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Comment by bccdee | Hacker News Reader

Reading is good for this.

Sit down with a novel and leave your phone on the other side of the room. Read. If you get distracted or lost in thought, that's fine—just don't stand up. Stay where you are. When you're done being distracted, go back to the book.

It really makes a difference.

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I’ve thought this for a while too. Just as maybe you start working out if you want to lose some weight and build muscle, maybe reading a book is the exercise to regain your attention and focus.

The key is not having the phone nearby though. Just right now I’m typing this from bed despite having brought a book to bed.

I started doing "phoneless walk". For example in the morning before work, go outside, walk in a park for 20m and do not bring my phone. Not sure why, but not bringing the phone changed my thinking pattern. Even if I did not look at it anyway while having it.

I went further and just took keys: no watch, no wallet.

Also lengthened my 20 minutes to 40 minutes, with adequate buffer of course, and a known 40 minute loop.

Yea, it definitely starts the day right.

Sounds like mindfulness meditation to me.

Reading a book is like mindfulness meditation? Man, we really are living in a degraded age.

There are plenty of books that are quite a slog, so reading them allows for quite a lot of mind wandering and/or self-reflection.

No, realizing you wandered from intentional thought and redirecting your mind back to the task at hand is mindfulness meditation 101.

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