ADHD is a neurophysiological defect, and cannot be changed by just trying to "will" it away or by doing certain lifestyle changes. Granted, they can make it easier, but they do not solve the problem at it's source.
In a general reply to this entire thread -- trying to focus actually makes people with ADHD less successful at concentrating. So if you have ADHD, trying to force work is unlikely to help, and more likely to make the issue worse.
as an adult with adhd that got medication in his mid 30ies - yes it helps, got me unstuck after years of suffering - but it's also a double-edged sword as in you still have to direct the attention to the right thing at the very moment that is really longterm useful for you.
It's like the "use a todo app" or "use a note taking app"; instead of doing work, you're pretending to be productive by organizing your stuff in yet another productivity app.
For me the biggest hindrance to deep work is not social media, email, etc., but the shallow work I need to do but hate. I actually like my deep work, but the shallow work, like putting together a slide deck, or giving a budget forecast, sucks. So when I have those hanging over my head I procrastinate like crazy, which also prevents me from starting my deep work because I don't want to get into it and then get pulled away because someone is asking for that slide deck. I see no solution to this.
Easier said than done - but what about allocating fixed minutes to work on this task when you're lower energy/creativity during the day (for me it would be after lunch)?
"Starting at 14:00, work on slides for 45 minutes tops"
Temptation bundling fixes this for me. I force myself to do whatever task I dislike, and as a reward get to then do whatever I like. Eventually you retrain yourself to execute equally in both spheres.
In the end it's always because I'm trying to force my brain to do something it doesn't want to do, that's true. But it's not necessarily because the work is shallow.
Often, the following are true at the same time:
- I tell myself that the work should take very little time, after all it's easy.
- I tell myself that the work is shallow, and not the deep work that I like.
- The actual work isn't even well defined yet!
As a result I refuse to think deeply about what to do (because it's shallow, right?), there is no chance I feel good about myself (because no matter how quick or good I do it, that's no surprise, it was small and shallow). And because I didn't actually think about it, I don't realize just how vague those few requirements I have are. And so I feel miserable, kick myself for procrastinating, and no matter how hard I push myself to start, that of course doesn't work because the problem isn't defined well enough.
So instead I try to tell myself that my work actually is fun, I can make it interesting because I'm going to take a moment to think about doing it the right way, and first I'm going to take a short walk in the park to think about it, write some thoughts down and then discuss with a stakeholder to check if what I have in mind is what they intended. And then I try to get the thing started, and usually I am then in deep work territory immediately.
It sucks but you absolutely must prioritize getting that work done and off your desk as soon as possible. I tackle this work with the energy of a rabid dog, using my hate for it as fuel to work quickly. Afterwards, I make a nice cup of tea. It still sucks, but I am minimizing the total amount of time I spend with this type of work on my mind which has had ineffable benefits on my mental state
If possible, get a coworker into the flow by working up drafts and having them review and provide feedback. while waiting for feedback, it isn't on your desk. If you have to provide your own feedback, still chunk and draft the work as if you were sending it to a coworker and then create a time-block for when to review it yourself.
I have a lot of 'shallow work' right now as you describe. I am at a small business and I often get other peoples shallow work randomly dropped on my desk as well since my desk is also an operations overflow.
1) I use the self control app to block social media and other sites I go to by habit. It is actually super curious; I noticed that when I am trying to procrastinate I by pure habit go to twitter, etc. Making myself a little bored allows me to get entrenched in deep work. It also allows me to more consciously pursue hobbies that I want to pursue; e.g. working out, friends, learning new skill.
2) modified pomadoro technique -- I give myself a break every 50 minutes, and I keep track of the hours I work with a spread sheet. However, sometimes if I get into deep work/flow then I don't need the breaks and just continue.
3) give myself chocolate as a reward for getting something done -- it really pushes me to push through to an end of a certain part of a project
4) get a professional nemesis/frenemy. I have a lovely friend who I talk to every day/every other day who is super inspirational and super driven. Every time I talk to her, we both feel kind of egged on to do more work and I always walk away feeling excited about my research. I owe most of my career to this woman honestly.
