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Comment by FigurativeVoid | Hacker News Reader

I think that we are being overwhelmed and it hurts us in more ways than our creativity. We are moving through the world in constant distraction.

Until recently, when I was doing something around the house, no matter what, I was listening to music, podcasts, or books.

I found that it seemed like it was taking for ever for me to do the simplest tasks. After a while... I figured that I must be going slower because I was always doing two things at once. After a few weeks of doing the dishes without ear buds in, I don't think I'll ever go back. I am not able to focus better and get things done.

If you are like I was, and you are always inundated with some distraction, try moving through the world without it.

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The obvious other side of that coin: of the two things we're doing at once, one of them is neither fun nor engaging. Making it the thing to 100% focus on will also mean it it's now a stronger candidate to procrastination, and just won't be done at all.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been done or added to our plate in the first place?

Maybe. I don't know if I'd enjoy it, but I'd totally try hiring a full house keeping staff if I had that kind of money flowing in.

I otherwise find it awkward to have random people working in my house for a few hours a week at a total cost that isn't trivial either.

Who are the people who deserve this task? This reminds me of the Tim Ferris mentality, in which he simply hires low-wage workers to do every task he thinks is unworthy of his attention. Obviously not everyone can have this luxury— at some point somebody still has to do the grunt work.

>Who are the people who deserve this task?

Where does "deserving" enter the picture? People do work for pay, not based on whatever they deserve to do such work or not (except in the sense that they have the skills to do it).

It's not like a housecleaner or a burger flipper "deserve" to be doing what they do. A paid task is not an award or a punishment, it's something people do in exchange for money, because they have the skills for it and not for other stuff, or because they like it, or because for whatever reasons they can't find other line of work.

Besides, "it shouldn't have been done or added to our plate in the first place" doesn't necessarily mean it must be done by someone else. Perhaps it's just busywork, or we can just not do it and make do without whatever it was supposed to give us. Or find a way to achieve our existing goals without it.

learn to find something of worth even in the mundane. they’re there.

This is good advice, if doing dishes is boring, procrastination won't help it'll only make it worse. Taking pride in a dish well washed and a clean kitchen/living space makes the task worth it.

Also, doing boring necessary things are a bit like walking. It gives your mind space to think while keeping your body busy. Unless of course, you can't live with your thoughts.

Sure, you always have the choice between changing yourself or changing the experience.

If you're the kind of person that can change themselves to appreciate everything in life, good for you. Otherwise changing the experience (including multitasking) is a more simple approach.

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.

Oh my, are you quoting Atomic Habits ? The "nudge" fad has long passed and your 10 min workout every day won't make you an athlete.

What James Clear is really showing is that writing coaching books is the real path to success.

i am not quoting any of that

Sorry I got confused.

That quote might be half flying above my head, and it feels a lot like a caricature to me. I got through the original speech and it still doesn't resonate, but I'm also not a Kenyon graduate and don't share any of that background.

But I appreciate having been exposed to that corner of culture.

he’s being quite genuine. perhaps tragically so, considering.

being an american undergraduate has very little to do with it, or to my original point, which is that finding the transcendent in the mundane is a good idea.

It's David Foster Wallace's This is Water

Thanks, I wanted to get the wider picture and completely failed to reach the original.

I heard that speech when I was much younger and didn't understand it. Now, going through life in my mid-30s, not finding much "greater meaning" and trying to get through things, it's a really good reminder. Thank you

“the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” gets me every time.

from Auden:

“Not to lose time, not to get caught, Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music Which can be made anywhere, is invisible, And does not smell.”

I can’t agree with this any more. If you find yourself always thinking “I’ll do the laundry, let me just find a good podcast first” you are in trouble. It’s so easy just to have constant input these days

At first, I thought you meant you could no longer agree with this.

You’re right, I worded that terribly. Not changing it though

Maybe I can suggest a middle-ground that is sort of best of both worlds: put on a podcast that isn't one that you're certain you want to be focused on?

I listen to The Daily and variety of others when I do dishes. When I'm certain I want to really ingest a podcast, I listen during dedicated time.

So, I think we're just conflating a bit - ok to have something in your ear while, in reality, you focus on just one thing - dishes. Just remember that you're not going to remember the thing in your ear all that much.

