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It's getting harder to focus every day

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Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#291

Post by Limeade9345 »

imaginationra wrote: post #289

It's getting easier to focus every day for me- Why? I never used any kind of mobile phone or tablet and I use LLM's to automate away the things I don't want to do. I use a laptop(VOIP for texts and calls), desktop PC, a b6 physical notebook and a sony voice recorder- B6 notebook(graph) https://www.amazon.com/STALOGY-Editors-notebook-Black-S4104/... B6 cover with pocket https://www.amazon.com/Raymay-Fujii-CN162B-Noteb…

I am interested in your phone setup. I need for for 2FA push notifications, public transit passes, and other random shit that I would love to be able to get rid of if it seemed sensible. Shed some light, I am here for it!

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#292

Post by thewebguyd »

rubyfan wrote: post #178
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…

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…

> like I imagine ADHD might feel like.

Definitely feels like that, with the exception of task initiation. I am capable of deep focus work, but I can't control when (or where). I can block out time on my calendar all I want, if my brain says "Nope, we're not doing work today" then I'm not doing work, interruptions or not.

It becomes a real disability in the workplace when everything is defined by more or less rigid schedules and your mode of operating is not a schedule but "whenever my brain says so." Some days that might be 7am, other days its 1am, and sometimes it's an entire week or two of not being able to get jack done and then staying up all night and getting 15 business hours worth of work done at once because you physically can't pull yourself away.

I always tell people, its not a deficit of attention, I have plenty of that. Its an inability to direct where and what that attention is on.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#293

Post by danhodgins »

svachalek wrote: post #238
robertlagrant wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faux pas or not, it now happens much more than it used to.

The guy next to me at the last movie I went to was scrolling TikTok. Seriously what the hell, you can do that anytime and you actually paid to be in that seat.

He should go to TikTok headquarters and watch a movie on his phone next to complete the circle.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#294

Post by danhodgins »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #112
6031769 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your phone in a cinema was, is and ever will be a massive faux pas. I have no idea at all why you think it might be otherwise.

I have no idea at all what lost Xanadu theater you found where people don't check their phones. They weren't saying they like it or that it's actually ok. The word "apparently" tells you that this is something they have observed happening and were surprised to observe.

Solid Xanadu reference. I wonder what percentage of the current generation of young people would have any idea what this is from. I'm not a film buff, but took a film course in college, and learned all about Orson Welles and Citizen Kane.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#295

Post by cleandreams »

I really noticed this a few years ago to the point that I changed a few things and they have helped.

1. I notice the movement of my attention. I used to default to something like: sit down at my computer to look something up. But before I do that, just check the email. Then I am down some sort of rabbit hole. I did this sort of thing with no awareness or conscious choice. The change is that I notice what I'm doing. Then I can rein it back. I make a choice. (I think scrolling videos gets us into a habit of not choosing what to pay attention to.)

2. Be aware of my curiosity. Try to stay in touch with it. If I get into the space of curiosity I have a lot more juice for sustained attention. Something that helps with this is long form reading, especially fiction (!). I find myself replenished for all my work. The next thing I will try is some group support: silent reading groups where you read together.

3. I have an app on my devices that limits my access to twitter and reddit etc to small windows in the day.

4. Turn off ALL notifications except text messages.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#296

Post by SoftTalker »

ssl-3 wrote: post #62
mysterydip wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they’re saying that you could say “I’m going for a smoke break” at work and it was at least tolerated. I don’t think you can say “I’m going for a walk” the same way.

Indeed. It has varied a bit depending on the timeline, but: Going out for a walk (or to just change environments and very passively stare at nothing) has been less socially-acceptable than going out for a smoke, in my experience. One of these things is weird, or perhaps inducing of ire ("How dare he just go outside when he feels like it! What is he even doing?"). The other is, at worst, both understandable and disgus…

Smoke breaks used to be acceptable because your boss probably took them also.

Now that few people smoke, I don't think they are seen as a valid excuse to duck out for a few minutes.

"I need to stretch my legs" is probably better these days.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#297

Post by deepsun »

mindslight wrote: post #213
stronglikedan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current situation was foretold 20 years ago in the prescient documentary named Idiocracy.

Idiocracy is downright optimistic compared to our current society. Citizens have one single piece of identification, and it's not even electronic. Their location is only tracked when discrete scanners manage to see that identification. Medical care is provided promptly. Joe Bowers's court case wasn't decided by political meddling, and the two minute hates were only focused on him after he was found guilty. There are…

Their leader tried to solve a global problem, not calling it a hoax. When their plan didn't work, they really listened to experts, whatever they had, and changed approach. Too optimistic even for modern times I would say.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#298

Post by Jtarii »

moebrowne wrote: post #200

It seems to me that lots of people consider the ability to focus as some kind of innate ability which we are all born with, it's not. It's a learned skill which requires practice. Stop practising and it atrophies. We all understand this for physical exercise, I think we need to understand the same principles apply to skills.

Well, some people are innately physically stronger than others.

For some things its just the truth that some people have "the drive" and some people don't.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#299

Post by nixon_why69 »

afavour wrote: post #244
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/

Yeah, Idiocracy isn't wrong on the facts about our current day scenario. The issue is where it takes that: poor, lower educated people will inevitably have poor, lowered educated children who will in fact get less and less educated as time goes on, and they will take over, leading to... idiocracy. There's a whole conversation to have about the assumptions in that. Is the implication it's genetic? The children of lowe…

You could also look at it as a metaphor for the continued debasement of american public life and mass media. Or an excuse to make lots of dick jokes.

Re: It's getting harder to focus every day

#300

Post by graemep »

lardosaurusrex wrote: post #42
graemep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I am not sure it is as similar to sleep as you claim, but its definitely good for your brain. I say something similar in the context of parenting, that a reasonable amount of boredom is good. I think it likely that being constantly entertained makes people more prone to seek constant stimulation. This did not start with phones either. I am Gen X and it happened in my childhood with kids being dumped in front…

Well I made no claim of it being related to sleep; just that I've read a lot of claims that it's related to microsleep and used "sleeping while standing up" for the last bit as an analogy. I am not a sleep doctor/therapist nor am I any sort of expert on the subject.

I may have read your statement as being stronger than you intended. its a reasonably analogy then.
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