It's getting harder to focus every day • Hacker News Board

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#391

Post by udbhavs » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

OP is definitely not alone in this. It feels like I'm constantly trying to avoid "attention capture" when trying to do a task that involves browsing the internet - even going on LinkedIn or StackExchange for a specific purpose can get sidetracked by my eyes wandering to the sidebar or being drawn by updates in the feed. It's scary to realize how little in control I am of my own stream of thought.

I don't know if anyone has a solution that's not straight up quitting the internet cold turkey. My attempt so far has been meditating 50 minutes a day following "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa as a progress guide for increasing my mindfulness.

The most recent lesson I've learned is that allowing mind wandering and daydreaming can be a good thing. As a kid I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and took away a misconstrued toolkit for dealing with an active mind. The whole book was about emphasizing the importance of being present in the moment, and I tried to carry that out by trying to silence my internal monologue and being frustrated whenever I found my mind thinking about something random and not processing direct conscious experience. That felt horrible and was completely counterproductive to being able to live normally, and now I'm trying to re-establish a relationship with my mind where I can welcome random thoughts while still being able to get things done.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#392

Post by QuercusMax » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #190

Spooky23 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t smoke but when I would consult in large companies especially I’d always find the smokers and pop by on my way back from a walk. They are always a good group of people, with a roguish edge as smoking became less acceptable. Usually they are really kind people who represented every part of the the org, and loved some juicy gossip, and I’d learn alot about the informal networks in the company, who the admins wer…

> informal networks in the company Not just smokers. The little groups who would go and leave for a walk and coffee. The people who ate lunch together either going out, or together in the kitchen. These were opportunities to cross the boundaries of your department and role, it was a great excuse to make friends in other groups, and gain insights. For me the first ones I tried to align with were always in CS and Accou…

I got caught in a big layoff last year that caught me off guard, in part because I was fully remote when I had been in person before. All the random hallway and kitchen conversations where you catch the vibe of what's really happening were gone from what I could see.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#393

Post by tenacious_tuna » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

udbhavs wrote: post #391

OP is definitely not alone in this. It feels like I'm constantly trying to avoid "attention capture" when trying to do a task that involves browsing the internet - even going on LinkedIn or StackExchange for a specific purpose can get sidetracked by my eyes wandering to the sidebar or being drawn by updates in the feed. It's scary to realize how little in control I am of my own stream of thought. I don't know if anyo…

The number of news articles I start reading that interrupt the flow of the article with 'ads' for other articles I could read is driving me bananas.

To say nothing of ads themselves or CTAs or cookie consent banners or...

I'd frequently gripe about how much I felt my attention was fractured as an adult to my grandfather, between taxes or coordinating with service providers or whatever, and his response would frequently be "I'm retired and I can't keep up!"

It does feel that there's pressure in many avenues of life to capture and fracture people's attention.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#394

Post by Rumple22Stilk » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

CollinEMac wrote: post #302

skinfaxi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't is well-known that higher education correlates with lower birthrates? At the very least college years are prime child-rearing years. > Educated women delay the onset of childbearing and have fewer children overall compared with less-educated women https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3449224/

Idiocracy's mechanism isn't as solid as it seems though even if high educated people do tend to have have less kid. The movie basically suggests "smart people have smart kids, dumb people have dumb kids, repeat forever." But you'd expect kids of very high or very low IQ parents to land closer to average in general. The "compounding" thing the movie relies on isn't really how it works in life. And even if the premise…

>less intelligent people aren't worth less than more intelligent people

Yes, they obviously are? Just an absurd thing to state.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#395

Post by tenacious_tuna » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #5

beschizza wrote: post #3

The author doesn’t mention it, so it seems appropriate to suggest asking a doctor for attention deficit disorder screening. The cultural forces in play encouraging us to flit and switch constantly are a perfect distraction from the possibility one’s own brain is complicit.

I would caution a little against the prevailing wisdom of diagnosis-as-panacea. I've had a diagnosis for most of my life, but never seen stimulants as worth it (admittedly I've not tried them long term, but that's because after reading a whole lot about it I don't want it in my body). I don't think the diagnosis changes anything for me other than that. It's very much a case of "now what". I suppose some people find a…

I went through a similar loop around my own diagnosis as well ("great, that'd be one more thing to deal with,") but stimulants have had a significantly positive impact on my life.

> But I can't escape the next step which is that you still have to do go out and do all the same stuff anyway

That's exactly what I was afraid of, but it turns out that actually getting dopamine for completing tasks goes a long way to blunting the existential dread of there being yet more tasks. Consistently now whenever I feel crappy it correlates back to either (a) crap sleep or (b) forgot to take my meds.

