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Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#121

-- Limit your time on social media to 20 minutes or less a day (LinkedIn/Facebook/Discord use that's related to work is an exception.) No studies exist yet to support this hypothesis, but it's my observation that longtime exposure to social media impedes overall focus. -- Limit your TV watching to one or two hours on the weekends, per week -- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week -- Find an activity you l…

> -- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week

I was doing really good with all of these until Elden Ring came out. Now my side project hasn't seen a commit in a few weeks :)

Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#124

-- Limit your time on social media to 20 minutes or less a day (LinkedIn/Facebook/Discord use that's related to work is an exception.) No studies exist yet to support this hypothesis, but it's my observation that longtime exposure to social media impedes overall focus. -- Limit your TV watching to one or two hours on the weekends, per week -- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week -- Find an activity you l…

-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am I always hate this piece of advice, if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all. This advice is nonsense and not universal, yet the same nonsense is constantly repeated. I understand it ca…

My situation is two parents working and two younger kids. The element of rising early that actually energizes me is control. It is one of the few things I can unilaterally do to shift productive time. The rest of my day is the fragmented or constrained, and my mental energy at the end is very low. I like the feeling of be able to decide that some random afternoon meeting gets me at 50% power, and items of my choosing get my full attention at 5am.

Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#125
Focus on a single goal for a long period of time and be patient/don't be afraid of failing along the way.

The hard part isn't coming up with new ideas or starting projects with "potential" or being "creative" the hard part is getting someone else to use them. You need to double down on something which can actually fail to ever have a chance of something you build mattering.

Personally, the specific way I found to do this was to work at fast growing early stage startups with founders I found impressive. YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am I always hate this piece of advice, if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all. This advice is nonsense and not universal, yet the same nonsense is constantly repeated. I understand it ca…

to me it's totally worth it. morning hours are very quiet. i usually do my daily flashcards session during that time. and sometimes a small workout as well. if you feel terrible waking up that early - go to bed earlier as well. you need that sleep.

night hours are very quiet too. what is your point?

Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#128

-- Limit your time on social media to 20 minutes or less a day (LinkedIn/Facebook/Discord use that's related to work is an exception.) No studies exist yet to support this hypothesis, but it's my observation that longtime exposure to social media impedes overall focus. -- Limit your TV watching to one or two hours on the weekends, per week -- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week -- Find an activity you l…

-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am I always hate this piece of advice, if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all. This advice is nonsense and not universal, yet the same nonsense is constantly repeated. I understand it ca…

I'm not at all a morning person. I get interesting things done in the afternoon/night.

My job allows me to work whenever I want.

So, I wake up early and start work so that I'll be done by early afternoon. That leaves me plenty of time to get useful things done.

Because it's work, I'm kind of motivated to get up early. Had I decided to do some other activity in the morning — non-work coding, exercise, reading etc — I wouldn't get out of bed.

Re: Ask HN: How do I develop focus?

#129
To answer your question: You should probably get checked for ADHD. I don't say that to stigmatise, but issues focusing should really be treated by a mental health professional and not a bunch of internet nerds on a forum.

That being said: focus on solving a particular problem to completion is more about having discipline than having motivation, do a little every day without fail and you will succeed, often the hardest part is to start.

As for more personal advice (as a person who has ADHD, this will be like the blind leading the blind unfortunately), but it helps me, and it comes in two forms.

First form (easy to accomplish, shallow focus)

1) The night before going to bed, think about what you want to do first thing in the morning.

It helps to keep a task list, but set a single (even easy) goal for the next morning.

That morning goal can be anything such as closing a small ticket or reading a chapter of that computer book you've been avoiding.

2) In the morning, resist the urge to touch your phone, do not check email. Your day has not started until you complete that task.

Why? Because the world does not exist to you yet. Thus: no distractions.

Quickly you realise your FOMO from social media can be tapered.

---

Second form (hard to accomplish, deep focus):

This one unfortunately requires rigor in your working habits, discipline and reading of the book "time management for systems administrators" by Tom Limmoncelli.

It applies to everyone, not just sysadmins, but sysadmins used to do the kind of ad-hoc work that makes focus impossible. The first chapter of the book is literally titled "How to find time to read this book".

But keeping a journal of what you want to accomplish each day and then being aggressive about what is actually possible is the essense of the book, it goes into much more detail and is much stronger than the notions behind bullet journalling than it sounds on the surface.

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