Ask HN: Has anyone managed to regain their attention span/ability to focus?

About five years ago, I realized that my day not only can be broken up into several periods with differing levels of focus, but I should structure my activities to match that focus. So, low-value tasks, quick tasks, and tasks that don't require much thinking take place in the early morning and early afternoon. Planning takes place in the shower or during daily walks. Writing and other activities requiring deep concentration usually takes place in the late afternoon or at night.

I also learned to take advantage of situations that I once considered a waste of time to be used for the higher-focus tasks. I actually appreciate being forced to sit in a subway or airplane seat for 30 minutes or 3 hours with limited Internet access, as I can really get stuff done on the laptop.

I also deleted Facebook and Twitter from my phone, and set up browser blockers on my laptop for known time-wasters.

I use Pomodoro technique since 2010 and it works for me.

By disconnecting from the internet! As evidenced by me posting this comment, I'm in my five minutes tops mode, but without the internet it's 10+ hours straight.

Get enough sleep.

My ability to focus returned after taking a multivitamin and fixing nutrient deficiencies.

You could look into NutrEval, a comprehensive hormone panel, a thyroid panel, and maybe even genetic testing. Or, as you're trying to regain rather than gain, just start taking a multivitamin, D & K, and chelated/TRAACS magnesium supplement.

What happens for you at the 30 minute mark? Do your thoughts start wandering? Does your ability to critically reason drop? Do you get feelings of boredom?

In my experience, focus can definitely be trained like a muscle. These days I easily get absorbed in a technical problem for 10+ hours, losing track of time, tiredness, and hunger.

My process is pretty much quinticentially stoic, in the philosophical sense. The idea is to just roll with the punches. For me Deep Focus isn's so much a lack of distraction, boredom, etc. instead it's simply recognizing when I'm off track and geeting back on.

If you're a bit relentless in this process, before you know it the distractions seem to wane off or, at least, one gets better at simply ignoring such thoughts and feelings.

Anyway, there is surely hope in your case!

Full disclosure, I'm formally trained in zen meditation---briefly lived in a temple for a couple yeas---so my method is heavily influenced by that, too.

In general, you might get some mileage out of a meditation practice. Probably easiest to find some local group of practitioners doing things you resonate with.

Anyway, 2cents from a fellow interneter.

Small and progressive milestones can help a lot in that sense.

Is your attention span terrible for everything, or is there some activity or hobby where you can become immersed? If the former, you may have a physical problem, perhaps a vitamin or mineral deficiency, sleep deficiency, or ADD, if the latter, it's probably more of a motivational problem.

Are your interruptions actually valuable inspirations for other projects or are they perhaps revolts against "excessive" focus, which is to say you need a break? If so, then perhaps they are beneficial.

Become self-employed - focus or starve

For me personally there are a number of areas that affect my ability to do deep work:

- General internet/news consumption patterns

- Availability of social/news apps on my phone + computer

- Sleeping at least 8.5 hours a night

- Exercising at least every few days

- Meditating for a few minutes in the morning

- Level of burnout eg. have I been overworked or working on unrewarding things for long periods of time

If I do all of these consistently my ability to do deep work increases notably. If I slack in any area it reduces my capacity by some degree. Sleep and burnout are probably the largest contributing factors here. I've found that I just can't cheat on sleep long term without negative consequences, and that if I'm burnt out the only fix is to basically stop working/pushing myself for at least a week until I feel recovered.

I find also that having intention to my day rather than starting out in a reactive mode is key to getting deep work done. If I spend most of my day reacting to things I have trouble doing deep work later in the day, but if I start out with deep work it comes naturally throughout the day.

Exercise, hard, multiple times a week, like your life depends on it (because it does!). If you are overweight, lose weight to a healthy level.

I can say since I've started regularly, my anxiety problems just sort of melted away, I'm happy, confident, I sleep well, and what I thought were huge problems are a lot easier to manage

I lost the ability to read after a suicide attempt. I was reading Nietzsche before and after I was struggling to read comic books. Maybe it was just shock but I slowly taught myself to read again. Since then I managed to graduate, start my own business, and slowly learn programming.

In my experience, it's just effort. I try to grow 1% every day and then eventually you'll get wherever you're trying to go. So baby steps + consistent effort is what works for me.

