Improve Your Focus: Outsourcing Self Control

Image by Ruby Rose
A few months ago I came across this picture that several friends had shared on Facebook (courtesy of Ruby Rose). Many people identified with this image making comments along the lines of –

“So sad but TRUE!”

Sites like Facebook, YouTube and Tumblr are incredibly addictive.

Deep down we all know we should be working towards our long term goals. But the pull towards instant gratification and pleasure is often too strong and triumphs over good reasoning and common sense.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience where you said to yourself –

“I’ll just go on Facebook for 5 minutes and then I’ll start working on that report…”

However a few hours later you were still exploring videos, peoples’ holiday photos and links to various meaningless articles.

It’s so easy to get screen sucked and lose sight of your goals. At some point we need to ask ourselves the question –

“Is going on Facebook [Tumblr, Twitter, etc] worth not achieving my goals?”

Most of us would say no, but in the next breath we may find ourselves logging into Facebook.

But what if you weren’t able to log into addictive sites? What if every hour that you wasted on Facebook meant you had to donate your hard earned money to charity? What if you were able to see how much time you spent on social media?

Thanks to modern technology, there are now a number of innovative ways you can monitor time wasting behaviour, outsource your self control and stay off addictive sites. Below I outline a number of applications and websites that have been designed to do just that.

The Quantified self:
The Quantified self is a website that presents information on tracking a number of behaviours including how you spend your time online. The simple act of tracking any behaviour can be a great wake up call and impetus for personal change. Check out the forum discussion on free Time Tracker programs here.

Anti-social: Anti-Social blocks you out of over 50 social sites (e.g. Facebook, Tumblr, Skype) for the time period that you specify. It’s only available for Macs and costs $15 to purchase. A free trial program is available.

Procrasdonate: You specify the sites that you procrastinate on and pledge to donate a certain amount to a charity for every hour you waste on these sites. Having something at stake may be all it takes to keep you off particular sites.

Freedom: Freedom blocks you out of the internet for a period of time that you specify. Costs $10 (US dollars) and is available for both MAC and Windows.

Self control:
This free app requires you to specify the websites that you want to lock yourself out of. I have heard some students say it has bugs and can freeze their computers occasionally. Perhaps these problems have now been fixed, so it’s probably still worth checking out. Only available for MACs.

If you want to maximise your chances of achieving your goals and establishing new habits check out sites such as Stickk.com, 43things.com and the 21habit.com.

All of the above websites and apps are brilliant tools for self improvement and productivity. But you need to remember none of them are a quick fix. Simply downloading them won’t miraculously turn you into a productivity god/goddess. They are just clever tools that you need to be disciplined enough to use in the first place to experience any benefits.

But if you are serious about working in a more focused way, I highly recommend using one or two of them.

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Students often cringe when they hear two words: goal setting.

I understand this cringe factor.

In high school, goal setting felt forced. I’d think, “Why are they making me do this?” and “What’s the point?”.

However, once I got to university, I realised that goals are a helpful life strategy.

In this article, I want to share my perspective on goal setting and how this strategy has helped me to get things done.

I’m going to tell you:

• What goals are
• Why you’d want to have them
• How to stick at them
• Why you need to protect your goals from destructive outside forces

Let’s go!

What are goals?

Goals are things you want to do. Perhaps you want to write a book, jog around the block every morning, start a podcast, get a part-time job to save money or learn to play an instrument. These are goals.

Why bother setting goals?

• Goals give your life a sense of purpose
• Goals give your life meaning and a reason to get out of bed
• Goals help to focus your mind on what you want/need to do
• Goals help you to create a better, less boring life

As Giovanni Dienstmann explains in his book Mindful Self Discipline:

“We all need to aspire to something and feel that we are going somewhere. Otherwise, there is a sense of boredom in life. Our daily routine feels stale and unengaging. As a result, we seek relief through bad habits, and seek engagement through mindless entertainment, news, social media, games, etc.”

Why is it so hard to persevere with goals?

Have you ever set a goal, you felt excited, but then that excitement quickly dissipated, and you gave up on the goal?

Whenever this happens, it’s easy to think, “Goal setting doesn’t work!”.

However, the problem isn’t with goal setting as a strategy.

The problem is that motivation is completely unreliable (it comes and goes). Plus, you were probably never taught how to achieve your goals in the first place.

In other words, you were set up to fail.

