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I Have an "Extra" Hour in the Day and Other Thoughts

 While writing college applications, I stumbled upon last year's supplement questions for Stanford. One of them asked, "What would you if you had an extra hour in the day?" I think this is a good question because most teens during the school year experience a lot of stress and burnout. During the end of summer vacation, however, I realized that I had an "extra" hour in the day but I didn't use it in the right area. Despite the fact I talk about being productive, I like to delay unenjoyable tasks like schoolwork by reading Wikipedia or doing random researches. Today, I looked at my watch and provided a rough estimate of how much time went to doing that. I was kind of sad to find that I spent around 1.5 hours doing this every day, including other shallow tasks like email and text messages. From this, I realized I need to replace my cue of delaying a task with another routine like reading a book or cleaning up my room. Of course, delaying a task isn't good but I think it would be better if I did some chores at home or read a few pages of a book. 

I realized that if I keep going on with this bad habit, I am going to be the one who receives last place in the deep work competition race. When I search up things, there is a lot of context switching and it seriously tires my brain. It is like your eyes dart from left to right many times. By doing this, it is like smoking a cigarette before starting some athletic competition. I know it is a bad analogy but I got this from what Cal Newport said in his podcast on multitasking and pseudowork. 

Another horrible side effect of searching random things is that it causes a lot of noise in my brain. While having my "deep" work session, my brain has imaginary conversations with my friends or to myself. My brain keeps talking in my head. Also, it is a lot harder to be mindful when I am doing online class. My mind tunes out easily and for a few seconds I don't hear what the teacher says. 

When it comes to the end of the day, I want some silence. If it isn't silence, I want white noise to fill my brain and not hear any incessant voices in my head. I feel like I am exaggerating how bad it is to do random searches but they don't promote the right conditions for 100% deep work that Teddy Roosevelt would do. 

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