GoKawiilI’m feeling it right now. I had to set a timer for 15 minute on my computer and block all distractions to write this. If I didn’t force myself to focus I would easily get distracted by something after few minutes. Even when I’m doing things that I’ve been waiting to do it, I still feel the urge to do something else.
I don’t know how and when this happened. During the last few years I was always studying, working, and doing open source. And actually got stuff done. Doing all of those at the same time requires paying attention to what I wanted to do and ignore the noise.
Nowadays I’m lucky if I get 1 hour of focused time. Just to be clear, my goal is not to work 90 hours a week or anything crazy. That is not possible for me. I just want the hour I spend programming, learning, or writing to be just one activity. But instead I spend 10 minute on something then I get distracted, and try to focus again.
Ideally, I want to be able to plan to work on something for long hours without any distraction. After that time get back online check for messages and other things.
The distractions are not one particular thing. A few examples:
I want to do something and I remember there’s a post related to this. I go to find it and in between I click on some links and end up reading something completely unrelated.
I am waiting for something then I go browse the web and I get distracted.
I’m working on something and I face a challenge I have to think for 10 minutes. I get up to get some water and check my phone along the way and get distracted. Sometimes I get distracted by making the bed.
It feels like my brain finds a way to do something else and avoid painful situations like boredom or hard work.
It reminds me of when I was in high school talking to a friend about how laying in bed with your phone can kill hours without you noticing it. It was circa 2015, back then attention hungry apps were less powerful but still lure a teenager’s mind for few hours. I learned that these apps should be used very carefully. At that time I made a decision to never have a charger near my bed. Back then it was mostly about my phone, because when I was on the computer I was either reading, or programming, or playing a game. Even if I wasn’t in the mood to think, I played a strategic game or chess. These activities exercise the mind and are fun. All of them were an intentional activity. I didn’t do any passive activities like browsing or chatting on my computer.
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