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How I regained concentration and focus

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Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#361

Post by bmacho »

vosper wrote: post #296
leobg wrote: post #204

Isn’t it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site? (Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do abuse it as a procrastination device.)

Just in case people don't realise: HN has a built-in anti-procrastination feature. You can set it in your profile. I have mine setup so that I can spend 10 minutes on HN every 2 hours.

How to tweak the

     noprocrast: 
     maxvisit: 
     minaway: 
     delay:
values for that?

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#362

Post by namaria »

v-erne wrote: post #218
NRv9tR wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do this. I do. Known numbers only and whitelist school, doctor, etc. If you really wanted to go further you could have a second number via google voice you only give to those places. Maybe even tie notifications on that to your calendar where you put your kids events.

Few years back brother of my spouse took his wife to Spain (thousends kilometrs from here) to drive around and see some sights. At some point they got a flat tire and while he was trying to fix it two nice gentlemans on motorbikes took everything they had by force (including phones). My spouse brother managed to borrow a phone frome some stranger that was driving by. And when he tried to call the only number they bot…

112 is way easier to remember then anyone's family member numbers and way more effective in emergencies.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#363

Post by adrianmsmith »

kortex wrote: post #174

"Trivial inconveniences" are a big hurdle when trying to build a habit, but are a great tool for breaking bad ones. Anything you can do to break the dopamine loop helps, however small it may be. I've had success with: - setting long passwords to social media that aren't autofilled (saved in bitwarden) and logging out after each session - nerfing addicting parts of webapps (plugins which block the facebook news feed b…

Great suggestions, I'll add:

- Get a really slow phone

I found my phone/news/Facebook addiction grew significantly when I upgraded my previous iPhone 4S (took a few seconds to unlock, another few seconds to open an app) to my current iPhone X (everything was/is instant). Previously I had used my phone as a tool, I had to really want to look at Facebook or Google a thing before opening it, now I just open it almost by muscle memory and the tsunami of news and Facebook just washes over me and I feel like I am powerless to stop it.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#365

Post by Tade0 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #340
Tade0 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family stuff is what keeps me going though. My work is a basket case at the moment, 12-month contract ends in 4 weeks, and it's almost a full time job applying for jobs. Unsolicited advice: if you can, wait for September to really start looking for employment. August is slow season in recruitment because people are still on vacation while September is the last month of the quarter, so recruiters have targets to…

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not in the US - I'm somewhat across the August slow-down though due to keeping up with overall macro markets etc. P.S. Australia's Reserve Bank is a couple of hours away from raising interest rates again. Currently it's sitting at 1.35%, expectation is for a 50 basis point increase.

Also not in the US - Eastern EU. Switching jobs on an almost annual basis I've found that large organizations all over the world think in quarters, so smaller ones are compelled to as well.

Ad PS Thanks, this is important info.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#366

Post by WuxiFingerHold »

hvs wrote: post #10

As 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.

Same here. Caffeine helps me getting into the first hyperfocused session, but after that the rest of the day is usually just me floating around. Quitting caffeine has an overall positive effect for my base dopamine level.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#367

Post by papito »

eddie_catflap wrote: post #359
papito wrote: post #40

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 essentia…

This book grabbed my eye too, but then I saw Matthew Sweet on Twitter (@DrMatthewSweet) kept questioning the studies used and suggesting that Hari has cherry picked results to support his point. I've no idea if this was the case but some interesting stuff to look at I think. A good summary thread is here : https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/status/147912591089697587...

Sure, it's not perfect. The author's flaunting of his privileged lifestyle - taking months off a year to just chill - really ground my gears, but he seemed genuine in his quest to find the reason why he could no longer think clearly.

Does that make him biased - of course, but whether or not the study of how topics get covered faster across decades was peer reviewed is rather unimportant. What I know is that I was able to read half a book in one session, and now I am struggling with a single page.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#368

Post by WuxiFingerHold »

saos wrote: post #12
hvs wrote: post #10

As 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? :(

To me green tea had a similar effect as coffee. Both feels great and gives huge energy and motivation boost, but at the costs of calmness, clarity and sustainability over the day.

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#369

Post by pbhjpbhj »

1-6 wrote: post #97
synergy20 wrote: post #65

Block websites will help definitely. another "threat" is when you have a few kids, your daily life is cut into pieces with random and sometimes strong background noises 24x7x365, not much you can do there. personally, that impacts my focus the most and there is no cure, and it usually lasts for about 20 years when kids are finally into colleges. obviously there are many good stuff out of raising kids, and I enjoyed i…

I’m curious because I’ve had kids early. Will I ever be able to catch up with peers who’ve decided their focus would be on their job and forego having children later in life?

I've looked recently at a study of academics based on papers they authored that showed parents are more productive. IIRC, fathers were most productive, mothers less productive during early years of child-rearing but ultimately beat-out non-parents.

In that limited study, if you're female you'd be expected to catch and over-take your peers -- presumably early child-rearing gives you more time after you've overtaken your peers. Again, from the study, if you're male then your output would be expected to be "better" from just after your kids come. Mother's were more productive before they became pregnant, if you follow; perhaps trying to get ahead before pregnancy.

If anyone asks I'll dig out the link. My work shared it, it showed the opposite of what they said it did ...

Re: How I regained concentration and focus

#370

Post by barking_biscuit »

cja wrote: post #182
toyg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person completely unqualified to diagnose anything but with similar problems, I suspect the real root of your issue might just be the anxiety. If you could address the roots of that, caffeine would probably become irrelevant.

Untreated ADHD is a common cause of anxiety

ADHD travels with friends and anxiety definitely tends to be one of them! When you get a proper diagnosis they try to rule out if it's not simply just anxiety, and or something like obstructive sleep apnea. Both of these can have ADHD-like symptoms. Luckily for me I have all three of these things, so it's been fun teasing apart what's what, but that's why a formal diagnosis is an important process.
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