I’ve been attending Vipassana meditation courses on and off for years.
If you’ve ever been to one, you know how intense they are – ten days of silence, meditating from 4:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., with short breaks in between.
For a long time, my attitude was: “I’m doing pretty well.”
Maybe I’d walk in at 4:35 instead of 4:30. No big deal. Maybe I’d stretch my lunch break a little. Maybe I’d skip a sitting here and there. Still, 90+% effort. That’s a lot, right?
And honestly, it is quite a bit. I still get benefits.
But then, I met a student who saw it completely differently.
Their logic was:
“If I’ve taken 10 days out of my life, I’m going to make the most of every minute.”
They’d be on the cushion before the bell. Every session. Every day.
Not to impress anyone, not out of guilt — but out of respect for the choice they’d made.
I realized I was keeping a buffer – a safety margin.
“Even if I’m not fully committed, I’m still doing plenty.”
And maybe I was. But I could be extracting more from my time there.
Later, my brother (also a Vipassana student) added another layer.
His philosophy is: “If you don’t need to take a break, don’t take it.”
Meaning — don’t rest just because the schedule says ‘break.’ Rest because your body needs it.
Basically, he’d go beyond 100%.
Mind you: He wasn’t pushing himself too hard. He was pushing himself as hard as he could.
And that brings me to your GMAT prep.
Many students study the way I used to meditate. A few minutes here and there – no big deal. If I check an email in the middle of my work session, it’s not the end of the world. And yes, it isn’t. But, a 5-minute email is not just 5 minutes. The brain takes time to settle back in. Every distraction has a lasting impact.
So, what I’m asking you to do is go from my 80-90% dedication is good enough to aiming for 100% dedication. If you can comfortably take out only 1 hour a day. Fine, stick with that. But, make the most of that hour. 0 distractions. 0 multi-tasking.
When you sit down to study, don’t count minutes. Count moments of full focus.
Even one hour of ruthless, undistracted work — no phone, no parallel tabs, no split attention — is worth more than two hours of “kinda studying.”