Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time?

Re:Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time? by malux85 on Friday November 11, 2022 @12:32AM (#33557624)

Look at some code, hold your attention on it, think about the methods and types and interactions with other objects. Hold all of this in your working memory to the exclusion of anything else. See how long you can hold it for.

Now start loading more into your working memory, after you get N classes deep things will start to get fuzzier, you won’t be able to hold it all in your mind at once, you’ll get unfocused, and then go to hacker news.

Imagine if that fuzziness didn’t start, but you kept that sharpness of working memory easily. Imagine it was effortless to keep reading, and imagine other thoughts (biological needs or whatever) never distract your working memory.

That’s what it’s like for me, unfortunately I get terrible headaches after, and the amount of time it takes to recover causes a loss in productivity that is greater than the productivity I would have got working at a comfortable pace.

Much better is diet and exercise, with diet and exercise I have vastly increased my ability to focus and remember, much better than any artificial chemical enhancement.

There are no shortcuts

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Re:Ask HN: How do you focus on work for long periods of time? by encephalos on Friday November 11, 2022 @12:45AM (#33557683)

Those headaches can be hydration-related. A "life hack" (I guess addy/adhd hack) borrowed from the keto groups was to find a way to intake potassium a few hours in to it, in combination with your likely more than usual water intake. The suggestion I once found was low sodium V8s since they’re high in potassium to offset the sodium but keep a level of taste. Life changing to say the least for those days I would take adderall.

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