The formula for being productive and getting good grades is not "hard work". It's "hard work done correctly".

I think most of you all know that working hard is not really the path to good grades / being productive. What really matters is *how* you study / *how* you work. <br><br>It's the difference between working 10 hours of your day if you're working 100% or working 10 hours of your day if you're working 10%. It's better to work full throttle for 2 hours and then take a 10 minute break to refresh than to work 14 hours straight and take a 30 minute break. <br><br>I'd like to state that the best way to study for exams and work is to maintain a constant and constant flow of results. <br><br>The reason why people think that working more hours is good is because they think that more hours of work = more stuff done. And at a basic level, that's true. Of course working 10 hours has to be better than working 8 hours. But the whole thing that people initially miss is that that's true only if you're not completely burnt out. <br><br>You know, when you get to a point in your work / studying when you're not really studying at all. When you finally crack a hard problem or something, and you're like "Wait, what does any of this mean?" or "What the heck am I doing?". That's when you know you need to take a break. And don't get me wrong, breaks are fantastic. <br><br>But working for 10 hours and taking a 1 hour break is not as good as working for 2 hours, taking a 10 minute break, and then working for another 1.5 hours, then taking another 10 minute break. Working at an intense pace only for a small duration, then taking a small break to relax, and repeating that process over and over is actually better than working at an average pace for a long duration, then taking a long break. <br><br>Now I know you guys might not believe me for saying that, so allow me to demonstrate why that's true. <br><br>If you're working on a normal, dull task that doesn't take up a lot of brain power, then sure, working for 10 hours may just be as good as working for 2 hours. But when it comes to hard, difficult brain work, I would argue that the quality of focus is much more important than the quantity of focus. <br><br>**To demonstrate, let's assume you have two people working. Person A and Person B.** <br><br>**Person A:** <br><br>Person A works at a normal pace, with short breaks in between to maximize productivity. They work for 90 minutes straight, and then they work at half their normal pace for the next 30 minutes. After that half-hour period, they take a 10 minute break to completely relax before getting back to work, repeating the same process. <br><br>Their focus / productivity levels go something like: **50%** for the first 2 minutes, then **100%** for the next 88 minutes, then **50%** for the next 30 minutes, then **0%** for 10 minutes, and then it repeats. <br><br>**Person B:** <br><br>Person B works at a normal pace with short breaks in between. However, Person B doesn't completely relax during their break time. Instead, Person B is still half focused during their breaks (e.g., watches TV but worries about work) and instead of working for only 30 minutes at half their pace, they work for 2 hours at half their pace. So Person B works at normal pace, then works at half pace for 2 hours, then takes a 30 minute break to relax, and then they repeat the process. <br><br>Their focus and productivity levels go something like: **50%** for the first 2 minutes, then **100%** for the next 88 minutes, then **50%** for the next 2 hours, then **0%** for 30 minutes, and then it repeats. <br><br>Now let's assume that every 6.5 hours, they take a 1 hour lunch break. So Person A is not working 15% of the time (10 minutes every 1.1 hours) and Person B is not working 11% of the time (30 minutes every 4.5 hours). <br><br>**Now let's see how much percentage of a 24 hour day each person is working at 100% efficiency.** <br><br>**Person A:** <br><br>There are 22 hours every 24 hours when Person A is working. There are 22 / 1.1 = 20 full 1.1 hour periods when Person A is working. But each of those 1.1 hour periods, Person A only spends 88 minutes working at 100% efficiency, and the rest of the time they're relaxing. <br><br>So the total amount of time that Person A is working at 100% efficiency in a 24 hour period is (88 / 60) x 20 hours = 29.33 hours. <br><br>**Person B:** <br><br>There are 22 hours every 24 hours when Person B is working. There are 22 / 4.5 = 4.8 full 4.5 hour periods when Person B is working. <br><br>Each of those periods, Person B spends 88 minutes working at 100% efficiency. <br><br>So the total amount of time that Person B is working at 100% efficiency in a 24 hour period is (88 / 60) x 4.5 hours = 7.4 hours. <br><br>**Conclusion:** <br><br>**Person A works at 100% efficiency for 4 times the amount of time as Person B does in a 24 hour period. This is because Person A keeps their mind fresh and relaxed during their breaks, and consistently takes breaks often. Person B, on the other hand, doesn't really relax or take breaks, so their brain starts to get tired, and they work at much less efficiency.** <br><br>Of course, this entire discussion is just based around hypothetical people, and this is all just hypothetical information. This discussion is based around an idea that I wanted to test, and nothing else. But I think the fact that Person A gets 4x more work done than Person B in the same amount of time is interesting to note, and is proof that working hard doesn't really mean anything. <br><br>I just wanted to share my thoughts, what do you guys think?