

Ask HN: I'm scatter brained. What do I do? - biznerd

I religiously keep a journal to keep track of my thoughts. Two weeks ago, I had a &quot;great idea&quot; that I was dead set on executing. Now I have no desire to do anything with it. But I have a new shiny idea...<p>This has been going on since I can remember. What can I do?
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patio11
Accept that most "ideas" which have no actions behind them are relatively
meaningless flights of fancy, recalibrate your expectations such that doing
meaningful work on a project constitutes work and having great ideas
constitutes daydreaming, and if you desire to execute on a project, execute on
a project.

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read
You can do a few things, starting from defining what your goal is.

It seems what you want is to start a startup [1], but regardless I would
suggest you pressure yourself to do the opposite: to try not to have ideas,
and to try not to start a startup. Don't pressure yourself to pick an an idea.
Stop setting up expectations because they limit creativity.

The more general underlying principle is that constraint is no less important
than freedom. Constraints unleash the imagination and are key in creativity.
Limit yourself to less, and you start overflowing to a new direction.

The more specific advice is:

(1) Continue keeping a journal of your thoughts, but write in the morning,
preferably as soon as you wake up. Don't leave this for the evening. Besides
helping get the negativity out, it helps unearth fringe thoughts at the time
where your critical self who can kill them isn't awake yet to do so. Shoot for
writing for at least 30 minutes.

(2) Let thoughts pull you in any direction they want, and give them time to do
so. By time I mean three things: (a) make 1.5-2hrs of time for yourself to
"play" with thoughts like that uninterrupted from the world, (b) give yourself
(what seems to be) at least 2 weeks for these thoughts to develop, because
that's enough time for the subconscious to displace bad thoughts with better
ones [2] and to grow fragile thoughts (which you might even not be willing to
admit to yourself) into stronger ones, and (c) _when_ (NOT IF) you get stuck,
pursue other interests, because besides relaxing you it removes the
expectation to come up with a solution, which then frees your subconscious to
have thoughts it wasn't allowed to have before; thoughts tend to drift back to
what you want to pursue on their own.

(3) Since you are still incubating [3], there isn't a focused session yet
where you should go in "closed mode" shutting the world out. What you want to
do at this stage is gather material to feed your subconscious. So play.
Indulge. With constraint: your goal is _not_ to create something; it's to
play. When an idea grows enough it will pull you on its own for (what seems to
be) longer than 2 weeks, where the idea shuts the world out for you.

Also understand it's important to have and trust a process, and this one
appears to be well documented [4]. As John Cleese said, creativity is not a
talent; it's a way of operating. But faith is a key ingredient here [6].

I'd be happy to learn what you discover. And if you want to start a startup,
better to solve problems you have yourself.

P.S. I'm also sorry to say I disagree with the comment in [5] (closed now) on
confidence. It's important to lack confidence to some degree, because that's a
sign you are tackling something slightly beyond your reach. The real danger is
that if there is one person around you who makes you feel defensive you lose
the confidence to play and then it's goodbye creativity. So find people who
are equally willing to play with ideas. Just as you need confidence to take
decisive action -- to move into "closed mode" and execute when you are sure
you got it all right -- you also need to _not_ have confidence when you are
gathering material because you don't know what all the options are yet. If you
are confident from the beginning, you should be alarmed. Keep yourself honest.

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537091)

[2] - When you say you are scatter brained, you probably mean you are
displacing weaker thoughts with stronger thoughts. So you are already doing
part of what you should be doing.

[3] - You seem to be between 1 and 2 in
[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-techniqu...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-technique-
for-producing-ideas-young/)

[4] - The brainpickings link from [3] is full of links to related research.

[5] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7537566)

[6] - Robert Greene described this process as:

 _When it comes to mastering a skill, time is the magic ingredient. Assuming
your practice proceeds at a steady level, over days and weeks certain elements
of the skill become hardwired. Slowly, the entire skill becomes internalized,
part of your nervous system.

The only real impediment to this is yourself and your emotions - boredom,
panic, frustration, insecurity. You cannot suppress such emotions - they are
normal to the process and are experienced by everyone, including Masters.

What you can do is have faith in the process. The boredom will go away once
you enter the cycle. The panic disappears after repeated exposure. The
frustration is a sign of progress -- a signal that your mind is processing
complexity and requires more practice. The insecurities will transform into
their opposites when you gain mastery. Trusting this will all happen, you will
allow the natural learning process to move forward, and everything else will
fall into place. _

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funkyy
Usually if you are not sure about an idea it means it didnt grow on you. Many
people have issues with multiple ideas popping in their heads. I would suggest
planning each idea (making mini business/action plan). After 10-20 scraped
plans like that (that you spend at least ~10 hours developing) you will be
more willing to commit to one bigger idea and stop wasting your time. This
worked for me and first time in my life I committed to project that is 1 year
long. Good luck!

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fian
Do you consume a lot of caffeine? Honestly curious. I find myself in the same
state you report when I consume a lot (>2 cups) of strong coffee per day. New
ideas spawn at a great rate and I feel frustrated that I can't pursue them.
When I cut down my intake significantly my mind is more restful and I feel
able to focus more deeply. This helps greatly with filtering ideas and
choosing which to follow through on.

~~~
ja27
Also Aspartame. I know I have better focus without that junk in my system. Try
it for 30 or 40 days and see.

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gtirloni
Disclaimer: I'm currently reading "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
([http://www.amazon.com/Flow-P-S-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi-
ebook...](http://www.amazon.com/Flow-P-S-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi-
ebook/dp/B000W94FE6))

Perhaps you need to think a bit about your life theme, what you should
concentrate in and how it unifies your ideas. This subject comes later in the
book and my advice for you is to read the book from the beginning as it would
give you lots of food for thought and might help to give you focus in your
life as well as to your ideas (and what you worry about).

Regarding what do to with the multiple ideas, relax, you can't embrace the
world. Focus on the ones that have a deeper meaning to you.

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wulfgarpro
Stop caring

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sharemywin
what's your goal? get better at a skill? start a business? if it's starting a
business there's a whole lot more than having an idea. if you don't have the
resources to put behind something it's probably better not to try.

