What can I do?
-- 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.
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'
I’m a “morning person.” My wife is definitely not.
For me, I enjoy getting up at 5 (actually, it takes a while to get to the “enjoy” part). I walk a couple of miles, take a shower, and often fix a number of issues before 8.
One of the most productive developers I ever knew (a former employee) was a “non-morning person.” He would amble into the office at noon. Drove HR crazy, but all attempts to get him to come in earlier, met with failure. He would often stay in past 2AM.
As his manager, I got flak for his schedule, but I put my own job in jeopardy, and did not enforce corporate policy on him. We worked together for almost 27 years. Japan loved him (so my job wasn’t actually in jeopardy). His schedule worked for them.
We tend to have a habit of projecting what works for us, onto others.
My job allows me to work whenever I want.
So, I wake up early and start work so that I'll be done by early afternoon. That leaves me plenty of time to get useful things done.
Because it's work, I'm kind of motivated to get up early. Had I decided to do some other activity in the morning — non-work coding, exercise, reading etc — I wouldn't get out of bed.
I don't think they're saying, "get up early tomorrow after staying up late tonight" What they mean is "get into a habit of getting enough sleep and waking up early." Yes, I get it, many people claim to be night owls. But honestly many of them just get terrible sleep and won't put the effort into developing healthy routines and instead write it off as something they can't change.
After you get in the habit of it, the time available in a day feels almost doubled.
And there's (I suppose) the benefit of working fasted which generally enhances focus.
That doesn’t invalidate it, though.
if you feel terrible waking up that early - go to bed earlier as well. you need that sleep.
While definitely a shift from what I do today, maybe going back to that style of internet usage would not, in fact, be so intolerable!
There are plenty of options beyond social media. Take a walk. Do some hobby, read something physical, etc. The issue with social media is that compared to most alternatives, it's easier to lose track of time, and easier to get addicted.
Not sure how old you are, but as another commenter pointed out, many of us spent a good chunk of our life - even adult life - without constant-on Internet. The quality of life was not at all worse.
The internet and video games didn't even exist for almost all of human history, and people didn't burn out merely for lack of access to them.
Unplug and enjoy the world.
Just because we have a socially enforced style guide and no infinite scroll doesn't mean it's not social media.
I'm guessing you don't have young children?
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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)
Ask your shrink for a Vyvanse/Elvanse prescription.
And be extremely wary of anyone who claims 75% of a group has ADHD (referring to parent commenter following up below) when the actual incidence in adults is in the single digit percentage points.
This is like someone asking why they’re not getting stronger in the gym and commenters rushing to insist they need testosterone replacement therapy. There’s no free lunch.
My remark was facetious, btw.
Also when you're off it even a day, hypersomnia is guaranteed. You're going to be sleeping 16+ hours a day.
Also if you have issues with addiction, it’s probably best to stay away entirely. The mental quieting it’s prescribed for is inferior to that of a good cup of coffee (entirely subjective, YMMV) and there are a whole host of negative physiological and psychological side effects.
2¢ of unsolicited advice: if you need this stuff to keep your brain on track so you can handle your job (especially post-2020), and your doctor suggests it, might be worth considering after exhausting other options — at least that was the case for me, it can be worth it. But if you’re surviving otherwise and just want a focus boost the risk:reward ratio is way off.
Ritalin for me but yeah turned out it was ADHD in my case
@op not diagnosing at all but if you find yourself not focused despite reward etc, worth looking into as a possibility.
For example I’ve got basically unlimited freelance work available at easily 5x my day job salary right now and I could definitely do with the cash.. can’t for the life of me find the motivation to do it. Check with a Dr if it’s that sort of thing! Anything occurring “despite consequences” should be double checked with a pro in my opinion
Something to note I’ve been told and have found myself that sometimes motivation comes after initial action. If there’s anything in there that can hold your attention or would be super easy to do, start on that. Try to keep a roll going from there until your engines fire up
To be clear: Stimulants are not motivation in pill form. The motivation boost is a short-term side effect and tolerance definitely develops quickly.
