How to reduce distractions while learning chinese?

[phoneticsem]

I tried to study chinese and whenever i do not know some word, i will check it in phone and then goes to browsing or something else..

 

How to control these distractions?

 

Put a goal to complete something and keep reminding in between? Will that help? let me try? 

 

What is one method that greatly helped you to limit distractions?

[大块头]

The pomodoro technique works for me (he typed while procrastinating on Chinese-Forums).

[abcdefg]

"How to reduce distractions while ... doing anything."

Start by turning off the mobile phone. Become unavailable. Do just the task at hand all by itself for a while, without multi-tasking. 

 

 

[phoneticsem]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:32 AM, abcdefg said:

Start by turning off the mobile phone. Become unavailable.

Well said. But pleco and anki are on my phone, and i need to use it. But the phone is distractor for 80-90% of time 

 

On 4/30/2022 at 8:32 AM, abcdefg said:

Do just the task at hand all by itself for a while, without multi-tasking

 

multi tasking making things ‘not completing one task at a time’. at the end all tasks are open nothing is completed.

 

On 4/29/2022 at 9:18 AM, 大块头 said:

(he typed while procrastinating on Chinese-Forums).

 

yes. chinese-Forums is some distraction really for me. I will come to forum once a day from now on. But great forum to correct some of the issues and great collaboration and different view points. Learnt a lot.

 

On 4/29/2022 at 9:18 AM, 大块头 said:

The pomodoro technique works for me

Great. how you are applying it to yourself, can please elaborate?

[roddy]

It might be worth having a cheap second phone or tablet as a study device, with only the essential apps and kept offline if possible. 

[alantin]

I don't think pleco needs network connectivity for the dictionary to work, does it?
Anki certainly does not.

turn off your wifi and cellular while you study.

[becky82]

Go to a library or something similar to study?  (Or even just a different room.)  I often study in food courts.  Outside of lunch hours, there are not many people, but still have good lighting.  And since it's a shared space, I don't feel pressured into buying overpriced coffee like at Starbucks.

[abcdefg]

On 4/30/2022 at 2:28 AM, becky82 said:

Go to a library or something similar to study?

 

I like that trick too. I call it the "geographical cure." 

[phoneticsem]

@roddy @alantin great advise to work offline. Let me try this option. But some times wants to search additional information for the words related to subject. Let me try offline option few times

 

After reading and collecting new vocabulary of one paragraph only start browsing stuff on net for 30 minutes. trying to implement this second option also. Will update the progress

 

On 4/30/2022 at 3:28 PM, becky82 said:

Go to a library or something similar to study?  (Or even just a different room.)  I often study in food courts

 

Going to Library or food courts might not work during this covid-19 times. My 2 main distractions are 1. Go on to browsing news, youtube, google search, forums, Instagram etc..2. Mind wanders on other ongoing things 

[Flickserve]

Have another older device and move all your social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, tik tok, discord etc to the other device.

[roddy]

On 5/1/2022 at 2:18 AM, phoneticsem said:

But some times wants to search additional information for the words related to subject.

It can be a good idea to leave those extra look-ups to the end of your study session. First of all, it turns five chances for distraction into one. Second, it's more realistic - sometimes you're not going to be able to do extra look-ups, you'll have to work with the information available at the time. 

 

Obviously if you are completely stuck, you might need to look for more help. But if you're reading a book and wondering "Hmmm, I can tell this word is some kind of dog, but is it a husky or an Alsatian?" it can wait.

[imron]

Put your phone in black and white mode. It becomes far less distracting. 
 

See also: https://medium.com/make-time/my-year-with-a-distraction-free-iphone-and-how-to-start-your-own-experiment-6ff74a0e7a50

[大块头]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:21 AM, phoneticsem said:

On 4/28/2022 at 9:18 PM, 大块头 said:

The pomodoro technique works for me

Great. how you are applying it to yourself, can please elaborate?

 

What works for me may not work so well for you. Best just to give it a try and make small improvements as you go. There are plenty of apps for it and an endless number of articles on the topic, but it doesn't need to be more sophisticated than setting your phone to airplane mode and starting a timer for 25 minutes.

