
Ask HN: What is the best way to learn for the easily distracted? - Tycho
I&#x27;ve read lots of techniques designed to help people concentrate&#x2F;focus on the task at hand, but with modern media&#x2F;communications it feels like it gets harder all the time. Has anyone gone the other way and tried to harness their &#x27;distractability&#x27; rather than stifle it? In some settings its natural and beneficial to constantly switch focus (eg. a party, talking to different people; or when walking or driving, constantly updating your awareness of your surroundings). Maybe something like work on 4 or 5 things concurrently and switch to a different one the moment you feel distracted or bored?
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geofft
As a fairly easily distracted person, I find that I learn very effectively
when I have some concrete problem to solve, and much less effectively when I
just want to pick up knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The concrete problem
provides focus and more importantly boundaries that I wouldn't have from just
reading some docs or some textbook. Even studying for my ham radio exam was
like this: picking up the basic concepts was slow going, because I'd either
learn about something related but irrelevant or just lose focus entirely. But
when I started taking practice exams instead of trying to learn the material
first, I had specific goals of learning the questions I got wrong, which
helped a lot.

Changing setting also works for me. I get different types of work done on my
couch at home vs. at local coffee shops (and _different_ coffee shops are good
for different things). I hear part of this is that you form mental
associations with different places as being suited for different kinds of
work, and it's possible that your couch (or worse, your desk at work) is
associated with doing too many things, none of which are learning.

Also, I might mention that adult ADHD is a thing that exists and that doctors
can care for. (I myself went in to double-check that that wasn't my problem;
it wasn't, but it was worth being sure.)

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oldmancoyote
I have ADHD and it has effected every day of my life since I flunked out of
Stanford in 1968. I have a few coping skills that might help you. They focus
more on things involved in getting an education rather than directly on
learning itself, but are never-the-less powerful aids to learning.

First: Some kinds of work are better suited to ADHD folks than others. Try to
devise an academic career that focus on these activities. Writing on a word
processor is an example. The non-linear aspects of re-writing to improve what
you have written is a good fit to the non-linear thought processes ADHD folks
live by. Begin with stream-of-thought writing, then re-write as inspiration
dictates. Structured and Objective programming also is well suited because
visual rigorous structure makes is easy to refresh focus with a glance
following a distraction, and strict objective practice isolates a single
function into a small package that is easy to complete before attention
wanders. That programming takes place in a graphical/word processing
environment is an additional advantage for ADHD folks. Graphical work like
drawing or painting is easy to re-focus on for the same reasons. Any program
that offers a dynamic editing environment that permits non-linear editing or
permits ratcheting forward a task and easy review would have similar
advantages. Planning any activity or writing and organizing notes using a
outline processor works well. The point here is don't try to work like other
folks. find ways to work like you think: non-linearly.

Second: Dealing with procrastination. Getting started on a task is a massive
problem for ADHD folks. Read "Getting Things Done" and implement it on a
outline processor. You can't overcome procrastination if you don't know what
needs to be done. Next here is a little procedure that works wonders: Sit down
on the couch and work up a substantial feeling of guilt for not starting a
project. Then make a deal with yourself. If you get up and just get the job
started (e.g. scraping the dishes and putting them in the sink or launching an
IDE and defining the variables) you will have pushed the task forward and will
have earned the right to sit back down. Once you are started however, it is
such a relief to have started that there is no way you will want to sit back
down.

I realize that these programs are not specifically target at learning for ADHD
folk like you are looking for, but they do help quite a bit. For decades now I
have pondered what sort of program might directly address this problem. I've
been working on something along these lines for a few years now. It might help
someday.

Hang in there my friend.

~~~
froh42
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I have what is commonly being described as ADHD (oh, yeah, and I'm a software
developer ;-) ) and my son has it as well.

I refuse to see ADHD as an illness. It is a different way of thinking (and
unfortunatley does not fit too well in our modern indoor office world with 90%
"other" people).

All your examples led me up to FINALLY having a different word for ADHD that
does not involve "disorder".

Me and my son, we're having non-linear minds. Time to find non-linear things
to do, so we can be happy.

Thanks.

P.S.: Your coping strategies: I've developed roughly the same ones for myself
as well. GTD, done. Pomodoro, done. Non-linear job, done. They work quite
well.

~~~
dx034
While I generally support what you say, I think it's important to note that
coping with a disorder/condition/different mind is much harder for a child
than for an adult.

University offers some flexibility on how to work, and work in companies often
even more. But schools mostly can't offer that flexibility, so treating ADHD
(or at least discussing it with teachers) can be very helpful.

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Broken_Hippo
I've not been diagnosed with ADD, though I show signs of it and mild dyslexia.
Sitting in a quiet library with kids shuffling papers? That's a horrible
environment.

