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Comment by tlb | Hacker News Reader

I find it hard to concentrate on videos of people talking. I have no problem sitting in long lectures or conferences, but I get fidgety and distracted trying to watch conference videos on my laptop.

I'm used to thinking of video watching as being a low value activity that should not be optimized for, but there's an increasing amount of professionally necessary video watching.

Maybe I should build a dedicated video room, like a home theater but for work, with minimum visual distractions.

Do people have advice on how to focus on videos?

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1.5x or faster speedups, turn on CC for the unintelligible speech. I really appreciate it when there's a transcript available in addition to the captioning.

Taking notes / creating Anki cards helps with focus.

Two other things I should add:

I use noise-canceling headphones (inexpensive from Taotronics) and the DFX plugin [1] for audio clarity. The plugin has a Dialog Boost setting intended for transcription. It goes a long way to improve muddy audio.

[1] https://www.fxsound.com/uses/transcription

I do at least 2x. For slow talkers, there are Chrome extensions that let you easily bump that number as high as you want on YouTube.

In case some are wondering, "Video Speed Controller" extension can speed and slow down videos by pressing "d" or "s", respectively as much as you want with steps of 0.1x, instead of the non useful Youtube click and select a speed with a quantum of 0.5 and a max of 2.

If a talk is 40 minutes and there are no slides available and the author goes through the slides in the video, I'll play the video at 10x or more just to check out the slides and see if the talk addresses the points I'm interested in. 40 minutes at 10x or faster is around 4 minutes. It helps me decide and avoids me wasting 40 minutes on the wrong talk.

Video Speed Controller: https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed

I found it very helpful to have your own rituals for the task you want to accomplish.

I create a spreadsheet with every startup before I start watching anything.

Then I start rating startups and comment on founders on my sheet while watching the videos.

I focus 100% on the first minute of any video, sometimes founders are so good they completely get my attention, sometimes I lose interest and just go back to my sheet commenting.

My sheet/notes are my starting point, if I’m bored I fix it there..I found out that I get bored when I hear a pitch that solves a problem for industries I’m not interested in.

I attended 4 online demo days, and every time my sheet gets improved. I cannot watch these videos without a spreadsheet..and now my team asks me to send them the spreadsheet before every demo day.

I think YC should add a sheet for us to write our comments/ratings and decision.

The data from these sheets will be so helpful to understand how attendees perceive each pitch, how founders can improve it

Quite meticulous: what are you using these spreadsheets for?

Excel sheet. I used both Numbers and Excel and I found excel is better to compare my notes and ratings.

After a year I go back and compare my ratings to how much each startup raised, IRR..etc.

In the first batch I rated one of the startup 1/5, after a year, when the startup raised a lot $$$$ I went back to my comment on why I rated it 1/5

My note said “too niche”

It hit me and I realized it was as if Jeff Bezos was pitching me Amazon and I said e-commerce for books only! This is a niche market.

It’s very helpful to go back and read your comments about these startups. You learn with every startup you mess..

I've been making investment mistakes and trying to learn from them for 15 years now. Recording a couple sentences about your reasons why or why not helps a lot. People aren't naturally good at learning from decisions with long feedback delays -- you have to keep notes.

I wish I had decision notes from earlier life choices, like why I studied EE instead of CS, why I chose my PhD advisor, why I joined companies, got married, etc.

I keep track of investment decisions, but not life decisions...life is too big for me to have it tracked on excel.

But I hear you...sometimes you lose sight of your big goal. It helps to have your goal/vision engraved in your mind, it helps to write and dream about it.

Fascinating and awesome diligence.

Are you an investor? Startup stats fan? Looking to take your lessons and research and start your own company?

Would you be willing to share your notes or a curated version?

I’m a previous founder, I’ll come back with my second act someday. After I quit my startup I decided to stay around in this startup world.

I attend these demo days on behalf of investors who trust my judgement in specific verticals.

I’m fine sharing my notes.

I’m also interested. Email in profile and keybase username is same as HN username.

Very cool. Thank you. Keybase handle is in my profile if you’d like to connect!

I'd love to read them also, e-mail is in profile!

Really interested in seeing your notes too.

How do I share it with you?

Set up a mailing list? I'd love to see those notes too. My email is in my profile.

Hi maram, I'd love to have copy too. My email is postnihilismhn@gmail.com. Thanks!

Thanks! Email is in my profile.

Yup, me too. Email in profile

Would love to see your notes. Thank you!

