Focus

In 1994-95, during my final year placements at IITK, a computer networking company called Hughes Software Systems visited the campus. Those days, networking was all the rage.

Though not keen on a tech job, I somehow took fancy to working at Hughes. But I hadn’t done any courses on networking and didn’t have the faintest idea about the subject.

So I asked a wingmate (Shaleen Saxena), who unlike me, knew his subjects well. He showed me a book, flagged some 200 pages, and said, “Read and understand this well - you will be ready.”

I got the book from the library and for the next 8-10 hrs, I read the 200 odd pages at breakneck speed. For the first time, I read about the 7 layers, ethernet token ring, collision detection in CDMA - and so on.

The next day I wrote the placement exam and was among some 5-6 people selected from the Elect Engg batch. Since I was an aimless duffer at IIT, I was as surprised as anyone else.

Even today, I remember a fair bit of what I read 25 years ago. That is the power of focus.

10 hrs of focused study a week is all it takes to change our life.

That is why, at HabitStrong, we are trying to solve the problem of focused learning via our learning bootcamp.