How To Avoid Distractions When Studying

Avoid distractions when studying

For starters let me give you an example of what happens when you don’t know how to avoid distractions when studying.

Imagine a situation where you need to prepare for an important exam. Just when you are starting to focus you hear a “ding” sound from your phone. You decide to ignore it, but after you listen to it 10 more times, you finally mute the messages on your phone.

Now you are ready to get back to studying. Just as you start to get into it, your parents walk into your room to tell you something “really important” and break your concentration again. You start to get annoyed, but you let it go since things like that can happen.

Now, back to studying again. After some time passes, your phone starts ringing. Your friends are calling you to see if you want to hang out. You are really annoyed, and take the phone out of the room.

Nothing can distract you now. But, at this point, you are so annoyed that everything keeps interrupting you and you can’t focus on studying anymore.

Finally, you decide to give up for today, since “it’s just not your day”.

Something similar may have happened to me before (except that I didn’t get called by friends since I have none), and it is really (really, really) frustrating to deal with.

To make sure that something similar (or even worse) happens to you, I suggest that you learn how to avoid distractions when studying.

Rather than dealing with all of them, it’s just easier to avoid them.

Let’s see what you can do to achieve that.

Types of distractions

There are two types of distractions, those created by the environment and those created by you. Before we go further, there is one sad thing I have to share with you.

You will never be able to avoid all distractions when studying.

Even if you follow these instructions to a T, there will be a time when something will go wrong, and guess what? You won’t be able to do anything about it. The only thing you can do is accept that is the case and move on.

You already saw what happens in the example above if you don’t.

Distractions created by the environment

Let’s start with distractions created by the environment first. These distractions are largely out of your control since you are not the one causing them. However, there are still some things you can do to not get distracted while studying.

The main thing you have to do is to avoid the distractions.

Try not to deal with them in the first place, since that takes willpower (which I don’t have much of, hence why I am suggesting this in the first place). Just imagine hearing one “ding” from your phone.

Now you have to decide whether to ignore it or check it. If you ignore it, you will constantly be thinking about what it could be. But if you check what it is, there is a chance that you spend the next hour scrolling through some social media app.

To prevent this scenario, the best thing to do is to avoid distractions altogether.

Mobile phones

I have already mentioned mobile phones a couple of times. And there is a good reason why (you might not want to hear what’s coming next).

Mobile phones are the biggest distraction to avoid when studying.

Many things can distract you when a mobile phone is near you. It can be that dreaded “ding” sound I mentioned before. Whether it comes from a text message, social media app, your email or a new game you played for 6 hours the day before, it doesn’t matter.

It’s still a distraction.

Then there are calls, which are even worse than “ding” sounds since you have to go to the mobile phone and deal with the distraction yourself. And don’t even get me started with studies that show how distracting a mobile phone is.

There was a study that found out that just by being near you, your mobile phone is distracting you. Apparently, some part of your brain keeps thinking about that innocent-looking gadget (which it certainly is not).

After looking at everything I said, there is only one way to avoid being distracted by a mobile phone (again, you might not want to hear this).

When you are studying, make sure that you are not in the same room as your mobile phone.

Even if you turn off your mobile phone and leave it in the same room as you, there is still a chance that you will want to use it when you take a little break from studying. To make sure this doesn’t happen, just leave it somewhere where it would be hard to access it.

Or, you can give it to a family member and tell him to hide it (make sure you are on good terms with that family member, because if you aren’t you will have to find the phone by yourself).

People

Alright, now that the biggest threat to your concentration has (hopefully) been dealt with, let’s learn how to deal with smaller treats. One of the most common ways to lose concentration is if another person interrupts your studying.

We already learned how to prevent that from happening when it comes to messages and calls. So, unless your friends come to your house to ask you to hang out, you are safe from them.

But, what about the people that are in your house?

If you leave alone, great for you. But if you live with your family or other friends, you will have to learn how to deal with the distractions that come with that. First of all, you need to stop people from coming into your room whenever they like.

To achieve this find a piece of paper, and in big letters write DO NOT DISTURB. Whenever you start to study, place this sign in front of your door. Make sure that your housemates know that you can only come in when there is an emergency. This should make it clear enough that you don’t want to get disturbed (sometimes the big DO NOT DISTURB won’t do the job by itself).

How nice, now no one will come into my room when I am studying, right?

Yeah, good luck with that. There is one more thing you have to consider. What you think is an emergency and what others think is an emergency is different. So be prepared for some stupid excuses to come your way when your housemates inevitably go to your room even though you repeatedly reminded them not to do so (I may or may not have some personal experience with this one).

Things that you see

Imagine that you are studying and for one second you look out of the window. There you find a flying crocodile with three heads that can shoot lasers from his eyes.

That would be pretty distracting, right? What are you supposed to do in a situation like this?

Obviously, you should drop everything and go out to see that three-headed crocodile up close. When are you going to see something so amazing again?

In all seriousness, when you look out of your window, there is a chance that you will get distracted by something. Even looking at a tree can be distracting for some. And then you will start to think about the things you saw and there goes your concentration.