There’s a lot of pretty average advice out there about goal setting. I’ve heard dozens of goal setting pep talks, and many can be summed up like this:

“Set a goal, make it SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), break it down, blah, blah, blah.”

Most students tune out when they hear these pep talks. You can feel the energy being sucked out of the room.

This advice doesn’t work for most people. And it’s incomplete.

What’s missing from these goal setting pep talks?

I’ve found that the following simple ideas can make a big difference in helping you move from inaction to action when it comes to pursuing your goals:

1. Dial down your expectations: Set the bar low

Achieving big long-term goals requires consistently engaging in small behaviours over time. You need to chip away and develop habits to get there.

For instance, after taking a hiatus from writing books (because I felt stuck and overwhelmed by the idea), I finally started writing down my ideas.

What helped me to get unstuck?

By starting small.

I told myself all I had to do was open the Word document and write one sentence. And the sentence didn’t even have to be good! But I had to do this every single day.

If I wanted to write more than one sentence, I could. But one sentence was my absolute minimum. Most days, I wrote at least a paragraph. But when I didn’t feel great, I would show up and write one sentence.

Nine months later, I had a draft manuscript ready to send to my editor.

2. Swarm of Bs: Brainstorm specific behaviours

Many different behaviours can help you achieve your goal. The first step is to brainstorm all the possible behaviours that can help you move closer to it.

One way to do this is with BJ Fogg’s tool, Swarm of Behaviors (also known as Swarm of Bs).

Here’s what you do:

You write your goal/aspiration/outcome (whatever you want to achieve) in the middle of a sheet of paper. Then, you spend a few minutes listing all the behaviours that will help you achieve it.

Dr Fogg stresses:

“You are not making any decisions or commitments in this step. You are exploring your options. The more behaviors you list, the better.”

When I was brainstorming behaviours that could help me to write my next book, I came up with the following list:

1. Use an Internet blocker app and block myself from distracting websites
2. Carry a notepad and pen with me everywhere I go (to capture ideas)
3. Write one sentence every morning
4. Speak my ideas into a voice recorder when I go for a walk
5. Use the Write or Die app
6. Manage my inner critic (when it strikes, say to myself, “It can’t be all bad!”)
7. Give myself a pep talk each day (e.g., “Done is better than perfect!”)
8. Do Julia Cameron’s morning page activity (i.e., free writing)
9. Attend a writing retreat
10. Sign up for the ‘Turbocharge your writing’ course
11. Pick up a mind map, select an idea and use it as a writing prompt

Once you’ve finished brainstorming potential behaviours, go through your list and select just a few behaviours to get the ball rolling (I selected #1, #3, and #6).

It’s well worth spending a couple of minutes making each of these behaviours ‘crispy’ (i.e., specific). For instance, for Behaviour #1, I decided which websites I would block myself from using and at what times.

3. Expect the process to be messy

When we work towards big life goals, the process is never neat or linear. Showing up and doing whatever you need to do (even just writing one sentence) can feel like a daily grind. Mild discomfort usually infuses the whole process.

Accept that’s how it is. It will sometimes feel like a hard slog, but the rewards are worth it.

The long-term rewards of working on your goals far outweigh the superficial rewards of scrolling through social media, watching Netflix, etc.

Even if you don’t achieve what you initially set out to do, chances are you’ll still be better off than you were before. Why? Because you’ll have learnt a bunch of new skills and life lessons.

4. Stop external forces from sabotaging your goals

Be careful who you share your goals with. Some people delight in stamping all over your goals and crushing your hopes and dreams.

For example, when I was 10 years old, I started attending drama classes outside of school. These classes were a lot of fun and quickly became the highlight of my week.

I remember thinking, “When I grow up, I want to run a drama academy to help boost kids’ confidence”.

I felt inspired by this idea. Drama had helped me come out of my shell and I wanted this for other kids who were lacking confidence. So, I decided to be brave and share my plans with my primary school teacher at the time.

I was expecting Mr D to say, “Good for you, Jane!”. But instead, he said with a smirk, “How do you think you’re going to do that?”

And then he started grilling me with questions . . .

“Where will you get the money from to set this up?”
“Who is going to come to your classes?”
“Where do you plan on running these classes?”

On and on Mr D went.

Ugh. “Just stop Mr D!” I wanted to scream.

I was left feeling crushed.

So, take it from me: Be careful who you share your goals with. Because some people get a kick out of squashing stuff (e.g., your dreams).

