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Productivity Is About Attention Management

nytimes.com

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Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#181

Post by toby- »

atemerev wrote: post #173
GunlogAlm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat; diagnosed with ADHD-PI (UK, so we don't use the term 'ADD') as an adult. I've improved vastly thanks to medication and good routines but it remains a constant effort, and improvement is a continual process. The book Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley helped me significantly.

Just bought and read the book. For me, it was fantastically depressing: basically it says: “OK, so you have ADHD. Sucks to be you. Go through this huge laundry list of these and those things to do, don’t forget to take your medication, find a mentor — assuming anybody would want to deal with you, and who could blame them? — and if you are extremely lucky, and with heavy effort, maybe you can become half a normal man…

Whilst I didn't get that exact impression from the book, Barkley is known for being "realistic" about ADHD: he doesn't hide the fact that, depending on severity, ADHD can levy a heavy toll on a person, significantly impacting their quality of life. ADHD sucks, but we can make it suck significantly less through good habits, good routines, healthy eating, exercise and, where appropriate, medication and other forms of psychological support.

It's a cliché, but comparing yourself to others is a bad idea in this domain. I have yet to meet an ADHDer who makes these sorts of "upward comparisons" and derives anything useful from them; they typically just exacerbate feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness.

Personally, I know I might never be as effective or productive as a person without ADHD is capable of being, but I can be the best version of myself — it's fruitless and unhealthy to ask more of yourself than this, right?

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#182

Post by sherkaner »

1e-9 wrote: post #47

My most effective means of achieving a high level of work productivity is pleasure reading. It doesn't have to be anything deep. It just needs to be something I want to immerse myself in. The mental process I use to completely tune out the real world while reading for fun is the same one I use to reach a high level of productivity for work. Reading keeps it sharp. If I go too long without pleasure reading, my ability…

I feel that I read in a wrong way. My productivity and ability to think often plummets after reading fiction.

Could it be connected with vizualization? Do you visualize your characters, setting, predict what's going to happen, etc? Usually my eyes just skim over the descriptions of characters and scenery.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#183

Post by EmmaMuhleman1 »

dkural wrote: post #147
wisty wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story... > But that story is about to change. A paper now in press, and due to publish next month in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, describes a massive effort to reproduce the main effect that underlies this work. Comprising more than 2,000 subjects tested at two-dozen different labs on several continents, the study found exactly nothing. A ze…

How about we simply agree that people do in fact get "tired" and have limited energy and thus must prioritize what to do.

But that argument is no more effective than stating that people have a limited amount of time and thus must prioritize what they do. We all know prioritizing is key to being effective. The question should be about whether one effectively prioritizes to generate positive momentum toward their long-term goals. With that in mind, I better get off Reddit and get to work.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#184

Post by 1e-9 »

sherkaner wrote: post #182
1e-9 wrote: post #47

My most effective means of achieving a high level of work productivity is pleasure reading. It doesn't have to be anything deep. It just needs to be something I want to immerse myself in. The mental process I use to completely tune out the real world while reading for fun is the same one I use to reach a high level of productivity for work. Reading keeps it sharp. If I go too long without pleasure reading, my ability…

I feel that I read in a wrong way. My productivity and ability to think often plummets after reading fiction. Could it be connected with vizualization? Do you visualize your characters, setting, predict what's going to happen, etc? Usually my eyes just skim over the descriptions of characters and scenery.

