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Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

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Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#161

Post by rohan_shah »

sscarduzio wrote: post #90
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrat…

I have also experienced that. If feels like there direction-less flow of thoughts about a lot of things and nothing to focus on.

I got help from Vivekananda's books. He mentions that the ability to concentrate is the only difference between humans and animals.

And the degree of focus determines success in human life.

But he warns that learning the ability to focus without learning how to completely get out of the mind-thought complex is like going inside a complex maze without the map.

His books are quite small and can be finished in a few hours. Worth reading.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#162

Post by prirun »

wallflower wrote: post #11

If you find yourself spending too much time on social media-type or even general information consumption applications (like Redfin) on your phone, one simple step is to remove the native application from your phone. The mobile web for most of these are just janky enough to snap you out of your reverie. Second, you can try changing your phone to grayscale. Lack of color may make use of your phone less appealing. iOS m…

I tend to be a focused person, and like being focused. A couple of years ago I upgraded to a smart phone, mainly to get the larger screen (easier to read) and the speech-to-text feature (I hate pecking out a reply to a text).

I don't have WiFi enabled on the phone, have Cellular Data disabled, have never signed into my Google account (it's an Android phone), have Bluetooth and Location disabled, and have never downloaded any apps. It's a phone, period. I can't imagine having something in my pocket beeping and dinging at me all day long. It would drive me nuts and I'd never get anything done.

If I'm in the car and lost, I have a $100 Garmin GPS that works fine without having to load a bunch of crapps on my phone. Or someone is in the car with me and is quick to start navigating, which is even better.

Try disabling WiFi and Cell Data for part of the day. You might really like it!

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#163

Post by shostack »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

How long are you cranky after you get broken out of it and how severe is the crankiness?

I've found if I get distracted while in the zone I'm frustrated by being interrupted, and any sort of attempt to converse is challenging because while my focus may have been forcibly shifted, it's like my brain is saying "hold up, I'm still working through these problems" and I'm only half present for people because I'm having parallel trains of thought.

This can last anywhere from minutes if the problem was a small relatively trivial thing to several hours if it's a much harder or larger scale problem.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#164

Post by kortex »

_ptgt wrote: post #112
sscarduzio wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrat…

Does this resonate with anyone else? Is there any studies on this? I’ve had a similar experience over the past few years — a ton of work focus (at a FAANGM as an ML scientist/engineer) combined with limited social interaction and I’ve noticed my ability to have normal social interactions has declined greatly (“verbally inept” and “difficulty with empathy” pretty much hit it on the head). There’s potentially confoundi…

Very much so. As a dev with ADHD, that focus knob is more external than most. But I definitely have noticed the phenomenon where deep focus and verbal/social fluency are rather orthogonal.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#165

Post by mettamage »

sscarduzio wrote: post #90
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrat…

Are you on the spectrum as well? If so, then I might be too. I have the exact same thing with focus. If you don’t want to reply pubicly, then send me an email.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#166

Post by colanderman »

sscarduzio wrote: post #90
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrat…

> This has non trivial social consequences.

I've been learning to apply my ability to focus toward feelings, and the internal states of others. (To the point that I am grumpy to be removed from this flow state also.) This has allowed me to glean insight and deeper meaning into the social lives of my friends, and connect at a slower, deeper level than I could achieve simply with rapid banter. (Which I too am increasingly less capable of as I grow older; now in my mid-30s. I'm slow enough to respond now that people I converse with must think I'm on drugs. I've never done any.)

It is said that few remember exactly what is said in a conversation, but everyone remembers what is felt. If you can use flow to plan and practice the right feelings and feeling-responses, the eloquence of the words you say in the moment does not matter so much.

It is also sometimes stated that "on-the-spectrum"-ness is correlated with heightened sensitivity to emotions. I'm fairly certain that is true for me. If it is for you too, flow is your chance to exploit that trait.

(Probably not applicable to you but maybe applicable to others: I experience ASMR, and use that gift to semi-regularly reset my emotions to a positive state. I utilize that wellspring of good feelings to support my emotional investment in others: it's easier to care about others when you are happy yourself.)

Also, I rarely enter flow for work-work these days. It's rarely needed and sometimes counterproductive for the daily Jira-bug-squashing routine (writing copious notes works better for me), and nearly impossible to maintain in an open office setting. I save it for rare sessions of innovation, and for hobby work.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#167

Post by larrywright »

iudqnolq wrote: post #58
iudqnolq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard the Recurse Center is like that. > What we do. The Recurse Center is a self-directed, community-driven educational retreat for programmers in New York City. https://www.recurse.com/

Does anyone have any experience with them?

I don’t, but Julia Evans does. She gave it rave reviews and wrote quite a bit about the experience. See the final paragraph here: https://jvns.ca/about/

It seems like a great experience, and if I were at a different stage of life I would likely pursue it.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#168

Post by zamfi »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

> Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I break out, sounding like a complete moron; struggling for the most basic terminology. "Whatchacallit" is one of my most-uttered phrases.

Yes! Oh I am so glad I'm not the only one.

After spending several hours in the zone programming, I need to sit back and take a recognizance breather before I can speak in effective complete sentences again. It definitely feels like something actively changing in my brain when this happens. Some kind of awareness shift, or orientation shift.

It's like I need to reset from thinking in "parallel" to thinking in "serial" again -- parallel being random-access in a sense, able to go back and update an artifact piecemeal in independent locations, shifting back and forth quickly; while serial being a narrative sense, able to put together a full thought at a time and express it in words.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#169

Post by iudqnolq »

larrywright wrote: post #167
iudqnolq wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have any experience with them?

I don’t, but Julia Evans does. She gave it rave reviews and wrote quite a bit about the experience. See the final paragraph here: https://jvns.ca/about/ It seems like a great experience, and if I were at a different stage of life I would likely pursue it.

She's where I heard about them :) Forgot to credit her by name.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#170

Post by e-_pusher »

playing_colours wrote: post #9

“Anathem” by Neal Stephenson describes monastic communities dedicated to studying mathematics. I sometimes entertain an idea, if a similar monastic community can work in our world - assuming they would be less strict than in the book. Such isolated retreats would be beneficial for rebuilding focus, finding calm and comfort, without noisy distractions, so one could focus most of their time on studying mathematics. Def…

There is an example of a community like this in Turkey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesin_Mathematics_Village

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