But nowadays, there’s a more powerful (and often overlooked) force that can mess with your goals: social media

If you’re constantly checking social media and looking at what other people are doing, that’s time and energy you could have spent working towards your goals. But that’s only part of the story . . .

Social media exposes you to a hodgepodge of content: the best bits of people’s lives, advertising, conspiracy theories, and outrage-inducing influencers. All this noise messes with your goals by subtly shifting and changing your worldview, beliefs, attitudes, and what you view as important in life.

In his brilliant book Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy, ex-Google strategist and now Oxford-trained philosopher James Williams shares his struggles with this. He states:

“. . . I felt that the attention-grabby techniques of technology design were playing a nontrivial role. I began to realise that my technologies were enabling habits in my life that led my actions over time to diverge from the identity and values by which I wanted to live. It wasn’t just that my life’s GPS was guiding me into the occasional wrong turn, but rather that it had programmed me a new destination in a far-off place that it did not behoove me to visit. It was a place that valued short-term over long-term rewards, simple over complex pleasures.”

He adds:

“…I found myself spending more and more time trying to come up with clever things to say in my social posts, not because I felt they were things worth saying but because I had come to value these attentional signals for their own sake. Social interaction had become a numbers game for me, and I was focused on “winning” – even though I had no idea what winning looked like. I just knew that the more of these rewarding little social validations I got, the more of them I wanted. I was hooked.

. . . I had lost the higher view of who I really was, or why I wanted to communicate with all these people in the first place.”

When you go on social media, you need to realise that there are thousands of highly intelligent people on the other side of the screen and it’s their job to figure out how to capture and exploit your attention.

In short, the values and goals of these big tech companies are not aligned with your values and goals. Facebook’s first research scientist Jeff Hammerbacher summed it up nicely when he said:

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads . . . and it sucks.”

Take a moment to think of the people who you admire. How would you feel if you saw them spending vast amounts of time distracted and obsessed with social media?

I’ll leave you with this powerful quote from author Adam Gnade:

“Would you respect them [your biggest hero] as much if you saw them hunched over their phone all day like a boring zombie? No, you want them out there in the world doing heroic things, writing that great novel/song/whatever, saving the planet, standing up for the disenfranchised, or whatever else it was that made you love them in the first place. Let’s try to be as good as our heroes.”

Whatever you want in life, work out what you need to do to get there (i.e., the concrete behaviours), and then roll up your sleeves and get started.

You know you need to prepare for exams, but you tell yourself, “I’ve have plenty of time”.

But how much time do you actually have?

It’s hard to get a sense just by thinking “My exam is in three weeks.” After all, three weeks sounds like plenty of time, right?

Don’t be fooled. This is your brain playing tricks on you.

No one ever has a full three weeks (504 hours) to prepare for an exam. Thrown into the mix is time for sleep, getting ready for school or work, working on assignments, socialising with friends and family, etc. Plus, you usually have more than one exam to study for.

But we can forget this. And when we do, we end up procrastinating with our work and it piles up for our future selves to deal with.

What’s missing is that your brain needs clear visual feedback. It needs to have a sense of the big picture (i.e., all your commitments laid out in front of it).

How can you quickly get a sense of the big picture?

By using a year-at-a-glance calendar.

Earlier this year, I printed out a massive year-at-a-glance calendar (A0 size).

I scheduled all my upcoming presentations, holidays, important events (e.g., birthdays), deadlines, etc., onto the calendar and placed it in a prime position where I couldn’t miss it.

This calendar has made all the difference. It grounds me in reality, helps me feel more in control of my schedule, and gives me clear visual feedback. It also makes me think twice before I agree to take on a new project.

In the past, whenever I’ve said yes to a new opportunity, I haven’t always been grounded in reality. Too many times, I’ve been unintentionally cruel to future Jane.

Let me explain . . .

Back in 2016, I was on the home stretch with my PhD. The path forward was clear. After years of struggling with my PhD, the end was in sight. I was on track to hand in my thesis in a few months’ time.

But then something happened that threw me off course (well, erm, I threw myself off course).

I was asked by a company to run a series of workshops. Without even thinking, I said “Yes! I’d love to!”. It seemed like a great opportunity. One that was too good to pass up.

When I shared the news with my PhD supervisor, she seemed to think differently. Her face said it all: a mixture of concern and confusion.

“Why did you say yes to this? Do you need the money? What about your PhD? You’re so close to finishing”, she said.

