Ask HN: Concentrate on work when you have personal problems.. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Concentrate on work when you have personal problems..

12 pointsBSousa23 comments

I was just wondering if anyone has any techniques that they use to concentrate on their work/start up when their personal life is sort of a mess and the mind keep drifting to all sort of problems you have.

Cheers

View on HN

Hi.

I have been through this myself. It's not easy concentrating on work when something really messy has happened. I started to exercise a lot. Really pushing my body. That was good for me and kept me on the right track.

Yes. Especially running. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15769301

Also, if you take an hour to just write it all down, often that is enough to cease rumination. Another technique is to identify what is going to change before you can do something about the problem, and then when it comes to mind, remind yourself that you can do something when x happens.

Ditto. I was going through a separation / divorce and I just went to the gym religiously. I found sleeping was way easier when your body was tired. It also kept my mind fresh.

Also, talk to your friends and share your feelings and a few beers.

I have found that things can be distracting when you don't really have a strategy for dealing with them and have not taken any action on that strategy. So:

Step 1: Come up with a strategy (a bunch of steps to take to address the problem)...

Step 2: Take action on at least one of the steps. The more steps you take action on, the better you will feel.

Step 3: Vigorous exercise and plenty of sleep.

It's probably better to stop working for a while, try to fix the problems, and back to work. But it's way too subjective I guess. For instance for me the only problems that are really problems are health problems, all the rest is for definition trivially fixable by evolving yourself or by pragmatic steps.

I agree with most advice here:

a)Do Meditation and relaxation, yoga, self help books, fill your mind holes. b)Exercise regularly, this is important, if one day you don't have time to run, just go out and run for 5 minutes, but don't stop. c)Talk with friends about it.

For the kind of work I do, just putting myself to work won't help, e.g if I broke with my gf I can't help but I will be 85 per cent of my time thinking about her, or if someone of my family dies(my mind just says: F*CK THAT stupid work thing, this is more important!!.

Only when I solve the issues, I'm free, just look at Graham Chapman funeral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ&feature=playe...

If you're a programmer this can be troublesome because a focused mind is what is needed to be productive, whereas you could get away with many other types of work while letting your mind wander. I think the best approach depends on the type of problem(s), but many problems, like emotional ones, may need time to get better. One thing I always try to remember is that nothing lasts forever - good or bad. This can be a comfort in bad times.

A technique I use to be productive as a programmer is to try and finish a section of work in half the time. This mental demand won't let the mind wander. Promise yourself a reward at the end (such as being allowed to slack off at HN for a while ;). This works for both problems and procrastination, and can give you a positive boost for having accomplished a task. Try to break your workload (and problem solutions if possible) into smaller chunks to deal with, otherwise you can easily feel overwhelmed.

I will share something which worked for me...

Take life one hour at a time... or one short goal at a time. So before leaving from home for work, I would have one goal - "I need to get to work in 45 mins", that's it, no more thought about anything else.

Once at work, I would have this short goal "I need to check my mail in the next 30 mins", then "I need to work on this bug or feature for the next hour"... and so on.

This kept me on track without letting my mind get caught up in the problems, and become numb.

I also took 1 hour vacations... where I would go on an hour long drive to some nice place away from the city, and listen to music. It helped me refresh my spirits.

HTH.

First, thank you for all the tips. They are indeed appreciated.

I don't overwork, actually, I have flexible work schedule so these last days I'm actually underworking since it is very hard to concentrate (I'm a programmer) when I don't have much sleep and thoughts keep coming to my mind which distract me from my job (boss knows about it and he's being supportive but his patience can only go so far).

Unfortunately, this rump is mostly due to external factors I can't really change, only try to accept them as best as I can, but still wreaks havoc on my job which I need to pay the bills.

Having gone through the roughest patch in my life in the last year, I experienced this. The one thing that killed my productivity more than anything else was a mixture of A) Feeling like work was meaningless and questioning why I worked so hard in the first place and B) Sleeping 3 hours a nigh at most mixed with only eating a few meals a week.

Mostly it just took time for me to get back on a semi-normal routine, meditation, exercise, nutrition and rest are really really key factors though.

I hope things get better for you soon.

I totally agree about good nutrition. Rest and exercise also can be beneficial. I think it's important to take care of yourself physically and try to do positive things that make you feel good. One thing I might also try is to wake up very early and go out for a brisk walk. The new day may improve a down mood.

All of our comments may work for us, but there will be something that works for you, and that will have to do with putting whatever is out of balance for you back into a place so you can be healthy, happy and focused.

I find meditation relaxes me enough and gives me a sense of calm that is good enough to address both the personal problems and the work. Mainly this occurs because as my mind settles, I am more able to address the issues one at a time.

Good luck, you will move beyond this! Have hope :)

I know what you mean... take some time off and do something new, DO NOT overwork to get your mind off things. It will be good for you and what ever you're working on.

Agree, don't bury yourself in work. The problems do not go away, they just fester.

To me, it depends if you can do something about it. Burying yourself in work does take your mind off it. Of course, if you need to resolve it, then it's a bad idea, but in the case of say, a loved one in hospital, where all you can do is wait, then I like the solution of burying yourself in work.

Disagree, bury yourself in your work. I left my gf a year ago, have thrown myself into my work, setup my own business, and I am pulling in a lot more money from that. I can almost quit fulltime work.

Apparently this method works well for heartbreaks :).

I just ask myself, "Is there anything you can do to fix it right now?" If the answer is no, I feel less stressed and am more able to focus on other tasks.

When I was going through something like this, I was just coding like there's no tomorrow. It almost felt like I'd turned into a bot. This lasted for some 2-3 months or so after which things came back to normal. Looking back, it feels like its better to drown yourself in work rather than brood over your circumstances.

Talk to someone about it. I mean just really vent. Doesn't matter if what you are saying makes sense. You will feel better for getting it out. And if it does make sens eyou may even learn something.

In my case I found it dragging myself in to hacking/working on cool techy stuff more and more is a relief.

But no guarantee that you _fix_ your life problems this way.

My dad was a workaholic, he dived into work instead of working stuff out with me and the rest of my family. Maybe he could give you a few pointers.

Gee, someone has some pent up teenage angst...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com