I think a lot of people get the wrong idea after seeing people use stimulants to cram for finals in college. Long-term treatment won’t do anything like that. It can improve focus and reduce distractability, but you’re not going to become a code-writing machine for the next decade on stimulants.
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.
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.
The Barbara Sher book for people who want to find and follow Their Purpose is "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was". "Refuse to Choose" is for people who want to do 70 things but the thought of doing any one of them exclusively is horrifying.
“When you quit something, maybe you already got what you came for?”
I'm going to dig back in tonight with a fresher outlook, will look at that Sher book too.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
The study focuses on the claims that self-control or exertions of willpower deplete the ego which doesn't address focus.
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.
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?
I feel like filling after-work hours with "development" things isn't the way to go. Personally, I need my time for "doing nothing" or allowing my brain to wander. I feel that creative energy needs this space.
IT has normalized this idea that you do professional development in your free time, instead that on the job. This is not the case for many (most?) other areas.
Anybody in this position: ask your managers for time. Talk about expected career development. Invoke the Google 20% (yeah yeah, I know, not perfect, but still). We need to reclaim our free time as actually free from work of any sort, even if we like our work.
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.
>> 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)
Before, at least I had a scapegoat and could blame other people or trauma or any number of things. But after learning about stuff like manifestation and source consciousness, that we're all one, I had to face myself. That's when I realized that my perceived failures were things that I had largely brought on myself. And that even the trials of life might be teachings that we volunteered for before we incarnated in this life. Like life doesn't happen to us, it happens for us, as messed up as that seems sometimes.
I heard of A Course in Miracles from Marianne Williamson, who is someone that I admire. But I haven't read it yet. With spiritual learnings, it often feels like wisdom comes to us, and then validation when we read that the ideas are ancient. Versus scientific thinking where maybe there is so much obsession with evidence that skepticism rules and sometimes we have trouble seeing the obvious truths before us.
On that note, I feel that "modern" culture is so obsessed with determinism that it forgets that science may never be able to explain something as basic as consciousness. And that all subjective experience comes down to chaos (magic). I believe that quantum physics is an attempt to explain the foundations of chaos. And that any macro-scale stochastic/emergent behavior follows the same rules as quantum physics because it's rooted in the same chaos. Meaning that our thoughts and interactions with others create deterministic effects in the world as surely as our conscious application of scientific principles.
I've just started learning about reality shifting and the application of magic. I've dabbled in manifestation over the years and found that it works, but that manifesting from the ego can backfire. Now when I meditate, I might set an intension like "help me find a more equitable reality for everyone" or something along those lines that is more love-based.
Something that helped me is, even if we're all one, maybe there's still something more. A higher power beyond us, that somehow created all of this. It's endlessly loving and forgiving and doesn't mind that it took us all this time to even begin to notice it. Maybe that's our soul, or source consciousness, or higher self, or a creator or creation itself. Maybe it's aliens, I don't know. But since it's not deterministic, it isn't bounded by space or time or effort. It just is. It can create an entire universe just to house a single consciousness for any of us as easily as we turn on a light switch. For me, that mystery creates a sense of meaning, bringing me back to the central miracle of conscious awareness.
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.
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.
So, as a doctor, if an otherwise responsible adult is stating that their inability to focus is having a negative impact on their life, and you know there are reasonably safe and potentially very effective drugs that can be tried, what, exactly should hold you back? Likewise, as an informed patient, what is the harm in trying a low dose and seeing if it helps enough to be worth it?
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
- 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.
No, consider talking to a mental health professional for a proper evaluation if you think mental health issues are underlying part of your problem.
Don’t go in seeking a specific diagnosis or specific medications. This is literally called “drug-seeking behavior” and reputable doctors will flag you for it.