So the first things first: Figure out how to deal with the environment. I
prefer either to be in a _silent_ house, alone, but that isn't doable often,
so I tend to like music or something like NPR, BBC News, and so on because
that minimizes the effect. Sometimes headphones are a bonus.

Classrooms are different altogether. Granted, I recently completed 2 years of
language classes (Norwegian, because I moved here). The first year was
difficult. Class moved slowly, and I'd get bored. I doodled in class to help
me focus, and always took notes. Anything physical to keep me in-tune with the
words. The second year was much better, as I was learning health-care stuff
along with the language. I stopped doodling because the pace of class was on-
target. In addition, we'd change activities often.

Studying on my own has proven more difficult, as I procrastinate. I'm going to
need to start being more interactive. My solution is more a work-around: I'm
gonna volunteer, probably to talk to someone elderly that requested some
company. I'm more motivated to broaden my language skills this way. And I try
to do this sort of thing as much as possible.

Frequent breaks are another solution, if you can. It isn't so bad to commit to
15-30 minutes to study something... Kinda like the advice they give to people
starting to meditate.

And that's all I have for now. Much luck to you, your struggle is real.

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shermanyo
Your question specifically called out 'learning' as opposed to 'focus', so I'm
going to offer a slightly different take to what I've read below. (all great
advice, especially daily management)

I've found the biggest factor is having a clear picture of what I'm trying to
learn, with a practical use case / example to work on, which ultimately
becomes my reference point.

Learning then becomes a process of making the example work to achieve the
expected result. A series of problems I can tackle, using my "mental
skillness" rather than fighting it.

There is overhead in context switching, but I balance that with the mental
effort of fighting distraction.

If I feel like I'm struggling to focus on my current task (say, _reading_
about "High Availability and Failover across a set of database nodes"), I'll
switch to a different task that's still related to getting my example working
(maybe draw some diagrams to visualize the pieces I've learned about so far,
or set up a few servers and install the database software ready to configure,
etc...).

The trick is to try to make constant progress relevant to what you're
specifically trying to learn, but vary the sort of stimulus you're feeding
your brain to keep yourself engaged.

I've come to see my subconscious as my personal OS:

'struggling to focus' is like blocking that thread on I/O or some mutex lock.
I see it as an indicator to give some CPU time to some other thread (ideally
all part of the same high priority 'process'), flush the buffers, etc...

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webmaven
I don't have specific advice, as your particular causes may be very different
than mine. I would however recomend the following books as good starting
points:

"The Information Diet":
[http://www.informationdiet.com/](http://www.informationdiet.com/)

"Mindset":
[https://mindsetonline.com/thebook/buythebook/index.html](https://mindsetonline.com/thebook/buythebook/index.html)

"Peak":: [http://peakthebook.com/](http://peakthebook.com/)

"Deep Work": [http://calnewport.com/books/deep-
work/](http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/)

~~~
jtcond13
+1 to "Deep Work". Cal Newport's "Straight A Student" is also worth the price
if you're interested in this stuff.

~~~
kchauhan
I just purchased it based on suggestion. Book mentioned HN at page #12.

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tchaffee
Coursera offers a course about "Learning How to Learn" which I found very
helpful. Once you understand what's happening in the brain it can motivate you
to do what works (e.g. spaced repetition). In that course, they talk about
using the Pomodoro method for tacking procrastination and distraction. It
works pretty well for me. Especially if you reward yourself at the end.

~~~
afarrell
The things about sleep that the course mentions were the most impactful for
me. I became 10x more productive and disciplined when I got myself of getting
9 hours of sleep at the same time every night.

~~~
tchaffee
Because of my prior knowledge on how the subconscious works to solve problems,
I had a feeling that I understood that part of the course better than most
people, but maybe not. I do wish though that they would really highlight just
how much work the brain can do on its own if you prime it a little with
information on a daily basis. Same goes for sustained aerobic exercise which
creates new neurons that can be recruited to remember new things.

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amorphid
I've got ADHD. Here are a few things that have helped me...

* Asking myself if I really need to do something. If the answer is no, not doing it is one thing less to distract me.

* Asserting myself by saying "I'm not finished" when interrupted in a conversation (helps when you give others a chance to speak)

* Turning off the ringer on my phone whenever possible.

* Choosing a career that is both interest (you wanna pay attention to it) and doesn't demand being interrupted as part of it's duties (such as answering a phone).

* Working with people who naturally want answer questions, because reading is harder.

* Noise cancelling headphones.

Medication might help, but you'll have to figure that part out yourself.

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spoonie
To build discipline and focus, try using a timer. Variations of this are
called the pomodoro technique. Set a time for work and a time for
play/breaks/distractions.

One possibility is 45 minutes of working, 15 minutes off. Use the 15 minutes
to read HN, reply to emails or IMs, read about that thing you just remembered
on Wikipedia. If you have ideas or compulsions that get into your head and
feel urgent, take a moment to write them down to look at during your break
time.