5) Go to a place that is not home! All of this WFH time is awesome, however, is not good for my focus. I go to my university and sit with the grad students studying, and doing that is very focusing.
6) If you have to eat a frog, do it first. If I something really difficult to do, I try to do it first, even if its terrible or scary.
For shallow work:
1) I listen to good music or a podcast, and it makes this work super fun and relaxing.
2) For very very shallow work I put on a simple show in the background! That way its like a treat!
...however, you also have to make sure you are mentally well; these techniques will be limited unless you are in a good mental stat! anxiety or depression or ADHD etc will of course hinder you so much
Since I have moderate ADHD, I am currently in the process of implementing routines in my life.
I noticed I lose a lot of mental energy, because of lack of routines. This is especially important for shallow work. Like paperwork, phone calls any sort of action in my daily life that is inevitable and recurring.
Those tasks are annoying and I usually ignore them until the last day. I noticed that during the time I'm not doing it, it's still in the back of my mind and prevent me from diving deep into my real work.
For shallow work I reminded myself of what The Merovingian in The Matrix said:
"If we never take our time, how can we ever have time?"
We have to do the shallow work there is no way around it. If it takes 30 minutes now, it will at least take 30 minutes later. But the longer you wait, the longer it stays in the back of your mind keeping you away from the cool work. I had to make myself conscious about it.
It sounds very childish I must admit, but I have these issues and routines are the only way for me to solve them.
I started implementing fix wakeup and bedtime hours. I wake up at 7:00 and my "wrap-up" alarm is ringing at 22:00, means, cleaning up the kitchen (so it's ready for the next day), cleaning up my workplace and making myself ready for bedtime (brushing teeth etc.).
I also added a "day done" timer, means, at 18:30 no more work, no matter what. I stop and make my dinner meal.
My morning routine (the 7:00 wakeup call) had the most impact. This call basically initiates a sequence of actions: Wakeup, taking shower, breakfast and PAPERWORK. This goes until 9:00 which is the time where I start my work day.
My next step will be to integrate running into my morning routine as the first action. That being said, knowing that I will do my paperwork the next day at a given time helped the most. I don't have a lot of paperwork or urgent paperwork so this works for me.
When a new routine is integrated and becomes a normal part of my life, I start with integrating the next routine and so on.
One thing I noticed though is, no matter what the routine is and how you plan it, at some point you have to do it and overcome your procrastination. You have to find something that works for you. In the end you have to do the action and just not "plan" it.
I plan my routines in a way where I know I'm not "overwhelmed". You gotta be true to yourself :)
Oh and I should mention that I also have days set where I definately will do certain things. For example, I chose Sunday to be my day where I experiment with some cool programming stuff that I wanted to do. That could be a new library I found, programming language or whatever. But no pressure, it's just my "experiement" day where I look into things I'm curious about.
I also clean my "backlog" on that day in the evening. I have a bookmark folder called "backlog" where I move things I want to read or visit later.
Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.
In the last startup I worked for, I had a certain behavior of what I call "goal-driven stopping". Instead of stopping my work based on the current time, I stopped when I was satisfied with the work/code I have done and if I didn't fix that bug or feature (the goal) I kept going. This was super bad because I wouldn't stop for lunch and instead kept going. Sometimes it was so bad that I would my 1st or 2nd meal that day in the late evening. For some reason I pressured myself for reason I myself made up.
I learned to not to do this with the help of routines :)
Interesting to read this. You're focussing on very similar things to me. Getting the basics in place is important. I've been working on morning routine at the moment too.
One thing I've found to help me (with a lot of trial and error) is some home automation stuff to help "enforce" my routine.
I've had lights that fade up in the morning for many years, simulating a "sunrise", but I recently updated this so that it automatically turns the heating up at the same time when my "sunrise" starts. Sounds crazy, but automatically turning the heat up to the maximum in my bedroom forces me to get up (because it would be too uncomfortable to stay in bed) and has been really effective!