Accept that stimulants aren’t magical motivation or self-discipline in pill form. I’m seeing too many non-ADHD young people seek prescriptions and then burn themselves out, develop a dependency on a drug they didn’t need, and find themselves in worse condition when they realize that the energizing effects of stimulants don’t last forever.
> No, consider talking to a mental health professional for a proper evaluation if you think mental health issues are underlying part of your problem.
Is that not implied by the prescription part? I even left it for last in that list for a reason.
> Accept that stimulants aren’t magical motivation or self-discipline in pill form.
It certainly can help with motivation if we set aside the "magical" part. A person with ADHD taking a stimulant isn't going to have their interests changed or their self-motivation, but it certainly helps in staying focused on things a normal person can do but is not necessarily interested in, like chores and boring desk work that needs to get done.
> This is literally called “drug-seeking behavior” and reputable doctors will flag you for it.
Sure, don't try to game the system by faking a disease. Agreed, but that wasn't really what I was suggesting, as much as I could have been more specific in my language.
> I’m seeing too many non-ADHD young people seek prescriptions and then burn themselves out, develop a dependency on a drug they didn’t need, and find themselves in worse condition when they realize that the energizing effects of stimulants don’t last forever.
Well, I really don't know much about that. Then again, I don't live in Silicon Valley. This is really not relevant to those who have legitimate issues focusing. When people genuinely complain that they can't focus, that's usually because that focus isn't merely short-term. There's a difference between ADHD and those trying to brain-max themselves. Stimulants can really change the life of a person with ADHD and there's plenty of evidence that not only is ADHD real but that stimulants help. Your statement about being flagged by doctors does little but scare people off from getting help.
There's nothing wrong in seeking a drug-based solution. If a prescription drug can help someone with a condition, it would be foolish to avoid it merely because some people will abuse it.
Start with the final goal you're seeking (in my case it was a Pay Me checkout button) and then piece the rest of the fluff later.
A lot of the focus product is dealing with emotional barriers and your personal psychology. This shatters all this and paves a new path.
There's something sobering about starting at the end, instead of consistently getting side tracked at the beginning.
I put this up 2 days ago and some stranger has already sent me 12 cents :)
My approach is to create a dead-simple hello world app deployed to the internet with a one-command deploy and start iterating from there. Having something to show people that is live and that I can see the feedback loop for helps me tremendously.
I might have to supplement my current side project with this Pay Me button soon though.
Usually I get distracted and end up on YouTube.
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.
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)
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...
If my focus issues are partially due to tiredness, I make a point of keeping my eyes closed for all or part of the break periods.
I normally pin a browser tab and allow alerts for this site: https://pomodor.app/timer
I'm not affiliated, but it's simple and good. It's the only site I allow notifications from.
It hadn't worked for me previously because I thought it would be too much conscious effort, and I wanted a solution that would trick me into focusing.
However, I realized that many people, myself included, probably don't even get ~2hrs of focused work in a day (2hrs is a ballpark figure, no data to prove it).
Since then, I set timers of 25 minutes in which I'd just focus on what I'm supposed to do, and even though the first 15 minutes I drift off, thinking about something else, after a certain point the work that's in front of me is all I'm thinking about and I'm focusing effortlessly.
There are instances where I'm not focused, and I keep looking at the timer and waiting for it to get to 0. This is also great, since I still consider it somewhat productive that I stuck to just trying to do the work, instead of watching stuff on YT or browsing HN. This builds a little bit of self confidence.
The way I try to think is "I don't care what happens, unless it's a major emergency, I'm not letting anything distract me until this timer reaches 0".
I notice that the fact that I know a break is coming is very important tome. If break time wasn't involved, then I'd dread the whole experience because it wouldn't have any finality.
