On Monday, Cal Newport and I are reopening Lifetime of Focus for a brand new session. Earlier than we try this, I’d prefer to take this opportunity to clarify how Lifetime of Focus works—since it’s a little totally different from what most individuals have come to anticipate from on-line programs—and share how I take into consideration designing programs to encourage conduct change.
The traditional course is all about offering info. There’s a syllabus with a listing of content material; a bunch of lectures the place the concepts, details and ideas are conveyed; and at last, there’s an examination to check in case you keep in mind all the things you have been taught.
There’s nothing fallacious with this mannequin for a lot of topics. In lots of fields, info is what’s lacking, so taking a while to study is the very best motion.
Nonetheless, from almost twenty years creating on-line programs, I’ve usually been disillusioned with how the traditional method to structuring a course interprets to motion. The issue is that a whole lot of info, by itself, hardly ever interprets to concrete behavioral change. A course on vitamin, as an illustration, gives you tons of helpful ideas and concepts about consuming higher—however it could not really change the way you eat, which is the last word objective of most individuals.
When Cal Newport and I began designing Lifetime of Focus, we knew this was going to be a possible subject in our course. Cal had not too long ago revealed Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. Most of our potential college students had both learn these books or adopted Cal’s weblog or podcast and have been already acquainted with his requires growing focus in work and life.
We knew that folks attending the course didn’t want extra exhortations to show off their e mail when doing deep work or classes concerning the neuroscience of attentional processing. As an alternative, we designed the course to information them via particular steps to create new working behaviors, and to have follow-through so these behaviors may change into lifelong habits.
The Format of an Motion-Centered Course
On account of this, Lifetime of Focus (and my newer course, Foundations) follows a distinct mannequin than what we sometimes consider as a course.
To begin, the course is organized into three month-to-month challenges. Reasonably than placing the teachings first with the homework as an non-compulsory bonus (let’s face it, most individuals who take on-line programs hardly ever do the assignments), we put taking motion to enhance our focus first, after which present common classes to remind and reinforce these actions as they’re already underway.
The three challenges for Lifetime of Focus are:
- Monitoring your deep work hours
- Conducting a digital declutter, and
- Participating in a focus-building undertaking to make or study one thing new.
As one other inversion to the standard course format, we begin every month with a guided worksheet. This helps college students give you step-by-step actions they will take to start every month-long problem with the very best footing. Solely as soon as college students begin engaged on the problem can we begin offering classes to fine-tune, remind, encourage and redirect college students as they undergo the month.
On high of this, we add a whole lot of direct neighborhood assist and training so college students can rapidly tackle sticking factors as they arrive up, earlier than they fall off the problem or get discouraged.
In short, the format of Lifetime of Focus is extra like a private coach on the fitness center than a college class on train science. By encouraging motion from the get-go, the teachings and suggestions assist behavioral adjustments as you’re making them.
Whereas Cal and I have been not sure how such a novel course format would work with college students, we have now been pleasantly shocked, and lots of college students have instructed us Lifetime of Focus is their favourite course they’ve taken with us. Many college students have even taken the course a number of instances since they first enrolled, treating second and third passes as an opportunity to additional refine their course of utilizing the three-month construction it offers.
Lifetime of Focus Opens Monday
I needed to clarify this course format as a result of, in operating this course and others over the previous couple of years, I’ve forgotten how totally different this method might be for many individuals. It may be exhausting to clarify why becoming a member of a structured three-month program to enhance focus is totally different than merely studying a guide or listening to podcasts. However our concentrate on taking motion first, after which supporting that motion with studying, is designed to assist our college students make actual adjustments—not simply take into consideration making them.
I hope you’ll be a part of us on Monday so you’ll be able to see it for your self!
