episode 16 - Why can't we focus as long as we want?
One of the most common requests from new clients: Katy! Help me focus more! I want to be able to work for more hours a day!
This podcast episode is all about the hard truth around whether or not we have limits (spoiler: we do) and how to work with them, not against them. If you want to stave off burnout - this is the episode for you!
Mentioned:
historical context for time limited days
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Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. We'll talk about why some of these things are so hard, and how that difficulty is showing up for you. Each episode has practical strategies to experiment with -- just because it's hard now doesn't mean it always has to be.
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One of the most common things that people ask for my help with as a coach is focusing for more hours. They want to be able to do more work every day and they want my help to do it.
And while there are definitely some strategies, tools, and books, a lot of which I've already mentioned on this podcast that can help you focus. There is something that we're not always talking about. And that is that we have a limit for how much creative, deep focus work that we can do during the day.
Now close your eyes. And imagine how many hours do you feel that you should be able to do during the day? Do you think it's eight? Do you think generously it's a little bit less than that. But what do you assume that you'll be able to set as a baseline standard for how much work that you can get done on the deeply draining intellectual tasks, like writing or taking notes or synthesizing or processing data?
Now. How does it feel if I tell you that most people that I work with, that I know of and research supports that most people have a three to four hour hard limit for creative work during the day.
I'll link in the show notes to a great historical contextualization of that and why the three or four hours that say Charles Dickens has, might not be the same that you do. But the reason that I think that that three to four hour limit is so freeing to hear and also kind of scary is. Most of us are expecting ourselves to do a lot more than that.
We're expecting to do three to four hours of writing. Plus three to four hours of reading, plus, you know, Two hours of admin. Each and every day to get to that eight hour Workday. And we know that that's the standard. And I've mentioned on this podcast that that's as much of a historical Relic is it's an actual supported neuroscientific reality, but.
Knowing that there's, that limit both gives us some constraints to say, okay, my hardest thing, I can probably only do it for three or four hours and probably not all in a row. And also, how am I supposed to get everything done? If my brain has a tap out point that is much lower than I think it is.
I think this is important to discuss because a lot of us fall into routines and rhythms that we haven't really questioned. We work for eight hours because people work for eight hours or we get down and we start writing in the morning because that's what works for us. And the first few episodes of this podcast are dedicated to busting those myths with your own data.
But this limit one of the most pernicious. Longstanding hard to get rid of myths that we should be able to work on deeply draining creative work for more hours than we actually can.
So some questions to consider that might help you dig a little bit deeper. What does it feel like for you when you reach your personal brain limit? Do you even know what full or tired or drained or just at the end of the line feels like on your brain?
Question two. What does an ideal Workday look like? And where does that idea come from? Where does that fantasy originate? What are the parameters and limits that you've inherited or that you've put on yourself?
And last but not least what are the hard limits in your life? Maybe their schedules, maybe there's tasks. Maybe you're a parent, you know, that you have certain things that you have to do at a certain time. Maybe it's a full-time job. Maybe it's a fellowship that gives you huge amounts of free time, but very tight deadlines.
But it's useful to think about. Okay. Where do you have some flexibility? And where do you need to just work with what you have in terms of the balance between your time and your brain?
Now, of course, I'm not just going to tell you that everybody has three hours, hard-stop good luck with that without giving you some experiments to try. So let's dig into those.
First experiment. A bold one. A fun one. I call it. Stop before you're ready.
The way this looks is that for a week, maybe two weeks or maybe forever you stop before the point of collapse you stop before you are ready. To stop for the day. So I know that for myself, I have gotten to learn what like 80% done feels like and in moments where I'm trying to reset away from. You know, unsustainable work habits. I will stop at 80% rather than a hundred percent collapsed.
I will get out from my desk a little bit earlier. I'll go for a walk over for that, that workout, but I've stopped before. I'm ready to see if that help. Me run over. Some of that energy into the next day. It's a lot easier to get back to my desk on Tuesday morning. If I didn't end Monday completely.
Utterly face down at my desk. Tired exhausted. Still behind. So, if you are used to working until the very last minute that you have, based on your schedule or the very last ounce of brain energy that you have based on your to-do list. Experiment with what it feels like to stop before you're ready. Some of us don't even know that we have this limit because we're so used to working past it. We're so used to just barreling right through.
