Take a deep breath. Let it go. Put it aside. Otherwise you will never get any work done. Let me tell you a story in the meanwhile.

There were three students who were learning archery from a master. The master brought them out of the hut where they had lessons, into the woods. They stopped under a large tree with thick branches. On one particularly gnarly branch of this tree, a bird was perched.
The master asked the first student to take aim at the bird with his bow and arrow.

“What do you see?” he asked.
“I see the sky, the leaves, the branch and the bird,” the student replied.
The master asked him to stand back and asked the second student to step forward and take aim.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“I see the leaves and the bird,” he answered.
Finally, it was the third student’s turn.
“What do you see?” the master asked.
“I see nothing but the eye of the bird,” the student responded.

The third student saw only the eye of the bird and was not distracted by anything else. He was fully concentrated on the bird, “true to the thought of the moment”.

To concentrate means you think only about the task on hand and you are not distracted by anything else. If you can concentrate like that, you will be able to learn everything without too much difficulty. You will be able to finish homework well in neat handwriting. Careless mistakes will be a thing of the past. You will ace everything you do. You do not have a learning problem. You have a concentration problem.

How do we avoid distractions? The answer lies in looking for distractions. Yes, distract yourself to avoid distractions.

Scientists have found (Concentration Tips) that concentration requires a very high amount of energy and that your brain would not be able to maintain high levels of concentration for long. Your brain would naturally shut off and start to wander after some time. So even if you valiantly, because someone told you to be disciplined and persistent, struggle with a piece of work you find difficult for too long, you will be punishing yourself in vain.

Instead, to be “true to the thought of the moment”, you need to be good to yourself and deliberately give yourself “amusing distractions” from time to time. Scientists advise that since your brain will need to wander regularly anyway, you should take control of when it wanders.

Indeed, if you plan when to have fun, your brain gets the wandering it needs and will cooperate with you when you do need to concentrate on your studies.

So do not feel guilty when you are having fun. Having fun is necessary to concentrate sufficiently on a difficult task.

However, all play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.

The Brain Dojo