I'm a nerd. I know tons of technologies in and out. And I am creative. I come up with new ideas all the time. And I start new projects all the time. They all have potential. But I do so many of them that none really gets enough attention to grow.What can I do?
[+] [-] FWKevents|4 years ago|reply
-- Limit your TV watching to one or two hours on the weekends, per week
-- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week
-- Find an activity you like to do "offline" that you can do regularly such as walking, yoga, biking, etc, and do that more often. It will clear your mind and bring you back to center
-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am
-- Be kind to yourself when you lose focus and gently redirect your mind back to your tasks. If you get off track for hours or an entire day, wake up early the next morning and put your best foot forward without dwelling on the day before.
[+] [-] ChildOfChaos|4 years ago|reply
I always hate this piece of advice, if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all. This advice is nonsense and not universal, yet the same nonsense is constantly repeated. I understand it can work for some, but that is because you are following your own rhythms and really that is what you should be doing and that should be the advice
or maybe taking your own advice more generally "Crave out a block of time for yourself dedicated to doing something significant, finding the time that works best for you in your schedule'
[+] [-] NylaTheWolf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nont|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] krnlpnc|4 years ago|reply
I'm guessing you don't have young children?
[+] [-] Bedon292|4 years ago|reply
Focus mode during the day time on weekdays, to prevent stuff while trying to be productive. And timers on a few apps.
I used to scroll through far too much twitter, but putting an hour cap on my phone helped with that a lot. It helped break the habit, and depending on what is happening in the world, I may not even hit the cap many days.
[+] [-] synicalx|4 years ago|reply
1. Video games, in moderation can be beneficial for focus in much the same way reading a book can. You have to concentrate on a single task for an extended period of time, and lack of concentration is often punished. Obviously playing for 8 hours a day is a problem, but an hour or two here and there is nothing to worry about.
2. I'm a morning person, so getting up early and doing something useful before 8am totally works for me. But a lot of people just can't function that early or don't have the luxury of being able to get up that early (shift workers, for example). I'd suggest instead of targeting 8am specifically, just target the first wakeful hour of your day as the time to get something done by. If that's 8am - great, if that's 6pm - that's cool to.
[+] [-] Buttons840|4 years ago|reply
I would feel more focused and productive than usual if I spent a day on a video game. Games are usually focused time, whereas social media is a low level misery but not being able to stop, hoping between sites, looking for something entertaining but not finding it.
Deliberately act. If someone casually asks "whatcha doing?", you should never answer "nothing". Deliberately playing a game isn't doing nothing, taking a nap isn't doing nothing. Social media isn't necessarily doing nothing, but for me it usually is.
Ask yourself, did I decide to do this? What is my goal? If your goal is passing time, stop.
[+] [-] zachrip|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nop_slide|4 years ago|reply
I was doing really good with all of these until Elden Ring came out. Now my side project hasn't seen a commit in a few weeks :)
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|4 years ago|reply
You just need to start, and get yourself to do something different to really see a difference with yourself. (seems redundant, but your actions have a direct relationship to your life experience)
[+] [-] bayindirh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lawwantsin17|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
Treat focus like a skill you develop, or a muscle that you train to be stronger. If you wanted to improve your weightlifting you would schedule regular gym visits and create a plan to do a certain amount of lifting each day with slightly more weight each week. If you wanted to improve your running you’d set aside time to run and try to run incrementally farther over time. Focus is the same: You need to start small, schedule time for it, and work your way up. You can’t expect to run a 6-minute mile or benchpress 400 lbs without practice, so you shouldn’t expect to sit down and focus through completing multiple side projects quickly without building your way up to it.
Start with incremental goals. If you only consider goals that are too far out of reach for your current focus conditioning (finishing multiple entire projects) then you’re only going to get frustrated. Break projects down into incremental milestones and set intermediate goals to reach each milestone. Decompose into individual features and track them in a simple project management software if it helps.
You want to get to the point where you can sit down at your computer, know what task you can work on next, and have that task be small enough that you can finish it in one sitting or one evening. Practice breaking down your problems into smaller and smaller portions until you reach this goal.
[+] [-] TameAntelope|4 years ago|reply
I can't cite the exact research, but Angela Duckworth turned me onto this on an episode of "No Stupid Questions" about two or three weeks ago.
Good advice generally though, and nothing you said really relies on focus being a muscle; you still need to practice it, but no need to worry about not being "conditioned" enough, is all.
