Ask HN: What helps you focus and get things done? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What helps you focus and get things done?

90 pointsuptownfunk74 comments

Other than treating what is possibly ADD, what has helped you focus and just get your fingers on the keyboard?

Edit: perhaps I should add, I’m not really distracted by exernal things but perhaps the complexity of the problem / poorly engineered code just adds so much inertia to getting the fingers typing away. I’m a prototyping research scientist so producing well written code is not my strong suit, it’s more like let’s build something new and see if we can get it to work.

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At age 35 I was diagnosed with ADHD. Woah! I try to minimize medication.

A few tricks..

1. An ADHD diagnosis looks at 5 areas, Activation, Effort, Memory, Attention and Affect. I struggle with Activation and Effort.

If I am inactive, I now know enough to say, "Activate!" And this gives me a trigger to change my behavior.

2. ADHD folk oft describe a phenomena where they excel under pressure or when doing tasks for others. There was a recent thread on /r/adhd where people offered to clean other's houses because they recognize they don't do things well for themselves!

As a mental trick, I externalize myself. I create myself as a person I want to do things for. Part of this is recognizing that when we do things for others, like cook a great meal or do a spring clean, we don't expect them to appreciate every detail of our work. We just want to impart a feeling of deliciousness or well-being. Similarly, do not ask your future self to marinate in every detail of your work- the goal is the overall feeling.

3. Thanks to life experiences, medication, and a lifelong infatuation with builder games like Factorio, I know what I am like and what I can do when a project engages me and I give it my full effort. Identify, Organize, Create/Act, Debug, Repeat. I now understand that moments of inspiration, medication, and grit & discipline are different paths to attain this state. Thus I have some control over summoning that state directly.

4. I now understand there is an emotional signal sent by the cerebellum that facilitates executive function- the impulse to get stuff done. Physical exercise, eating well, sleeping well, core things that reduce depressive feelings are correlated with improving executive function. Embrace it, treat your body well.

4. ADHD research & brain scans have identified two key mental states. The first is DMN, a passive-receptive state where memories and stimuli flow more freely. The second is TPN, when we become focused on tasks and the brain inhibits these stimuli. In people with ADHD, the DMN rarely quiets down. So now I can recognize that engaging with memories, good and bad, and various stimuli, are a part of how I function. I can somewhat identify that function, accept that its happening and maybe interfering, and politely ask it to relax.

I hope this helps.

#2 is right on the money for me. I will spend three days failing to get started on something only to wind up being able to do three days worth of work in 5 hours just in time for a deadline. If I can get hyperfocused on something I am an absolute machine, I just can't seem to get that way until I am under the gun. I tried adderall for a month but it worked too well and scared the shit out of me. I am not going to trade a lifetime of popping amphetamines for the ability to labor more efficiently. I wish I could channel it. I feel like I have a superpower that I have no control over. I will try your trick of making myself a person that I want to do things for, and not letting that person get bogged down in minutia. Come to think of it I don't think I have ever even considered being easier on myself. Great post and you have given me a lot to ponder. Perhaps fighting it headfirst for nearly 40 years wasn't the most elegant solution after all.

Tell us the truth. Do you say "Activate!" then do a 6 million dollar man sound effect? Cause I would.

That's an awesome example of recognizing an unwanted behavior and using a trigger to redirect you to the behavior you want to perform. This is very difficult, but if you practice it long enough it gets easier.

I love that you've used 4 twice.

i love that I didnt even notice until you brought it up

Honestly, pressure. Having time pressure or pressure to perform really gets me into gear. It's not always _healthy_, but it always works.

But an almost opposite thing that has been working in the last year or so in a way that seems more sustainable is accepting that I won't be 100% at the top of my game every minute of every day. Energy levels fluctuate. Some days I need to sleep in more and work a bit later. Sometimes I'm up and working by 6am and finish early (or try to) or take a longer lunch. Sometimes I just need to go for a walk. I realized I overwork by nature, so I don't need to be afraid of getting "lazy" or not being productive: the work always gets done. I realized that allowing myself to relax sometimes when my brain is just not feeling it and make that focus up later can be very effective and produce better output. Allowing this kind of fluctuation 90% of the time and going into high-pressure mode 10% of the time seems like a good balance that I can maintain.

