So if I were to take your advice (and honestly, I mostly do run like that) it means a lot of time spent doing something ephemeral with no real lasting benefit. I think your last point applies to me. I wish I could summon enthusiasm for projects rather than hobbies.
I like games so started doing a Unity course, it was fun, but then I got bored and stopped. No real reason, I think something else just caught my eye and it's hard to go back.
I want to learn marketing automation so I installed Mautic but haven't gone much past that. The plethora of options (what feature to try first?) is paralysing.
I help out with a Wordpress site and think making plugins would be neat, so I made one to help test some stuff, and that scratched the itch and now I don't really feel like doing it anymore even though it would be useful (and maybe profitable?) to learn.
These were all fun and interesting I just seem to lose interest very quickly (a few days) and want to do something with more novelty. Probably the most productive way this manifests is cooking, at least we get to eat a bunch of new recipes. Today I'm making bread but hopefully I can also finish setting up this email series :)
Exploring more interests and different ways of doing things changed a lot of things for me.
Things can also change when you know how to do things in a way that aligns with you. I used to hate cooking, but found my take on it.
Specifically what "enjoy" is being attributed to... which is _not_ the end result, but the _process_. You can't pick this up front, you have to just play and throw things away like you don't care (and you really don't care), just keep trying things until it feels enjoyable. I suspect people get stuck running uphill because they focus on end results rather than the process. In the most extremely obvious case, if you ask most kids what they want to be when the grow up (the end result) they predictably say astronaut or some lofty, hard to attain but awesome sounding end result, even though they have absolutely no idea if they would enjoy the process of becoming and being an astronaut.
... Focus on the process, i.e play, and care about nothing other than interest and enjoyment, you cannot pick the precise end result, you can only roll the marble along the most effective path to an unspecified "good" result.
What I noticed was that cravings for harmful substances or behaviors were (the craving itself) a form of suffering, a feeling of lack, while desires for healthy things were a form of positive emotion / eagerness.
It's probably best to literally ask yourself that question honestly, but a good rule of thumb might be: If it's not intellectually stimulating, it's probably pure entertainment. This is tricky because some good forms of entertainment will make you think, but probably not enough to be considered "learning" in the way we mean here.
Perhaps there are different kinds of 'enjoyment'. And perhaps I'm personally willing to accept some immediate suffering because I know I'm pursuing a greater enjoyment.
I'm certainly not advocating for (constantly) pursuing in-the-moment unbridled hedonism.
Something which may be related to this is the idea of type 1 fun and type 2 fun. I'm not sure where I heard this, but few people I talk to have heard of it.
Type 1 fun is the kind of fun which is enjoyable in the moment. For example, computer games and watching youtube videos.
Type 2 fun is the kind of fun which is enjoyable upon reflection but not necessarily in the moment. For example, running a marathon, certain moments of trial/despair when working on a big project.
When I first played Factorio I played it for about a week solid. I loved it. After that I could put it down and do other things. I now play it for a couple of days every couple of months when the mood takes me. This is type 1 fun for me.
I'm certainly glad a ran a marathon, and it is a very happy memory, but no way in hell am I going to do that again. Very much type 2 fun.
Some comments (not necessarily the one I'm replying to) seem to inversely correlate enjoyment with how hard a task is. The harder a task is the less likely it is to be enjoyable. Is this true? It certainly isn't my experience, but maybe I'm odd as I originally suggested.
Something which has also driven me is boredom. Being a freelance developer has given me a lot of free time. Certainly for me, type 1 fun only goes so far in conquering that boredom. Sure, play computer games for 6 months, but then that gets boring too. At least it did for me. Then what?
Then, for me, type 2 fun starts to look more appealing. Perhaps I should build a house? Sure its going to be hard, but I'm practical and I like leaning new stuff. Plus I'll be outdoors, and at the end of it I'll have a house. (FWIW, I actually did this)
Perhaps that's just being an "up" kind of person. I think it is also believing in one's abilities.
I don't think this is a cohesive point with a strong conclusion, but perhaps this series of paragraphs is useful in furthering a discussion.
