Ask HN: I feel like I've destroyed my attention span. How do I get it back? - joelg
======
anderspitman
I've been working on this lately as well. Not finished with the process but
here's a few things I've tried:

* Read part of a book before starting work.

* No HN/reddit/etc until noon.

* No Facebook until 6PM.

* Disable almost all notifications.

* Only check emails/texts once an hour at the top of the hour.

* Use software that respects my desire for focus.

The last one is currently the most interesting to me. When I was going through
disabling all my notifications, I realized you can't truly turn them off on FB
messenger. You can only mute them for up to 24 hours. After that I decided to
remove any software from my life that was created to manipulate users rather
than empower them. That's mostly meant switching to OSS apps and self hosting.

[https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-
selfhosted](https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted) has been an
incredible resource

~~~
nukeop
How about "no facebook, period"?

~~~
anderspitman
Honestly since I removed the app from my phone my usage has dropped
drastically. Haven't missed it much

------
andrei_says_
Attend a 10-day vipassana retreat. They are donation-based and all over the
world.

[https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/locations/directory](https://www.dhamma.org/en-
US/locations/directory)

This will bring back + tremendously improve your attention span, in 10 days,
guaranteed.

Once you leave the retreat, you will encounter the same environment and habits
which robbed you of it. Which you will need to address.

Knowing that social media is being intentionally weaponized to extract
attention from its users is helpful as your attitude toward social media and
internet usage is likely a big part of it.

~~~
mr_overalls
This is a bit like recommending a marathon to someone who is sedentary.
Building a daily meditation habit of at least 20-30 minutes of sustained
attention might be a good preliminary step.

~~~
andrei_says_
I disagree. Isolating from an environment which supports constant interruption
and does not support focus, is incredibly important.

Also, meditation is not running, meditation is rest.

------
liamcardenas
Nutrition.

I have struggled quite a bit with attention. The single most effective thing I
can do (more effective than medication) is to improve my diet by cutting out
carbs. I find if I am in a mild state of ketosis (greater than 0.3), I can
concentrate way better. I am not advocating that everyone go on a ketogenic
diet, but cutting out refined sugar and eating only healthy nutrient-rich
carbs does wonders for my brain, i.e. salad, blueberries, kale, etc

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
It's not just me! I thought I was imagining things, but changing my diet
recently has had a positive impact on my ability to focus and be productive.

~~~
contingencies
You can test this easily within a single day.

Get up a little early and go eat a decent breakfast one day. An easy way is to
go to a five star hotel and eat breakfast at the buffet, they always have an
out-of-hotel guest deal, heaps of fruit, salad, etc. Ignore the cost, this is
an experiment.

Check your energy levels and achievements in the late afternoon and see if you
don't feel noticeably more awake and energized versus regular diet.

 _Secrets of the illuminati, #18283: breakfast is non-negotiable._

------
rossdavidh
Meditation is, essentially, concentrating on one thing (e.g. one's breathing,
a phrase) for an extended period. It's kind of like using a piece of gym
equipment to exercise just one set of muscles, repeatedly. So, how does one
increase attention span? Practice paying attention, in an environment with
fewer distractions, and keep practicing until you become good at it again
(don't expect that to happen quickly).

Also, you accidentally put "it" instead of "I" in the question. Perhaps
related?

~~~
sli
Something I always like to add to suggestions of meditation is this
clarification: clearing your mind completely is _not_ the right way to do it,
because completely clearing your mind is nearly impossible. At least for most,
maybe some folks can do it. I cannot, and I don't know anyone who can.
Instead, it makes me _more_ susceptible to distraction, because brains want to
be brains, they want to think and do work.

A nice side-effect of that approach, or perhaps the whole point of it, is that
you can now consider meditation as a general thinking tool rather than a more
specific way to deal with some specific problem as in OP's case (solving
attention problems).