I also recently setup some very bright LED panels that also switch on in the morning and flood the bedroom with light, and finally, the thing I'm most pleased about is that I automatically disable the (smart) light switch next to my bed so that I can't turn all the bright lights off and go back to sleep. I have to actually leave my bedroom for the switch to start working again.
> Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.
I can completely relate to this. Using daily checklists gives me this "relief" feeling. Without all this effort, I just drift from day to day and I never do the same things at the same time, ever! I find I need a lot of external systems/routines to be able to rely on myself to do the right things.
Interesting that you do your paperwork in the morning. This is a big problem for me. Maybe I should try that...
Suffered with these exact issues for over a year of attempting to WFH. For years my office productivity was high and enjoyable. Then as soon as covid hit I immediately noticed an uptick in my mindless behaviour on work time. Went through a period of serious depression where my lack of productivity was a contributing factor, amongst other things. Solved the depression with medication and reframing how I view my life, but that did nothing for my productivity - I just didn't beat myself up about it anymore.
Getting an adult ADHD diagnosis is not easy or quick in my country. So how did I solve my issue? I got a programming job back in a small busy office, and I've certainly become happier and satisfied with my output.
Wow. Cool. Great you launched something. I am in the same boat as @yardshop. I would need screenshots, maybe a product video.
A landing page with a wall of text, not styled to be easily parsable and nothing to instantly tell me what is in it for me is the surefire receipt to loose my interest.
I don't have time to parse your text. I am looking for a solution to make me more efficient - I can't spend investing 1.5 - 3 minutes parsing small text on a big screen and ask myself in the process, if I am just wasting time.
I used the "I" here figuratively - I am actually not the target audience as my work flow and tools are already designed to enable disturbance, when I need it - and to disable it when I don't.
Thank you RugnirViking. Honest feedbacks, different perspectives, and even critics are what we need to get closer to the truth and accuracy. You actually helped me a lot! I will fix the grammar issues asap, at least the "Choose Avator" part, haha :)
Hello blogq, please don't worry, we did not use anything to track datas, not even Google Analysis. We just wanted to show the thing we just built, and gather honest feedbacks.
For the email sign-in, it is because that, we would like to use the "password-less" approach like Slack did, in order to avoid the hustle of creating and remembering passwords for the users.
We hate spamming ourselves, we respect people's privacy, so we promise we won't do anything spamming with your email. :)
Wtf, something supposed to help me focus by throwing more distracting crap at me?
Really, the best way to stay focused is disconnect your internet while you work. Also, get away from any sources of sound. Staying away from other people also helps. This app seems to do the opposite.
47 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadI'm not just being facetious. For people who truly struggle with these issues, I urge them to give an ADHD diagnosis a chance.
ADHD is a neurophysiological defect, and cannot be changed by just trying to "will" it away or by doing certain lifestyle changes. Granted, they can make it easier, but they do not solve the problem at it's source.
In a general reply to this entire thread -- trying to focus actually makes people with ADHD less successful at concentrating. So if you have ADHD, trying to force work is unlikely to help, and more likely to make the issue worse.
... And hate yourself a little bit more for failing another productivity tool, again.
"Starting at 14:00, work on slides for 45 minutes tops"
keep the two separate. half days assigned to shallow.
Often, the following are true at the same time:
- I tell myself that the work should take very little time, after all it's easy.
- I tell myself that the work is shallow, and not the deep work that I like.
- The actual work isn't even well defined yet!
As a result I refuse to think deeply about what to do (because it's shallow, right?), there is no chance I feel good about myself (because no matter how quick or good I do it, that's no surprise, it was small and shallow). And because I didn't actually think about it, I don't realize just how vague those few requirements I have are. And so I feel miserable, kick myself for procrastinating, and no matter how hard I push myself to start, that of course doesn't work because the problem isn't defined well enough.
