As a person who tends to overthink a lot, believe me when I say most of your fears will never happen in life. They are just excuses that come from your insecurities, and your inability to reason correctly. Success comes from laser-like focus, and there’s no distraction greater than your own thoughts.

Most people read “distraction” and think of TV or scrolling on social media, but what I am talking about is “work” that isn’t really work, or in other words, it is distraction disguised as work.

A couple of months ago, I was convinced I had to write the lecture notes for my class in Markdown. I was convinced it was a superior method of note-taking as I had more control over how my finished notes would look as a PDF. I spent so much time beautifying my notes that a few months later I received the fruits of my labor. A final grade of C.

It is easy to say to not be like me, but everyone has had moments in their life where they wasted their time on the wrong thing. I had some of my friends who spent the majority of their freshman year partying and hanging out.

The usual thought process was like this. I’m meeting new people, therefore I’m networking, which means I’m gaining leverage for my career, therefore I’m working, and therefore I’m not wasting time. They are stubborn that this is the case until they get multiple F’s and have to repeat a whole year.

The world is competitive, and your biggest enemy is yourself. It is very easy to overthink and get distracted focussing on the wrong thing. However, these thoughts do not exist by themselves.

Thinking is like watching a movie. The movie doesn’t watch itself, it needs you to be watched. Your thoughts are projected on an imaginary screen in your head, and they need you to be watched. You can either focus on watching those thoughts in your head, or you can turn off the TV and focus on what’s in front of you. When you do this, most of time you realize the solution to the problem you are facing is much simpler than you initially thought.

This is also why it is important to limit what ideas you consume and from where. When you have a thousand people telling you a thousand things about what you are and aren’t supposed to do in life, it can get very overwhelming and can hinder your ability to make the right decision.

The less voices there are outside your mind, the less there are voices inside it. Once again, turn off the TV in your mind, and focus on what’s immediately in front of you. The answer is much more simpler.

You don’t need to beautify your notes, you don’t even need notes. You can still ace your exams if you can just understand the lecturer to a good enough magnitude. In fact, that is exactly what I do nowadays in my classes. Similarly, you don’t need to network to get leverage. You just need to get good and show people that you’re good, and if you’re good enough, they will want to be around you all the time.

 

Thanks to Yazan Moghrabi for suggestions and for reading drafts of this.