Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back?

Re:Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How... by CookieCats on Thursday December 28, 2017 @03:09PM (#16024529)

I started doing this about a week ago, and it's nice to hear it took you a month, because it's kinda been painful this past week.

I still unlock my phone and look at the homescreen only to realize "oh yeah, I removed that stuff so there's nothing to do here". I'd thought that by removing social/news feeds, I would find something else to do with my thoughts by necessity, but really nothing has replaced the "open phone for 30 seconds to find something briefly entertaining".

I was expecting to be bored, but it's more of a low-level frustration at all times except when I'm focused on something, like I know I could be finding some trivial but interesting thing.

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Re:Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How... by floatingatoll on Thursday December 28, 2017 @03:38PM (#16024726)

I’ve found that there are times where I’m frustrated at everything and nothing is interesting now that I’m not always seeking 30 second bites.

Unexpectedly, that’s turned out to be a key hallmark sign for “I need to take a nap”, and sure enough, I usually end up with 20-30 minutes of hard REM sleep and then I’m interested in the world again.

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Re:Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How... by vletrmx on Thursday December 28, 2017 @03:32PM (#16024680)

I just started using an app called Offtime. It will lock you out of certain apps for a period of time. I'm finding it to be extremely useful so far.

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