do is avoid going into youtube by tolerating boredom and if you can avoid opening up something on your computer loading up a game like loading up whatever reddit like whatever right i i use those because that's what i get distracted with if you can just learn to sit with that boredom your mind will naturally coalesce back into study it'll happen like sort of effortlessly all you have to do is learn how to tolerate that boredom in the middle and if you think about what's happened in our society okay so this is kind of interesting if you think about what's happened to our brains how has technology affected our brains what technology has done is make us like weak at tolerating boredom okay so what it's almost like we're running around with like electric wheelchairs for our mind and then like if you run if you stop walking and you start using an electric wheelchair you're going to decondition your body to with for physical activity and walking right so what have we done our our technology has deconditioned our mind to tolerate boredom and just think about this for a second right like so when you're in the car it's like podcast time baby when i'm cooking it's podcast time i'm gonna be i'm gonna be productive this is the danger right so you'll see these websites where people will talk about yeah i read a bunch of books and i like listen to a bunch of audio books and podcasts and stuff like that i have entertainment time and then like you know we're always doing something our attention is always on something and we get bored very very easily and so like you know having everything at your fingertips on your phone is like terrible for your ability to tolerate boredom and so what's happened is we've become unable to handle boredom and as our mind gets weak at handling boredom we like lose productivity because then we get lost in these like apps and stuff and so everyone who's talking about productivity you guys got to understand that productivity starts with the ability to tolerate boredom just that just learn how to be bored if you can learn how to be bored then your productivity will go through the roof because then in those key moments where you are bored and you reach for that thing that it used to be a five-minute distraction it used to be a 15-minute distraction it used to be a 20-minute distraction now it's a three-hour time commitment and once you like step into the ring with like you know this this algorithm that's designed to restrain your attention for three or four hours you are like way outmatched it's just your little brain against hundreds of millions of dollars worth of like engineering that is designed to prey on your neuroscience you guys are outmatched you can't win then so the key is to not step into the ring the way that you not you don't step into the ring is to tolerate border right so like what does that mean how do i learn to tolerate boredom so we had a great exercise that one of our coaching clients came up and came up with fantastic and very difficult is to sit and stare at a wall for an hour with no distractions and it is devastatingly difficult but really cool stuff will happen very very cool stuff will happen if you guys just sit at a wall for an hour i know everyone's like oh my god one hour of not doing anything oh my god an entire hour of doing nothing how am i gonna tolerate that right so don't even meditate uh-uh meditation is doing something not allowed to meditate just sit in an hour and sit with yourself and then your mind is going to do all kinds of stuff it's going to be like absolutely crazy for about 20 or 25 minutes and then it's going to be like really awesome like the second half if you guys can make it like is gonna be amazing because your mind is gonna like come up with stuff and it's gonna be like weird and entertaining sometimes what'll happen is like a lot of negativity will come up you'll start to like realize how bad of a person you are and like how much of a failure you are and stuff like that and everyone's like how do i learn acceptance like how do i learn to sit with it that's the way that you learn how to sit with it right just sit and look at a wall for an hour just do nothing and then if you guys want to you guys can do easy mode in easy mode of sitting at the wall is going for a walk for also one hour right so get up and go outside it'll it'll like feel great like you'll still be bored you're going to want to put your headphones in i want to listen to an audiobook i want to listen to a podcast i want to listen to this i want to do this and like just think about how much you know there was a time where like okay so i wake up in the morning i'd do yoga i'd study i'd turn on the audio book while i was showering i'd list be listening while i was eating i would you know as soon as i turn it off like on the computer i pop in my headphones walking to the subway on the subway pull out the kindle put away the kindle back to the audiobook to the lecture hall listening to the lecture trying to listen to the lecture because it's boring which is really hard because i've i've really not trained my attention well and then it's like back to the audiobook a little bit of stuff on the computer screen phone you know it's like our our minds are constantly externalized towards something we rely on external technological crush crutches to keep our minds focused on one thing and in doing so we have lost the capacity to focus our mind where we want it to we become victims to the screen right because like if my the only way i can keep my attention on something is if it is entertaining enough and then what we do is we call ourselves lazy because we can't get anything done so where does like where's the lynch pin to all of this stuff it is learning to tolerate por so if you can tolerate boredom then your mind will listen to you because what boredom is is the biggest rebellion of mind you guys realize like how much you detest how hard it is to like be bored it's like imagine so i have a great idea for you guys okay so just think about this for a second so i know people aren't flying right now because of covet but think about going on an international flight with nothing to do no books no electronic devices torture absolute door george eight hours on a plane with nothing to do gg think about how much you'd test that and what is it that you face when you're on a flight with yourself with nothing to do what like what's so bad about that literally what is so bad about that it is that your mind has no attention no nothing to focus its attention it's just you you're just with yourself and you're bored with your mind so if you want to go the marathon route like take an international flight i mean don't do it now because of covet obviously but like you know think about that for a second like think about how how much of a victim you are and how poorly you are at tolerating your own company with just you hanging out by yourself it's so terrifying terrifying absolutely terrifying so this is the cool thing is that all this stuff can be fixed right all you have to do is learn to tolerate boredom so just kind of going back to that okay so like oh can't scroll so it all comes back to this right here and if you can learn how to sit still with this then your mind will naturally return to focus right because eventually what will happen is and if you guys are wondering about how is that so natural because your mind hates form right so at some point your mind is eventually gonna say anything i've been sitting on this flight for six hours with nothing to do give me a chemistry textbook please anything to stop having nothing chemistry physics whatever i'll take anything anything master please don't don't make me do this anymore i give up i'll do whatever you want i'll even study for my test please right because normally you are the slave and the mind is the master and the goal of what we do here is training you to be in charge of the mind so i'll leave you guys with one analogy so in the bhagavad-gita which is sort of a text on hinduism but or i mean it's people kind of in hindu religion sort of say it's a religious text whatever there's a lot of good stuff in in religious texts and especially in gita and there's this guy arjun and his charioteer is this guy named krishna and krishna says that arjuna your mind is like a chariot with like five horses being like pulling it your life is going to be successful if you are in control of the horses and if the horses are like doing whatever they want to your life is going to be a mess and the horses are essentially your mind really they're your injuries or your sense organs but it's like who's controlling like are the horses is your mind controlling you are you controlling your mind and what you guys really need to do like if you want to like be productive and you want to be successful in all that good stuff is to have your mind do what you tell it to do like if you wake up in the morning and you're like [ __ ] we're gonna study today and your mind is like okay whatever you say but otherwise it's the other way around it's like your mind is like one of these kids who's like a complete spoiled brat and the kid is like ah we were gonna do this today yeah i don't want to study [ __ ] you i'm gonna play lol all day what are you gonna do about it mom [ __ ] you gg right so learn to be bored and then you will be successful