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Comment by michalstanko | Hacker News Reader

It scares me how much this reminds me of myself. I don't know how I was able to keep my job (and keep the roof over my family's heads) with my habit of not being able to concentrate on work at all because the minute I need to think a bit harder I immediately switch to reading news, HN or watching YouTube, only to finish my work late in the evening to save my ass (on good days).

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Not that I've conquered it by any means, but I find narrating helps for me to maintain a thread of activity. Lots of my work involves switching between applications & cloud folders and any break in that can trip me up. I find if I talk to myself as if I were explaining what I'm doing (ie a tutorial but not as rigorous) that really helps. I used to use screen capture software to take time-lapse videos to give myself the impression I was being watched/monitored. But that isn't as effective as I know I'll probably never watch them.

Yeah it is definitely for me a reaction to feeling overwhelmed. There's just that bit of activation energy that is missing so I slip back to equilibrium of doing easy things.

Adderall has helped, so has some behavioral approaches, but nothing is a cure. For me, trying to eliminate distractions is either a distraction itself or ineffective.

Structured procrastination is useful, at least I am practicing piano or getting more fit instead of sitting around watching TV or reading dumb articles and forums.

High BPM music does it for me.

Music works for me too. When I listen to music, the feeling of choosing between "fun" and "work" disappears because I get to do both. Once I am focusing on the work I no longer pay attention to the music and I don't stop having fun with the work.

The biggest problem is that I am randomly bored and watch a youtube video. It's just 15 minutes after all, how much could it hurt? and then I waste 2 hours which is 105 minutes more than I had when I started watching that video. Maybe I should play mobile games because those have those pesky daily energy limits that stop you from playing more.

Same, or mostly just mixes that go on for an hour or two which I can put on so I don't end up distracted clicking through tracks and discovering shit I want to get. I also have to remind myself to set time aside for checking tracklists on tracks.

Helps I got a side gig playing music haha but my bookmarks on that are gargantuan. The dancehall reggae section alone is massive. I never listen to that and get stuff done, really the best concentration music for me doesn't matter the BPM it just has to be mostly free of lyrical content. So work music is mostly electronic or classical.

What are you listening to that's high BPM for work? That hard techno shit out of Europe lately is a lot of fun, Anetha is incredible [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/qVRj8-t4PwI

Lucy Stoner on Soundcloud has been good for me. I've been putting https://soundcloud.com/lucystoner/bangface# on pretty much on loop. Before that it was DJ Sharpnel's Youtube channel. It's an open question for me what the best ratio of beats to memes is; I like when the music makes me smile a few times over a track, but is mostly fast, melodic rhythm without voice - or voice without content; remixes with japanese samples work well, like https://soundcloud.com/dreamydust/ddmix32 .

Holy crap, someone knows about DJ Sharpnel—who are of course in fact a duo and are producers, not DJs. The music is truly a ‘cure for ADHD’, though (in the spirit of https://youtu.be/DDFNgs7gp8M). Plus they have a whole label of friendly producers with similar taste and were around actively for more than a decade, so there's plenty of goodness.

Their VRDJ vtuber stuff qualifies as DJ work, surely? (Even if it sounds very different than their album stuff.)

Anyway, my pet theory is that the fast music acts as a stimulant, raising activity in every part of the brain - including executive function. Same principle as amphetamines.

That's funny, haven't heard that name in ages. I remember in like 2005 when you could get some mixes in low quality mp3s of japanese makina (that's what they called it before nightcore or anything) but to get them shipped on high quality cd-r's stateside you'd be paying like 100-200$. It's a weird musical tradition that traces itself all the way back to spain's take on early happy hardcore out of scotland (Check newton - streamline as an example of spanish makina which you still hear at football games today).

Shit is WAY too spazzy for me to focus though, I guess you guys got different brainwaves than I do. It's funny because in the suggestions I got this, titled pov: you have adhd (breakcore mix) [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mojBQ6yo7_o

It's a bit too spazzy for me as well. Sharpnel isn't always like that though. (Skip any songs by killingscum (alias) if you don't like that style. :P) I mean, take something like Invisible Trigger [1], it's a lot more melodically and thematically stable.

I think personally what I like about them is as much as they're not above taking some sample and running it into the ground, they have a really good ear for melody and pathos. IMO all their best songs start by them going "this anime soundtrack is great, but it could be about 25% faster and more high pitched and backed by a really hard beat." And you know, they're usually right.

A really good example for me is [2], Jersey*Spirit, which is a remix of Try Unite! [3], some anime opening. I think depending on which you listen to first you're going to have a totally different idea of how that melody is supposed to go, because as far as I can tell without a music education, by inserting a break with a slowed down voice sample and leaving out some parts, Sharpnel's version puts the verse emphasis on a totally different measure than the original (the "fly away" part is the "B" measure in the original, and the "A" measure in Jersey*Spirit). Would you have heard that was in there? I wouldn't! And I'm not making a statement on which take is better, but to me, having heard Sharpnel's take first, the just original seems unbearably slow, and also they should put that melodic idea in the center instead.

edit: And that's how I learnt that HNews strips unicode symbols...

edit: Also I challenge you to listen to Watashi wa Maid without getting it stuck permanently in your head. [4] but note that the album art is very nsfw. (Yes this was the only version I could find. Youtube probably keeps taking it down, can't imagine why.) Then compare to the [5] original - if you can, without falling asleep!

edit: Also that's from a hentai OVA. I should note that. Fucking Sharpnel, how do they find this stuff... but you can't argue they don't elevate it above the source material.

edit: As a final link, here's a (VR) DJ set they did recently that I like a lot. [6] It's less of their own songs and also a bit slower and less hyper. Might be more to your liking.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjpHgH8a8IY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4x9W7kKl_k

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaKXIxnon_8

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996u-54Fscs NSFW album cover!

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4eFsbnEHR4

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYMzaqzXqMo

weeaboo

lol

> hard techno shit out of Europe lately

I'm gonna need names.

Peep the tracklist on that mix I posted in the parent comment

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