Update: Found it! [0]
> Laboratories implemented one of two procedures that intended to manipulate self control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of self control. Confirmatory tests found a non-significant result, d = 0.06. Confirmatory Bayesian meta-analyses using an informed prior hypothesis (δ = 0.30; SD = 0.15) found the data were four times more likely under the null than the alternative hypothesis. Hence, preregistered analyses did not find evidence for a depletion effect.
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346303522_A_Multisi...
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] printscreen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diiq|4 years ago|reply
If you're dropping projects before you get what you want from them, introspect on why. What's happening that leads you away? Address that.
I recommend reading Barbara Sher's "Refuse to Choose"; it provides some useful tools for people who like to do 70 different things, including how to have lots of ideas without having to act on every one immediately.
[+] [-] bsima|4 years ago|reply
I'm usually a terrible speaker, but when I was running a startup I really believed in, I made great presentations and was very extroverted. Find a purpose and the rest takes care of itself.
[+] [-] ryeguy_24|4 years ago|reply
“When you quit something, maybe you already got what you came for?”
[+] [-] zerkten|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] czbond|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Disruptive_Dave|4 years ago|reply
Meditate: Literally train your mind to focus. It's going to the gym. Won't happen in a day, week, even month. Consistently do it and you'll eventually see progress.
Letting go: I have a long track record of starting while not going deep. Eventually, I just had to jump in the cold water and start letting things go. Literally put away physical gear for hobbies I wasn't actively engaging in but that took up a bunch of emotional and mental space and energy. Store it away and move on. Part of that process was telling myself this doesn't mean I failed or gave up or even that I would never do XYZ again. Just not now. I started learning the drums a bit ago then I also decided to try to get good at golf. Amongst other things, something had to go. Bye bye drums. Closed all the drums-related tabs. Put away the training material. It's golf time. Maybe in the cold months I'll pick back up, but for now, I'm relieving myself of the self-prescribed duty to practice drums. After doing that for a while, you feel a weight lift.
For some people, starting a bunch of things might be a way to protect against failure (or hard work) since they never actually commit to pushing something live. For others, like me, it's a lot of fun to learn something new (learn, not master).
[+] [-] sumgame|4 years ago|reply
Meditation helps me be less reactive to stimulus and also decreases the occurrence of random thoughts.
Think of the human body as an IO system. Your sensory organs constantly giving you inputs from all directions.
Your mind deciding what the output should be.
When you meditate - I feel like you add a latency to your responses which allows you indirectly to focus better.
Second thing that really helps is a non distracting environment (decreasing potential inputs) - have a space where there isn’t much distractions.
Phones with push notifications id say are one of the biggest sources of distractions - I have most notifications switched off and check different messenger/mail apps periodically as I finish blocks of work - this absolutely helps in terms of focus.
[+] [-] hackingthelema|4 years ago|reply
Indeed! I'd add on -- keep in mind that this focus might be very fleeting at first. You might focus on your breath or mantra for one, maybe two repetitions... and that's it! You've already lost it. You barely made it two seconds and now your mind is drifting and you have to remind yourself to focus. You might've even been drifting or daydreaming for over a minute after only two seconds of focus. That is perfectly normal. It's ok to just try meditation for a couple to a few minutes at first until you get the technique down. You slowly increase how long you can meditate -- keeping one-pointed concentration on your focus -- from a couple seconds, to a few seconds, to minutes, etc. It's like training a muscle. It takes time and effort.
Resources to check out, available free online: The books Mindfulness in Plain English and Keeping the Breath in Mind and Lessons in Samadhi.
[+] [-] spencerf|4 years ago|reply
There is a bit of controversy of the science and spiritual side but I find that the way to improve focus is to limit stimuli and practice focusing.
Outside of that, sleep is probably more critical.
[+] [-] Flankk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gexla|4 years ago|reply
Personally, I can get 4 good hours out of a day and then anything after that is gravy. Sometimes I struggle to do 4, sometimes I can go longer. But 4 is about what I can count on.
Given that time block, I then just have to project manage. Lay out a road map and start making estimates of effort required. Map that against the time you have in a given day to work on it. You then have to make the choice of what projects move based on your available resources and which get pushed off into a "someday maybe" folder.
[+] [-] ChildOfChaos|4 years ago|reply
At the moment I try to exercise for an hour a day, i'm learning to code in Swift with lessons that are roughly an hour a day and do an hour of guitar of guitar a day plus try to keep a few other things going and it's so difficult with a full time job, but else if you don't do it, life is just work and then home and repeat, how are you ever meant to develop yourself?