The truth was I didn’t need the money. I said yes because without having my other commitments staring me in the face, I had all the time in the world. I was engaging in magical (delusional) thinking. I fantasised about having superhuman capabilities and being able to do it all.

I was wrong. There were only so many hours in the day, and something had to give.

To cut a long story short, pretty quickly the magical thinking wore off, and I regretted taking on the job. I had burdened my future self with a ridiculous amount of work and unnecessary stress.

But worst of all, I had delayed handing in my thesis by several months. A few months might not sound like much in the big scheme of things. But when you’ve been plugging away at a PhD for seven years, every month becomes precious. I risked losing momentum.

If I could teleport back in time and place a year-at-a-glance calendar in my office space, I like to think that I would have prioritised my PhD over the shiny new opportunity.

The value of laying things out in physical space

I recently finished reading an excellent book called ‘The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain’ by Annie Murphy-Paul.

In this book, Annie explores nine principles for expanding our intelligence (note: these principles are not taught in schools). She argues that instead of pushing our brains to work harder and harder, we can use our bodies, relationships, and surrounding environment to boost our cognitive abilities.

In the chapter called “Thinking with the Space of Ideas”, she writes:

“Whenever possible, we should offload information, externalize it, move it out of our heads and into the world. It relieves us of the burden of keeping a host of details “in the mind,” thereby freeing up mental resources for more demanding tasks like problem solving and idea generation.”

After reading this book, I understood why a year-at-a-glance calendar can be such a powerful tool. Seeing all your projects and commitments in one glance allows you to think smarter and more strategically.

These calendars also help to orient you in time. You can see how much time you have between now and doing the things you need to do.

Your projects and deadlines stare back at you every day. There’s no escaping them.

Seeing your life in this way also helps you to plan and pinpoint busy periods.

Here’s an example . . .

This month, I have more presentations scheduled than usual. This means I need to manage my energy levels, prioritise sleep, and eat healthily.

But a quick glance at my calendar tells me I have a few ‘free’ days before all these talks begin. I can use this time to cook a few meals to pop in the fridge and freezer to make life a little easier during this busier period.

One of the worst things I can do when I get busy is order takeaway food and sacrifice sleep to work. I refuse to do it as it always backfires. If I’m functioning at half capacity, my talks and work will suffer.

These calendars can also provide useful information to help you manage your energy levels, reduce ridiculous workloads, and avoid burnout.

Earlier this year, there was a week when I delivered more talks than usual. During this week, I found myself taking 15-minute power naps between talks to recharge before the next one. Even with all these power naps, by the end of the week, I felt tired. I drew a tired little emoji face on my calendar to represent this.

That tired emoji face is a constant reminder: you have mental and physical limits. Don’t overdo it.

Making your year-at-a-glance calendar

It’s important to find a calendar that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional for you. This means you probably can’t just go to the shops and pick something off the shelf.

You could order a hard copy calendar online, but when the year is already well underway who wants to potentially wait weeks for their calendar to arrive in the mail?

Here are some cheap and fast DIY options:

You can purchase a digital download online and take it to your local print shop on a USB stick. Some templates display the month as a long list of days; whereas other calendars group the month into weeks, with each week on a separate line (see examples below).

Alternatively, you could buy a monthly calendar, cut it up, and stick it together.

One of my friends suggested I try doing this. I gave it a shot, but my calendar looked like a failed arts and crafts project (with messy bits of tape plastered everywhere). Plus, the boxes were too small and cramped my style.

After some trial and error, I purchased a digital download from Etsy for $20AUD and printed it A0 size for $10AUD. All up, my calendar cost me $30AUD – money that was well spent.

The bottom line is you have to figure out what works for you and how much you’re willing to spend.

Tips for using your year-at-a-glance calendar:

• Write on the calendar when all your exams, appointments, special events, and major projects will take place.

• If you don’t yet know the specific dates of each exam, note the week they begin and assume the worst-case scenario (your exams will be sooner rather than later).

• Consider laminating your calendar so you can use whiteboard markers on it.

• If laminating is too expensive, use sticky notes and washi tape instead.

• You can mount your calendar on core-flute material or foam board to give it a sturdier structure.

• Resist the urge to put every detail on your calendar. Focus on the big project deadlines, appointments, exams, etc. The details for what and when you work on each project can go into your weekly planner and/or on your to-do list.

• If you have the wall space, consider printing your calendar A0 size (841mm x 1189mm). You want plenty of space to write in each box.

