Ask HN: I want to do “deep work” but I don't know what. I'm stuck

You actually described your problem: "constantly changing subjects". Stop it!

Deep work is not the goal, an obsessive interest in a single subject leads to deep work ethic. When you are truly intrigued and/or passionate about something then deep work follows. Not the other way around.

One clue to finding your niche is to notice what you get very angry over and want to do something about it. Having found that is the beginning of finding the "juice" and the rest follows.

You're basically asking people "What is my purpose?" and really no one here can tell you what you should be doing. Deep work is an art form of eliminating distractions and concentrating on the specific task at hand for a period of several hours uninterrupted. Whether its "work on a research paper" or "write a novel" or "learn a new programming language", these tasks are ultimately up to you to figure out what you should be doing.

Yes, luck plays a part. The trick is to keep rolling the dice.

What worked for me was microcommitments. I committed to putting 15 minutes on whatever I felt I wanted the most.

At first, I spent a lot of it on game development. Eventually realized that I wanted another side project, involving training.

Microcommitments helped a lot. If I committed right away to deep work, I would have spent hours and days planning and building something I didn't really want to and burning myself out. But with 15 minutes, I learned quickly this was not what I want, this isn't working, partly because I need to do something else first.

It's tempting to sit around filling up a database for a day, designing tables and classes, and calling it deep work. But it's not really.

When you walk into a gym with information about what's available on the ether, you are too concerned about Nutrition, weights, lower and upper body exercises but If you ask any fitness trainer what his salt, he will tell you that first few weeks three most important things to do are:

1. Show Up every day (i.e. Days you want to come) 2. Learn how to lift weights( lift weights ) right way. 3. Drinking water.

The same, In my opinion, go for deep work. Doing it every day is important.

There's some merit to the idea that you don't "find" your passion (i.e. what you mean with deep work) but that you "develop it"

Find something you enjoy doing but would like to get better at. I suggest coding/drawing for starters. Then buckle up and put in the hours. You WILL suck and it WILL suck but once you get the hang of it ...

Try www.drawabox.com

You got the process wrong. It is not: first I figure out a subject, then I do deep work, it is the reverse: you start with deep work and go, step by step, into your subject. This does not mean you can not change direction, but the deep work is required before you carve out your niche.

Youth.