Instead, like OP says, meditate on something instead. Consider if the
difference between zero, one, and a million. Zero thoughts works but is hard,
one thought works pretty well, and one million thoughts is simply restating
the problem.

~~~
tedmiston
I've been meditating for a year or so. I think it's important to be clear
about what meditation is and is not. I don't look at meditation as a way to
_clear_ my mind, as you said, that's nearly impossible to force; rather, I
think of meditation as changing the way I associate with the thoughts that
pass through my mind. Instead of stopping and engaging with each one, I let
them pass on by like clouds in the sky. Disconnecting from the thoughts like
that has allowed me to arrive at a clear mind.

------
SanderSantema
I feel like I'm struggling with this problem to. Somewhat luckily my attention
span was never that big so I haven't lost a lot.

I think most of the things we do in day to day live consist of habits combined
with choices we make. I think our attention span is mostly a habit.

The things I do in day to day live ingrain some habits. I like to read a lot
on the internet, learn about things. However a lot of the content on the
internet currently focuses on short attention spans, things like reddit
(clicking on a few pictures, opening an impressive title) and social media.
They focus on short attentions spans because it's easier to keep someones
attention that way. For me this formed some habits which fit short attention
spans like opening up a lot of pages and reading small parts of them. For me
this lead to fast short term rewards.

Reversing this habit of a short attention span is like an exercise. Staying
away from sites which cater to short attention spans and only opening one page
at a time which I read completely. In that way I try to learn a new habit. I
don't use reddit a lot anymore and I try to use hackernews instead because
there are a lot more longer articles here of greater quality, requiring longer
attention spans. Maybe that could help you. But all of this is obviously
completely personal and anecdotal.

Some things which I found helpful: Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit (Book
about habits) The Coursera course: Learning How to Learn (Since learning
requires a long attention span)

Ask HN More Like Hackernews:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734303)
Contains a lot of sources like longforms.org,
[https://aeon.co](https://aeon.co) and
[https://aldaily.com](https://aldaily.com) websites which have content which
requires long attention spans.

Possibly there are some things in this post which are a bit unclear I've got a
bit of trouble writing English since it's not my native tongue. If you have
any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

------
matiasz
In my experience, the best way to improve my attention is by practicing
śamatha meditation. The śamatha practices that entail mindfulness of breathing
are thought to be ideal for those living in modernity.

The best introduction to śamatha that I’m aware of is B. Alan Wallace’s “The
Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind.”

------
sincerelysleepy
I've been heavily working on this lately as well. Here are my best tips in
order of importancy:

1) Get off your phone as much as possible. Disable all notifications if you
can except text / call. Delete apps you don't need to aimlessly check out of
boredom (Social media, Reddit, HN, etc).

2) Meditate in some form. For me, this is yoga and taking soothing baths in
the morning before work. Clearing your head and getting away from technology
for a bit. Allow your brain to breath and think without information being
shoved in it's face.

3) Practice focusing on context switching instead of "multi tasking". Realize
that as humans, we cannot actually multi task. Assuming you work at a computer
all day, don't have streams up, a million tabs, emails, chat services, etc.
You only need to have open what you NEED open and nothing else.

4) Exercise. I've found running in short 2 mi increments 3-4 times a week
really provides me the energy I need to complete the above 3 items.

Cheers and good luck mate!

------
markwhalen
I went to local bookstore bought 15 books. Tried one at a time to read them
instead of playing with laptop/iPad/ iPhone . By 7th ( not making it through
7th one I could enjoy reading 8th book again and enjo reading now to still my
brain at end of day . Not a cure all but it helped me regain a bit of focus .
Hope this helps

------
DoreenMichele
You don't really give details, so this is pretty scatter shot:

1\. Look to your health. This is a complex topic and I have zero info about
your health, but the short version is _a sound mind in a sound body._ Health
issues of various sorts tend to erode cognitive function.

2\. Find a way to take control of your life, to set goals and carve out space
to pursue them. The problem isn't that social media (etc) clamors for our
attention. The problem is that we feel obligated to give it. Use notifications
for your purposes, but don't let them make you a slave to social media or
other people. There are various techniques for doing this, but I think the
essential detail is exercising agency on your own behalf.

3\. Take a break from your life. Go on vacation or change jobs or move to a
new place. Getting out of your usual context can help you see it more clearly.
This can clarify where the problem lies.

------
floatingatoll
This will sound sarcastic, but it’s not.

Stop visiting HN more than once a day. Repeat this for every “news”/“feed”
site and app that you use. It sounds completely nuts, but it forces you to
stop slicing up “read the news” (a focused activity) into “read the news
distractedly” (a timesliced activity).

Shut off push notifications for anything that is not money/shipping related or
a direct IM with individuals. Email notifications off, news and feed
notifications off, social site notifications off, Twitter “favorited”
notifications off.

Turn off notification sounds for everything that’s left except direct messages
from human beings or e.g. Pagerduty.

Aside from direct IMs — I got a total of 10 pushes yesterday. None made a
sound. None required a response. None required interrupting my focus.

Do this for a month, on desktops, laptops, mobile. Your focus will improve
dramatically, simply for having not wasted all your brain’s dopamine on “new
email alert sounds”.

EDIT: Meditation is far more challenging when your brain is constantly looking
out for the next “new notification” ding. It took me nearly a month to
overcome the Pavlov ding response when I first implemented this approach in
2005. You’re going to hear a lot of phantom dings for a long time.

EDIT2: If you haven’t already done this muting approach, set your push
notification sound to the red alert klaxon from BSG (three repetitions) – or
any red alert sound from any sci-fi show. If ever there was a way to amplify
the visceral effects of notification sounds to your conscious thought level
for evaluation and consideration, that’ll do it.

EDIT3: If you’re autism spectrum, you may have “executive dysfunction”, which
is a willpower disorder of sorts. Focus is willpower-related. There’s no magic
fix, but awareness is half the battle, and it may offer steps you can take to
reduce your life’s “willpower” drain so that you can have more of it for
“focus” instead of whatever.

