Ask HN: Have you experienced decline in problem-solving skills? How to improve?

I used to be able to multi-task to the point that I never really had to explicitly consider what I was doing: I could address everything, everywhere, well enough to not worry about it. I didn't have to reject incoming tasks or make a list and plan for my day, because I could meander through and come out the other side successful.

Now I am probably just as capable as I was at an earlier age, and in many areas more capable, but I need to manage my focus explicitly as a resource. I can only do so much in a day, now. This means I need to explicitly reject work which I am not able to do, make lists, and maintain a personal backlog and "actively working" section.

Make sure if you do this that you consider your personal life and obligations at least as important, if not more important than your work ones, or you can also easily tunnel vision into work tasks.

Also, with respect to your comments about programming solutions and co-workers - consider that you may have just moved up in the world, and are now solving harder problems with more experienced people.

I went through a period of burnout a couple years ago. That had a strong effect on my mood, energy levels, and interfered with my short-term memory a lot. However I've recovered from that too.

Best thing you can do is stay rested, eat well, and get a therapist. Stress can play a huge role in our lives and managing our emotional states is as important as our physical ones to overall mental health. It can be good to have a coach in your corner to help you recognize patterns and behaviours. They can often offer helpful guidance on how to manage them to achieve the outcomes you desire.

All I can do is make people own that absent the ability to break the law with impunity, I may not make good decisions if folks exhaust me when I tried to make great ones.

    - Stress 
    - Family obligations
    - Not enjoying the work I do anymore
    - Solving the same problems over and over because I can't fix the org that produces them.
    - Solving the above problems in a new technology.
    - Crappy co-workers that I don't want to interact with
    - Giving my best to people and projects that never give back.
    - Making creative solutions that the client doesn't use because the clients are broken beyond my paygrade to solve them.

My only advice/thoughts would be maybe take a step back. Do you TRULY enjoy what you are doing? In my own experience, it's hard to motivate yourself to work on things that you don't truly care about as you get older. Solving other people's problems was fun until I realized the entire world ( including the billionaires that have "made it" ) are mostly just people getting along and aren't necessarily more capable or knowledgeable than me. Some people get lucky with timing, tenaciousness, and talent... it's probably too late for me, but that's okay.

I've considered and tried to optimize it so that I'm working clos to the peak, but then decided that'd be too much effort and too restrictive, and instead try different things (music, isolation, gaining context, writing/thinking, approaching the work in different ways etc) when I feel I'm not working well

After complaining about it to some peers I was informed this could be due to low testosterone so I went and had that tested. Apparently my testosterone level was that of a 70 year old man so I started testosterone replacement therapy. I can say that it is a complete game changer! Yes I feel like a shill saying/typing it but it is true. My energy has gone way up and my mind is feels much sharper than it previously was.

To be honest at 30 this may not be an issue for you but I put this out there for others who maybe older I definitely recommend getting tested at a clinic that specializes in testosterone replacement therapy.

read more books instead of online.

become proficient in view things instead a generalist in many rhings

YMMV, but that and adequate sleep was what really did it for me. Also go easy on the alcohol, see if you can restrict it to once a week. Chronically imbibing even low amounts of depressants tends to, well, depress cognitive function. The enlightenment was driven by coffee and tea, not beer.

For me nothing ever beats running and the associated runners's high. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915811/

Probably you could analyze how so-called β-hydroxybutyrate is synthesized and eat precusors too before going.

- I realize now that when I was younger I felt correct more often than I was.

I think one major reason for feelings of cognitive decline is simply that I was very ignorant of how wrong I was when I was younger. On a given day I felt much smarter, but in retrospect was very naive and had a lot of learning to do.

- Never stop learning and studying hard things. This means perpetually feeling stupid

I'm a perpetual learner, right now I have 4 text books that I'm working through in front of me. The challenge I've realized when talking to people is that in order to learn you have to allow yourself to feel stupid. This a big issue for many people. It's not a pleasant feeling and for most people they never want to feel that way after they get out of school. Ironically this is probably even more true for people with graduate degrees. I was shocked how many PhDs I've met that never want to pick up a text book, or paper outside their area of expertise again. It makes sense, you worked so hard for that degree and to feel like an expert why would you ever go back to feeling like an idiot? But if you want to keep learning that's the path you have to take.

- You're younger at 40 than at 30.

At 30 you really start to feel the difference between youth and age, but this intensifies the feeling of being "old". My newly 30 year old colleagues complain about far more aches and pains and other complications of aging than I do. They feel far more limited by age than I do. But I remember feeling the same at their age. After a decade of getting the hang of managing decline you realize you can do a lot more than you thought, you just have to be a bit more thoughtful about how you do it. As an example, I know lots of life long runners that get injured around 30 and give up. I started running in my late thirties and finished my first marathon within a few years. Young bodies don't have to worry about form or correct practice, in your 20s you can just do better by pushing harder. You cannot learn to run in your late 30s without first mastering and understanding your body. As you age, brute force becomes less of an option which means to do things you become more skilled in doing them, you have to learn it correct and as you do you realize you are better at many things.

- Decline teaches you that you lose everything eventually, learn to live accepting this not resisting it.

When I was younger I placed a lot of my self worth on how smart I felt I was. I really wanted to feel special and be appreciated for that. After many successes in life, achieving the things I only dreamed about in my 20s, I realized that that feeling is never satisfied. I realized that wanting to feel smart was really about wanting to be perceived as smart. What makes decline scary is a feeling that you will lose your value. You can pretend you wont, but a better solution is to accept that you will, and maybe that you never really had that value you thought you did. Look at this live as what you have and ask yourself what do you want from it? I study every day because it brings me pleasure in itself, I no longer care if other people even know about the fruits of that labor. If one day I lose most cognitive ability, I hope I can enjoy just sitting their and feeling the breeze.

After a few years it came down to two issues. I had a clotting disorder. (Factor 5 Leiden) I was suffering minor strokes (TIA) without knowing it. I had high cranial pressure (IIH), which leads to brain fog.

When I started blood thinners, and got IIH under control It was like a flip was switched. Problems that had been taking me weeks of work were done in minutes.

I addressed this by developing new, very detailed note-taking habits. Absolutely anything I work on now happens in a private or public GitHub issues thread. I take notes on my progress constantly - decisions I've made, dead ends I've explored, things I need to do next.

Whether or not I actually have any memory problems this approach has been a huge boost to my productivity. I wish I'd worked like this for my whole career.

== wisdom

You can't run fast as before, but exist a lot of value in pay attention to the road, something that being younger rarely happened.

The past experience also helps to be faster: You know what to avoid or have develop a proven way to solve things.

Also, learn to rest well. Is more than just sleep, maybe the rest of the day is attempting to be too hectic and now is not the time for that.

To address other comments: I have two young kids, and I've been a single dad since my youngest was 3. Some commenters speak as if having kids kills your work or thinking life. This is partially true for the first year because of sleep depravation. And it's a new level of difficulty in terms of organizational demand on your life. It's harder. But it doesn't kill your mental abilities, and in fact I'm a happier person with my kids around, which gives me more motivation and life satisfaction. I've been able to solo run a successful bootstrapped startup while being a single dad. It's difficult and requires focus and deliberate life organization, but it's possible, and in fact quite rewarding and nice.

(Also, maybe the above makes it sound like I've had zero problems, but that's not true. It's been a long journey to figure out my priorities, with many mistakes and setbacks to being where I want to be. I have had times when I felt mentally less sharp, and worked to recover from those.)

(I don’t have kids)