Doing small, easy things first. It's contrary to the common 'wisdom' of 'getting the hard stuff out of the way first' because doing small incremental steps keeps the small dopamine hits going and gives a sense of accomplishment to maintain motivation.

I also recognized that for me the chief motiations killers are all kinds of "security" measures being put in place by more and more tools, services and organizations. There is no better way for my flow to die than having to yak shave for three hours some kind of security token rigmarole before getting to the actual work. This is why I no longer work for a large company and don't want to be anywhere near the production systems. I'm happy to delegate that shit to people who thrive on this (and to my astonishment there really are people who get their kicks from configuring complex webs of scripts to keep the environments humming). So I guess, my other piece of advice is to figure out what saps yuor motivation and find roles and activities that don't involve doing a lot of that.

Right, getting into the groove by starting somewhere, it could even be unrelated such as doing the dishes and folding some laundry. Crossing that off the list gives enough dopamine to move on to other tasks. The trick is keeping the momentum and tempo so find ways to not allow yourself to be distracted once into the zone. At work I put on headphones on with some music. It's interesting that music is always never distracting me.

As someone with ADHD, I’ve found the key thing is to learn what level of stimulation your brain needs for certain tasks.

Too much, over-stimulation, and you’ll find your focus being pulled in multiple directions to a point of confusion, frustration and anxiety. I believe this can also lead to migraines.

In that situation you have to reduce something, maybe it’s ambient noise, maybe you need to pause your music, maybe you need music without lyrics. Maybe the lights are too bright. Maybe you have too much on your plate. Or, maybe your chair is hurting your back, and you need to replace it.

To little, under-stimulation, and you need to find the right type of stimulation to aid your brain. For me, lyricless music, is perfect for deep thought coding. But not enough for washing the dishes or cooking, a conference talk or similar however is great.

You may need meds (talk to a Dr/Psych), or maybe just some tea/coffee.

Exercise can help. You can get an under desk treadmill, and walk even at a gentle pace for a few hours to keep your brain active and alert.

You have to experiment and learn what _your_ brain needs. It’s not quite the same for everyone. What works for me, is often the exact opposite for others.

And remember how much sleep, what you’ve eaten, and how well defined your task is all contribute.

Momentum.

I think the best advice I got on this subject was "the first five minutes are the hardest". I forget where I heard this, but I took it into my remote working jobs and into all of the self-employed stuff I want to do. It could be simple and small, whatever it is. Sometimes it's just writing comments or tests for my existing code. Eventually the flow takes over and craves more intensity, so at that point I just go with the flow.

Wow I like this thanks.

I am a pianist; so my work is with a different sort of keyboard but the issues are similar. Interruptions/distractions are of two types - external sensory distractions and my own internal thoughts. The former are more easily recognized and remedied. In my practice room there is a window off to the side where the flash of a passing car might distract me. Easy fix.

The internal tugs on my focus are harder to pin down. But one seminal observation is that thoughts that distract are often recurrent; so writing them down, along with a brief plan about when you will deal with that thought and how, can help. There is evidence that this reduces distraction.

Sorry to take this in the wrong direction but I don’t meet enough pro pianists.

Concert pianist, teacher, studio musician, what?

How much do you practice per week? Have you avoided repetitive stress injuries?

Are you a good enough site reader that you can always read through a piece fairly well are you a 2 measure-a-time grinder like me and almost every Chinese piano student?

Ooph, back when I was a pianist, I caught myself thinking random crap WHILE DOING A CONCERT all the time; then suddenly you think "dude wtf, you're in the middle of a concert, snap out of it", and then the shock from the context switch of going from autopilot to "shit where am I in the piece" always resulted in me messing the piece up ...

Depends on what's going on.

Anxiety? Relaxation techniques.

Tedium? Find the interesting.

Something physical? Stand, change position, go for a run or walk. Eat. Take vitamin D in the cold dark winters.

Often, though, it's as simple as just... starting. One technique is to promise myself that I can stop after I go for a full 5 minutes. Usually, it's just enough to get started and then I'm in.

Once it was burnout though and nothing helped except fully not even looking at my computer for a good long time.

I work with TODO-lists. I break every task into mini TODO-steps and tick them off as I go along. If new ideas pop into my head, I add them to the list.

