You're Distracted. This Professor Can Help | Hacker News Reader

You're Distracted. This Professor Can Help

chronicle.com

86 pointsiProject25 comments

Alright, I managed to read it. I guess that makes me a hero in this thread.

The professor uses mediation to hone focus, then hyperfocusing on a task. It sounds a lot like a fancy description of the Pomodoro technique, except that the argument is that meditation can extend the amount of time we can give to a task. The other central argument is that we can't actually multitask, and it does more damage to try. The point of not being able to read a whole book seems like bunk to me, though, since I read for recreation, and it takes the amount of time it takes. I can't sit and read a whole book, just like I can't sit and watch a whole season of a television show.

I don't buy in to Pomodoro since I think it hurts to force a time limit in either direction, but I do believe that hyperfocus helps get tasks done. I notice this most of all when coding. I will fall in to a deep zone and just go. Eventually, something will bring me out of it (either hitting a wall, or finishing a block of functionality, etc), and that's it for a while. I will toggle out to Facebook or something and recover. Eventually, I'll go back. This cycle has been successful enough for me, just not forced to 25 minute blocks.

The one big point I did agree with is that, in a way, I have become a slave to my phone. I react when it dings, without much respect for what I'm doing. Just last week I disabled notifications for my work email, and have been much happier. I still see the badge count, but that's under my control to check, and I just don't. Same for desktop notifications - they're off. As important as I like to think I am, my email can wait, and I'm starting to think the same way about social notifications, although they are still more sparse and don't really hurt my focus.

I found meditation really did help me a lot in graduate school. And I'm talking only 5 to 10 minutes a day.

It shouldn't be so surprising that an ability to concentrate is a skill that can be improved, and that the best way to improve a skill is to directly practice it!

> The point of not being able to read a whole book seems like bunk to me, though, since I read for recreation, and it takes the amount of time it takes. I can't sit and read a whole book, just like I can't sit and watch a whole season of a television show.

I don't that's what the article refers to -- it's finishing the book at all, not just in one sitting.

> It shouldn't be so surprising that an ability to concentrate is a skill that can be improved, and that the best way to improve a skill is to directly practice it!

This is an important point that I feel many students do not understand. In my experience most people view focusing as a natural ability that you either have or you don't. I agree that one can be predisposed to getting distracted, but as with many predispositions, it can be overcome with some effort.

The article is really long for a subject that might interest people who have difficulty focusing for long periods of time.

For this exact reason I closed all the other tabs, closed my phone and made my browser fullscreen. It went well, but about halfway I kept grabbing my phone just to force myself to put it away.

I think I need help. :/

Acknowledging it is a first step. Also, this is another layer of distraction removal:

http://readable.tastefulwords.com/

Removing the clutter is a good solution. I've been doing that for a while to make it easier to read, but I didn't think about it having the side effect of eliminating distractions.

I use viewtext (similar results to the parent's solution, but less customizations).

http://viewtext.org

I read it just to prove myself I don't suffer from distractitis. Alas, while reading I:

* had an urge to check facebook

* had an urge to check e-mail

* had an urge to check linkedin

* though "man, this is too long, maybe I should read it later"

It's scary how I don't even notice these urges and just act on them when doing other, more important tasks.

I find it's a lot easier to get through longer articles if I print them and don't try to read them on-screen. Something about reading from a physical piece of paper really makes it easier to focus. You can't ALT-TAB to another application. No alert popups from your chat client. You can underline, make notes in the margin, etc. which also helps.

Just curious, I just can't understand how underlining in different colors and taking notes in the margin helps anything. I recall trying to take notes in university classes, but I just stopped, since taking notes at the same time as listening to a lecture makes it difficult to follow the lecture (that you're there for in the first place). In the end, I didn't take notes for 4.5 of the 5 years I was in school, and had good grades. But maybe it just worked for me?

