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Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

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Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#71
post #22

I've tried most of the things in your list. By and large they don't really help with concentration. The most effective thing I've found is 20mg of Adderall. Not thrilled about that, but it is what it is.

Is what it is... but in my opinion/worldview: if there are bounds to how much concentrated work you can get done per hour/day/week, then you shouldn't need to chemically enhance/alter that. You're free to choose to, but you make it sound like you feel obliged to for work.

Even if one can get exactly 2 hours of work per week done, well, some people just have a disability and not all disabilities are obvious or visible. Modern societies should make up the difference. If someone is simply unable to, I'd be happy to pay those extra 5% taxes to make it possible that they have a normal life by doing what they can and no more and no less.

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for such opinions as, from a European standard, the US has very little like this, but I guess there's no point only ever preaching to the choir / staying within the bubble. This is just how I see it.

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#72

Not joking: stop going on the internet. It's scientifically proven to boost concentration. More specifically, do one thing, and only that thing, for a set time period. Do not check your phone, do not even have it in the same room. Do the one thing until time is up.

Since accessing the internet (and sometimes even the Web) is often a part of an IT job, the "one thing" approach is pretty helpful. Keep in mind what are you doing. If you're reviewing a pull request, you only need the Github page, and not the rest of the pages on the WWW.

Also, timeboxing things helps. It's hard to work on one thing indefinitely, it can even induce panic. But if you're using something like the pomodoro technique, you know that when you're feeling a craving to switch, you have, say, 27 minutes left until the next break. It's observable and manageable; you can concentrate during this time, knowing that a relief is nearing. But the relief (like going for more tea / coffee / etc) is also timeboxed, so you don't get distracted forever.

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#73
Let yourself work.

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By analogy, say you're a manager at a scientific-lab. You're already behind on deadlines for publishing papers; you're getting flack for it. You need the folks in lab-coats to write those papers, but they keep procrastinating... no matter what you freakin' do, no matter how many times you physically drag them to the computer to type their papers, every time you walk away for 10 minutes and come back, the scientists are back at their labs doing experiments and whatnot. How do you get them to stop it with the distractions and do their work?

As crazy as it may sound, maybe you should let the scientists do their experiments. Because, maybe, those experiments are somehow more conducive to writing papers than typing the papers is.

And it is weird, right? I mean, if you want papers, you type them! Obviously, right?! Everything else is just a distraction.. and maybe that's okay when you're not behind-schedule, but right now they should really be writing instead of experimenting.

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You're a scientist in a lab. You're trying to do your work, but your manager's freaking out about missed publication deadlines. Every time you're trying to get some data to write about, they keep demanding that you just get to writing!

They don't understand. You try to tell them that you need to do other things before writing, and they ask why: you explain how the significant of the quadrangle isn't 7-epsilon beta invariant boson electric guitar, but they act like you're saying gibberish. Stressed, they impress upon you the fact that they need you to write stuff up and quit it with the distractions.

What do you do?

Your manager, frustrated, asks other managers what to do to make you work. The other managers suggest that your manager go exercise, have a beer, or take a vacation. Your manager doesn't see exactly how those things might help, but they try it. ...conveniently, they're not bugging you anymore and now you can work!

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Point: You're not doing all of the work. Much of it's being done by, e.g., subconscious parts of your brain. And sometimes there's more to it than you might consciously experience.

If you want to be a good manager, there's some learning how to help the rest of yourself work. And perhaps even to realize that you might not even know how to do your own work.. sometimes you're leaning on other intelligences, even if they're within your own brain, and sometimes the work you'd want them to do might be more involved than you may appreciate.

So don't Ctrl+Alt+Del the OS-updates, disk-defrags, virus-scans, garbage-collector, backup-transfers, etc. -- at least, not as a standard practice. But also try to avoid stressing the same already-stressed processes while you're waiting; don't have the scientists fix the fax-machine, nor start moving a lot of big files around while the drive's defragging.

And if it helps, imagine that your brain is a country, and you're a non-authoritarian top-level executive (like a US president). Sometimes raising/lowering all taxes might help a bit, but those are rather blunt, unrefined tools to address some specific performance-concern. Instead, if you want to be an effective-leader -- whether if it's of a country or of your own mind -- you've got to grow your awareness of what's going on inside and apply more nuanced tactics to help things along.

Because even when it's "you", it's not all just the conscious-you doing the work -- you're more akin to a manager than a laborer, if you're an executive of your own mind.