Something that has striked me during the last weeks --since I got my WHOOP-- is the correlation between HRV and self-control (aka. will). I've monitored how productive and focused I am and my top days all have in common this:
-- didn't drink alcohol at least 3 days before (I'm now avoiding it as much as possible)
-- got at least 3.5 hours of REM and deep sleep
-- breath exercises at least 3 time a day
Conclusion... monitor your HRV and you might be able to focus better
Amphetamines like Adderall are a popular option, which others have recommended here. But I'd like to note I've seen my fair share of devs dependent on ADHD meds lacking self-discipline who just ended up staring at their phone doomscrolling all day at their desk, with their legs visibly restless from the stimulant train they were riding.
Personally I treat all stimulants as simply performance-enhancing drugs. You still need at least a modicum of self-discipline to direct that focused energy at the intended tasks.
IME adopting even a simple daily exercise routine and refusing to miss it unless you're too sick/injured (which means you're also too sick/injured to work, self-imposed, this is self-discipline after all) is an effective means of establishing and maintaining self-discipline. Plus it's good for your health and fitness as a bonus.
Which of your projects are most meaningful to you? Which solve problems you care about and seem most interesting? Start shipping something, share it on HN, Twitter, IndieHackers, etc. Getting positive feedback can also help you stick to 1 thing.
Note: don't focus on technologies and ideas so much, focus on problems to solve for others. What can you make easier for others that would be valuable for them?
A bit more on the point about excluding things and the whole topic of focus here: https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/how-to-focus-in-the-ag...
I'm only a few chapters in, but it's fascinating so far. Can recommend.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The main thing is getting into the groove of whatever it is. That does mean grinding it out at the start. Tackle a portion every single day, rain or shine. Doesn't even have to be a lot everyday, could even be some notes. I find after a little bit it turns into a natural schedule, requiring less push to get started. My wife is also kind enough to understand that I do need to get into a rhythm, and will sometimes nudge me to do a little bit each day. Don't push beyond what you feel like everyday though, you don't want to resent your work. You want to find a happy medium where you enjoy it but still progress.
Sometimes that streak either gets broke, or the natural inclination waning, and then I need to push myself again. There will probably be a waxing and waning to it, and that's perfectly fine. Some days you won't feel like it, but consistency is important (exceptions apply of course just try to make those minimal and not an excuse).
Getting that singular focus with so much competition between ideas is harder for me. I'm currently learning a new programming language, and I had several that I considered. I tried to break them into the main things I wanted, what would help my career, what would expand my programming knowledge in general, and what would I actually enjoy (harder to know before hand but I hand some idea). If it's really that much of a tossup though, then just do that, toss a coin. Sometimes leaving it to chance is just easier to break the stalemate and get you started.
Proper music selection can also really help.
At our core, we have two different types of attention: conscious and unconscious. When we have a task at hand, and want to get it done, we give it our conscious attention, and work to focus on just that task while ignoring other external distractions. But while this is happening, our unconscious attention is still at play, and is constantly looking for other things to latch onto - be it a sound in the room, an advert on the side of the page, or a distracting recommendation after an educational YouTube video.
The point at which your conscious attention gets fatigued from trying to ignore these temptations is when that lack of focus occurs. Researchers think that ADHD could be caused by a malfunctioning area of our brain which controls our conscious attention.
Music of the correct variety can help to keep that unconscious attention satisfied and stop it overriding our specific intention to concentrate on that key task. It does this by cutting out a whole area of distraction possibilities and replacing it with something just enough to keep our unconscious attention satisfied.
The reason ive looked into this is because im building a side project around focus music: https://www.flowful.app/
To improve short term focus, I exercise with pleasurable tasks which require dedication and concentration. It can't be video-games or anything that promote a dopamine rush. It must be something that I have to do with attention and concentration for a time and feel the benefits only after I finish it. My favorites for this are playing guitar (classic guitar, pop guitar does not requires the same level of concentration or dedication) and reading a book. Sometimes I go out for a walk just to free my mind.