Today my TODOs included items like “research how to stop writes to a postgres database” and “make a list of all the places where we use x database.”

I have ADHD.

Compared to my peers, I am one of the most productive humans. (I know this because my career track, quarterly and annual performance ratings, manager feedback, KPIs and metrics against peers or industry standards)

I attribute this to my ability to convince reptilian brain that if I don’t successfully execute tasks and accomplish goals, that I will die.

I operate as if I have a gun pointed at my head. And at the head of everyone I love and cherish.

This allows me to fully engage all my faculties as if my life depended upon it. Hyperfocus.

The downside is stress.

I mostly operate in a flow state, but depending on the day/task/objective, my body has trouble disengaging this feeling that I will die if I don’t execute, so it can negatively affect sleep, as well as life outside of work, because I am always thinking about how to accomplish the goal.

But the ability to trigger my amygdala into this “fight” mode stimulates a daily adrenal response that allows me to perform with exponential productivity. I am often astonished at what I am able to accomplish over a period of time.

All this requires me believing in what I’m doing to some degree, but not always. For example, I just want the biggest bonus in the company history, and if I don’t get it, I will die. So this allows me to have some purpose.

I also need to believe that I’m good at what I’m doing, because that enables me to execute confidently and without hesitation from one task/goal to the next and enjoy the process.

Sorry you were downvoted but frankly I think the reptilian (as you call it) impulse for survival/not-dying is basically at the root of any real executive drive that yields the success stories we see (and also why people have a hard time shutting it off and stopping once they’ve made it).

Stress. The body, mind, and soul tend to work best with an optimal amount of stress.

Many productivity/creative gurus would call this constraints. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable if you’re making up your own constraints. There is a lot of creative freedom with constraints too.

For example, what could you prototype in a week only using X? Or what could you prototype using AI with a specific theme? Ideas are endless. The best things come from periods of great stress.

I've found that loving myself more has been helpful to reduce my wanting distractions from emotions. I'm a parent in my 40s, the primary caregiver, our child has some disabilities, and I need to be there for them; this has been a huge motivator in taking steps towards the kind of person I want to be. I reconnected with friends (who are also parents) during the past couple years and that helped significantly because we continued to build trust together, a practice that is helping my relationship with my spouse (who we rely on for money). Seeing what happiness can look like, when I've been grumpy most of my life (but thought I was happy...), has been huge.

To focus and get things done I have to care about the Why of the doing, and once I have that, I get out of my way and do it, now often leaving my phone silent, no music or stories, and mindfully doing the work because I do a better job that way. If it's a rote task then there's room for music, but if there's appreciable benefit to open awareness instead of entertainment, then I go with that.

How did I get here? Years of realizing in fits and starts that I had a problem and had been escaping (into all sorts of entertainment, mainly videogames) my emotions for decades. Learning from friends that I can take credit for things that I do that I appreciate, not just take responsibility for when things go wrong.

Look beyond the symptoms for the root causes.

Edit to add: while I still sometimes react defensively, I more often decouple being wrong from my sense of worth as a person among all you equally-worthy people, and am far more quick to apologize rather than to protect my ego by doubling down.

Reading Deep Work by Cal Newport helped me make changes to my daily routine so that it is easier to get started.

Sleep, checklists & marijuana in that order.

1. Feeling distracted go to sleep. Get up, have a snack and watch how productive you’ll be.

2. Not sure what to work on that day. Check your checklist.

3. Need to dig deep; have a quarter bowl (depends on personal tolerance). Have too much and well there’s goes a a few hours. Have too too much and well you’ve lost a whole day maybe.

Other combos that work: - 3, 1, 2 - 1, 2, 1

Combos that don’t work: - 3, 3, 3 - 3, 3, 2 - 2, 3, 3

I write down a bunch of very small 5-15 minute subtasks that I want to do - being very specific and including the estimated time to accomplish into a 1hr block.

Then I put on Brain.fm for 1hr.

That's it. Works really well for me. Rinse and repeat (I typically only have to do 2-3 one hour blocks per week for super annoying administrative tasks that I've been putting off)

Like a lot of the comments here, I respond to pressure and deadlines, but that's not everyday.

The way I see it is anyone who's hyper-productive and focused day in day out, is either lying or miserable and heading for burnout.

