Ask HN: How can I restore my concentration when reading?

Personally, when this happens I don't panic and think about engaged reading as a habit that I need to reacquire through practice. For example, I recently decided to read some Phillip K. Dick. A Scanner Darkly spent about four weeks on the nightstand. UbiK about two weeks. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep three nights. At full tilt, I'd have read any of those in a single day. But it doesn't matter. Nobody cares how fast I read. Nobody cares how much I retain. Nobody cares if I don't finish a book. Including me. It's not that I don't prefer to finish books or retain a lot. It's that there are a lot of books that aren't worth reading and a lot of books that are finishable that aren't worth remembering.

Try listening to white noise while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzjWIxXBs_s

"How do you overcome it?" - don't.

Lots of other good suggestions on here, but I have some commentary on this problem as well.

I experience the same issue when trying to read with greater concentration. I start out and my brain goes crazy thinking about everything in the known universe. If I stick it out and keep trying to read, in about 10 to 15 minutes I notice that my concentration is restored.

10 - 15 minutes may seem like a hefty price to pay to read with attention, but consider this: the problem described here is very similar to many people's experience with meditation. I believe that this type of mental state is a sort of un-bundling for your brain, and once complete, you can better focus on the task at hand. In my experience, the more reading I do, the less time I spend in this state. By the time I finish a book I can pick it up and immerse myself instantly. Instead of viewing this as "waiting so you can read", try thinking of it as your daily meditation, without really needing to try.

I see this less as an impairment due to your skimming habits, and more of a natural process that many people experience.

Another ADDer here. I have two modes of operation: hyper focused or not. Things that require focus, like deep reading mean I need to switch operating modes. I have oodles of ways to address this issue so I only chose a few. Maybe one helps.

Ways I do that: 1. Be really interested in the content — not sure if this works with a non add brain, but it really doesn’t matter where I am, if it’s interesting I’ll jump right down that rabbit hole. Not sure that helps you but maybe can create some parameters for experimentation (like is there a pattern with your interest level and if so how can you mitigate that) 2. Meditation - specifically working with the breath. It takes 30s-3min for me to reboot my brain between tasks. Not much of an investment and in my experience it works. 3. Printing stuff out — i find it much easier to read deep if I have it on paper 4. Copying into an editor and editing — this is my goto for boring reads because it uses a different part of my brain that reading alone 5. At the end of each paragraph I ask myself “what was the point of that?” This is a habit that takes time to develop. At first you may get through an entire article without asking but eventually you can catch yourself sooner.

I hadn’t ever considered actively editing the content I’m reading. That sounds like a great idea. I’m going to try it out on some technical docs today!