Focus is a muscle and with enough practice you'll be able to do it longer and longer? I could be completely wrong, but that is my experience with focus and discipline. People say there are optimal lengths of time for deep work but after removing distractions, don't beat yourself up and do the best you can. Over time, months or years, you probably will improve.

I have had numerous attempts, but the approach that really worked for me was getting rid of EarPods and installing numerous site blocking services on my devices.

I was able to force myself to spend more of my time in my own thoughts.

Yeah I’ve had terrible focus and attention span for a long time. It can improve dramatically but takes time to get to crazy long hours per day. Deep work suggestions are good, don’t use the internet too much etc. but for me the biggest difference has been meditating for 1-2 hours day, doing some light sprints late at night, and focusing for at least a few hours everyday. If I focus everyday my deep work hours start to improve, if I take even a day of it reduces. So consistency with all your habits is key. I would say that in a couple of months you could probably get up to 4-5 hours per day.

Forget having the ability of being able to constantly get chunks of my time focused on deep work, I am having trouble focusing for more than 15 to 30 mins on even trivial stuff like watching a video or reading an article. I can barely get through 15mins of anything before my mind seems to wander off. No wonder it takes me a couple of days to finish a movie. I gave up on even the thought of going to an actual movie theater. I constantly have to pause and come back to whatever I am watching/ doing.

I had ADHD as a kid, it gradually seemed to have gone away over the years, it's been a while since I've taken any sort of meds. But lately, for the past year or two, I've been struggling with this. I need to change my lifestyle a bit, take up some meditation, or maybe even go to the doc again. Or a combination of all. It's just frustrating.

Since starting a new job with a quiet office, less pressure and no time logging required, I've been able to focus much better. It may not be you, but your environment.

I had this problem too, my "fixes"

- proper sleep - walk for 30 minutes before my "grind" - plan my three work items the night before. - no alerts (mute phone, email, slack, etc) - grind.

The hardest parts are just not getting interrupted, by internal or external forces.

Sleep and walking help your brain. The list keeps me on task.

It took years to work back to be able to "grind" for just 3h.

Nootropics can help with this too esp. as you get older -

www.getmindsync.com

DM me if you would like to try some for free.

For me a lot of this comes down a lot to how interesting my work is at the time. Interesting work keeps me motivated. Pomodoro seems like a reasonable solution for less interesting work (breaking it down into half hour chunks with a 5 minute reward break at the end).

On a more practical note, meditation will help with your attention span and stop you getting distracted as easily.

Saying that I am on HN posting responses right now. Anyone who has truly solved this problem probably isn't here. :)

I've gone from 10 minutes of attention time (measured by length of unbroken meditation) by several things. Limiting time I spend on social media to 30 minutes a day. Long distance running and daily meditation. Also focusing on being present when someone is talking to me or having a conversation.

Maybe you focus too much :) try a different approach, perhaps, like the one in "The Inner Game of Tennis".

A while ago I quantified how I spent my day. Every. Single. Minute.

A good day was about 6hr out of 8hr of work. The other 2hr was spent fluffing about - having coffee, hallway conversations, reading HN. Some of it valuable, but not totally focussed.

Then I had a kid.

Never been so focussed at work before. Easy to ignore all the noise, and easy to concentrate on whatever tasks come up during the day. I've found similar traits in other parents.

P.S. Not recommending you have a kid to solve your Deep Work problem, because they ruin all ability to concentrate _outside_ of work.

One technique: Pomodoro. It is very effective technique.

I just recently started and I am on track. After a day you will see how ineffective you were and how you can improve.

I slightly modified it. Prioritize the things you want to start. Do not divide the tasks.

Technique: 1. Set the timer for 25 minutes. You can use any app.

2. Take 5 mins break.

3. Tell yourself I will not use any internet or any other thing for 25 mins.

4. If you have to do anything say to yourself will do in 5 mins break.

I admit my first pomodoro were quite hell. But I refrained myself from using any distractions.

Everyone is different but for me it’s about being driven by something I deeply believe in, while getting quick results along the way (to maintain the momentum for a long period of time). As an example, working for someone else in order to get a paycheck is a recipe for failure. Hard to focus and be motivated enough.

So again, it’s different for everyone. Another thing I usually do that works super well for me is to go for a run (30-40min). I solved some of my toughest problems while running because I focus on breathing and nothing else. Not by reading forums or books or even watching videos. Everything gets sorted in my head and I come back home, write down my ideas and chill for a second.

I read that running is one of the best therapy for ADHD people.