I work best in the mornings, so I do the harder stuff then. Afternoons are a grind, fortunately the way my schedule works out is that's usually when my meetings are.

I work best when I'm working with, rather than against my natural flow. I find in the long run, there are only so many productive hours in the day and pushing through that produces poor results slowly.

If I really need to get shit done and it's not happening, I find pomidoros work well for me, but only for a few cycles to get me moving.

I can also recommend turning off the computer. Some of my best work lately has come either after a huge walk, or from sitting down away from the screen with a pen and large sheet of paper.

Loud techno music and noise cancelling headphones.

Any recommendations for music / playlist ?

Not techno, but classical music for when you're on a deadline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PUHBL1vMNY

Cercle has good sessions

https://youtube.com/@Cercle

Seconded.

Via cercle I was introduced to Miss Monique, whose wonderful progressive trance sets and amazingly infectious smile and joy has become my "right, time to do the work" background video.

https://youtube.com/@djmissmonique

Ahhh birds of a feather.. Huge fan of Cercle and Miss Monique.

Here's one I've been listening to - you may enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0-hvjV2A5Y

On the classical I do enjoy Bach, cello concierto (Fournier recordings) and orchestral suites (Koln)

Cercle was a sanity saver during COVID times. I discovered a few different artists through that and am going to see some of them this year.

Many of the stations on SomaFM are full of great hacking music. No commercials either. And no forcing proprietary apps down your throat, play it with your favorite media player (I love streaming with reAmp on Mac and Audacity on Linux with classic WinAmp skins enabled). Simple shoutcast / http streaming FTW!

I like a physical notebook list, a 30" 16:10 monitor, a MS sculpt keyboard, a very good chair, good coffee, and a bit of exercise and sun every day.

But the overwhelming biggest factor is jow much autonomy I feel like I have over my work and my day. If my manager is "popping in" or asking for updates frequently, it creates a constant feeling of failing to keep up, and I get less done.

Other than that, being either alone or surrounded by a lot of people, and just otherwise being comfortable. I also like feeling like I've done something for myself first. My life isn't for my employer, the more I do for me, the more productive I am.

I am very much not ADHD but I have a child that is. Due to that I know what ADHD looks like and yet simultaneously know what it means to be both focused and highly distracted both in myself and in others.

The primary factor of focus, irrespective of neurophysiology, is motivation. When the mind is properly motivated it will achieve strong dedicated focus over a long duration. ADHD persons may require some external auto-redirection mechanism to maintain that focus equivalently over the same duration but that mechanism will be established as a result of properly trained goal seeking behavior.

When motivation is low I have noticed that in many cases the behaviors and focus of neurotypical people and ADHD persons becomes more similar, more distract-able. That is massively important because it means that focus is dependent upon the brain’s natural dopamine cycle and that provided a proper motivation and training an ADHD person can, in many cases, be elevated in performance. It also means that when motivation is absent everyone is subject to preferences of increased dopamine receptivity away from the directed activity and requires redirecting.

I have learned to become a better programmer by internalizing problems into self-directed conquests in personal hobby applications. I own the given problem and must find given solution through some combination or research and trail/error. Then goal then it to do ambitious things on some personal application that nobody else may use. That sort of unrewarded self-direction is more challenging for an ADHD person to achieve and requires the addition of increased stimulation.

Interesting. For me, sometimes I get so in my head, and the problems I work on are so ill-defined, greenfield areas that I am just staring at this massive foggy blob trying to fight my way through it. It becomes exhausting.

Are you interrupted by your cat ? By noise ? Smells ? I discovered once that perceiving road traffic out of the corner of my eye shot my ability to focus. Whenever I needed to focus on a job I grabbed a windowless meeting room and worked there.

I suggest every time your focus is stolen by something you write down what the cause was. After a few days there should be repeat offender. Among these which one(s) can you change ?

Interestingly I get distracted by HN rabbit holes that I end up googling to death and that fool myself into thinking I'm learning something.

My trick is to get outside my comfort zone when coding, but only just enough that's it's tolerable and not overwhelming. Most of the time, even as a seasoned coder, I should feel inadequate, yet still up to the task at hand. That's what flow is for me: pushing myself, but not too far that I end up falling off the proverbial cliff!

no change

for long time ago and future

A special secure serene place

that's why library has such the special room of which some great scientist, inventor came out by its merit

I use a noise app to play rain sounds, and also regular music or ambient music.