To sum up

In our noisy world where we are bombarded with endless opportunities, many of us would benefit from embracing analog tools like the year-at-a-glance calendar. These calendars help to ground us in reality and focus our minds on what matters.

If you have a lot going on in your world and find yourself saying “Yes!” to every shiny new opportunity that comes your way, do yourself a favour and create a year-at-a-glance calendar. Having your commitments stare you in the face every day is a simple but powerful way to live with greater focus and intentionality.

Do you ever find yourself watching cooking videos instead of cooking?

I recently watched a video of Gordan Ramsey cooking a ‘curry in a hurry’ (a butter chicken dish).

I was spellbound by the way Ramsey seamlessly cooked this dish. He was in flow and fully focused on the task of cooking the butter chicken.

What allowed him to whip up this dish plus a serving of rice in under 15 minutes?

Being organised helped a lot. Before he started cooking, chef Ramsey had all the ingredients and cooking utensils out on the bench, ready to go.

In chef’s speak, he had prepared the mise en place.

Mise en place is a culinary skill that can help us to study and work more efficiently. In this article, I explore this concept and how you can apply it to your life to help you stay calm, focused, and in control of your studies.

What is the mise en place?

The mise en place is a French term that translates to “putting in place”. It means a place for everything and everything in its place.

Everything the chef needs is within arm’s reach. When it’s time to start cooking the dish, the chef knows where everything is. This allows the chef to focus on cooking the dish and stay calm and grounded under pressure.

In the book Kitchen Operations (a textbook for hospitality students and apprentice chefs), the authors write about the importance of being organised in the kitchen. They state:

“The ability to work in an organised manner is possibly the most important quality that anyone working in the preparation and service of food can demonstrate. You must develop this ability to complete the expected workload in the time available. Failure to be methodical in your approach will reduce efficiency and will lead to feelings of stress and frustration.”

The mise en place helps the chef avoid unnecessary stress and frustration.

Imagine the following scenario . . .

A chef starts cooking a pasta sauce.
The chef realises 10 minutes in that he is missing a key ingredient (tins of tomatoes).
The chef has to run to the shops to buy the tomatoes.

Chefs can’t afford to have that happen. They are time-pressured. They need to get meals out quickly to hungry customers.

The mise en place helps chefs avoid stressful situations like this. It can also help you decrease unnecessary stress, drama, and frustration associated with homework and study.

How can the mise en place help you with your study?

Before starting your work, set yourself up with everything you need to complete the task.

Think of this as the study desk mise en place. Ideally, you want to have a dedicated study space where everything is already set up. This saves you time, as you don’t have to set things up and pack things away after each study session.

But your desk isn’t the only space you can set up and prepare. In the world of study, you have other spaces you need to manage (e.g., a computer, school bag, pencil case, and locker). With each of these spaces, you need to ask:

“What items do I need in this space for my work to flow smoothly?”

It also helps to ask:

“What items don’t I want in this space?”

Just like a chef doesn’t want cockroaches, cats, and rats running around the kitchen and restaurant (or a visit from the local health inspector), there are things you want to keep out of your study space.

Remove anything that throws you off your game (i.e., makes you feel bad, distracted, overwhelmed, and upset) from your study space.

Here’s my list of things I want to keep out of my study space:

• My smartphone
• Long to-do lists
• Visual clutter

The point is to remove any friction points from your environment (anything that will slow you down and make it difficult to do your work).

Preparing the mental mise en place

The mental mise en place cannot be overlooked. This is the mental preparation part of the study process.

Ask yourself:

What must I do to mentally prepare myself for deep work/study?

Most of us can’t just scroll on our social media feed for an hour and launch straight into doing focused study. We need to get into the right headspace.

To be clear, I don’t mean you need to feel motivated, inspired, or in the right mood to study. Too often, we wait for motivation to strike, and it never comes. However, it certainly helps to be calm, focused, and grounded.

My mental preparation for the workday starts the evening before. Too many late nights have taught me that to wake up feeling calm and grounded, I need to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

When I wake up, I protect this mental calm by:

• Going for a walk or lifting heavy weights
• Doing a mini meditation (usually 3-5 minutes)
• Eating a healthy breakfast
• Avoiding checking my email and touching my computer first thing
• Journaling or mind mapping with pen and paper

I stay away from screens for as long as possible. This is essential for cultivating a calm mental state where I feel proactive and in control of my day.

