Ask HN: What helps you focus and get things done?
Other than treating what is possibly ADD, what has helped you focus and just get your fingers on the keyboard?
Edit: perhaps I should add, I’m not really distracted by exernal things but perhaps the complexity of the problem / poorly engineered code just adds so much inertia to getting the fingers typing away. I’m a prototyping research scientist so producing well written code is not my strong suit, it’s more like let’s build something new and see if we can get it to work.
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A special secure serene place
that's why library has such the special room of which some great scientist, inventor came out by its merit
I suggest every time your focus is stolen by something you write down what the cause was. After a few days there should be repeat offender. Among these which one(s) can you change ?
The internal tugs on my focus are harder to pin down. But one seminal observation is that thoughts that distract are often recurrent; so writing them down, along with a brief plan about when you will deal with that thought and how, can help. There is evidence that this reduces distraction.
Concert pianist, teacher, studio musician, what?
How much do you practice per week? Have you avoided repetitive stress injuries?
Are you a good enough site reader that you can always read through a piece fairly well are you a 2 measure-a-time grinder like me and almost every Chinese piano student?
https://youtube.com/@Cercle
Via cercle I was introduced to Miss Monique, whose wonderful progressive trance sets and amazingly infectious smile and joy has become my "right, time to do the work" background video.
https://youtube.com/@djmissmonique
Here's one I've been listening to - you may enjoy :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0-hvjV2A5Y
On the classical I do enjoy Bach, cello concierto (Fournier recordings) and orchestral suites (Koln)
But an almost opposite thing that has been working in the last year or so in a way that seems more sustainable is accepting that I won't be 100% at the top of my game every minute of every day. Energy levels fluctuate. Some days I need to sleep in more and work a bit later. Sometimes I'm up and working by 6am and finish early (or try to) or take a longer lunch. Sometimes I just need to go for a walk. I realized I overwork by nature, so I don't need to be afraid of getting "lazy" or not being productive: the work always gets done. I realized that allowing myself to relax sometimes when my brain is just not feeling it and make that focus up later can be very effective and produce better output. Allowing this kind of fluctuation 90% of the time and going into high-pressure mode 10% of the time seems like a good balance that I can maintain.
Today my TODOs included items like “research how to stop writes to a postgres database” and “make a list of all the places where we use x database.”
Knowing the lyrics to a song is an instant distraction
Then I put on Brain.fm for 1hr.
That's it. Works really well for me. Rinse and repeat (I typically only have to do 2-3 one hour blocks per week for super annoying administrative tasks that I've been putting off)
Anxiety? Relaxation techniques.
Tedium? Find the interesting.
Something physical? Stand, change position, go for a run or walk. Eat. Take vitamin D in the cold dark winters.
Often, though, it's as simple as just... starting. One technique is to promise myself that I can stop after I go for a full 5 minutes. Usually, it's just enough to get started and then I'm in.
Once it was burnout though and nothing helped except fully not even looking at my computer for a good long time.
not affiliated with the product. just a fan.
I also recognized that for me the chief motiations killers are all kinds of "security" measures being put in place by more and more tools, services and organizations. There is no better way for my flow to die than having to yak shave for three hours some kind of security token rigmarole before getting to the actual work. This is why I no longer work for a large company and don't want to be anywhere near the production systems. I'm happy to delegate that shit to people who thrive on this (and to my astonishment there really are people who get their kicks from configuring complex webs of scripts to keep the environments humming). So I guess, my other piece of advice is to figure out what saps yuor motivation and find roles and activities that don't involve doing a lot of that.
Changing settings (can be as small as switching from couch to table).
If it's something boring, putting on YouTube at the same time so my whole "attention space" is filled despite the tediousness of the task.
The best ones I have found are:
lifeat.io
https://somafm.com/player/#/now-playing/dronezone
Or just Spotify.
https://ubyjvovk.github.io/sarge/
The way I see it is anyone who's hyper-productive and focused day in day out, is either lying or miserable and heading for burnout.
I work best in the mornings, so I do the harder stuff then. Afternoons are a grind, fortunately the way my schedule works out is that's usually when my meetings are.
I work best when I'm working with, rather than against my natural flow. I find in the long run, there are only so many productive hours in the day and pushing through that produces poor results slowly.
If I really need to get shit done and it's not happening, I find pomidoros work well for me, but only for a few cycles to get me moving.
I can also recommend turning off the computer. Some of my best work lately has come either after a huge walk, or from sitting down away from the screen with a pen and large sheet of paper.