~~~
CookieCats
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.

~~~
floatingatoll
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.

------
closeparen
Reading novels seems to help for me. More directly, there’s always meditation.

~~~
soulbadguy
Meditation is frequently mentioned in this context, is there a specific
meditation design for for attention span ?

~~~
rand_r
There is a basic meditation technique where you just lightly focus your
attention on your breath. When you notice you’re not thinking of your breath,
which will happen 10s to 100s of times a minute, typically, you bring your
focus back to your breath.

It’s incorporated into a general school called “mindfulness” which you read
more about. A book I’d recommend for beginners is “The Joy of Living” by
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.

The theory is that training your mind to focus on something mundane like your
breath for 10 minutes, you will generally train the capacity of your mind to
direct focus.

This greater focusing ability will come in handy when you want to focus on
other specific things without being distracted as easily, like listening to
someone in a conversation or going through the debugging process for a bug.

------
amorphous
One crucial skill required to have a meaningful life is the ability to say no
to most things. It took me a long time to learn this. There are many good tips
mentioned here, but those are mostly tactics that work for a limited time. At
least that's the case for me. I needed to understand the price I'm paying. The
more I'm able to say no, the more freedom I gain.

------
rwieruch
If you are looking for books about getting your attention back, I can only
recommend Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [0] and Deep Work by Cal Newport [1]
I wrote an extensive blog post about both books (which happened to be on HN
too), because they are kinda life changing.

\- [0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow)

\- [1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-
work](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work)

\- [2] [https://www.robinwieruch.de/lessons-learned-deep-work-
flow/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/lessons-learned-deep-work-flow/)

~~~
allanmacgregor
Read both and tried to follow the Deep work kind of model for a while, is
harder than it looks. Specially being in a position where I don't a 100%
control my time.

Fortunately, for the past year I been slowly setting up things in a way where
I can defend my time better.

------
chc
This is basically the goal of meditation (mindfulness meditation in
particular). I'd give that a try. At first, it will probably feel like your
lack of concentration makes meditation impossible, but that's actually
completely normal and even sessions where your mind won't sit still can be
productive in the long run.

------
soulbadguy
I would also love to head about some systematic (scientifically proven ? ),
way to expand or restore my attention span.