[+] [-] brudgers|4 years ago|reply
Do the same kind of thing habitually.
That's what focus is.
Focus means doing and letting the ideas come while you are doing and only pursuing those ideas which are about what you are doing.
It means new projects slowly so as to stay out of the way of ongoing work.
Focus means new ideas equals more work, not alternative work.
[+] [-] thomasfromcdnjs|4 years ago|reply
e.g. I want to speed run Super Mario Brothers using code
Just finish at least a working version, screw the quality of the code, screw the results — just make it run/work once, then quit afterwards if you feel like it.
Side Tip: Less talk about what you are doing before you've did it, generally™, helps to complete it. (completely anecdotal)
[+] [-] flipgimble|4 years ago|reply
My second useful realization was that the most popular mindfulness and concentration practices like sitting meditation were not working for me. I had more success with walking meditation, long hikes, martial arts and purposeful reading time.
Another recommendation is to look at latest cognitive science and philosophy for better understanding on how our cognition functions. Lectures by John Vervaeke on YouTube were a great starting place for me, and I recommend them if you’re into that academic style of wisdom. But more important is to find some source of wisdom you trust and willing to take seriously and put effort into making it a part of your life.
[+] [-] warpech|4 years ago|reply
Paradoxically, there was a thread about this on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30830772
> The news does not matter. It has little, if any real impact on your life besides what you allow it to have.
[+] [-] yumaikas|4 years ago|reply
Double check against ADHD.
If you have it, it changes how you approach all of the advice you might get, because it means your brain is literally physically different in how it manager attention.
If you don't, that's also valuable intel.
Either way, you'll also want to learn what emotions are in play with your new project cycles. Emotions tend to indicate needs, if indirectly, and if whatever need is driving all of the new projects is not met in some way, it'll continue to frustrate attempts to focus on one project. This is because starting a new project is a well-worn path for you at this point. That goes triple of ADHD or other neurophysical forces are in play.
[+] [-] synicalx|4 years ago|reply
Doctors seem to be very trigger happy when it comes to medication for ADHD and it's not always necessary. If you can afford it then it's definitely a good idea to get a second, independent opinion just to be sure before you start quaffing pharmaceutical grade amphetamines for the rest of your life.
[+] [-] jonahbenton|4 years ago|reply
Which is not wrong. The path of behavior change is unique, as each individual has their own unique cognitive architecture, history of experiences, expectations, habits, etc. Changing behaviors toward goals is hard. There are common threads across people, of course, and every technique has been utilized millions of times across millions (billions) of people. But your journey is yours alone.
What I hear just in the snippet above is someone who is dissatisfied with themselves, and has a solution hypothesis- "focus"- but that may or may not be the real solution or path to satisfaction.
All of life is a process of getting to know oneself better, and coming to understand the circumstances in which one succeeds and is happy, and understanding what one has to continually forgive oneself for, because everyone is flawed and fails most of the time.
I would encourage trying to spend more time in the "problem domain"- analyzing the dissatisfaction- and with the phrase "kill your darlings"- as so much of what we sometimes see as having potential turns out on reflection to be wishful thinking.
Good luck and best wishes.
[+] [-] rg111|4 years ago|reply
1. Have a clear work/rest-of-life boundary. Have a clear set of hours or days of week where you work or learn things related to work. End your work on that boundary. Follow with a small end-of-work ritual. Spend time with hobbies, family, friends, etc. And set time aside vigilantly. When you know that you have to end working, you stop diverting your attention, and try to get stuff done as quickly as possible. When the boundary is blurry or non-existent, you can always do work "later". You can slack for little while "now".
2. Timebox. Have clearly defined boxes of thirty minutes blocks for definite tasks. Hell or high water, do not do anything else in the assigned time.
3. Time track. Just write down in a plain-text file or paper- what you did last. Note the times- both start and end. Whenever you are about to lose focus- you are reminded instantly that you have to log the time.
4. Plan concretely beforehand. Make up your mind about what you are going to do- and how much- before you begin doing something. Write it down. This pushes you towards doing that.
Aside from this techniques, as a general change-agent in your life, you should start meditating. Just read "Mindfulness in Plain English" by Bhante Gunaratana and/or "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa. This has immensely benefited my life- much beyond alleviating my focus problem.
I have personally seen minimizing social media usage to 15-20 minutes has helped me focus much more easily. I use social media just 15-20 minutes per day, and only in a particular time.
Even if I wait at a store or ride the elevator, I rather stare at the wall than pull up my phone.
