the "zero news diet" should really be done more often. For myself, it would be "zero Twitter diet".
Zero HN diet would be the most effective.
How I regained concentration and focus
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Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#12As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
Even tea? :(
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#13As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
Was this on the short term?
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#14My distraction is from all the family stuff I have to deal with. My lack of concentration is because I lack motivation - I don't see any reason to try hard at work since it's all politics and BS.
Work for money.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#15the "zero news diet" should really be done more often. For myself, it would be "zero Twitter diet".
I managed to completely stop using Twitter by removing all my follows. Then when I'd mindlessly open twitter I'd be presented with a blank screen. After a few days I just stopped opening it.
This is a very smart strategy. You effectively trained yourself that there was no reward to be had from the behaviour and so broke the habit. Someone should make a browser extension that does this for other sites, essentially allows the masthead and other boring trim to load but removes all of the content.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#16》CNN, WSJ, and BBC That is a news equivalent of junk food. Clickbait partisan outrage generator. I would suggest some independent podcast with daily or weekly summaries. Much higher information density.
Given the junk food analogy, things with much higher information density would be like drinking neat olive oil.
I think a more useful thing is to filter news down to only that news which is important rather than merely engaging, and leave engagement for either friends or hobbies with a ratio depending on your personal level of introversion/extroversion.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#17As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
Was this on the short term?
No, it's complete. I was drinking 4-5 cups of coffee a day and my brain was a cluttered mess. Now it's just mildly cluttered.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#18As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
Even tea? :(
You might be able to get away with a cup of tea every once in a while, but I tend to be an "in for a penny in for a pound" type of person, so it's complete elimination or 4-5 cups of coffee for me.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I managed to completely stop using Twitter by removing all my follows. Then when I'd mindlessly open twitter I'd be presented with a blank screen. After a few days I just stopped opening it.
This is a very smart strategy. You effectively trained yourself that there was no reward to be had from the behaviour and so broke the habit. Someone should make a browser extension that does this for other sites, essentially allows the masthead and other boring trim to load but removes all of the content.
The browser extension kinda already exists — I've accidentally done that to a few sites with Adblock Plus.
Re: How I regained concentration and focus
#20As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.
hmm... caffeine actually helps for ADHD as it's a stimulant. I can only take my meds on weekdays and I've pretty much had life long addiction to either coke, pepsi or red-bull. When I started taking effective medication I basically stopped drinking caffeinated drinks. Just don't need it. I can't take my meds on the weekends, and virtually always I go get something with caffeine in it to help.