Break bigger things down into goals that you can accomplish in shorter amounts of time.
Don’t fight it… just make it more productive.
Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
91–100 of 148 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#92No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#93Music may help as several others have mentioned - personally I find classical piano or organ music works well; but I also use a white noise generator instead sometimes, so that might be worth trying too. Somehow it's good at drowning out the little distraction "what's on HN now" itch. I use "A soft murmer" on Android, but I expect they're all much of a muchness.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#94I've spent most of my career coding in offices drinking coffee. I have taken many breaks from caffeine for weeks to months at a time. Many aspects of my life improves like sleep, stress, irritability, awareness of surroundings/smelling the roses. One downside is that I seem unable to focus. Eventually I'll start introducing tea, stronger tea, coffee, until I'm back where I started. [I also enjoy coffee, even decaf, b…
Yup, I used caffeine and alcohol for years to deal with ADHD symptoms and only got diagnosed recently. Now, I can't even have them, for medical reasons.
Anyway, maybe you have ADHD lol, and caffeine is not a particularly good substance for the condition (not the worst, but it has a bad stress-to-focus ratio, IME, and Drs seemed to confirm this)... maybe it's better than long term nicotine (although in the short term nicotine can be very helpful).
Basically, I'm experiencing the same as you. Without the chems I'm fucked. Btw, stimulant medication won't necessarily disrupt your sleep; it's also not a silver bullet.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#95No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#96I found using an inhaler helped me to breath during periods of chest tightness and more easily during exercise do you think I'm asthmatic? Go get tested for ADHD, man.
What's the point? They just refuse to help now.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#97A cup of tea on the balcony to get my thoughts together when I start a day.
One or two hours of work then a break, then a little more work then lunch. I set alarms. It's easier to pick up interrupted work than starting something new after a break.
My apartment is quiet. My computing environment is quiet. There are few things to pull me away from work. I agree with perrygeo that feedback loops should be fast to avoid getting distracted.
I sign off in the middle of the afternoon when my productivity wanes.
I'll sometimes use SelfControl to block websites when I really need to stay focused, but can't find the motivation.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#98I have to do authentication on my phone for my work VPN and other logins, plus I go for walks and still want to be able to answer slack so I keep my phone around. This obviously leads to distraction with various social apps, so I recently installed an app called Opal which does the app blocking, but doesn't let you get around it unless you sit and wait for 30 seconds before taking a "break".
The app is a bit pricey, $100 USD / year, but I sent a message to their customer support and they offered me a year subscription for $30 / year, which ultimately is worth the focus I end up getting for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Having good habits also help, but that takes diligent practice and discipline, which for me ebbs and flows.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
wow. awesome tip. thank you
There’s a lot more tricks to lowering your dopamine baseline: https://hubermanlab.com/controlling-your-dopamine-for-motiva...
Dr. Huberman is great, his videos can run for long (over an hour) but he breaks down everything and explain things in detail. I've enjoyed watching his video on ADHD.
Re: Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?
#100Get tested for ADHD, even if you believe you might not have it. I'm in my mid-30s and been somewhat successful at work but my pattern has always been that I could hyperfocus on some projects for days on end and suddenly I would be bored out of my mind and not able to focus for more than 20 minutes at a time. I've blamed and shamed myself for years, thinking I was being lazy, that my work ethic sometimes was poor/lack…
Yet these days they've taken to not treating ADHD anymore. The psych(o) people will pile on to that guilt trip and make you feel like the worst person, while telling you that you should just quit your job and end your career. People need to understand that if you have ADHD your psych, doctor, and therapist are your worst enemies. They basically operate as secret agents for the insurance companies in order to gather i…
> They basically operate as secret agents for the insurance companies in order to gather information to permanently remove your health care (not just mental health care, but it crosses over into traditional medicine).
I live in a country where I don't have to care about that so none of your conspiracy really applies to me :)