The best ones I have found are:

lifeat.io

https://somafm.com/player/#/now-playing/dronezone

Or just Spotify.

Very, very clear task descriptions with goals.

Religion/Christianity

Before downvoting hear me out.

We are meat based neural network that evolved for certain conditions (small tribes of hunter). Religion was the way to pass knowledge down generations, things that don’t happen often, dangers to avoid, behaviour that help survival of individual/tribe.

As the knowledge grew we created the scientific method and created an explosion of knowledge in an ever speeding up exponential. Recently we find ourselves throwing away all the knowledge we had accumulated in religious traditions because it doesn’t fit our materialist scientific new ways of seeing things.

But inside of religion, in symbolic form there is knowledge that is deeply relevant to the human condition. How to grieve and let go, how to celebrate life, how to view death, how to get together, how to forgive other and ourselves.

We are at a moment where science is going very fast, improving life in all area, but also dehumanizing our life. We need traditions, a common goal, singing together, grieving together, something anchored in almost immuable knowledge as the rest of our life is in flux.

Another way of seeing it is the chaos/order of JBP. We need a bit of order (traditions) so we can be in exploration (chaos). The more there is changing things around, the more we need order, stability in our life to counterbalance.

So I found out that for me, reconnecting to religious traditions is helping me be more happy, productive, satisfied. I think we are all religion in one way or another, the voice in our head (conscience) and subconscious is guided by this, is this voice into constant reprobation, culpability, fear and anger or is it guided by love?

Edit: some concrete example. - The cycling of day and week. Having "sacred" moment in the day, evening were no work happen, relaxation, connection with others. Keeping sunday without work or any computer/tech to recharge, disconnect, think of the bigger picture.

-Having moment of prayer/meditation to re-center my mind on what is important, letting go of restlessness and stress.

- Link to #1 comment about self love, giving love to other and yourself instead of self judgement or negative internal chatter.

Yes love it, Religion is a huge backbone of my life

Earplugs. I didn't know how much sound bothered me until I tried them.

I know you said "Other than treating what is possibly ADD" but I went down that road for decades and the only thing that _really_ ended up making a difference for me was Adderall.

An in-situ todo list in every tool I use. In slack: scheduled messages, email: todo folder, git: todo.txt and so on. I no longer fight context switching and focus on getting things done in an organised way every time I switch context to a new task.

To write complex code while I am procrastinating or context switching I have taken to writing in plain english what I want to achieve and then write code. It’s cheaper to get all the bad ideas out in plain english while making reasonable progress.

One thing that has helped me also as I'm figuring my way through this is to leave time to just "play". But the play has to be related to the problem. In particular, this is suitable for ill-defined research problems (the type I am frequently working on these days, vs. more standard engineering-based implementations/refactor of yore). And then as you play with the problem a direction kind of magically opens itself up and then you want to explore further.

Just blocking all websites except what I'm working on. I use Freedom.to

Setting it for very small bits of time helps. Like I know I need a couple hours. But I set it for half an hour in an hour so it's not threatening. I often find I get absorbed in the work in that half hour. Continue till I hit another block. Again set it that in half an hour everything else is blocked for another tiny bit of time.

I also use freedom.to because of the syncing across devices, but https://selfcontrolapp.com/ is another great OSS option for Mac users.

I completely disable wifi for most of the day :)

"What helps you focus and get things done?"

The promise that I will achieve something. That could be helping someone, building something for myself, etc. The worst blocker to my performance is the corporate lie that hard work and loyalty are rewarded. Once you see through it and get screwed over a few times, you're just done.

People here have suggested starting with small/easy stuff to "get in the groove", I agree with this. Another thing is deliberately leaving syntax errors before leaving work for the day at the locations in the code where I'm supposed to start the day after.

Not a helpful answer since you have excluded seeking treatment- but putting it out there: Atomoxetine

For me, survival and insecurity. Going through a day without getting something done means maybe I’m not going to pay my property taxes or add to my retirement account.