------
kleer001
Remove your regular distractions. Minimize the things your attention can me
moved from.

Though, you may be a 'hunter' type and it'll be a life long fight.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis)

------
TheAlchemist
You may want to read Cal Newport blog (the guy that wrote the book "So good,
they can't ignore you" \- he has some great insights. Also, he is starting an
experiment in January - 'digital declutter' \- it may be a great opportunity
for you.

------
chad_strategic
For me exercise, weightlifting, bike riding and basketball are great. I love
playing basketball, no Facebook, Twitter, code, news feeds, fake news, just
chase the damn ball.

After physical exercise I feel it’s easier to concentrate.

------
aecs99
A lot of very good answers here. Here's my take on this:

I went through a similar stage in my life. I was recommended mediation,
exercise, etc., and I did religiously follow those. However, I never saw much
improvement. Nothing helped and I felt that I was loosing it - until one day
when I said enough is enough, I'm going to fix this no matter what.

You see, the problem in recommending meditation is that it doesn't always
connect to you the same way it connected to me or someone else. _That_ was my
problem. I never had the interest and never even felt that meditation will fix
my attention span. The more I tried it, the more frustrated I was. That is
when I realized I had to do something different. To be clear, it’s not that
meditation won’t work for me. It’s just that I had to practice meditation in a
different way.

I figured that meditation is just a way of practicing awareness and
mindfulness. To do this, I first listed what makes me distracted most. The
first reason I found was that I wasn’t happy in my life. I listed whatever
made me unhappy, and tried coming up with reasons to counter them. This is
typically one of the main reasons why we loose our focus. Something else is
bothering you more than what you want to do. Address that first, and rest of
the tasks become easy. _Tip #0: Spend some time to introspect. Identify root
causes for your discomfort and come up with whatever reason that helps you
feel less stressed about those._

Next, I realized that I spent too much time on YouTube, Netflix, Facebook,
Instagram, etc. The first thing I did was to cut them off. Just check them
less frequently (say, once a week) that you are used to before (say, once
every few hours). You’ll have some withdrawal symptoms in the first one week,
but it gets way better after that. Trust me, you will do just as good without
those - I’m a living example. _Tip # 1: Identify what distracts you most and
try to cut it down._

Next, I wanted to _practice_ mindfulness. To do this, I picked something I
used to enjoy before, but not anymore. Painting, sketching, reading, watching
old movies, documentaries, reading history, listening to podcasts, listening
to music, etc., were all the things I used to do before, but lost interest
just because I was loosing my attention span. So I forced myself to start
finishing what I started. Take listening to music, for example. I’d start a
song, and skip it within a minute just because I used to get restless. I
started forcing myself to listen to the whole song. I started forcing myself
to finish the whole article, the entire book, the entire movie. The best part
of doing these is that you’ll know exactly when you’re getting derailed. I’d
take a break - pause the book, pause the movie - and reflect on why I want to
skip, and why I want to re-focus. That helped me tremendously. I’d take a few
minutes and get back to my goal. _Tip #2: Identify your hobbies and practice
mindfulness so that you don’t get stressed more than you currently are._

Then I moved on to my actual work. I’d pick a topic that I “sort of know“ and
focus on getting better at it. For me, it was selective topics in coding. Just
because I practiced mindfulness with other tasks (i.e., hobbies), I was aware
of when I was loosing track of my work. And every time I lost track, I’d
pause, take a short break, and force myself to get back at it. _Tip #3:
Practice mindfulness not just at some tasks, but at every task._

Overall, I’d say pay attention to your actions. You’ll get better at this.
Give it time, and be patient - nothing comes easy. I hope this helps!

------
africajam
Listening to classical music really helps me. It took a while for it to make a
difference but now it has become my way of signalling to my brain that its
time to concentrate.

------
bobcat9
Start reading books instead of consuming digital content piecemeal.

------
amriksohata
Audio hypnotherapy, meditation, chanting aum

------
elango
Manage your phone better
[https://hackernoon.com/@elango_11461](https://hackernoon.com/@elango_11461)

------
cascada
meditation