You should to some extent enjoy what you are doing particularly when what you enjoy is in line with what you want to get out of life.
The OP asked for tools for focus. Most of us need tools to gain perspective because we are so busy day to day that we don't see how it will fit in with a full life. We all need tools to periodically take a step back and see how everything fits together. I think you do that naturally but it was not in your post.
BTW - I can tell you do not have young children. They will completely change your perspective.
I'm also "ADHD." Quotes because after 30 some years living with the diagnosis (and reconfirmed, both by others and myself), I still don't really know what it means. Something sometimes discussed is "hyper focus" for ADHD folks. Honestly I think this is just a normal expression of that other quality: a total inability to engage with something once it becomes boring. And excitement for those things that retain interest. Naturally, things that are confusing or complex tend to be impossible to initially approach, but gain momentum as you gather more clues and understanding.
I have great sympathy for those that try to go "the hard way." I did that before I got into software development. I denied my misery (of not software dev) for a decade because I understood that hard things are hard, and believed my misery would pay off.
Turns out, I didn't have all sides to the equation. Hard things are hard AND hard things that you are passionate about can be your way to contribute to the world. Doing something that is "hard" BECAUSE it is hard only because you have no passion in it is a bizarre but plausible scenario for what I imagine are many HN readers.
If instead I go deep on what I enjoy, I am happier in the short term AND long term. When I was younger, I would "waste" time on strategy/tactical games. But I think I actually gained some long-term planning skills from this, and developed a taste for "slow thinking" from this activity. And now those games are boring to me.
Last weekend I buried my head in functional/algebraic programming, even though my conscious brain was saying it was a total waste of time and distraction from my real tasks/goals. From the experience, I've learned that functional programming really isn't the silver bullet I want to believe it should be. But I trust myself enough to believe that even if the payoff isn't obvious, or even if it doesn't apply in my professional life, that my brain giving me enjoyment for the activity is enough of a signal that it was time well spent...even if I really can't justify it to anyone including myself.
You can point yourself in a general direction by setting up your environment towards that direction. Buy books in things you're interested in even if you never end up reading them. Give your body sunshine. Never go grocery shopping when hungry, and fill your fridge only with good foods. The key to letting your unconscious brain take over is that you only give it access to the sugar that your executive planning brain believes will work.
I learned orbital mechanics from Kerbal Space Program.
Assembly programming from TIS-100 and Microcorruption.
And … whatever the heck I learned from Factorio. Logistics? Abstraction?
If there isn't a game, you might try and make it a game. See how fast you can solve the example problems in the textbook. Get the high score on your flashcards. (This doesn't work for me, I get more interested in designing and building the game than playing it.)
You start out using NAND gates to build foundational logic gates (AND, OR, etc.), and gradually work your way up to building stuff like I/O multiplexers, memory, an ALU, and finally a working CPU using the building blocks you've created along the way.
Especially when you're production drops and you run out of ammo. And the bugs are coming. And power is running low. And you're low on iron-plate and you need that for ammo. Which you're now low on.
Practicing a musical instrument, falling while snowboarding, getting up early to be on the mountain for the sunrise.
The original poster is asking for ideas to help build enough discipline to power through the tough spots of a learning curve to get to where the proficiency pays off in enjoyment or other benefits.
We have so many easy diversions, that it's easy to train one's self to not do hard things.
I can study/practice/work for a future benefit, or I can play a video game (or browse hn) for fun now!
Training yourself to do hard things is harder. Maintaining a vision of the goal, getting satisfaction from expending effort, having empathy for your future self, denying yourself of immediate distractions/pleasures can each play a role.
This is not fun?
C D E E D C D E C
Practicing a musical instrument is not fun. Playing a musical instrument is fun. Practicing is mostly repeating scales and other patterns.
If you can enjoy that, you can enjoy it the whole way through. If you see it as a gauntlet of pain you have to cross before you get to the good stuff, you won’t get there.
