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Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#211

Post by j_lev »

Always late to the party, I had the following two thoughts on the walk to work this morning:

1) "shows to watch" - just delete these and reclaim the time. TV shows and movies are in a new golden age, and if they don't continue to get better then you'll still have the "old" ones from now.

2) When I feel like I'm consuming too much media I remind myself of Stephen Covey's bit on Production vs Production Capacity, and that spending too much time on Production Capacity is just as bad as spending too much time on Production. There reaches a point where you have to start applying your knowledge and just getting the work done.

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#212

Post by galfarragem »

For some time I used to feel the same as you (and most of people here as I understand). It was not easy but I started an information diet. I never went back.

My information diet (in case of being helpful for somebody):

general news websites and newspapers - None. If it is important you'll know about it by somebody or it will be on HN top 10.

hacker news - Top 10 articles of the last day [1].

specific news (in my case, javascript) - Weekly digest email [2].

twitter - Once a day, no tweeting and following only 10 accounts. Probably still too much.

facebook and email - Once a day. Probably still too much.

skype - Just by appointment.

smartphone - I don't have one. A basic phone is enough (unless I'm traveling; maps and gps are really useful).

tv - Just by appointment (ex: watch a sport event, specific TV show, etc).

To organize myself I use Secretweapon (GTD for evernote) [3] and Folder-system [4].

[1] http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/

[2] http://javascriptweekly.com/

[3] http://www.thesecretweapon.org/

[4] https://github.com/we-build-dreams/folder-system

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#213

Post by t3rseCode »

estrabd wrote: post #8

You might be INTP. FInd out and if you are, find a community of them. It helped me. And to put it succinctly, minimize your information firehoses and reject the notion that you need to keep abreast of everything even if it is not relevant to you. Purge all of your reading lists and resist building them. If you keep any lists or bookmarks, require that they be things you HAVE read and want to keep as reference for lat…

If you don't mind my asking - what community do you participate in to mitigate the scatter brain effects of being INTP?

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#216

Post by dm03514 »

coned88 wrote: post #64
dm03514 wrote: post #36

Meditate

I have tried mindfulness. I get really agitated really quickly because I am not doing something actively. I then stopped. Is that all normal?

I think it is completely normal, I have been meditating daily for 5 years and my mind still gets agitated and restless during meditation, but overall, day to day, it has become lots easier to focus and the day to day agitation and restlessness has been massively calmed.

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#217

Post by Grepsy »

The state you describe sounds very familiar to me. What helped me a great deal was to simply stop drinking coffee.

The first few days after stopping my concentration was completely destroyed, I couldn't focus at all. After about 2 days things started clearing up and I got back my calm and focus.

Most of the people I know consume coffee all day long, every day, and don't seem to be affected in the same way I am. Just thought I'll mention it, in case it might help!

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#218

Post by kowdermeister »

probably_wrong wrote: post #115
anabranch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://selfcontrolapp.com/ Works well. It cannot be turned off and you can set it for a specific amount of time. You choose the websites you would like to block. Your phone is obviously a weak point, but it's a start.

> It cannot be turned off and you can set it for a specific amount of time I almost stopped using the app due to the lack of an off button, after my boss asked for some data and I could not get it on time because the website was not on my whitelist. Luckily, there is a way of turning it off. If you don't want to know it skip the rest of this comment, and otherwise here it is, in case someone needs it: the app uses th…

For me it's the opposite. Having a loophole to turn it off is a dealbreaker for me.

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#219

Post by antonislav »

Part of the problem is that you don't have time to think deeply about things, because there is to much to think about. The solution is simple: drop almost everything except what is most important to you and allocate plenty of time to for it. (This solution is simple but not easily implemented.)

A good read on this topic is "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr

Re: Ask HN: How can I remedy scatter brain and information overload?

#220

Post by molszanski »

coned88 wrote: post #129
molszanski wrote: post #95

coned88, I am pretty surprised with you situation. You have done a marvelous job on self diagnosing the trouble, but you don’t see the solution. In most cases understanding and describing the problem is by far the hardest part. So you are 90% ready to solve the issue. Disclaimer: you are a smart person, so I will use a couple of thinking shortcuts. Just so you know. You don’t want to read a book, don’t you? (: First…

Awesome post. Thanks so much.

I will check this thread in a month. Write me back how everything works for you (:
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