I think this is an outmoded way of thinking and not helpful to most people, even me. But you asked ;)

I find that I can be productive in "something", just maybe not the thing I should be doing right now. But oh well. So instead of faffing around wasting time, I'll do the thing I feel like so that at least I got something done.

haha, yes this one gets me frequently.

Deadlines / other people waiting on me.

Changing settings (can be as small as switching from couch to table).

If it's something boring, putting on YouTube at the same time so my whole "attention space" is filled despite the tediousness of the task.

Genuine motivation is the solution for me. When I'm hyped it is easy to get out of my bed and I can work tirelessly. Fortunately I can easily get in that mood.

How do you get into it?

I block certain sites like Hacker News in the Windows hosts file. I have to put in a little effort to undo it which provides just enough resistance to keep from it

Just blocking all websites except what I'm working on.

For me, only thing that has helped get immense focus is Pressure. Pressure under deadline. Pressure for not failing.

The only issue is I am not able to replicate it as needed

My personal drill sergeant

https://ubyjvovk.github.io/sarge/

Ear plugs to drown out sound. Don't use headphones. Stay as unconnected as you can from the machine (no Youtube/music/etc).

Music - most typically a random selection provided Spotify so that it a genre I enjoy, but not known.

Knowing the lyrics to a song is an instant distraction

i’ve been using https://www.brain.fm for years now. when i really want to get stuff done, i put on headphones, play something from that website and set a timer for one hour. Then i take a break. repeat two or three times. Then take longer break.

not affiliated with the product. just a fan.

Giving myself two hours a day to build a business. I actually do worse when I have more time, so this works quite well for me.

"Don't wait until you feel like doing something."

Start doing something, now.

Stop using class or OOP, using functions help me focus really well.

Some great answers here (I find AmericanOP's the best).

Not a complete answer from me (and not formally diagnosed, but I strongly relate to everything mentioned here), but here is a list I have called "Things that help with work"

Before work:

- Wake up early (but not at the expense of good quality/quantity of sleep). If possible, without an alarm clock.

-Start the work day as soon as realistically possible, before distractions start piling up

-Start with the hardest task. Not the easiest (unless it's an easy part of the hard task). (doing unrelated but useful easy tasks may be a good strategy when tired/unfocused, but at the start of the day it will probably end up wasting valuable limited energy and being counterproductive)

Preparation / During work:

- Drone Zone / ambient coffee shop sounds, or mellow coffee-jazz on youtube

- tea (chamomile/passionflower/melissa or other similar distraction-mitigating beverages). coffee can be positive or negative depending on energy / time of day.

- Water. Lots. Easy to forget, makes a huge difference.

- Oxygen. Lots. Also easy to forget, also makes a huge difference.

- Use pomodorros: a 25-minute slot where you commit to uninterupted focus on a task, delegating any distractions to be dealt with after the pomodoro.

- For added effectiveness, commit out loud to do "Task X and only task X, to the exclusion of all others" before you click 'play' on the pomodoro.

- GTD to keep track of and prioritise tasks effectively

- Log work done in work diary (with regular desktop prompts to do so if necessary). Helps you more easily pick up from where you left off.

- incense, for some bizzare reason. (assuming able to keep window open)

- air heater (WARNING: counterproductive in the abscence of oxygen!)

- undistracting view

- study-buddy

- Pleasant location, preferably with other people working / not interested in you

After work:

- No work after X time

- Plan ahead. If possible, also plan "where" to work, based on the task - choose best environment, create positive association/mood for work

- Sleep. No "revenge procrastination". Ensure that if you wake up reasonably early tomorrow, you will still have gotten enough quality/quantity of sleep. Lack of sleep compounds very easily.

- Rest on weekends (pet projects are fine, but not "work" work).

music ... and a deadline

also: it being "interesting" helps a lot

Opposite for me-- music causes daydreaming and other issues.

I'm much better off with ear plugs and silence. No more looking for music to listen to, watching random videos or day dreaming.

that's awesome .. you do you :)

I've always been 'more productive' when I can have something semi-[un]interesting going in the background :)

I do know several people who can not focus unless it's 'silent', though

...but silence (or quasi silence) lets my mind run, and that [almost always] distracts me from what I'm trying to get done :)

Music with no vocals (classical, chiptune, etc) can work pretty well as long as you don't go down the rabbit hole of "finding music to listen to" every 15 minutes.

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