Personally I go for smaller coding exercises, things like exercism.io, simply because I don't have the free time to embark on huge projects. I find that these are a good way to learn new languages. And they also remind me why I love programming in the first place, because I get to work in a pure problem-solving space, without the bearocracy, deadlines, etc, that I get in my day job.
I do feel that a large reason why mundane, boring or unenjoyable things are so hard has to do with overstimulation from low effort high dopamine activities. It becomes much easier to tackle these things if your base level of dopamine is low, so small achievements give you a nice boost. It’s very hard to keep the base level low, though, in our always connected high stimulation world...
Having kids helps with enjoying chores. "No babe, it's OK, I'll take the dishes and listen to my podcast. You just watch the kids."
Are you wondering how to break this cycle of content consumption? Do you need a break from the hedonistic treadmill of social media?
Perhaps we could come up with a trail of breadcrumbs that touches on decent YT vids. By leaving carefully coded comments. warms to idea That would leave the trail in YT itself which would self heal if multiply pointered properly, ie each point has a link forwards, backwards and to, perhaps a hub to use in the event of a bigger outage.
The above might be far more fun to deploy than a search engine or an old school WAIS/Gopher. After a while the host would cotton on and decide to either encourage or thwart. Game on!
sips more wine OK so who fancies playing stenography style games with YT comments to generate guided courses using YT vids?
It is, however, a piece of advice that will likely upset a lot of people, because, they'll say, not every activity worth doing is enjoyable. Which, obviously, is true. Sometimes learning something new or hard can be very difficult. But if you're motivated by your own interest and curiosity, the pain will actually be rewarding rather than soul-destroying.
I just treat my curiosity like a compass now, and let it take me wherever.
I can understand "do something if you enjoy it, if you stop enjoying it then do something else." And my first reaction is to modify my system so that there are checks for enjoyment in there...
(In fact, I do. E.g. when working on to-do lists I don't prioritize them anymore unless necessary, I just try to think what I feel like doing the most. But I had to decide that).
It's like analysis paralysis but in many parts of life. There are things I'm very bad at because I never stop the analysis, like housekeeping.
I'm currently trying to find out if I'm on the autism spectrum, so maybe that is what is different about some people.
Not meaning to judge anyone here. I'm mostly speaking from my own challenges. And obviously, I'm not talking about all games, TV shows, etc., either.
For example if you want to get stronger having a workout plan can help you get that goal. Going to the gym and do whatever will keep you in shape and if that keeps you motivated that's great, but some are motivated by doing something they can't do right now.
I’m sympathetic to the OP, because at times I feel the same way. I want to become proficient in new skills but sometimes I feel I’m doing it in an inefficient roundabout way.
Unfortunate for me, my street smarts and enthusiasm doesn't help me in achieving my next dream.
I would love to work for a specific big company but without structured learning, i will not beat that shitty interview barrier.
some like setting goals with their hobbies. achieving those goals takes discipline most of the time. there's nothing wrong with trying to optimize how go about cultivating that discipline.
of course if you're trying to be disciplined compulsively then that's a different matter.
I enjoy working on challenging engineering and software projects that fall into domains that interest me.
I do not enjoy having to hunt and pick through algebra concepts I was never good at in the first place so I can than spend more time on even more difficult mathematics before I can do much useful work on those aforementioned projects.
Don't take this the wrong way, I often exclaim this. You are quite possibly in the majority and I'm the odd one.
To me it has always seemed inherently clear that the way to approach life is to do something if you enjoy it. If you stop enjoying it then do something else. I will naturally need a break from doing something after a while (hours, days, weeks), and so I'll put it down and pickup something else.
As a recent article on HN mentioned, "enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points."
When it comes to self-guided activities such as this, there has never been a "should" or "best" for me. I just follow what I enjoy, perhaps guided secondarily by what may be useful. (Actually, I enjoy things that are useful, so perhaps that intertwines these concepts for me). I suspect I didn't thrive at university for this reason, while in the real world I know a number of people who would call me an overachiever.
PS. I have a few friends with some degree of ADHD. These friends may often feel overwhelmed by a large number of choices or tasks, to the point of inaction. I'm not saying this applies to you, but I just thought it was worth mentioning.