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Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

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Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#91

Post by neikos »

ljf wrote: post #79

One thing I've noticed is that in some people procrastination is some sort of protection system. (Not saying this is what op has, just a discussion point) They seem to feel that most tasks in life are a bit beneath them (of course I can do this course work / assignment / deliver this project / get great grades / ace this interview - I don't really need to try). Then they keep waiting and waiting until there is little…

Yes, I have noticed this, in myself even.

The only explanation I have is that the general difficulty is slowly going downwards. I was in school in two different countries (France/Germany) and on both sides there were some similarities, a shortage of funding and said funding being dependent on the number of people getting through the system.

So you have this sort of pressure that acts on the difficulty, since if the difficulty is too high less people graduate.

Then you also have the accomplishment of those before us. I remember looking at things from tests a few years ago, I would not have been able to solve that. (They were tests on mechanical forces.) What we were doing was a lot simpler, yet most did not realize this. So you have this idea that those that came before us were 'less smart' because we are acing it without much thought!

Obviously I only have a picture of my immediate surrounding. I've been in school from 2000-2014. Am currently studying. Perhaps someone from earlier or later could give their point of view on that matter?

---

On another matter, I really dislike how my current reward system works. Am trying to fix it by eating regularly, something that looks like a sleep schedule, and actually giving a shit about the stuff that I produce.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#92

Post by neikos »

asimuvPR wrote: post #88
ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

I find I can get into this mode when I don't believe I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing. I know that sounds weird but a couple of times when I was in a job where the "goal" of the company or the group wasn't in line with what I was trying to do in my own life I would find all sorts of excuses to work on other things. My therapist said that I was self sabotaging my work because my subconscious wanted out but my…

Do you mind sharing more about this AI assistant? I'm very curious about it.

It sounds a lot like HabitRPG[1]. I've never tried it though.

[1]: https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitrpg

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#93

Post by redka »

iandanforth wrote: post #58
gt565k wrote: post #12

Take a step back and think about the environment you were in when you were the most productive. When your mind was the sharpest it has ever been and you were knocking shit out left and right. Maybe that was in high school or college, or during your first few years in your career. Ask yourself: What was different back then? What was your daily routine? What did you eat? Did you play sports or stay active? A lot of peo…

These are correct. I would like to add that your life may be boring and unimportant. You're brain (my brain as well) is correctly calibrated on a evolutionary timescale and so most of life's tasks are just not important enough to care about. It's only when fear of serious consequences ramps past as certain threshold that we act. You probably have plenty of food and shelter. (If that's not the case stop reading and se…

If all of these things only work for a while or not a all then perhaps there is nothing that will match the expectations of importance. Maybe one could figure out the reason for those expectations.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#94

Post by ljf »

neikos wrote: post #91
ljf wrote: post #79

One thing I've noticed is that in some people procrastination is some sort of protection system. (Not saying this is what op has, just a discussion point) They seem to feel that most tasks in life are a bit beneath them (of course I can do this course work / assignment / deliver this project / get great grades / ace this interview - I don't really need to try). Then they keep waiting and waiting until there is little…

Yes, I have noticed this, in myself even. The only explanation I have is that the general difficulty is slowly going downwards. I was in school in two different countries (France/Germany) and on both sides there were some similarities, a shortage of funding and said funding being dependent on the number of people getting through the system. So you have this sort of pressure that acts on the difficulty, since if the d…

Indeed, the way I try to avoid it is to make public commitments (that are achievable but timely) which will become obvious to others. This will include milestones along the way. Possibly the commitment won't be all to one person, maybe I'll be telling someone that reports to me that they can expect a list of requirements by X, then someone else that we will review the first wire frames by Y and then those I report to that they can expect to feedback on Z date. This keep me continually moving and fits nicely with the scrum/lean methodologies that we follow.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#95

Post by feiss »

Try to analyse if you have noise in your mind. I sometimes feel that procrastination is due to a non focused state of mind. I lately feel that is caused by Internet addiction and a lack of routine.

