When it comes to concentration, we must first understand what concentration is.
The modern Chinese dictionary defines concentration as concentration, concentration and singleness.
There are eight words in Chen Tingzhuo's "White Jade Zhai Flower Thorn" in Qing Dynasty: "It is not expensive to build a soldier, but concentrate on it, and if it is scattered, it will be sloppy.
Rou Shi's "February 4th": "He dug out an extremely difficult piece of music and fixed his eyes on the score."
Its synonyms are: burying one's head, devotion, meditation, concentration, undivided attention, undivided attention and concentration.
English translation: concentrate on; be absorbed in
In the traditional culture of China, the spirit of concentration has been advocated and carried forward. As early as more than 2,000 years ago, Xunzi was there? "Encourage Learning" said: "So, you can't go to Wan Li Road without accumulating steps; If you don't accumulate small streams, you won't be a river. Leap, not ten steps; This is a great contribution to the success of Ma Xu. Perseverance, rotten wood can't be carved; Perseverance, the stone can be carved. Earthworms do not have the advantages of minions, and their bones and muscles are strong. They eat the earth and drink the yellow land with their hearts. The crab kneels six times and pinches twice. It's not that the snake hole has no sustenance, but it's also impetuous. "
Historically, regardless of China or the West, people who have made great achievements from ancient times to the present are models of dedication. Many stories of great men who were too focused and even made jokes were told by the world. For example, Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, dipped in garlic ink by mistake, Dong Zhongshu didn't peek into the garden for three years, monk Jia Dao clashed with officials because of reading ancient poems, Chen Jingrun concentrated on thinking about math problems and hit a tree, Newton boiled his pocket watch as an egg, Archimedes had a brainwave and rushed to the street naked in the bathhouse, and Madame Curie didn't even know that her reading stool had been removed when she was a child. Buffett and Bill Gates, the richest men in the contemporary world, can make great achievements that affect the world, which is inseparable from their concentration.
Second, pay attention to hierarchical classification.
From the perspective of concentrated objects, it can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. In a narrow sense, concentration means focusing on what you do in a specific time, such as Madame Curie reading, Wang Xizhi writing calligraphy, and Jia Dao, a monk, being superb in scrutinizing ancient poems. In a broad sense, focus is focused on specific areas, such as Edison focusing on light bulbs, Jobs focusing on Apple mobile phones, Bill Gates focusing on computers, Buffett focusing on investment and so on. It can be seen that the explanation of concentration in Modern Chinese Dictionary belongs to a narrow sense.
According to the length of time and different objects of concern, taking the learning walking life time management system as an example, it can be divided as shown in the following figure:
? Judging from the famous aphorisms about concentration in ancient and modern China and abroad, more emphasis is placed on generalized concentration.
Su Shi, one of the eight masters in the Tang and Song Dynasties, said: "Books are as rich as the sea, and there are all kinds of department stores. If you have energy, you can't take it all, but you can get what you want. Therefore, I hope that scholars will make a request every time. "
Pu Songling, a novelist in Qing Dynasty, said: "If you are infatuated with sex, you are determined to win;" Therefore, people who are obsessed with books must work hard, and people who are obsessed with art must have good skills. -Those who have fallen behind and accomplished nothing in the world are all self-proclaimed non-idiots. "
Zheng Banqiao, a litterateur in the Qing Dynasty, also said, "It is not too much to be diligent in reading. Only fine can be far away, and many people are not good. " British philosopher Bacon said: "Although reading is good, you don't want to argue, you just want to be specialized and don't want to be miscellaneous."
Lu Xun said: "How can a person do such a little bit, such a little bit, not only to do translation, but also to do novels, criticism and poetry?"
American writer Mark Twain said, "? The human mind is amazing. As long as you focus on a certain cause, you will surely achieve amazing achievements. "
Goethe, a German poet, said: "Smart people will put aside all distractions and concentrate on learning a subject and learn it well."
Marx, a German thinker, said: "There must be a breakthrough in scientific research".
French writer romain rolland once said, "It is better to spend the same time and energy to dig a deep well than to spend a lot of time and energy to dig many shallow wells". Zou Taofen pointed out: "The omnipotent person is really omnipotent, and the omnipotent expert is really omnipotent ..."
Steve Jobs, the former president of Apple, said: "People think that focusing means saying yes to what they are focusing on, but on the contrary, focusing means saying no to hundreds of good ideas, because we must choose carefully. This is my secret-concentration and simplicity. Simplicity is more difficult than complexity: you must try your best to make your ideas simpler and your products simpler. But it is still valuable in the end, because once you achieve your goal, you can shake the mountain.
These insights are actually a secret summary of their own growth experiences.
The following famous sayings belong to the narrow sense of concentration:
? German poet Fred said: "A person can't ride two horses. If you ride this one, you will lose that one."
The book Illustration of pomodoro technique says, "One foot cannot dance two dances at the same time. In other words, do only one thing at a time. "
Modern time management method: pomodoro technique, focus on the present 25 minutes.
The antonym of concentration is lack of concentration, and I always want to be knowledgeable. There is a metaphor in Xunzi's exhortation to learn: "Flying squirrels have five abilities, but they cannot be a skill." Flying squirrel is a kind of flying squirrel, a bit like a squirrel. It can fly, but it cannot fly to the roof. Can climb, but can't climb the treetops; Can swim, but can't cross the ditch; Can run, but can't catch up with people; You can hide, but you can't hide your body. It has five skills, but none of them can be used, which is very sad. This is a typical inattention.
Third, how to concentrate on your studies.
