I had a bad habit of not listening to my technical lectures and presentations! How to focus on lectures which are 1 hour 15 min long without losing interest? Generally, I lose interest within 15-20 mins unless the topic being taught is really interesting or the professor is teaching is with extreme passion. But I remember many instances, where I have watched lectures for straight 6-7 hours when the situation demanded.
Thank you!
Hello DharmaTeja,
Thank you for this question.
As you know from your own experience, technical lectures per se are not boring or uninteresting, it is our own feelings about the specific topic/lecture that make them so.
A few suggestions below:
Understand your motivation
What is it that motivates you to listen to this lecture? Find it. Is it because the topic is interesting? Will it help you upskill and get better pay? Finding a strong internal motivator can help sustain focus.
What if it is dull and boring? You can still create curiosity about the topic. Here is an audio note explaining how: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bmn835bvlbybgpf/Creating%20curiosity.mp3?dl=
Engage with the lecture
Imagine you were in a classroom, sitting in the front row and asking questions to the professor. Even in a pre-recorded lecture, you can still engage with the material by having an opinion about what the professor is talking about. Do you agree or disagree? If it is a highly technical topic, think about the applications of the concepts, the implications on our daily life.
You may pause the video in between and spend some time thinking about what the professor said.
It may take 2-3 hours to finish a 1 hour video, but you would have really connected with the lecture and actually gained solid knowledge.
Take notes
Taking quick and dirty notes will help you stay focused and connected with what's happening in the lecture rather than drift off into a daydream.
Also take notes in the form of questions. What are the key questions that this lecture is answering? What are the follow-up questions derived from that? Seeing a question primes our mind to be perceptive to answers which might be addressed in the next section of the lecture.