I'm currently at uni, studying computer science. I can very much relate to the problem of being unable to read a book to completion, however I fundamentally disagree with the reasons given in the article. In my experience, it's not a problem of attention, but simply that I don't have the time to read. I love reading, and wish I had more time to read; pre-uni I read, or programmed in my spare time, but now I'm at uni I find that how my time is distributed has fundamentally changed. today, my time is split between the masses of coursework I have, societies (computing, music and sport), and sleeping. I personally think that it would be far more powerful to study a group of young people who have far more time and fewer commitments. I sometimes feel that my generation has some of the highest commitments and workloads ever which is, admittedly, compounded by different forms of media, and this is really what is damaging the skill of long form reading.

just my 2c

Ocassionally I see memes pop up depicting variations of "the moment you have so much work to do, you decide to take a nap instead" (replace "take a nap" with whatever you do when you're procrastinating).

While this could certainly be laid out as lazy student attitude, if I look back at my own time studying, I often felt just demotivated by the amount of work that had to be done for various courses to pass.

So I agree with you. Students should have more possibilities take their time and explore subjects they're interested in rather than just passing course after course.

I studied in Austria (Europe) though, so I don't know how much my experience relates to that of a US college student.

If it is honestly true that you simply don't have enough time because there are too many tasks with higher priority no including just leisuring time on Facebook or HN, then to me it sounds like you are a person with outright great time management abilities. For me, I spend 90 % of my free time doing completely useless stuff like browsing HN many times a day, hanging out in IRC, chatting on Skype etc. and it feels that I can't get things done which I should, and even would want to. This includes reading some books which interest me, programming and general tinkering with things which once used to be the most interesting thing for me.

My point being, for someone who can manage their time almost perfectly, perhaps reading a book is just about managing the time, but for us who can't... It's not so simple. :(

100% agree. Typically lack of time is prioritizing it to other distractions that could be removed. Doing some self examination of how one spends their time makes you realize how much time you spend doing other things that could be eliminated if you really want to read instead.

I will admit, I don't manage my time tremendously; I get up late, I go to bed late. However, the time in between is spent doing the things I mentioned before, not on idly flicking between youtube, facebook etc.

I'm not sure - I may suffer from the same problem the article is describing, but I definitely feel that reducing (or changing) the workload (at least the mental workload) would allow me to manage my time better.

Perhaps sit down 30 minutes before going to sleep and read some? It's doubtful you're doing much right before going to sleep that is productive and it also forces you to lay down and relax before sleeping with the added benefit of accomplishing your goal of reading. I find reading before going to sleep to be the best time as I have nothing else to do and it's a better alternative to say, watching television

I think it's a question of priorities and managing a schedule.

My time (3rd year as a CS undergrad) is split between coursework, 12 h/week as a student programmer, student representative in various university/departmental committees, and sitting on the board in a couple student socities (social and/or political).

I still have a couple hours every other evening to relax by watching YouTube videos or reading webcomics/HN/LWN. If I prioritized reading a book over that, I probably could read a book.

As an aside: apologies for the fact that this comment is repeated a couple of times below, I was posting it from train wifi, which kept cutting out, so I was unaware it hadn't posted the first two times. By the time I realised the 2 hour limit for editing/deleting comments had passed.

Sorry!

I almost made it half way through the article before I went to go check the comments about it on Hacker News!

We need a hero. Will someone please read the whole thing?

I did. It is a good read.

Yep, me too!

My only salvation these days is to save articles to Pocket (or Readable, Instapaper, etc.) on the iPad and go to the local coffee shop for a session of concentrated reading. (It's a village, there's no wifi.)

I take notes on paper and action them when I'm back on the internet.

[An unintended bonus is that my handwriting is starting to get back to its pre 24/7 internet level, i.e. legible and quite pretty rather than the scrawl of someone who's more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse.]

I've found the pomodoro methods helps with this. As the top comment mentions, this may be a crutch, but for me it's a useful crutch.

I've found one other tool helps. Some tasks don't require internet. For those, I unplug my router for the 25 minutes the task requires.

The added barrier of physically restarting the internet removes the temptation to check email etc. and means I expend less willpower while doing the task.

I am in this thread instead of working.

Sorry, a distraction: is anyone else reminded of the copper bowl in Anathem?

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