[Lu]

On 5/1/2022 at 3:18 AM, phoneticsem said:

My 2 main distractions are 1. Go on to browsing news, youtube, google search, forums, Instagram etc..2. Mind wanders on other ongoing things

For distraction 1, consider blocking those websites. I have a Firefox extension for it. It's easy enough to override, but at least that gives me one extra moment of pause to ask myself: do I really want to sink half an hour into this website? No, I do not, so instead of clicking 'Remove blocking' I click to close the tab and get back to work. There are stronger blockers too.

 

I, too, can't just block the entire internet, because there is a lot of useful information on there that I legitimately need every few minutes.

 

For distraction 2, the pomodoro technique can help (she wrote, while procrastinating on Chinese-forums after encountering a thorny sentence.)

[phoneticsem]

On 5/1/2022 at 2:57 PM, roddy said:

Obviously if you are completely stuck, you might need to look for more help

I am still at this level. In a general composition for secondary exam i am getting 150+ new words which i do not know and by reading the passage I can not guess overall meaning or say most of it. I am using google translator first to know overall meaning then list down vocabulary and get meaning sentence by sentence. that is my current level.

 

@imron very helpful link.From that link i went to this digital minimalism link and really motivates to work in minimising digital distractions

https://helloxinling.medium.com/digital-minimalism-another-way-tolive-in-this-modern-age-92eadce878e8

 

On 5/2/2022 at 1:58 AM, 大块头 said:

setting your phone to airplane mode and starting a timer for 25 minutes

 

yes tried this very good practical and useful technique?pomodoro technique is very effective

 

@Lu and all thank you very much. moved safari bowser, instagram , youtube to a folder on the last page and set timer. 

[phoneticsem]

Able to control digital distractions to minimum level last week. Thanks all for your insights and inputs.

 

Now the focus is not entirely on study or on digital distractions. Now it is day dreaming or thinking other stuff and not finishing the goal of learning for 25 mins breaks . Applying pomodoro technique effectively should have controlled, but not able to apply. Trying this week not to day dream and focus on study

 

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-stop-daydreaming-and-focus-on-studies

 

one of the quote from above link, which i am applying: 

 

The moment you feel that you have begun daydreaming, close your eyes for a moment. Calm yourself down. Don't force the thoughts to go away, don't completely avoid day dreaming. Tell your thoughts “I'm doing something important right now, I'll get back to you in a moment.” Talk to your mind. Talking to yourself isn't bad. Introspection is required to get control over yourself and learn the act of self discipline

[Moshen]

Quote

The moment you feel that you have begun daydreaming, close your eyes for a moment. Calm yourself down. Don't force the thoughts to go away, don't completely avoid day dreaming. Tell your thoughts “I'm doing something important right now, I'll get back to you in a moment.” Talk to your mind. Talking to yourself isn't bad. Introspection is required to get control over yourself and learn the act of self discipline

 

[comment deleted]

Edited May 7, 2022 at 09:35 AM by Moshen

[bajia]

I also struggle a lot with distractions when I am reading in Chinese. For me, the most helpful technique has been to listen to an audio recording of the text I am reading, and follow along on the page. I usually don't have the mental bandwidth to get sidetracked when I'm doing this. It really isn't practical to pause to look up words, so I usually have to choose easier reading material and do any look-ups after reading.

 

For harder material, I've had an easier time staying focused when I'm using a pop-up dictionary, versus using a physical book and frequently checking my phone or computer for definitions. It's just too easy to get diverted to something else when my attention is split.

[phoneticsem]

On 5/8/2022 at 2:02 AM, bajia said:

I also struggle a lot with distractions when I am reading in Chinese. For me, the most helpful technique has been to listen to an audio recording of the text I am reading, and follow along on the page. I usually don't have the mental bandwidth to get sidetracked when I'm doing this.

 

Very good that you are making the mental bandwidth to zero by Audio technique. 

But I have physical book to read and I have google translator and it will read with high speed, trying to control the speed, checking few options. is there a better way than google translator to audio?