To improve long term focus I try to avoid addicting behaviors, like when I turn on the computer and I have to resist the urge to browse the web or read unrelated news (or wikipedia rabbit holes) instead of working. I do like the AA guys, when I fell the urge to procrastinate, I think: "Just for today", like in "Just for today I won't browse the web before reading and answering my e-mails." The day after, I just think: "one day at a time" and simply do the same again.
From what you suggest, it looks like you need focus to complete interesting projects. My technique for this is: start with the hardest part: if it is really hard and boring you'll probably abandon it without investing too much time. On the other hand, if you complete the hardest part, you'll have a very good reason not to abandon the project: the hardest part is already done!
Sometimes I give up in the middle of a project because it is taking too long... try a smaller project the next time. Sometimes I quit a project because it is too complex... try a simpler project next time. You want big and complex projects? Break it in smaller simpler projects that are easy and fun to complete.
That amount varies per person for sure, but 1-2 hours of deep focus per day is a reasonable goal for me.
When I need to focus I'll switch my computer to a single task. Phone goes on DND and all interruption generators are closed (email, chat, etc.). I'll sketch out a basic checklist of what "done" looks like, and use that to get started. Sometimes I'll get in the zone and keep going beyond what I listed out, sometimes I have to end early and resume later.
That's what works for me. The most important part for me is planning out what I want to get done and then making a space to do it.
Sometimes it's a physical space, too. I'll make a list, and head to a coffee shop to work on it.
I've been doing this and it has been quite helpful. Some good mono-tasking activities:
- Read books. Books require you to focus for an extended period of time on the same subject. It doesn't matter fiction or non-fiction. Just find a book you enjoy and finish it. If you don't enjoy the book at 50 pages, try a new book.
- Actively listen during meetings. Close all your other tabs and applications and pay attention during a video call. Take notes with pencil and paper to keep your hands busy and keep the focus up.
- Walk. Just take a walk. Don't listen to a podcast or music, just walk and let your mind rest. You might even apply some meditation techniques and try to pay attention to your body. Can you feel your breathe or heart rate?
People vastly overestimate the free time they have, and vastly underestimate the time it takes to take a project to completion.
Try to limit it to one project at a time and put all the other projects on a "Do Not Do List" until that one project is done. And now for the key part: Track how long it takes to get that one project done.
It wasn't until I did this did the gulf between perception and reality hit me. I used to plan projects for the whole year, and began to reflect on the list at the end of the year. It always looked like a failure. When I began the One Project at a Time rule, I found I could get only 2-3 done in a year, when I was consistently planning for 5-10.
I mean you know what you have to do if you really want to: give one idea the attention to grow. Choose to do that and commit yourself to it. Or don’t.
Get enough good sleep. If you don't sleep enough you won't be able to focus and retain anything you learned long-term. Don't put on headphones or fall asleep listening to videos/podcasts or looking at things on your phone.
Create a setting in which you can do 1 thing uninterrupted. If there are any potential distractions, put them away, turn them off or close as needed to create necessary boundaries.
As we grow older we accumulate and we obtain more things that we could make use of but have effectively the same or less time to devote to each individually.
Instead of thinking that you are wasting potential on the big ideas, think of it as your portfolio of small bets (credits to Daniel Vassalo). Instead of exposing yourself to risk of "one big idea" for the expectation of "one big payoff", you can think of yourself as your own VC investor, with the most important distinction that you will be choosing how to invest your most precious resource: your time.
Take the projects that you see potential but lost interest and put them on microacquire [0]. This will both free your mind for other projects and give you a sense of accomplishment.
So I guess the best way for me to focus is to identify what I want to get out of something. Once I know the benefit/goal, it seems easier to build momentum and complete.
Next, give it some time. It can take a while to get to where you want.
Finally, after working at this for a while, you still can't seem to get the focus down, or started. It may be time to see a mental health provider. There are many different mental health issues that can cause you to not be able to focus, only a mental health provider can diagnose and treat these issues.
Also, I've noticed I learn best when I actively try to limit the number of times I switch context within a day, this might require you to plan whatever it is you want to deep-dive beforehand, but your mileage might vary.
