📙 Part 2: Describe something you do that can help you concentrate on workstudy

This episode's vocabulary

To eliminate (verb) - to remove or take away someone or something.

Distraction (noun) - something that prevents someone from giving their attention to something else.

To focus (verb) - to give your full attention to what you are doing or to what is happening.

Solely (adj.) - being one only; single.

To interact (verb) - to communicate with or react to.

To distil (verb) - to get or show only the most important part of something.

Nebulous (adj.) - (especially of ideas) not clear and having no form.

Vague (adj.) - not clearly expressed, known, described, or decided.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory here is going to say what it is, how it helps him to concentrate when he does it, and he's going to explain how he feels about it. Rory? Rory, focus, focus, Rory. Concentrate. Stay with me. Come on. Pull yourself together. All right. Off you go.

R: I don't think there's any great secret to focusing on something. I just usually eliminate or cancel out any distractions and naturally focus solely on the text or thing I'm supposed to be interacting with. In my case, this is rather easy since I'm a teacher, and if I'm not paying attention, then I'm not really doing my job. Moreover, since I usually teach young people these days, they sort of naturally demand this attention with the amount of chaos and noise they generate, or rather the amount of chaos and noise they would generate otherwise. There are times when I'm not working, though, when I have to plan or do research. So I just get a notebook and take notes to distil the main points of a text or presentation. If it's a text, then I might have the TV on for some background noise or let my brain relax when I'm planning. Actually, I often think about what I would do if there wasn't easily accessible entertainment like this online and what I would do then. I think I would probably struggle a great deal more if that weren't available. But who's to say? It's difficult to describe my personal feelings about it because it's also nebulous and vague. I'm glad I can easily set these conditions up and focus in when the occasion calls for it. But I wouldn't say it's a superpower or anything. I just know it works for me and seems to have done the job up until this point. If it didn't, then I wouldn't be getting good marks for lessons and essays, and that would be a big issue to deal with. So all in all, while it seems to be a natural ability, if you just distil it down to its main points, it would be just cancelling out what's there, either by focusing in or by using things that block these distractors out. And that seems to have worked for me so far, and hopefully, it will continue to work for me into the future.

M: And what about your friends? Do they do something of the sort?

R: We haven't really discussed it. I doubt they're as focused as I am, but I'm, who's to say.

M: Rory, you should go and discuss it with your friends. Ask them about mirrors. Ask them about sitting, what their favourite chair is. Did they use to sit on the floor?

R: Get a life.

M: Ask them about happiness.

R: Get a life.

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