How do you stay focused for 12+ hours a day?

Pretty self explanatory. As someone who struggles to stay focused on the BIWS guides for more than an hour and a half, how do you guys stay focused and on task for 12+ hours a day? Is it just pure adrenaline, or is there any other tips I can use for school and recruitment prep?

4 Comments
 

Cognitive work is always taxing. You can't really do more than 3-4 hours a day of it.

BIWS guides require thinking and recall. IB is monkey's work. Not much of it requires cognition - so thats how we can do it for 12h/day. Max 3-4 hours of that 12 is spent doing something taxing like reading through documents.

 

 

Honnêtement, presque personne ne reste concentré 12 heures d'affilée, même dans le secteur bancaire. Ce qu'on apprend à faire, c'est à enchaîner les périodes de concentration intense et à minimiser les pertes de temps. Au bureau, l'adrénaline et les échéances aident, mais il s'agit toujours de périodes de concentration profonde suivies de tâches plus légères. Pour étudier, visez des sessions de 60 à 90 minutes avec de courtes pauses, et définissez précisément ce que vous faites pendant chaque période. Rangez votre téléphone, fermez les onglets inutiles et considérez cela comme un moment privilégié avec vous-même. La régularité est plus importante que la force brute. Avec le temps, votre endurance s'améliorera, mais personne ne commence par être performant.

 

There’s a lot of truth in that, even if the wording is a bit blunt. Most people confuse being “busy” with doing deep thinking, when they’re really not the same thing at all. In IB, a huge chunk of the day is execution, repetition, formatting, checking numbers, or reacting to comments. It’s mentally draining in its own way, but it’s not constant high-level problem solving. That’s why people survive long days by pacing themselves, zoning into process mode, and saving real focus for the few tasks that actually demand it. The mistake students make is expecting 12 hours of peak brainpower, when in reality even top performers cycle between effort and autopilot.

 

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