Also, I use to procrastinate when I have personal projects much more appealing than the project I must do.

Try to unplug from the net, go for a long walk, try to tidy up your mind.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#96

Post by asimuvPR »

neikos wrote: post #92
asimuvPR wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind sharing more about this AI assistant? I'm very curious about it.

It sounds a lot like HabitRPG[1]. I've never tried it though. [1]: https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitrpg

Thank you for the link. I had not been aware of that project. It's really interesting to see life as an RPG game.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#97

Post by ChuckMcM »

asimuvPR wrote: post #88
ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

I find I can get into this mode when I don't believe I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing. I know that sounds weird but a couple of times when I was in a job where the "goal" of the company or the group wasn't in line with what I was trying to do in my own life I would find all sorts of excuses to work on other things. My therapist said that I was self sabotaging my work because my subconscious wanted out but my…

Do you mind sharing more about this AI assistant? I'm very curious about it.

Similar to habitrpg (great link!) basically when you talk to people they will sometimes ask you to perform a task. In the case of your manager that can happen often :-) And that task might have a number of sub-tasks that it includes. In RPG games, like WoW and others, the user interface lets you open up your current "quests" and on each quest you can get details about how much of the quest you have done. That is called your "quest log."

Much of that can be done with a journal, if you are diligent about updating it, but I can fantasize about an "always on siri" type application that would recognize such a request, and keep the log automatically. That would make it pretty frictionless to just check my phone to see where I am in terms of things asked of me. It will require a much better context decoder than current speech recognition and dialog bots.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#98

Post by daxfohl »

Five lines of code. Each day, just get to the point where you've written five lines of code, immediately when you get to work, before looking at twitter or news or whatever. Tell yourself that once you get those five lines in, even if it takes two minutes, you can take the rest of the day off. Justify it because ultimately five lines is better than the zero lines you'd have written otherwise.

Likely, once those five lines are behind you you'll whip out 100 more because you've gotten over the hump. But don't think about that initially, lest it overwhelm you. Just think about the five lines and how much better it is to have those out of the way and the rest of the day to do whatever you want, while feeling like you've at least done something that day.

Use a website blocker like "stop procrastinating". Yes they just work by updating your `hosts` file. You may think "that won't work because I know how to override it", but they do: usually you're only going to twitter because it's a single button click away; if it involves more effort then it's not worth it. And yes you could write it yourself but I think don't: otherwise you'll spend too many hours gold-plating a dumb utility.

Finally, try to end each day with an interesting task five lines of code away from completion. It'll annoy the crap out of you as you toss and turn all night thinking about it. When you get to work you can't wait to get that done and out of the way.

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#99

Post by nefitty »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

I find I can get into this mode when I don't believe I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing. I know that sounds weird but a couple of times when I was in a job where the "goal" of the company or the group wasn't in line with what I was trying to do in my own life I would find all sorts of excuses to work on other things. My therapist said that I was self sabotaging my work because my subconscious wanted out but my…

My format for this is a daily checklist to begin my work. I also left space to gather tasks to do and check those off as I go. I log these "quests" on sticky notes as I continue working throughout the day.

How do you do this?

Edit: I see your answer to a commenter below. I'm picturing journal pages with big headers for each project and accompanying subtasks in a list beneath them...

Re: Ask HN: Can't concentrate to focus, until it's last minute or later

#100

Post by kabouseng »

amasad wrote: post #49
mchannon wrote: post #35

Here's a contrarian viewpoint- There's nothing wrong with you- your subconscious is doing its job. Procrastination is an unpopular but nonetheless effective method of time and task management. In fact, I'd argue it's the most effective. Take a college class for example. Your instructor gives you a weeklong homework assignment. While a few type-A personalities may dive in right away and have it done by the following d…

>subconscious didn't spend a week thinking about the problems Is there another person hiding in the corners of your brain doing the work? What does subconciocus even mean in this context? I think if we replaced 'subconscious' with 'mojo' here it would sound the same for me.

It's that: "the solution came to me in the shower this morning"...
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