Are you really a nerd? Do you really know tons of technologies in and out? Are you really that creative? Do all the project really have such potential?
Anyway. Starting projects is easy, finishing them is hard. This can have tons of reasons, you should be more specific what you are struggling with, because from your post, everything about you seems to be perfect.
I would suggest to be more self critical, as long as I'm not misinterpreting your post that is.
Close your eyes Look straight between your eyebrows Breath in for 6 count mentally Breath out for 6 count mentally When breathing in and out keep looking into the blackness between the eyebrows
The hard part isn't coming up with new ideas or starting projects with "potential" or being "creative" the hard part is getting someone else to use them. You need to double down on something which can actually fail to ever have a chance of something you build mattering.
Personally, the specific way I found to do this was to work at fast growing early stage startups with founders I found impressive. YMMV.
Being able to effectively select what you focus on is as important as being able to focus in the first place.
I personally felt out of control in that I focused on the wrong things, and just wasted my life... not something that supplements, meds, or tricks like the pomodoro technique can help you with.
https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/the-danger-of-ignoring-beauty might be a good (short) read (posted earlier today here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30904338).
It ends with the question: what do you want to want?
Before starting a current project, I spend a couple of weeks really thinking through the value that will be created for humanity if the project is completed. Each time a new idea comes up, I put it in the outlines above, but I make it a point to COMPLETE the current project by telling myself about all of the end value that will be created.
Develop muscular endurance in the spine.
Do yoga or something that allows you to move your spine and stretch hip-flexors.
Sitting in one place is endurance work. Mostly our body gives way before the mind does.
You can apply other things suggested too but the physical component of focus is often ignored.
And of course develop the endurance to sit for long periods by sitting for long periods. 3 to 4 hours is usually ideal. (According to Cal Newport in Deep Work)
This is more micro than what you wanted but I guess it can work in a bottom-up manner.
One thing that stood out, which I suppose should be intuitive, is the idea that if you input more information into a system, the time to process each bit shrinks.
So basically change strategy from a breath first search, to depth first, close of all information sources not related to the current focus area to avoid distraction.
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Pragmatically, if you want to figure out what to do you have to come up with criteria, evaluate your options, and (and this is the hard part) cut 'em loose except for the really important one (or two or three) on which to concentrate.
Good criteria are:
1) Does it help others?
2) Does it make me happy?
This is based on a tiny amount of information from you though so take my opinion with a pinch of salt.
Here is what I do.
option 1) take on two tasks at a time and convince yourself you would rather be doing X instead of Y. That way in your brain you are "getting away with it"
option 2) dont fight it. When you get the flow, isolate and GSD. When you arent feeling it, do what you need to do.
Option 2 isnt always an available depending on your circumstances but it is my favorite becvause I am actually way more productive this way.
But it sounds like your problem isn't focus. It's prioritization.
Fuck focus.
if you don't have a goal, you're just nnot going to do it. It's really easy to focus when you have a deadline, so just set up deadlines on yourself
2. Don't start something new till you finish what you are working on
3. Make lists
4. Use a calendar
Your plate is limited, even your brain can deal with just a few things at a time (4 i think from most researches).
I guess you have to mindfully and aggressively say no to certain things or ideas, but that is never easy.
Everything else is a form of procrastination.
The successful people you see are just the lucky ones whose attention was already turned to things that could make them successful and they just went with it. Because what they were focused on was valuable, society rewarded them, which created a feedback loop of positive reinforcement and kept them focused.
Instead, just try to finish something. Anything. Complete literally any of your projects, and probably during your "interest window". Decide to be someone who finishes stuff, even if it's not perfect. That'll be valuable enough on its own.
Flit from thing to thing, finishing them in the barest-of-minimum way, while still "completing" the work. Give each thing you're interested in pursuing a chance at collecting real feedback, and see if that feedback sparks further interest. If it does, keep going. If it doesn't, move on.