My current job has a lot more video calls than prior. It took some getting used to. I find the biggest challenge to be the urge to do some low-quality work simultaneously. What's helped me on that is:

- Use a good monitor or TV. Ideally not the main one you use to work. - Move, physically, from my desk to a place I take the calls in. Enter 'meeting mode' not 'desk mode' - Close all other applications. Full screen video. - Turn off other monitors - Take notes via notebook

I bet building a room would help, but these things worked for me in an apartment where that wasn't an option. Still takes energy to focus on it though.

Same here. My problem is allocating dedicated time to sitting and watching these things. I'm fine with meetups and conferences, as I commit to them in some concrete way. I stash my devices and give the speaker my full attention for however long it takes; but for videos, at best I start it in a browser at work and within 5 minutes it's just running in the background and within 15 minutes I've usually been pulled on enough work-related priorities that it dies, paused, in its browser tab.

Perhaps you’ve tried this already but taking notes with pen and paper might help you to focus. I like doing that during meetings at work, in order to help me keep focus and prevent my mind from wandering away.

Double speed is life.

This really makes a huge difference, particularly for Congress you can usually got to 3.4 -> 4x speed easily.

You can edit the speed above 2x on YouTube in the web console (I forget specifics, but easily searchable).

I think Andrej Karpathy’s talk during tesla autonomy day, and any talks by John Carmack are the only ones I enjoy at 1x (they talk fast).

Use https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed instead.

What works for me is using my headphones/earbuds on a laptop in a room that doesn't have other distractions. The audio quality of the recording makes a huge difference. Bad audio is a killer.

You need an iPad and a chaise (grapes and fan optional), you'll be watching videos for hours just like the Romans would've.

Oculus Rift :). Haven't tried it yet, but I can see how it would remove distractions from the (local) environment.

This does work, and I do it, but it's a bit uncomfortable over long periods of time and the video resolution isn't as good as on a normal display.

I will always look for a written alternative if there is one, but if forced to watch a video I'll speed it up at least 2.5x, sometimes more depending on the video, and use captioning. For me it's the worst possible medium in general though.

Tangential: I know Sam Altman has expressed interest in the real life phenomenon. Recently I was thinking it had to do with human perception. Video is a substitute for authentic cues of reality.

A solution that would be up your alley for experimentation is getting curved LCD display and putting it on a humanoid^.

I think getting some sample audiences would allow for iteration to a decent remote solution. It may be awkward at first, so bringing back cohorts may help them adapt to the robot.

^I think it would have to be more nuanced, but it is a start to engaging with real depth perception.

The discipline to maintain focus is a skill that requires practice. We practice "multi-tasking" a lot more than we practice single-tasking. The problem is not the environmemt or the medium or the technology.

A good way to practice paying attention to video is to take notes while watching. And use pen and paper! You don't need the notes later, they are just a tool to help maintain focus and process as you listen.

Hey, we're Supermedium, a YC company exploring building a VR home environment for utility and productivity (which includes focus). If anyone is interested, subscribe to our email list at http://supermedium.com to get updates, we'll be slowly releasing apps and experiments to try.

Watch them at 2x speed, it will require your attention. You can always pause and rewind if you need to take notes or miss something

I think it can help to put yourself in "prosumer" mode, produce and make it an interactive experience, instead of being a 100% consumer. Get on the back-channels - Slack, live-tweet about it, make a buzzword bingo card etc.

The suggestion here about making a spreadsheet is good too, it reminds me of people who keep records while watching sports.

I do the same. I listen to a tutorial or tech talk, and find myself wanting to keep my hands busy. So I start messing with causal games on my phone. Some stuff I can still follow like a tech talk but If they show actual code or something I find my self either pausing or rewinding.

I have a ritual of watching through my queue of Youtube videos (on many topics) when I am preparing and eating breakfast each morning. It works well. I've been able to churn through so much useful content over the years that I wouldn't have normally watched.

If possible watching videos on 1.25 or 1.5x speed helps. If the video is live.. then coffee.

I feel like coffee would make the slow talking seem even worse, maybe beer?

A simple game will help to stay alert. Run video in popup window using Firefox, run a game, e.g. card game, listen.

Watch it on a VR headset :-)

Try running the video stream (YouTube has VR mode) in something as simple as cardboard/daydream. There’s something calming and focusing when your peripheral vision is silenced.

Treadmill desk. It's on the edge of being too difficult to walk and do real work, but you can walk pretty fast (for a decent amount of exercise) and watch videos easily.

Turn off your phone/tablet and full screen the video. Turn off secondary monitors. Take notes on paper. Turn off email/slack notifications.

>Do people have advice on how to focus on videos?

Practice.

Or discover why you’re not actually interested in the content.

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