Just my 2c, YMMV, everyone's different, etc. I had a hard time really understanding the anecdotes I got from medicated friends myself, but I'd encourage others who suspect they have ADHD to try even a very low dose of something for ~3 weeks and see how they feel after. I'm at the lowest "clinically effective" dose of my prescription and the effect is still significant.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#396

Post by tenacious_tuna » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

Shoue wrote: post #38

kuerbel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD isn't something you suddenly develop at 30 or 40. You can get diagnosed later, but the signs are meant to have been there since childhood.

Symptoms become more obvious as you age, which can feel like it came on later. As part of an assessment they do go through your childhood - if you had trouble in school for example that's a classic ADHD symptom, but there's a lot more to consider. It's not always obvious and I've met plenty of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s who only just realized they had it this year and got assessed. Glyphack's experience definitely…

> if you had trouble in school for example that's a classic ADHD symptom

or if you excelled at some topics which you found interesting but did middlingly or poorly at others...

I watched the skepticism form then evaporate in my psychiatrist as I explained that I did relatively well in school overall... except for the three or four classes I thought were boring, and how I consistently procrastinated but managed to pull off decent work right before hand.

(I got diagnosed after 30, though apparently my elementary school wanted to screen me.)

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#397

Post by Izkata » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:33 PM UTC

0x20cowboy wrote: post #377

Levitz wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please, no. GLP1s leave you worse off than when you started if you stop taking them. This doesn't seem factual, or at the very least, not that simple? https://www.epicresearch.org/articles/two-years-after-stoppi...

Not the OP, but there was a lot of talk that glp1 had a negative effect on bone density and in older people it was especially problematic. There is evidence that is not the case though https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8878541/

Something I'd picked up somewhere a decade or two ago was losing weight too fast can cause problems with bone and muscle density. So it could be related but not a direct effect.

I think they were referring to rebound weight though, something else I'd heard about these drugs that also doesn't affect everyone. A scarier one was one person whose weight got too low so they stopped taking it, but for some reason had a lot of trouble gaining any weight and getting up to a healthy level.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#398

Post by fransje26 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

alexjplant wrote: post #353

projektfu wrote: post #157

Hallowell and Ratey, who write about ADHD, suggested a new entity for the current world: VAST, the variable attention stimulus trait. It is like ADHD but it is culturally induced and not presumed to be due to an innate deficiency in executive function. "Beyond the sources of biologically based ADHD, there are a lot of people who act as if they have ADHD but on close inspection turn out not to have the diagnosable con…

This was a central plot point of the film adaptation of "Johnny Mnemonic". From Wikipedia: > In 2021, society is driven by a virtual Internet, which has created a degenerative effect called "nerve attenuation syndrome" or NAS. Even more hilariously given the purveyors of the distractions we're discussing in this thread: > Megacorporations control much of the world, intensifying the class hostility already created by…

> The next generation of doctors and Nobel Prize winners probably won't be watching boobies videos and Minecraft play-throughs.

Or they will be, and we will have an even bigger problem..

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#399

Post by phainopepla2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

dsign wrote: post #362

lardosaurusrex wrote: post #4

People often question me how I manage to focus for more than a few minutes and I'm always confused because back in the day I was constantly informed I didn't have any focus and needed to be treated (adhd). I'm not convinced attention spans themselves have changed; I think it has more to do with the fact that people's brains aren't defaulting to daydreaming anymore when bored. I think it's still an issue with people b…

Interesting that you bring daydreaming to the conversation. I've got an issue with it, and it's that I get interesting ideas then. But nothing comes out unless I sit in front of a computer to do anything with them. And computers have all the distractions.

Pen and paper nearby might help.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#400

Post by cjjuice » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #356

rubyfan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VAST thing speaks to me. I am capable of deep focus work but often am subject to constant interruption and multiple concurrent urgent demands. During a work week I get a lot done but often feel pulled in a lot of directions like I imagine ADHD might feel like. During the weekends when I am not occupied with a task I often fall asleep. This happens on the first day or two of vacation also. After a few days my brai…

> The VAST thing speaks to me. I am capable of deep focus work but often am subject to constant interruption and multiple concurrent urgent demands This is actually something that is pretty misunderstood about ADHD. People with ADHD don't actually struggle with attention. They struggle with executive function, because their brains don't produce/consume/manage dopamine correctly Somewhat ironically, Hyperfocus is also…

As a fellow ADHD.. increase your threads... while the agent is working on one thing, prompt another thread to work on another project. Keep a bunch of them in the air at one time. But make sure you are still interested in what you are building. If you don't think what you are building is important coding agent or not it's going to be very hard to do that thing.