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Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

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Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#71

Post by calabin »

marcosdumay wrote: post #56
MaulingMonkey wrote: post #31

There's a lot of factors that might go into this. If you're hungry, sleepy, undersocialized, unkempt, unfit, depressed, in a loud, messy, and distracting office, with unclear and unexciting goals, large monolithic tasks without clear breakdowns on how to move forward, constrained by slow tools, management, or blocked on dependencies... well, it'd be no wonder you wouldn't want to work! Eat well. Sleep well. Exercise.…

I just want to add that coffee can make you feel like you are having enough sleep when you are not. If you drink it constantly, you may be just tired but not know it.

I can't tell if this is an endorsement of or warning against using coffee to mitigate a lack of sleep, so I will take it as reinforcement of the former which I am currently (and unfortunately) a practitioner of.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#72

Post by MaulingMonkey »

calabin wrote: post #71
marcosdumay wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to add that coffee can make you feel like you are having enough sleep when you are not. If you drink it constantly, you may be just tired but not know it.

I can't tell if this is an endorsement of or warning against using coffee to mitigate a lack of sleep, so I will take it as reinforcement of the former which I am currently (and unfortunately) a practitioner of.

Why not both? It can help, but it does not fix the underlying issues. And those underlying issues may have long term health and energy conseqeunces.

That said, while I've cut back a lot, you can pry my energy drinks out of my cold, dead, caffinated hands.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#73

Post by craftinator »

bouncycastle wrote: post #64
hi41 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realize that promiscuity is a disease vector.

The OP was crude and perhaps hinging on taboo, but there are well established schools of psychology on the topic, namely Freud's psychoanalytic theories come to mind.

I'm actually really curious why you think I was being crude/taboo here. Maybe just a cultural difference? I spent most of my adult formative years in the military, and there's been some cultural friction ever since I ended my service. An explanation of your opinion would be quite welcome!

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#75

Post by bobydonahue »

internet_user wrote: post #68
sys_64738 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't medicate but challenge yourself. Learn a new editor while doing your job. Try using Windows instead of using a Mac. Try typing only left handed. There are varioud challenges to overcome boring assignments. Also try a standing desk so if you skive then you must stand up for fifth teen mins.

the worst advice ever. If you have medical issues - take care of medical issues in the best way possible. Challenging yourself = denying yourself treatment. Challenging yourself is not a treatment for something like sleep apnea.

Yes but the evidence for ADHD is dubious. We have a long way to go when it comes to understanding the human mind. Anyone, not just people with ADD, can increase their performance with narcotic stimulants. Just don't be disingenuous about it.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#76

Post by gridlockd »

> I check social media and youtube frequently while doing work.

Well, don't do it then.

> If I do not do that I feel some void and feeling of losing out

This is a minor discomfort. You need learn to cope. You must be young and healthy now, but the reality is that down the line, you are likely to develop some sort of permanent injury/impairment that you will have to cope with for the rest of your life. Start small, learn to cope with that little bit of discomfort.

Not to belittle, it's actually a major and widespread problem. Avoidance of minor discomforts is literally what keeps people smoking until it kills them. It's what holds people back from achieving the best life they can have because they avoid all the little risks that add up to big opportunities.

You have a will, you're not slave to your whims. Take control of your life and earn some self-respect.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#77

Post by mleonhard »

Find a good therapist. It may even be free, depending on your health insurance. My therapist has helped me discover the root causes of mental habits that are holding me back. Now I'm making progress on them. The sessions are worth my time and money.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#78

Post by 01100011 »

sys_64738 wrote: post #44
01100011 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I try eliminating distractions, I just end up daydreaming. I spend most days at work just reading the same shit over and over with nothing sticking. I manage to get work done in rare bursts after exhausting my brain with distractions. Fwiw, I'm in my mid 40s and have less than a year of treating my sleep apnea. I'm pretty sure I've had ADHD my whole life but blamed other things until recently. I'm trying to resist…

Don't medicate but challenge yourself. Learn a new editor while doing your job. Try using Windows instead of using a Mac. Try typing only left handed. There are varioud challenges to overcome boring assignments. Also try a standing desk so if you skive then you must stand up for fifth teen mins.

That's bad advice for me. For instance, I was supposed to be working on finalizing a new feature. Instead I was obsessed with writing tool wrappers. I learn things all the time, but they seldom relate to the thing I'm supposed to be doing. I'll bounce around instead of deep diving through the codebase I'm responsible for.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#79

Post by stunt »

if you are asking it here, I assume you did some online research too and I believe that you already know all the solutions. For most of the people the problem is not sticking with these solutions and not being patient enough to get the result.

I’m married, above 30 with a lot of things going on in my life. And often my co-workers make joke about me going into ZEN mode when working.

Don’t look for a magic tricks. It is as simple as you hear from everyone. You just need to be patient and stick with them long enough for your brain to get use to it.

I’m careful about eating and sleeping. Having enough fun. I put my phone away while working and resting. I use Pomodoro technique to make sure I have enough short breaks and I have a goal. And I know very basic of meditation breathing technique (learned literally in 30mins). I only drink one cup of coffee on the morning and one cup of tea on the afternoon.

Re: Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?

#80

Post by bouncycastle »

craftinator wrote: post #73
bouncycastle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was crude and perhaps hinging on taboo, but there are well established schools of psychology on the topic, namely Freud's psychoanalytic theories come to mind.

I'm actually really curious why you think I was being crude/taboo here. Maybe just a cultural difference? I spent most of my adult formative years in the military, and there's been some cultural friction ever since I ended my service. An explanation of your opinion would be quite welcome!

What? I was defending your comment, seeing the downvotes!

Crude, well... to be honest, because of the slang words, eg. 'getting laid' and your argument could have been framed better to be more intellectually stimulating. Taboo, well.. because I don't see anyone else talk about this, yet it's such an important topic of human psychology / sociology.

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