Limits suggestions from our body. Be damned. We're just going to get done what we need to get done. No questions asked. So this is an experiment to see. Okay. Maybe if I don't just assume. That I need to keep going, no matter what. I'll be able to get a more fine tuned sense of what feels good in terms of the balance between various tasks, various brain energies throughout the day or the week.
Experiment two is to keep a research journal or work log or done list to challenge your ideas about productivity. One of the things that blows my client's minds and blows my mind on the regular is that when I rest more and actually don't go through every limit and I stop when I'm ready. I stopped when my brain is gone. I actually get more down over the course of the week, but you could not have convinced me of that.
Based on what I feel during the day. I still have a voice that says, keep going, don't stop. You're not done yet. You said you would. And I know that if I don't listen to that voice and I actually stop. When I'm tired when I'm hungry, when I need a break that I get more done
because I don't get stuck in this cycle of push until I crash. And then crashed until I'm ready to start again. Or more accurately stay crashed until my anxiety builds back up. And then I have to start working. So, if you know that that voice in your head is pretty strong and it encourages you to do things like stay at that desk until way later, or skipped dinner with your family, cancel plans with your friends. Don't go on that workout.
It can be useful to keep a research journal or a work log and say, okay. Is it actually true that I don't get as much done when I stop at four. Rather than eight 30 or is it possible that my perception of the data and the actual data are two different things.
And the last experiment. Is one that can be a little bit tricky, but incredibly useful in terms of your discernment and scheduling, planning, all of it. This is one of those experiments that if you get good at it, you really see benefits all throughout. Your scholarly human ecosystem.
And this experiment, I want you to pay attention to what kinds of work needed, what kind of brainpower. So for example, I have what I lovingly refer to. Is it three to 5:00 PM. Brain? Between the hours of three to 5:00 PM, depending a little bit on my body, the rhythms, how much sun I've had, but it's a solid bet that 90% of the time from three to 5:00 PM. I'm not getting any solid work done. I can respond to some lightweight emails. I can sort things out. I can do research about the next face cream that I want to buy, but those three to 5:00 PM hours are not going to be good for drafting this podcast, recording it.
Making progress on my own writing, doing any deep focus things, really sort of getting into that creative work, that early projects demand. It's just not happening between three and five. Your times and rhythms might be body-based. They might be based on your kids' schedules. They might be based on your work schedule. But if you know that, Hey.
I don't do great work between three to 5:00 PM. If it's very intensive brain heavy work, then you can say, okay. What times are available for that? For me, there's a magic window between like 10 and noon, where all of a sudden the caffeine for my morning coffee kicks in and I'm ready to write. So what's important is for me not to spend those magic hours doing the things that I could do during my three to five window.
I try and spend my most sparkly brain hours on the tasks that really needed the most. Lots of people told me for years and years that I was going to be a great early morning writer. And please know that I am not, my brain will riot and tantrum if I ask it to do any of this creative, deep focus work before 10:00 AM.
So your hours might vary, but knowing what kinds of work on your to-do list need, what kind of brain power? Can unlock a level of scheduling that makes so much more sense. For your body, for your brain, for the rhythms that you're working with.
I feel like at the end of most of these episodes, I say this is so hard because there's only so much time in the day. And there are so many more things that you could possibly get done. Then you can actually achieve in any 1 24 hour period. And I stand by that. But one of the things that I do see almost all of my clients who are coming to me, working through burnout, just generally feeling tired, exhausted, dissatisfied, and like they can't focus enough.
They're regularly habitually, sometimes gleefully exceeding the limits of what their brain is really able to do in a sustainable supported way. And it could be a really hard thing. For me to say, Hey, stop. Before you're done. Experiment with changing up the times of the day that you work on different things.
I keep a journal and actually see if that extra effort that extra hour pays off. These are confronting truths, but if you can get just a little bit more comfortable with looking at the actual data, I promise you that it will point you in the direction of a more supported and sustainable workflow. And let's face it. Grad school is not a two week sprint.
It's a multi-year marathon people. So the more sustainable and supported, you can be the more you're going to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it and not have to have those breakes put on by a bad case of burnout that will really make this even harder than it already is.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. And if you're liking what you're hearing, please subscribe, rate, and review to help other people find the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!