How I regained concentration and focus • Hacker News Board

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#31

Post by jansan » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

ph1p wrote: post #3

the "zero news diet" should really be done more often. For myself, it would be "zero Twitter diet".

I put Twitter on my router's domain blacklist. The only way for me to read Twitter is through nitter.net, which is not much fun and readonly, so there is no risk to get addicted.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#32

Post by TameAntelope » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #28

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work for money.

What money? There's no way to get a raise at my company without a promotion and they won't promote me. I have no motivation to work hard if it won't be rewarded. I do the minimum to get paid my shitty salary.

Who said anything about your current company?

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#33

Post by davidkuennen » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

Hard for me since I'm addicted to my own app that I'd have to be productive for.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#34

Post by bananabiscuit » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

mprime1 wrote: post #25

If you’re looking for a ‘lean’ source of news (just the facts, no commentary) try Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events (RSS feed available)

Unfortunately, it is a mistake to think that just because you are only presented with high quality facts (statements that are very likely to be true), that you are getting an objective view of the story. You would be surprised how unrepresentative a story can be made purely through omission or selective emphasis, and Wikipedia is very guilty especially of the latter. The talk pages are usually very revealing of what the articles fails to mention, if you happen to catch them before the discussion gets archived.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#35

Post by freediver » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

I collection of links and quotes on stop reading "news"

We are what we read: https://tinygem.org/about#stopnews

Entire TinyGem service was created with the purpose of collecting content worth reading.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#36

Post by kzrdude » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

I don't think there is a silver bullet or a tick box solution. You have to want to stop. Change your behaviour.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#37

Post by nonrandomstring » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

Switching to text only [1] browsing changed my relationship to information and vastly improved my focus while using computers. I highly recommend it.

[1] Text mostly (90+%). Those few occasions I want to see images as part of a web page it's possible to turn that on.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#38

Post by djohnston » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

I've managed to consolidate all my distracted news consumption to HN but indeed I need to break myself from this reflexive habit.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#39

Post by terminalcommand » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

jansan wrote: post #30

I think routers should have more fine grained settings, so I can block social media during weekdays, HN on weekdays except lunchtime and evening, and allow my children only to access their 5 websites that they need for homework/study during a few hours in the afternoon. This would help me a lot.

A more extreme measure some users here used to take was not access the internet at all during their downtime. When you come home from work simply not use the internet. I guess exceptions can be made for streaming movies/music. Ideally you should download and stock up on these.

I remember some users deliberately not connecting internet to their homes to stick with this. There were also some users who switched to "dumb" phones to reduce distractions. I guess these could work.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#40

Post by papito » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

If you want to get your life back, read Stolen Focus. It has all these tips and tricks but it does a lot more - it explains why our focus is shot, and dissects the forces behind it.

It's much more sinister than most people suspect.

https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/d...

I was spending hours per day on Twitter, and then I learned that overusing social media rewires your brain, and you essentially unlearn to digest information in bigger chunks. This book will horrify you, and that's exactly what needs to be done.

And if a book (to listen to) is too much for you to focus on - listen to Ezra Klein's interview with the author, at least: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/its-not-your-fault-you...