The Mistake That’s Killing Your Focus at Home

What if your focus problem isn't about willpower at all? In this episode, I break down why your environment beats discipline every single time. You'll learn the science behind environmental design, hear a real story about a student who transformed his focus in one week, and get three simple steps to set up your space so focusing becomes automatic. Are you ready to stop fighting yourself and start using your environment to do the heavy lifting?

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The podcast that teaches tweens and teens necessary life skills to achieve their goals, develop unconditional confidence, cultivate positive habits and become UNSTOPPABLE in all areas of life!

Will (00:02.126)
Do y'all have trouble focusing? Like you sit down to do your homework, 20 minutes goes by and you find yourself doom scrolling on TikTok or you're playing a video game and you genuinely have no idea how you got there. That happens to me pretty much every single day. So I'm gonna give you a really quick tip that's gonna change the way that you think about focus forever. Here's the thing, you think about focus like it's willpower. Like if you just tried a little bit harder or if you just cared a little bit more,

Or if you just mustered up enough purpose and confidence in what you're doing, then you would be able to concentrate. But that is not how it works. And that belief is actually sabotaging you every single day. Let me explain. When you're trying to focus in your room and you have your Xbox sitting next to your TV or your phone is on your desk or you have snacks everywhere, you have random Porsche toys that you fidget with every day, a YouTube video playing in the background. When all that's happening,

Your brain is fighting a war and you're losing because here's what's happening. Every single thing in your environment is either helping your focus or it's destroying it. Your brain sees that X-Box and says, that looks a whole lot better than the math homework that I need to do. Let me just go ahead and you know, play the, play the hope, play the X-Box. You, your brain sees your phone buzzing and says, what if my

Crush just sent me a cat meme. Those are my two favorite things. I got a crush and I got a cat meme, right? And then you blame yourself for not focusing. You think to yourself, I'm just lazy and I have no self control. I am bad at school, but those things aren't true. You're not lazy. Your environment is just working against you every single day. I want you to think about this. I want you to think about it like this. Would you ever go to the gym and try to lift weights while eating a pizza?

Actually, the more that I actually, right. When I asked that, I feel like I would do that to be completely honest, but most people would say no, because that's kind of insane. The environment just doesn't match the goal, but that's exactly what you're doing when you are trying to study in a room full of distractions. Your willpower is limited. You only have so much of it every single day, but your environment, it's kind of unlimited. And when you design your environment, right,

Will (02:26.754)
You don't even need willpower. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're trying to work on homework and you're trying to get it done, but your gaming setup is right next to your desk. Every time that you look up, you see it. Your brain is literally fighting the urge to stop working and to start playing. That's not a focus problem. That's not a laziness problem. That's an environment problem. But if you take your laptop and you do your little, you know, dancey dance over to the kitchen,

and maybe to the table or a library and you just sudden and you just start focusing in a different room, then suddenly focusing gets way easier because your brain isn't fighting anymore because your brain isn't fighting anymore. The temptation isn't there. Scientists call this environmental design and it's one of the most powerful tools that you as students can use. There was a study done at Princeton University. I know I'm bringing out the scientific will here.

And they found that physical clutter in your space competes for your attention. It literally makes it harder for your brain to focus. And that's just general clutter. We're not talking about the constant dopamine hits that, you know, your algorithm is trying to get from you. We're just talking about a clutter desk. add a, so add TikTok and YouTube shorts and Snapchat to a clutter desk. Of course you can't study when your desk is metty.

When your desk is messy, your brain is also messy. Let me tell you a quick story. I coach a kid named Zach and he was struggling really hard with getting his homework done. Like every single other kid that I coach and me too. He'd sit down at his desk every single night and with his best intentions.

Let me tell you about a quick story. coach, let me tell you about a quick story. I coached this kid named Zach and he was struggling with getting his homework done. Okay. I really related cause I didn't really love school when I was a student, he'd sit down every single night at his desk with the best intentions, but he, you know, two hours later would barely get anything done. And he felt so horrible about it. So I asked him, what's in your room when you're working? So I asked him, what's in your room when you're working? And he listed off.

Will (04:39.34)
gaming, PC, phone, snacks, TV, his guitar, posters of his favorite athletes, baseball cards, all those things. And I said, dude, you're trying to do deep work in an arcade. That's basically the problem here. So we made one change. It was a really simple change. He just started taking his laptop to the kitchen table when he had big assignments, no phone, no distractions, just him and the work. And within a week, his focus completely changed. He wasn't fighting himself anymore.

I used to study personally with my phone next to me telling myself, you know, I won't look at this. I'm going to have self control. I'm going to have will power because my name is will not won't. It's the cheesiest thing. What's ever come out of my mouth. 10 minutes later, I'd be scrolling Instagram every single time. Finally, I'd start putting my phone in a completely different room. I actually put it in a box in a completely different room. And when I worked, I felt like it was magic. I felt like I was getting

four hours of work done in an hour because I just wasn't tempted. I wasn't using my willpower, but I was using my environment. So here's what I want you to do right now today. First, I want you to audit your workspace. Look around. What is distracting you? What is in your area, in your environment where you typically work that is probably not helping you get more work done?

Is it your phone? Is it your gaming setup? Is it a messy desk? Is it a messy room with all of your clothes on the floor? Remember a messy, remember a cluttered area is a cluttered brain. Whatever it is, remove it from your environment or move yourself into a new environment. Second, separate your zones. Have a work zone and a play zone. Those things can't be in the same place. If you game in your room, don't study in your room. Go somewhere else.

I call this the no X-Box in Starbucks rule because

Will (06:42.316)
When I was in high school and my GPA actually started to trend upwards in the right direction, it was all because I started studying in Starbucks or at the school library. The reason why it worked is because, well, I didn't have my PC and all my video games in X in Starbucks. Pretty simple, right? Your brain knows your create that same separation, create that same separation for you, your goals and your environment.

And third, set up your space, whatever that space may be for success. Clean your desk, put on some lo-fi music, grab a hot coffee or a hot tea, get some water, make yourself a really nice, healthy smoothie. Make it feel like a place where work happens, where you lock in and you can get your ish done. Your brain is gonna follow. And the best part is, once you do this, focusing gets so much easier.

because you're not fighting yourself anymore. You're not relying on willpower that runs out by 3 PM, which just happens to be the time that you guys get home from school. You're using your environment to do the heavy lifting for you so that your discipline and your willpower doesn't have to do that. So remember, y'all environment beats willpower every single time. So the next time you sit down to work and you can't focus, don't blame yourself. Don't call yourself lazy. Don't say you're never going to be successful. Just look around.

fix your space and watch what happens. If this episode helped you do me a favor, leave me a review. That's something that I feel like really helps me out and it just makes me so happy. It makes me so giddy when I look down there and I see, you know, a nice review with a kid or a student that says, bro, this was actually kind of helpful, way better than my teachers. No offense to the teachers out there. It really helps more students like yourself find the podcast and actually lock in and level up in their life. So if you want more, so,

Love you guys lots. Thanks for listening. Catch you in the next one. So love you guys lots. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you in the next one.