So instead I try to tell myself that my work actually is fun, I can make it interesting because I'm going to take a moment to think about doing it the right way, and first I'm going to take a short walk in the park to think about it, write some thoughts down and then discuss with a stakeholder to check if what I have in mind is what they intended. And then I try to get the thing started, and usually I am then in deep work territory immediately.
It sucks but you absolutely must prioritize getting that work done and off your desk as soon as possible. I tackle this work with the energy of a rabid dog, using my hate for it as fuel to work quickly. Afterwards, I make a nice cup of tea. It still sucks, but I am minimizing the total amount of time I spend with this type of work on my mind which has had ineffable benefits on my mental state
If possible, get a coworker into the flow by working up drafts and having them review and provide feedback. while waiting for feedback, it isn't on your desk. If you have to provide your own feedback, still chunk and draft the work as if you were sending it to a coworker and then create a time-block for when to review it yourself.
I have a lot of 'shallow work' right now as you describe. I am at a small business and I often get other peoples shallow work randomly dropped on my desk as well since my desk is also an operations overflow.
1) I use the self control app to block social media and other sites I go to by habit. It is actually super curious; I noticed that when I am trying to procrastinate I by pure habit go to twitter, etc. Making myself a little bored allows me to get entrenched in deep work. It also allows me to more consciously pursue hobbies that I want to pursue; e.g. working out, friends, learning new skill.
2) modified pomadoro technique -- I give myself a break every 50 minutes, and I keep track of the hours I work with a spread sheet. However, sometimes if I get into deep work/flow then I don't need the breaks and just continue.
3) give myself chocolate as a reward for getting something done -- it really pushes me to push through to an end of a certain part of a project
4) get a professional nemesis/frenemy. I have a lovely friend who I talk to every day/every other day who is super inspirational and super driven. Every time I talk to her, we both feel kind of egged on to do more work and I always walk away feeling excited about my research. I owe most of my career to this woman honestly.
5) Go to a place that is not home! All of this WFH time is awesome, however, is not good for my focus. I go to my university and sit with the grad students studying, and doing that is very focusing.
6) If you have to eat a frog, do it first. If I something really difficult to do, I try to do it first, even if its terrible or scary.
For shallow work:
1) I listen to good music or a podcast, and it makes this work super fun and relaxing.
2) For very very shallow work I put on a simple show in the background! That way its like a treat!
...however, you also have to make sure you are mentally well; these techniques will be limited unless you are in a good mental stat! anxiety or depression or ADHD etc will of course hinder you so much
I've also recently been enjoying tea made with tulsi. It has a nice flavor and a mild boost.
Focus. Especially prolonged, intense focus, has definite downsides. It's physically unhealthy and makes me insane.
I'm into a kind of self-cultivation that's sorta the opposite of focus.
I noticed I lose a lot of mental energy, because of lack of routines. This is especially important for shallow work. Like paperwork, phone calls any sort of action in my daily life that is inevitable and recurring.
Those tasks are annoying and I usually ignore them until the last day. I noticed that during the time I'm not doing it, it's still in the back of my mind and prevent me from diving deep into my real work.
For shallow work I reminded myself of what The Merovingian in The Matrix said:
"If we never take our time, how can we ever have time?"
We have to do the shallow work there is no way around it. If it takes 30 minutes now, it will at least take 30 minutes later. But the longer you wait, the longer it stays in the back of your mind keeping you away from the cool work. I had to make myself conscious about it.
It sounds very childish I must admit, but I have these issues and routines are the only way for me to solve them.
Would you care to elaborate on what sort of routines you’re working on implementing?
I also added a "day done" timer, means, at 18:30 no more work, no matter what. I stop and make my dinner meal.
My morning routine (the 7:00 wakeup call) had the most impact. This call basically initiates a sequence of actions: Wakeup, taking shower, breakfast and PAPERWORK. This goes until 9:00 which is the time where I start my work day.
My next step will be to integrate running into my morning routine as the first action. That being said, knowing that I will do my paperwork the next day at a given time helped the most. I don't have a lot of paperwork or urgent paperwork so this works for me.