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Bonus analogy: You've bought a self-driving car from, say, Tesla. You told it to be nearby, so that it can pick you up when your meeting finishes. However, it's now late. Should you, say, take remote-control of it and hit the gas? Because, surely, it should just drive to you -- and if it's not doing that itself, then it's buggy and you should hit the gas. Not like it could be delayed due to something beyond your awareness, like it being stuck in traffic, and what's the harm in hitting the gas when it's going too slow?

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In short, sometimes working means doing things that might not seem like work to your conscious-mind, or at least letting your brain do those things while you support it, like a good manager supports their employees.

Generally speaking, the more advanced/involved a process is, the more non-deterministic the run-time will tend to be. Constant-time operation might be more plausible for the simplest tasks, and a manager might more reasonably try to get employees to keep doing their job when it's a simple task, like pulling a lever in a factory. But just like complex distributed optimizations can be far more variable (and even unpredictable) in their run-times compared to, say, adding two primitive-integers, more complex creative/involved work can be more non-deterministic in its run-times.

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#74
On a mostly-plant and a few fish diet: I supplement zinc on an empty stomach, and 750mg EPA+(a little DHA) Omega 3 oil early in the day and find both aid focus, the second more directly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696601 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-supplements-for-vegan...

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#75
B12, and pretty much most of the additives in energy drinks designed to help push energy into concentration...

Maybe a good handful of nutropics, but most are anecdotal or don't work for everyone.

Good vitamin regime ie D if you don't get enough sun, C if you don't get enough fruit and veg and so on ...

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can't attest to this helping me focus, I can confirm that it does something . I used to take it in the morning and evening. After stopping for a bit and restarting, I noticed I was waking up super tired and having intense dreams. I stopped taking it in the evening and confirmed that other people have had the same experience. FYI I take it in a tincture, and I have not experimented with different brands or pre…

Link the tincture brand for posterity

https://hostdefense.com/

:)

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#77

Just joined a Flow Working workshop by Dr. Antoine Larchez and had some interesting results. As a lifelong (functional) procrastinator with diagnosed ADHD, I brought down 2.5h of effortless (once started) work on paper, some of the best in a couple of months if not years. I have yet to see whether the methods are scaleable and replicable for me, but a lot of the content resonated with me, especially the insight that…

As someone who also has adhd and is a functional procrastinator at times saboteur I'm curious if you could elaborate on your "mind emptying exercises"?

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#78
A couple of things to add to your list:

Go to bed early - 9-10pm and wake up when your body feels like it for a change. If it’s 4-5 am, you get more hours of dark and focus time and your brain is at peak executive thinking, so you can see the bigger picture and write much wiser code.

Fasting for a bit may keep your focus as well for a while. If you wake up and are distracted from hunger, drink a cup of plain while milk or plain yogurt. The protein and fat will be an instant boost to your brain and you will stay focused until you get hungry again. If you keep to meat, dairy, or sugar-free protein and fat you kan keep your focus all day. Carbs will crash you.

When you feel tired or unfocused, or ready to go to social media, take a nap instead. You can eat some carbs now as they can help you fall asleep faster. When you wake, apply the same principles.

I had to work for my own startup for a while and a squeezed a whole bunch of top quality code out of my brain. Without enough sleep or quality fatty protein, the brain gets distracted more easily or operates only at lower levels of abstraction.

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#79
I can only speak for myself, but the only thing that boosts my concentration is to buckle down and concentrate - which rules out most of the above. It usually takes a couple of hours before the effect is noticeable. (I'm not claiming to be good at it, but I have learned what works for me.)

The other thing is to notice when I am no longer able to concentrate any more, as it is no longer productive to keep going. When that happens, any of the above might be helpful, but that list is missing the most important one: get enough sleep.

Your list is mostly of solitary (or not explicitly social) activities, but socializing is also helpful for me.

Re: Ask HN: Any scientifically proven techniques to boost concentration?

#80

Dr Huberman from Stanford has a great weekly podcast where he talks about how to improve all parts of your body/mind for various activities(sleep, exercise etc.). Here’s one on improving productivity: https://youtu.be/Ze2pc6NwsHQ One of the tips from the video that I really love is called the cathedral effect. It was found that having high ceilings increases your creative capacity when doing an activity.

Came here to suggest this episode, it is a gem.

https://hubermanlab.com/optimizing-workspace-for-productivit...

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