I know I’m in trouble if I skip too many of the things on the list and start the day by checking my email. It becomes much more challenging to focus and get things done.

Avoiding pests of the mind

What is a pest of the mind?

It is anything that overstimulates the mind and leaves one feeling frenzied, scattered, and/or jangled.

Here’s the thing about learning information at a deep level: it requires you to slow down. You cannot rush it, like a 15-minute butter chicken dish.

But we engage with people, places, and things on a daily basis that speed up our thinking. In this overstimulated, wired mental state, learning feels like a hard slog.

Here’s a tip: start to notice the things that leave you feeling overstimulated. It can be incredibly liberating to cut back on these things or eliminate them completely from your life.

My study mise en place

I am constantly tweaking my workspace and experimenting with different tools to help me click into a state of flow with my work. Here are some tools that I’m currently enjoying having as part of my study mise en place:

1. Stream deck

Elgato stream deck

Technically, this is a gaming device that allows gamers who stream to switch scenes, adjust audio, etc at the tap of a button. I’m not a gamer, but I use my Stream deck to get started with various tasks and projects I feel resistance towards.

Instead of thinking, “Where is this file located? How do I get to it?” I tap a button on the Stream deck and it opens the file up. I tap another button, and it opens an application I frequently use.

No more frustrating clicking through numerous folders trying to find the document I need! The Stream deck helps to remove a big mental barrier and kick-start the work process with ease.

Stream decks aren’t cheap but if you can find one secondhand or on special like I did, they are well worth it.

2. Jug of water and glass

Staying hydrated is super important. I fill a big jug with water every morning and place it on my desk with a glass. If water is within arm’s reach and I can see it, I find myself taking regular sips throughout the day.

3. Gel pens

I used nasty, cheap pens for years. Being a sucker for free stuff, I collected free pens at career expos and university open days. Without even realising it, these pens caused me a great deal of frustration and irritation.

These days, when it comes to pens, I don’t mess around with junk. There’s one pen I love using: the uniball signo (0.7). It’s a gel pen (you can find them at Officeworks). Writing with this pen is an absolute pleasure.

As Kevin Kelly says:

“Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife?” or “Where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.”

4. Notepad

It’s super handy to have a notepad to jot down ideas and random thoughts as they arise. I recently discovered Rhodia notepads (a recommendation by The Pen Addict, Brad Dowdy). Writing on this paper feels like writing on butter!

5. Electronic timer

Whenever I notice I’m procrastinating, I’ll set my timer for 10 minutes and say, “All I need to do is 10 minutes on this task. That’s all. Just 10 minutes”. I set the timer and away I go.

Other times, when my workspace looks like a mess, I’ll set a timer for 3 minutes and spend that time getting things back in order.

6. Planner

My planner tells me what to do and when to do it. For the last 6 weeks, I have been experimenting with Cal Newport’s time blocking method (planning my day in hourly blocks). It sounds torturous, but it’s strangely liberating.

7. Year-in-a-glance wall calendar

When I open my planner, I can see what is happening for the week, but I don’t have a sense of the bigger picture. This is why I printed out a massive (A0 size) year-in-a-glance planner to schedule all my presentations, holiday breaks, special events, etc.

Having this calendar makes me feel more in control of my life. I can see when I have busy periods of presenting and when I need to balance those periods with extra rest time to sustain myself. I can also see events and deadlines relatively to where I am now.

These are just a few things I love having in my study/work mise en place. But we’re all different, so you need to figure out what works best for you.

What secondary students tell me they need

When I recently asked a group of high school students what items they would need in their study mise en place, here’s what they came up with:

• Snacks
• Phone
• Pencil case
• Squishmallows

The first three suggestions didn’t surprise me, but the squishmallows sure did (the students were shocked that I’d never heard of a squishmallow before). I had to google them (they are soft toys).

But I get it.

A squishmallow is fun.
It’s comforting.
It makes you feel good.

If something makes you feel good, go put it on your desk. Because if you feel good, it will be easier to think and learn.

To sum up

The mise en place is a skill that can help all of us (not just chefs) focus on the task at hand. The point is you need to make your study mise en place work for you. You need to find the combination of ingredients that hits the spot.

Like a top chef has their favourite chopping knife, you’ll have your favourite pen. Spend some time experimenting with various tools and different work setups. By creating a more streamlined and organised study space, you’ll get that time back. Plus, you’ll find it’s much easier to get going and keep going with your work.