I recommend two books and a podcast-
* Deep Work by Cal Newport
* Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt
* Huberman Lab Podcast
[+] [-] mitchellmorrow|4 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...
[+] [-] simonhfrost|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greentfrapp|4 years ago|reply
http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
[+] [-] dijit|4 years ago|reply
That being said: focus on solving a particular problem to completion is more about having discipline than having motivation, do a little every day without fail and you will succeed, often the hardest part is to start.
As for more personal advice (as a person who has ADHD, this will be like the blind leading the blind unfortunately), but it helps me, and it comes in two forms.
First form (easy to accomplish, shallow focus)
1) The night before going to bed, think about what you want to do first thing in the morning.
It helps to keep a task list, but set a single (even easy) goal for the next morning.
That morning goal can be anything such as closing a small ticket or reading a chapter of that computer book you've been avoiding.
2) In the morning, resist the urge to touch your phone, do not check email. Your day has not started until you complete that task.
Why? Because the world does not exist to you yet. Thus: no distractions.
Quickly you realise your FOMO from social media can be tapered.
---
Second form (hard to accomplish, deep focus):
This one unfortunately requires rigor in your working habits, discipline and reading of the book "time management for systems administrators" by Tom Limmoncelli.
It applies to everyone, not just sysadmins, but sysadmins used to do the kind of ad-hoc work that makes focus impossible. The first chapter of the book is literally titled "How to find time to read this book".
But keeping a journal of what you want to accomplish each day and then being aggressive about what is actually possible is the essense of the book, it goes into much more detail and is much stronger than the notions behind bullet journalling than it sounds on the surface.
[+] [-] zackmorris|4 years ago|reply
It's not much, but what really helped me was flipping things around and seeing myself from other people's perspective. Like, feeling a calling to do something to help others or even the whole world, and doing that instead of browbeating myself to be more productive or finish something. Then harmonies have something to emerge from. I don't really know how to articulate it yet, but I think that motivation comes from love.
[+] [-] ambivalents|4 years ago|reply
>> feeling a calling to do something to help others or even the whole world
I would like to get to this place. I try to remember this from A Course in Miracles when I'm feeling pressured to perform:
I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal. (T‑4.XI.8:2‑6)
[+] [-] lifeplusplus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saxman001|4 years ago|reply
After I made these adjustments I had the boost in concentration and wellbeing that I needed to take on some of the other adjustments suggested by other commenters.
These adjustments made a night and day difference to my ability to focus. Maybe none of these things are a problem for you, but definitely check in on these areas if you haven't already.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)
the basic idea is "finish what you start" and "you can only have a certain number of projects going at once" so you don't start anything unless there is room on the board.
Kanban is the most basic approach to management and it applies to a wide range of applications. For instance at the cafe in the building next to mine the people who make food keep track of how many orders they have in flight and don't take a new order until the queue is short enough.
[+] [-] ryeguy_24|4 years ago|reply
It’s called Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. She labels people like this as “scanners”. I’m not in the camp of reducing the dimensionality of humans to a single bucket/category but the description of what she calls a scanner really, really resonated with me.
I’ve found that I do start many many things and finish very few that I don’t need to. This is largely in my extracurricular time. At work and for work, I can finish things that I need to. The one takeaway from the book that helped me is this:
Maybe when you walk away from a project, you already got what you were looking for.
Maybe you already learned the thing that you wanted to learn and finishing the project wouldn’t do much more for you. And in some cases, I really believe this. For example, I always start little tech projects and I wanted to build a little audio modem in python to understand how digital modulation worked for old dial up modems. I got about 30% in and quit because at that time I had already learned quite a bit about how modulation works and finishing the project was really not interesting to me. The interesting part to me was the learning, not the finishing.
I’m always looking for similar people to chat to about this. Feel free to reach out. Email in profile.
[+] [-] weeddy|4 years ago|reply
Having prioritised list helps to deal with multiple projects. Here, it is important not to fall into switching to a lower priority project if struggling with the other one, although context switch also advantageous when not obused.
Limiting number of WIP projects was a delight to me. When one finished, feel free to switch to another one. Different time and place for different projects also another technique to be aware of.
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
- Always try to scale down your projects, avoid making them too grandiose to be achievable.
- Try to achieve at least one thing in what you are trying to focus on every day, no matter how small.
- Embrace pivoting. When we pivot to new projects, it probably means the last idea may not have been all that good.
- Get exercise and eat right.
- Consider getting a prescription for Concerta or Adderall if other ways of finding focus don't work.