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All you need to do is remove distractions and temptations and make the thing you want to do but are easily pulled away from the most interesting thing to do within your immediate reach.
It seems like the real question in this thread is "How do I avoid being distracted" more than anything else.
The best analogy I can give you is a good state of mindfulness is like a really strong windows task manager. You can actually see the processes of your mind, like thoughts popping up and begin to take up system resources. If you are mindful you can see this with much more clarity than if you don't have a meditation practice. With the clarity gives the side-effect of "control"
No one has really mentioned mindfulness (the "muscle" or "skill" grown by the exercise of meditation) It seems like the real question in this thread is "How do I avoid being distracted" more than anything else. The best analogy I can give you is a good state of mindfulness is like a really strong windows task manager. You can actually see the processes of your mind, like thoughts popping up and begin to take up syste…
For some, it's dealing with repressed feelings - you're still angry at an ex, jealous of someone, traumatized by an event, fearful of your survival, and so on, and that feeling DDoSes your mind. Mindfulness clears it up, though too much can be hazardous in this situation.
For some, it's willpower training. Sitting there for 10 minutes trying to think of nothing is like a form of torture. It strengthens the 'muscle' of your 'do not' willpower as well as the 'do' willpower. Most will 'fail' at it, but like a good workout, failure means progression.
The next stage is concentration training. You develop a habit where, when you're idle, you intensify concentration rather than become apathetic and drowsy. Full lotus position is a cliché, but it's designed as the best posture to sit and focus intently for hours. A lot of other monk clichés - asceticism, segregation from other sexes, and so on are designed to get you into this stage as fast as possible.
Once you clear those stages, the higher level is sensitivity training. You meditate on a thing. It can be a breath or mantra. It can be a flame or your reflection in a pond. It can be a sore spot on your back, or a meal. Then you go into it in incredible detail. Feel the air going in and out of your lungs. Feel your chest moving, the air on your skin, the gravity, your own thoughts tugging at your mind, and so on.
Past all this is enlightenment. You become so sensitive to the world, and so aware of your own body, and the little internal forces, that it all starts to come together.
After enough stages, you should be able to command your attention perfectly at where you want it to be.
Modafanil. It’s incredibly effective.
Side effects : Spiked diabetes for almost 3months.
So had to throw away the entire pack of tabs.
Similar state I have gotten while drinking 4shots of whisky(enough that nobody can figure out you are drunk) and start working at night. Problem is with drinks I start to get headaches after an hour of working, so I go back to sleep.
Both has its drawback. Modafanil lasted longer and gave up on both. It's not effective in regular basis.
1. As everybody said media is off atleast 3 days before I got into this state. Nothing chatty or noisy in the environment. 2. No too much thoughts in the head, like decision making(not even like should I write this down or keep it in the mind). 3. Slowing down thought process like thinking yes I have time(relaxed mode). 4. Papers, pen and pencils to write down pseudo code, flowchart or algorithm. It can be a mixture of that as well, just going with the flow not trying to be perfect here. Being perfect stresses out the flow. Mainly it doesn't have to be complete. 5. I start to code with the incomplete design or logic and change on the go till part I had designed. Write down the next steps descriptively as next day I might not be in the flow. 6. It's good when i do this alone at home and occasionally walk to all the rooms just thinking about the logics. As I found when people are around when they speak I tend to context switch to eavesdrop what they are talking. 7. During these times I check emails only in the evening, when I am almost done and close off. If it's important they will call.
8. It also really helps when they're are people to take care of you and home. Make Food & Tea. You can ask them not to distrub you for anything. Sometimes felt keeping doors open was lot better than closing stops people from knocking doors and you go to open it.
This sort of worked for me. Deepwork max time 10hrs per day.
I would say people are lucky who can do this much often. 10times in 15years is too less. But that state of work and clarity of thought process, it doesn't stress out as well. For me music during that time doesn't help, TV can be low volume(once in that mood, I won't know if tv is on or not), at home if people don't scream or talk loud that will be fine.
Sometimes motivations to finished that todo triggers the mood of deep work.
There is also some amount of luck also to it. How often do you find answers to what you were looking for in less than 5 search results and enough to test and proceed.
Everything has to play out. To many variables I think.
One weird trick I use is to listen to a particular kind of music. The genre isn't important. Neither is the content. What's important is that I've listened to that same music while experiencing a flow state in the past. Just as music attached to a time and place can make us remember how we felt back then, music attached to memories of deep work can make us feel more focused. I don't have any sources to back this up.…
- coffee (but it's a drug, and I advise against them if it is about work) - getting somewhere with no wifi (train, plane, in the nature, coffee, hotel lobby, or even disabling the wifi on your laptop) - pomodoro - chains - seeking no interruptions
> coffee (but it's a drug, and I advise against them if it is about work) There's nothing inherently wrong with drug use. The problems come in with abuse, addiction, dependency, and negative side effects - and all of those are so mild with caffeine as to be effectively nonexistent for most people, as long as they refrain from ingesting it into the late afternoon and evening.
Here's a trick that works for me that's totally impractical, but is a hint/roadmap to finding a repeatable system: I've been doing a lot of travel to Europe lately, and the return flight has become my greatest deep work experience ever. I enjoy it so much that I actually look forward to it now and wish I could do it more than ~4 times a year. I fly either Zurich or Frankfurt to SFO on United and get an economy bulkhe…
A quick tip if you get distracted by phone I would suggest getting a time lock Kitchen Safe box so whenever you need to focus on a task put your phone or anything that distracts you from focusing in that box and set a timer. The box would remain locked until time expires and that would help you remain focused Definitely check out kitchensafe
Yeah its a great idea. Until one of the latches breaks and its just unusable. Why is it so difficult to just put your phone in a different room on silent and walk away?
It's incredibly common to find smart people trying to engage their mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once. Therefore it's important that one narrows their focus.
Once the above is done, you need create a schedule to do deep work. The schedule should be frequent and consistent.
Deep work is achieved when you're in the state of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a great book called Flow:The Psychology of Happiness which you can find at https://amzn.to/2F4QR80
You also need to ensure that you have the right environment to do deep work. What a right environment is a bit subjective. What's important is that your environment does not have anything competing for your attention.