When a new routine is integrated and becomes a normal part of my life, I start with integrating the next routine and so on.
One thing I noticed though is, no matter what the routine is and how you plan it, at some point you have to do it and overcome your procrastination. You have to find something that works for you. In the end you have to do the action and just not "plan" it.
I plan my routines in a way where I know I'm not "overwhelmed". You gotta be true to yourself :)
Oh and I should mention that I also have days set where I definately will do certain things. For example, I chose Sunday to be my day where I experiment with some cool programming stuff that I wanted to do. That could be a new library I found, programming language or whatever. But no pressure, it's just my "experiement" day where I look into things I'm curious about.
I also clean my "backlog" on that day in the evening. I have a bookmark folder called "backlog" where I move things I want to read or visit later.
Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.
In the last startup I worked for, I had a certain behavior of what I call "goal-driven stopping". Instead of stopping my work based on the current time, I stopped when I was satisfied with the work/code I have done and if I didn't fix that bug or feature (the goal) I kept going. This was super bad because I wouldn't stop for lunch and instead kept going. Sometimes it was so bad that I would my 1st or 2nd meal that day in the late evening. For some reason I pressured myself for reason I myself made up.
I learned to not to do this with the help of routines :)
Interesting to read this. You're focussing on very similar things to me. Getting the basics in place is important. I've been working on morning routine at the moment too.
One thing I've found to help me (with a lot of trial and error) is some home automation stuff to help "enforce" my routine.
I've had lights that fade up in the morning for many years, simulating a "sunrise", but I recently updated this so that it automatically turns the heating up at the same time when my "sunrise" starts. Sounds crazy, but automatically turning the heat up to the maximum in my bedroom forces me to get up (because it would be too uncomfortable to stay in bed) and has been really effective!
I also recently setup some very bright LED panels that also switch on in the morning and flood the bedroom with light, and finally, the thing I'm most pleased about is that I automatically disable the (smart) light switch next to my bed so that I can't turn all the bright lights off and go back to sleep. I have to actually leave my bedroom for the switch to start working again.
> Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.
I can completely relate to this. Using daily checklists gives me this "relief" feeling. Without all this effort, I just drift from day to day and I never do the same things at the same time, ever! I find I need a lot of external systems/routines to be able to rely on myself to do the right things.
Interesting that you do your paperwork in the morning. This is a big problem for me. Maybe I should try that...
For me it's a blessing. Jesus christ, not hearing any background noise is a gamechanger.
Getting an adult ADHD diagnosis is not easy or quick in my country. So how did I solve my issue? I got a programming job back in a small busy office, and I've certainly become happier and satisfied with my output.
How does that domain come into play here? What does it do?
Let me in with no privacy or convenience hurdles and then if there's value, I'll seek you out for an upgrade.
Also, the author would do well to have the front page text looked at by a native english speaking editor to smooth it out a bit.
A landing page with a wall of text, not styled to be easily parsable and nothing to instantly tell me what is in it for me is the surefire receipt to loose my interest.
I don't have time to parse your text. I am looking for a solution to make me more efficient - I can't spend investing 1.5 - 3 minutes parsing small text on a big screen and ask myself in the process, if I am just wasting time.
I used the "I" here figuratively - I am actually not the target audience as my work flow and tools are already designed to enable disturbance, when I need it - and to disable it when I don't.
For example: "But the your goal isn't just to do thing. If you have nothing want to accomplish"
I don't say it to be mean, just want you to improve :) but getting a copy editor would be worthwhile, or just taking a little more time checking it.
Another when I actually went in: it says "Choose Avator"
Thank you for your time!
For the email sign-in, it is because that, we would like to use the "password-less" approach like Slack did, in order to avoid the hustle of creating and remembering passwords for the users.
We hate spamming ourselves, we respect people's privacy, so we promise we won't do anything spamming with your email. :)
Really, the best way to stay focused is disconnect your internet while you work. Also, get away from any sources of sound. Staying away from other people also helps. This app seems to do the opposite.