To prevent this, don’t put the desk you study on right in front of your window. And if it is there, move it from that place. If you are someone who easily gets distracted from seeing something, you have to do at least this much (complain all you want, I am doing this for your own good).

Even though I said all of this, my desk is currently in front of my window.

That is because I don’t easily get distracted by the things I see. Most of the time I don’t care about them. The key word is “most of the time”. So, sometimes I do get distracted from looking at things from my window.

While I could benefit from my own advice, I don’t get distracted nearly enough to need to move my table (and frankly, I am too lazy to do so).

Things that you hear

Do I even need to explain why loud noises are something distractions to avoid when studying?

Even though most of us know that studying near loud noises isn’t ideal, sometimes, we have no choice in this matter. Hypothetically speaking, if someone decides to renovate your house and you hear drilling noises all the time, you might (just my guess) not be able to concentrate.

In this case, I recommend finding a new place to study. Don’t try to focus with all of those noises around you.

But, what if there are no other places to study?

Then, I can only recommend that you use white noise. Type “white noise” on YouTube, put on your headphones and increase the volume. Hopefully, this is enough to stop the outside noise.

And if it’s not, then (sorry to say this) you are on your own from here. I guess you could try earplugs, but I have no experience with using those, so you are on your own there.

A big mess

One situation in which I really can’t concentrate is when I am surrounded by a big mess. There are two situations that I consider a big mess:

1. When you have too much stuff on the desk where you are studying
2. When you have too much stuff on the home screen of the digital device you use to study (be it a PC, tablet or something else)

Even though there is a study (because of course there is) which found that people have a harder time concentrating when there are more things that can take their attention away from them, that is not the main point I am going to use for my argument.

Instead, just think about how annoying it is to study surrounded by a big mess.

If this argument doesn’t impress you, use the study I just mentioned, I don’t care what it is, as long it gets my point across.

So, before you begin to study, make sure to clear your desk or the home screen of your digital device. There are already so many distractions to avoid while studying. There is no need to add another thing to that list.

Take a deep breath and let it go

By now you should have no problems avoiding all kinds of distractions.

Except in some cases.

Well, while I did give you advice on how to avoid distractions while studying, there will come a time when you follow every piece of advice I gave you and nothing works.

Even if you say that no one is allowed to disturb you when you study, someone will eventually come into your room and ruin your concentration. You might be expecting a call from someone so you leave your mobile phone in your room so as not to miss it.

And, the next thing you know, you are getting bombarded with messages and are getting annoyed that you can’t get 5 minutes of peace.

But that’s just how life is.

While you can try to avoid these distractions, eventually something will happen. And, when it does, you just have to be prepared to deal with it.

I suggest that you take a deep breath.

And, while doing so, think about how these things can happen. Just let it go. Spare yourself of the frustration that comes when you think about how you got distracted. Not to mention that you can start feeling frustrated that you are frustrated which is another way to get distracted.

So, remember, take a deep breath and let it go.

Distractions created by you

Let’s say that you just bought your favorite candy. You decide to eat it after you finish your study session. You start studying and are already imagining how good that candy will taste.

There is just one small problem.

You can’t concentrate on the material you are studying. The only thing you are thinking about is that delicious candy. You keep trying, but your mind just keeps going to that candy.

This is what I mean when I talk about distractions created by you.

Instead of focusing on the material, you keep thinking about something else. In this case, anything can become a distraction:

• your next meal
• a fight you had with your friend
• what you want to do after you finish studying
• that new game you want to start playing as soon as possible
• basically, anything that takes away your focus from the material you are studying

In these cases, the reason you are distracted is because you keep thinking about these things. Unlike the “ding” sound that comes from your phone, nothing from the environment is distracting you.

The candy doesn’t make sounds (at least I hope it doesn’t) to distract you. You simply keep thinking about it and that is why you get distracted.

So, how to deal with this situation?

Unlike in the case of the environment, you have full control over your thoughts. That means, that (at least in theory) this should be pretty easy, right? Let’s find out if that really is the case.

Write it down

From my experience, the best thing you can do is to write down what you are thinking about. Have a piece of paper near you, and whenever your mind starts wandering, write down what you are thinking about.

By doing this you won’t forget what’s bothering you and will be able to deal with it later.

This is the most important part!

You have already written down what you are thinking about. There is no need to think about it anymore. Now, focus on studying and deal with what is bothering you later.

While this might sound simple, in reality, it really helps. The best way to understand the effects is to try it for yourself. After you finish your study session, take as much time as you need with the things that have been bothering you while you were studying.

Final thoughts on distractions when studying

I probably don’t need to tell you how annoying it is to get distracted while studying (maybe I get annoyed a little too much). Dealing with distractions can be really hard because the strategy most people use is to rely on their willpower (which isn’t the greatest if I am being honest).

As I mentioned before, when you are studying, the best way to deal with distractions is to avoid them. Before you start to study, deal with anything that might cause you to get distracted.

Being able to focus is especially important when you are studying new material. If you keep getting distracted and don’t learn the basics well, learning the rest of the material will get harder.

Now that you know how to avoid distraction, the next time you start studying, implement these strategies and you should see better results (just remember that you will eventually get distracted, and you know what to do in that case, right?).