Yes, I think visualization provides the key benefit. When I read something good, my imagination recreates the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in great detail and tunes out the real world. I lose all awareness of the book's text and everything around me. It's like I "live in the story." This mental state can persist for hours, even in loud environments with high levels of activity around me. After I sleep following some deep reading, I notice a heightened ability to visualize a problem and run mental simulations of potential solutions. It's like I "live in the problem." Interestingly, when I have played video games with similarly high levels of focus, I have not realized work improvement afterwards. In fact, video games seem to degrade my work performance. I think that is because video games generate stress and do not stimulate nearly the same level of mental world-building that good fiction does.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#185

Post by stared »

normalhuman wrote: post #146
stared wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a lot about values, see: https://markmanson.net/personal-values "For the last few years, I’ve had an idea for a satirical self-help article called, “The Productivity Secrets of Adolf Hitler.” The article would feature all the popular self-help tropes—goals, visualizations, morning routines—except expressed through the exploits of Hitler." Being productive for the sake of productivity is a fetish here, b…

Thanks for your answer, I had a laugh with the Hitler thing. I clicked your link. I don't mean to be argumentative for the sake of it, but let me point out something that goes to the core of where we might disagree (or more, where I might disagree with a majority of people here). The article includes the following statement, in big all caps: "You are what you value" No I am not. I am also not my profession, not what…

Yeah, I also do have a problem with "You are what you value".

Though, perhaps from a different perspective. I do think I am a sum of my biology and experiences (much in the spirit of Daniel Dennett), rather than "a ghost in the machine". Values are a part of that, nothing more, nothing less.

---

As a side note, I know you may cringe at "found meaning of my life... and thanks to that I am 23% more efficient" (and in general, people adopting Buddhism Zen into the American cult of Business).

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#186

Post by jriot »

kieckerjan wrote: post #123
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also get a lot of joy from all of the things you describe. The fact that the pleasure you get from sex or exercise feels artificial in comparison to writing a piece of code might be something worth thinking about. Is this really how you feel, or is it how you were programmed to feel?

I guess what I mean to say is that sex and exercise (not to mention drugs) are more like quick fixes. You can just do it and feel happy for a while. On the other hand, producing something involves more investment and when this investment pays off, the resulting "high" feels more earned or deserved. To my mind it also feels less buzzy or chemically induced (although I am well aware that triggering your reward centres…

There is an investment in exercise you just need to set goals. I went from never running 4 miles to completing 55km mountain runs. Then switched up and went from 800lbs powerlifting total to a 1300lbs total and still looking for more.

No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. - Socrates

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#187

Post by stared »

atemerev wrote: post #70

As a person with diagnosed adult ADD, this is one thing I cannot do — manage attention. Medication and meditation help a little, but I probably will never reach the productive capabilities of a regular person. Sigh.

I feel you.

For me, even the most fulfilling projects without constant collaboration and dense deadline don't work.

Though, I learned a bit from the How To ADHD channel: https://howtoadhd.com/

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#188

Post by jazzdev »

kieckerjan wrote: post #123
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also get a lot of joy from all of the things you describe. The fact that the pleasure you get from sex or exercise feels artificial in comparison to writing a piece of code might be something worth thinking about. Is this really how you feel, or is it how you were programmed to feel?

I guess what I mean to say is that sex and exercise (not to mention drugs) are more like quick fixes. You can just do it and feel happy for a while. On the other hand, producing something involves more investment and when this investment pays off, the resulting "high" feels more earned or deserved. To my mind it also feels less buzzy or chemically induced (although I am well aware that triggering your reward centres…

It sounds like you are talking about visceral happiness vs reflective happiness. Two distinct kinds of happiness according to some researchers (i.e. Martin Seligman).

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#189

Post by cpoile »

criddell wrote: post #140
apatters wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a citation for this, but I read something recently about a study where people who had been introduced to the concept of decision-making fatigue experienced it, while people who weren't aware of it didn't. The mind is a wacky thing, I think we know a lot less about it than we believe. One idea I like which seems to have some real world support is that your mental models make all the difference -- if you b…

I certainly experience mental fatigue. I have a hard time believing that if I didn't know about it, I wouldn't experience it.

We're very good at convincing ourselves of something. Can you be sure it's not just fatigue? (different from willpower fatigue)

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#190

Post by thisismyswamp »

normalhuman wrote: post #85

My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom in one of your cells than in all self-help and management books combined. Maybe you can't focus for a good reason? What could that reason be? - Remember the last time you felt glad…

Are you portuguese? Wanna hang out in Lisbon?
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