Ask HN: How do you stay focused when learning or working on something? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you stay focused when learning or working on something?

4 pointsjohnnujler3 comments

I am starting to feel that my ability to focus has deteriorated significantly over the last several years. I want to attribute it to modern media and its ever hungry attention-monsters, but I think there is also a large part of me that is unable to handle these distractions.

I have tried everything from Cal Newport’s Timeblocking to Beeminder to Forrest to what not, but at the end after a couple of days of intense effort none of them seem sustainable. In fact, to take it a step further I have also tried things like Vygotsky/Piaget’s Constructivist methods like ZPD to attain flow, but it is as if mind knows that the difficulty of a certain topic is just not worth the effort over an ever stimulating YouTube video on “Productivity & How to be focus better”. It is as if I am stuck in a rut.

The last 4 years of my job as a software engineer at a mid-size decent paying company, where I know that I can just make do with my current skills(C++/GDB/Valgrind) for another 10 years fixing memory leaks, has made me too complacent. In fact, In the last 4 years I have tried multiple times to learn Machine Learning, Functional Programming, Computer Graphics, Compiler Design only to stop at day 5 or so at the same spot(logistic regression, functors, Vertex buffers, Operator Precedence Parser). I am exhausted and seriously do not understand what I can do. (Note: Thinking back I think it was always the case that while working on/learning one, something else seemed more interesting, making me juggle and never master anything completely).

I was hoping to know if any of you have been in in my situation and have been able to learn/work on hard and interesting projects. If so how were you able to stay focused amidst all the distractions.

Any pointers is appreciated

You stop doing "whatever" because there is no emotional incentive.

I have found that straight out learning per se, without some sort of emotional reason to do do so, is never successful. My eyes just glaze over, and I get sleepy. (Which is merely my mind and body trying to 'get away from here'.)

When I am trying to learn something, I have found that I have to have a 'project', otherwise all that learning is just pure blather. Like, ferinstance when I moved from coding a well-known-to-me text user-interface to learning and applying a new-to-me graphic user-interface.

With some form of project, you have to solve lots of new problems that you haven't solved before. You have to learn something specific that's new and unknown to you before you can make progress in doing that project. When you can fix that obstacle, you can move on to solving the next obstacle. Meanwhile, you are getting more and more knowledge, and more and more insight into whatever it is that you are learning.

The 'project' in itself can be meaningless. In effect you are going to "Build One to Throw Away", as the saying goes. By the time you have completed the project, you will have learned so much, that you will want to rewrite/redo it in the light of your new-found knowledge and insights, anyway. That first attempt will be so bad that you will know what needs to be fixed, and your new knowledge will tell you how to best do it.

Learning a new language? Try to read a book in that new language.

Learning a new graphical toolkit? Convert one of your previous programs to use that new toolkit.

Learning mathematics? Try to solve mathematical puzzles.

So, find YOUR project.

Are you actually even a little interested in any of these things? You mention other things being more interesting. You might be telling yourself something.

Obviously we do not live in a bubblegum dream world and you may not always be able to follow your interests exactly, but I have to imagine that if you examine those things that "seemed more interesting," you may find a new career in there. And if you don't find a new career because those things don't make any money, then maybe don't beat yourself up too much for not wanting to become better at a job that only serves to fund your true interests.

Ooh, can I hear why Beeminder didn't feel sustainable? (I'm a cofounder.)

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