I think it’s not unlike other addictions. You end up using constant external stimulus to not have to deal with whatever is actually bothering you in your life.

The concept I was missing basically since smartphones become a thing was this thing called “solitude”

https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/on-solitude was a post that was on HN a while ago.

It basically agrees. We get some good things from solitude.

Before the internet I was just reading a lot. I'd like to get back to using books as a balm.

>> because I was always doing two things at once

I think this is part of it; aside from basic system 1 stuff (like breathing) we're actually flipping between 2 or more things constantly. Sure I can listen to music while I go for a walk, but I spend 2 minutes getting set up before I start, and I slow down whenever I need to change anything.

You're exactly right.

This is actually related to one of my pet peeves. I hate when people say they are good at multi-tasking.

You aren't. Multitasking isn't real. You are just good at switching tasks.

there has been research that suggests that people who say they are good at multi tasking are actually worse at it (or task switching) than people who say they are bad at multitasking.

Do you remember what the research was?

I keep having this argument about multitasking not being a real thing but I'd love some concrete research to back it up. I get the sense that people just feel more productive when "multitasking" Rather than recognizing the true cost of constant context switching.

I live in an old house without a dishwater. The 5-10 minutes spent doing the dishes are moments of deep thoughts, not dissimilar of the ones under the shower; maybe it’s the water…

I recently moved out of a house without a dishwasher. I'm less depressed now, because it's so much easier to keep my smaller apartment clean with an automatic dishwasher. I feel like I can cook without it being a four or five hour affair.

If it works for you, that's great, but I don't miss doing dishes manually.

It's personal. For me I have multiple conversations happening in my head most of the time, not quite simultaneously. Listening to something like a podcast occupies that part of my brain so it's less chatty - and I can move forwards more quickly with a simpler task (e.g. now the lawn).

I listen to white noise, on headphones, when I want to think.

Might be my imagination, but I think it's made a difference.

I think white noise is entirely different than a podcast. Good white noise shouldn't have anything that should be too distracting.

White noise is very distracting for me. Can't sleep with it on. It actually "hurts" as well - as in it feels like there's something pushing on my hearing constantly. I understand it helps some people but not me and if someone suggests using it to drown out other stuff that does not work for me. It does not make things better. Just bad differently. I need silence.

Same, but with brown noise[1] (not to be confused with the brown note[2]).

I find it less harsh and it seems to drown out office talk much more.

1. https://open.spotify.com/artist/4H1DT9A2uoT7pTVRDSolnk

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

The white noise I listen to sounds exactly the same as the brown noise in that playlist.

What's the difference?

The different "colors" of noise correspond to the altered frequency amplitudes of the random frequencies that make up the noise. White noise should be totally flat with an equal contribution of all frequencies. Brown noise has some of the highs rolled off. There's other colors like pink which have different characters.

The nature of the sound is still noise. To an untrained ear it might be hard to detect the different frequency reasponses and it is highly dependent on the quality of speaker you're listening to it on as each speaker imposes a frequency response curve on top of the noise itself.

If you want to detect the difference i'd recommend wearing headphones and switching back and forth between the two. There, you should be able to hear a difference assuming it's actual brown noise.

I use a website called mynoise.net which allows you to select from a variety of noises, one of which is white noise. The key to mynoise.net is that it includes an equalizer that allows you to "tune" your noise to the environment. When working in a loud library i will sit there with my headphones and mynoise.net on white rain and pull each equalizer knob up and down until it perfectly covers the noise around me. I do that for the entire frequency table and I've got a perfectly tuned white noise/sound blocker for the people's voices around me. It's honestly amazing

Thank you for that response.

The mynoise.net link is one that has never showed up when searching for white noise sites, so .. thanks :-)

(Either my search-fu is really that poor, or google really is that bad).

Distractions are not that bad. The idea is you complete work in small bites and then recharge instead of crossing the point of diminishing returns.

I use earplugs and it helps immensely getting into the zone and staying there.

(I get 3M ear classic NRR 33 earplugs 200 pairs at a time)

This is a great suggestion.

I've also heard that people who participate it memory contest will use blinders so they can better focus on the task at hand.

Yes, the emphasis on hurting our creativity is a red herring.

It first and foremost hurts our ability to focus, work, live our private life, pay attention to our partners, family, and friends, be aware politically, and so on.

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