Focus needs a clear direction. We often hear that choosing a direction is more important than working hard. When you know the direction of your efforts and what you really want, you should continue to focus on the clear direction of your efforts. For example, at present, my goal is to finish my life, with the emphasis on finishing every point, every idea, every method and every habit that life has taught me. When I have a clear direction, I know what I really want, so I won't follow others and learn all kinds of things at a shallow level, which will only waste my precious time. A person's energy is limited. According to the rule of 7+2-2, a person cannot concentrate on more than three projects at the same time. It's best to focus on one thing at a time. Focusing on a project may make this content go deep into your subconscious, let your subconscious automatically play the role of analysis, digestion and screening, and help you master this content better.
Nowadays, many students are blindly and greedily studying, and at the same time switch between learning in many fields, such as time management, eloquent speech, book club, financial management, sorting and so on. It seems that they want to learn all the kung fu at once. The coach realized that blind greed for learning is the biggest taboo in learning and a stupid learning behavior, so the coach earnestly warned him to concentrate, and only learned to stroll through the life time management course during the 100-day journey, and all other studies were suspended. According to the study of Stanford University's learning power consumption law and the study of the subconscious mind, focusing on only one field at a time has the best effect and the fastest effect. Focus on learning and can play the subconscious hidden learning function of the brain.
There is a famous saying: life is no longer about doing many things, but doing important things to the extreme. That is, the famous rule of 28.
Concentration requires a lot of repeated learning.
Success is equal to doing simple things repeatedly, and persisting in doing repeated things with your heart. "Intention" and "persistence" are the last words, and simple repetition can't create perfection and achieve world champion; A drop of water wears away a stone. Rome was not built in a day. Parents and children kept reading China's classics for two and a half years, which made it easy for my 6-year-old son to read independently. My son has been thinking about English for nearly half a year, and he can say many English sentences unconsciously. These are all because of continuous strength.
Robin House's memory curve tells us that with the passage of learning time, our brains will forget what we have learned, which requires us to repeat what we have learned. Repeated repetition and constant revision and improvement are the basis for us to truly master theoretical knowledge.
When I was studying Chinese classics, the teacher asked us to read the Book of Changes for a hundred times or listen to a certain audio 100 times. The idea is to read the book a hundred times, the meaning is self-evident. At first, I thought it was impossible. How can I read a book a hundred times? This is just an exaggeration. But when you really listen and do it, you find that the real effect is more rewarding than just watching it twice. When you listen to an audio repeatedly, you can really catch every point in the audio and connect these points in series. If you just listen to it once or twice and don't listen, you will soon forget this knowledge according to the forgetting law of the brain. As the saying goes, if you read a book a hundred times, you will understand its meaning. After listening to it a hundred times, you may have memorized the audio content. Even if you can't recite the whole text word for word, you can basically understand every sentence in the audio after listening to the last sentence. After reading a book a hundred times, you can basically reach the level of catchy and easy to deal with. My children and I have read the Book of Filial Piety a hundred times. When we read it 60 times, children can basically recite the whole text skillfully.
If you want to get the maximum benefit from your study, you must do a lot of repeated and deliberate study in the "study area" and get effective feedback, that is, the guidance of excellent coaches.
Concentration requires deliberate repetition.
In the process of repetition, what we need is not simple repetition, but deliberate repetition. Learning is divided into three aspects:
The first is the comfort zone, which is the part that has been mastered;
The second is the study area, which is not mastered and needs deliberate practice to break through and improve;
The third is the panic zone, which is the area of fear.
If you stay in the comfort zone forever, you will not make progress, but if you enter the panic zone too quickly, your willingness to learn will be restrained, so only in the study zone, if you are not skilled enough and often make mistakes, can you practice deliberately.
For example, retired Kobe Bryant, the reporter interviewed him: Why can you succeed?
He said: I know the sun in Los Angeles at 4 am every day. Kobe gets up at 4 o'clock every morning to practice basketball skills. He practices shooting 65,438+0,000 times every morning. On the morning after he retired, he also practiced basketball. His story also shows that success is really not easy, because it requires continuous, repeated and deliberate practice.
Concentration and persistence can accumulate a lot of experience. The key factor that determines the great level and the average level is not only 10000 hours, but also how you use this 10000 hours. Some people may only spend 1000 hours on something, but the proportion of his deliberate practice is higher. So in fact, "genius" comes from deliberate practice, which determines whether we are great, not ordinary.
Concentration also requires rethinking. In the process of deliberate practice, through real-time resumption, summarize and find out what you have done well, what you have done badly, and how to improve it to do better. In other words, to look up at the road, deliberate practice is to bury your head and pull the car, and real-time resumption is to look up at the road. The organic combination of the two will eventually lead to success.
Focusing on the guidance of excellent coaches is even more powerful.
Deliberate practice is to let us practice in unfamiliar places and places where we often make mistakes, and repeat a lot. If in this process, you can get feedback from the coach and someone can help you improve constantly and avoid all kinds of minefields, that would be great!
Therefore, many sports activities, whether it is a single event like tennis or a team event like football, are equipped with coaches behind them.
The time management course of rambling life is guided by excellent time management instructors and professional coaches. A coach is a mirror, so that every coach can get continuous feedback from him.
Finally, I quote Buffett as the end and say, "Don't go your own way!" ! Don't hinder yourself, don't limit yourself. ) In the story of the race between the tortoise and the rabbit, the tortoise finally won, not because it was fast, but because it was focused and shielded from interference. Many failures are not because of others, but because you hinder yourself.