Supplements: I’ll probably never stop searching but I’ve yet to really come across anything that reliably works, the only possible way exception here is taking l-theanine with morning coffee to flatten out the caffeine kick.
Pomodoro: seems to work really well but you have to actually do it, I can have the timer sitting under my monitor by if my mind is in Alice in wonderland mode it may as well be on the moon.
Binaural beats/coloured noise: seems to help though I’m just using Spotify so they’re probably junk anyway.
Phone: unfortunately I’ve not been able to find the right balance of utility and consumption when comes to my phone, feed style apps, variable reward interactions and etc just fuck me, ive tried dumb phones, adding friction by using a tiny phone, locking down features and apps, I’ve literally spent thousands of dollars churning through devices and hundreds of of hours searching for that holy grail that will save my focus.
Books/systems: bullet journals, to atomic habits of highly effective people, great ideas but nothing has stuck.
What works: other have mentioned, doing things you enjoy, this is key, and why meds are tricky, once I’m engage and hyper focused, I’m locked in, but if I’ve taken a stimulant it feels like I’m on the verge of mania.
Diet, exercise, and sleep - critical I don’t know if this is the starting point or if I get organised and focussed when I’m in a good flow.
What I suspect is the silver-ish bullet: some kind of mediation/mindfulness practice, all signs point to this but I struggle to even try to start so maybe I will do that today.
Personally, I try to: - prioritize older, existing projects, - have an explicit daily schedule, - keep a handwritten journal (just as a commitment to be away from the computer).
Helps a little bit.
And in actually answering the question, one occasion where my focus was certainly higher than average is when I had an opportunity between jobs to travel for a few months to another country. I had a laptop with me but for security reasons there was hardly anything on it, just basic browsing. I didn't even have passwords for my Netflix account, etc. Quite quickly I could focus really well on just a few tasks, say learning a new language. Of course, such a solution is hardly applicable in most cases.
Have been using an extension called socialfocus to remove some addictive hooks from social media sites (e.g. removed reels, Reddit subreddit feeds, YouTube explore page and thumbnails). It's been really effective because it doesn't feel like a "block", but rather just a way to make the sites a little less sticky. Even something as small as removing posts and comment counts on HN has made a difference because I need to consider each post on its merits instead of using engagement levels as an indicator for what is worth reading.
Another thing I'm experimenting with right now is blocking scroll. I've generated a small tampermonkey script that prevents scroll and instead adds buttons to scroll up/down the page. I'm hoping that introducing some friction here removes some addictive aspects of content consumption (mostly rapid scrolling to the next interesting piece of content).
i will assume it is focus on a work related task..
it helps a lot to find your happy place; rest (sleep and time away from said thing-to-focus-on) does wonders. its all too easy to go over the limit and keep working on a task trying to "bang it out" - take care of yourself first before you can take care of anything else.
background music, or background silence does wonders for me; but everybody will be different. try to take some mental notes on what derails you from a task - if its just "tired" then take a break (context switch to something else) - if its "stuck on problem" - walk away and casually think about it (or try to think of other paths to solving a task)
2. I do a low carb diet and only eat within a four hour window (12pm to 4pm).
3. Use a RSS client (I use newsboat) to curb consumption of content. This means I only consume Youtube and blog content I see via my rss reader (keeps me from scrolling and clicking around Youtube). I use a newsboat mapping to open the Youtube link in mpv to view the video (so I don't go to youtube.com).
4. Use a pomodoro timer and try to get at least eight solid pomodori a day. Ideally, I'd get around 12 on great days.
5. Take some time to read/learn every day (but don't count towards your daily pomodoro).
I don't follow too strictly. I don't want to be stuck thinking about what to do. Roll with whatever works for you!
I systematically turn off notifications and consciously avoid sites/apps with algos to keep me in. I also keep distracting sites away from favorites or quick links.
This is still somewhat true even for people with ADHD. The difference with ADHD is that low dopamine uptake results in shifts towards induced excitement stimuli that can be distracting unless the goal itself is so exciting as to result in ongoing obsessive behaviors.
If you really emotionally want something to be done you will apply the work to get it done full stop by motivation alone. When this alignment is present the thing that most gets in your way is poor decision making from fatigue. This is how mammalian brains are chemically wired.
So, if you want better focus don’t change your actions. Instead know exactly what to do and why you want it with extreme clarity.
I also delay or debounce justified calls for my attention, because some things can be combined into a daily/weekly/monthly digest.
I maintain a post about it: https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence
markus_zhang•9mo ago
Unfortunately that something changes frequently and I got burnt out frequently too, so the total number days of focus a year is mostly likely less than 30 days, and less than 6 hours every day.