If your work is less pressing or your distractibility is more intense you
could try 15 minutes on and 25 off.

The cool part about this technique is you can increase the amount of work time
as your focus improves.

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setgree
Person with ADHD here; the following works for me, YMMV:

1) short afternoon bike ride; I'm typically losing focus about an hour after
lunch and need to get outside;

2) Terrible at learning in a classroom, excellent at learning from video
lectues and textbooks where I can pause and take notes;

3) drink a lot of water and coffee so you have to get up to go to the bathroom
a lot, change of scenery is really nice;

4) I disabled my facebook account and put my browser on Desktop-screen-2 so I
totally shift over to a new environment when checking the internet;

5) Found a job in which constantly checking email and paying attention to new
stimuli is a virtue.

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jimsojim
Context switching has more overhead cost than we usually estimate. I've found
that focusing on a single activity (assuming that activity requires
considerable mental effort - maths/CS etc) in a day, and then gradually
increasing that count to 2-3 activities over weeks/months while carefully
measuring the context switch cost, has been consistently effective for me.
Instead of fighting distractions and draining your mental energy, use simple
tricks tips to block them out, such as - switching your phone off putting it
in a separate room, or blocking websites etc - the idea is to create enough
friction/blockage to make it difficult to indulge or even get started with
them.

During the breaks from your work, every once in a while try to push yourself
to seek boredom - this does 2 things - first, you're building your will power
against those quick dopamine hits of info/media we keep craving for, and
secondly depriving your brain of any kind of interesting stimulus or any
mentally stimulating task makes your brain better at seeking those _through_
your work, because your brain is not getting it from elsewhere. On other
occasions, you can put that time for your hobbies, too. Generally, you should
try seeking for activities that require longer attention span and are fun.

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shosko
ADHD here, managing since high school. Thankfully no more pharma drugs, here's
my tricks:

* Noise cancelling headphones. Especially useful with no music playing through it. If music, ambient or techno without words seem to help depending on what I'm doing.

* Understanding your most productive times of day and taking advantage of them (for me, its the morning. Afternoon is the worst)

* Reducing all distractions as much as possible. Turning off WiFi, putting your phone on silent (or better, keep it in your bag out of sight) really helps.

* Making lists. Breaking things down into smaller tasks that I can see myself completing and then giving myself small rewards for completing them.

* Rest and daily exercise is a BIG DEAL. Exercise especially helps my willpower and ability to stay focused throughout the day. Try Yoga!

* Natural light keeps me feeling fresh. Artificial light wears me out.

* Take walks on your breaks, avoid surfing the internet or extra stimulation... doesn't help and makes focusing even harder.

* Marijuana. Low doses of indica dominant strains either via edible or smoked helps keep me locked and focused way better than any stimulant drug.

~~~
shermanyo
Agree with everything on this list, especially the focus on rest, and walking
on breaks (physical distraction vs mental).

I've found the latter especially helps to 'reset' when I start to get a bit
fuzzy. I think its a combination of the Gruen Transfer coupled with forcing
myself to snap out of whatever I'm spinning my wheels on.

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gukov
There are no magic tricks. You're either getting something done or simply
reading about getting something done, which is just another form of
procrastination ([http://jamesclear.com/taking-
action](http://jamesclear.com/taking-action)).

Oh, and humans can't multitask. It's also more "expensive" to having to
restart a task.

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kdamken
Probably adderall, assuming you can get it prescribed.

Otherwise, I've heard good things about caffeine with L-Theanine (though I
haven't tried this combo yet myself). Apparently L-Theanine takes the jitters
out of caffeine and lets you focus more.

~~~
sidcool
Unless diagnosed please avoid pills.

~~~
kdamken
Yep - which is why I said if you could get a prescription. Don't just take
random pills because you self diagnosed.

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segmondy
To slog through it, you must learn to work especially when you don't want to.
Swear to yourself to do only one thing and finish it. Don't reward yourself
with additional projects. Single task like hell. Break work into smaller
components. Give yourself no break when you don't want to work, no tv, no
games, no internet, no eating. Just sit, stare at your work till you cry or
get back to it. I'm speaking from experience, the struggle is real but you
must tough it out.

~~~
downrightmike
I had a guitar tutor that said that you need to learn the song until you hate
it, and practice it until you love it again.

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afarrell
I've found it useful to pair-study something. I've also found it useful to
just sit next to someone who is also studying/working. If you and the other
person are aware of your tendency to distraction and commit to keeping the
both of you on track, it is a big help.

You can also use a screensharing program like appear.in to do this remotely.
Anyone in this thread should feel free to email me if you want to spend a
weekend learning alongside someone else. Bonus points if you are in London.

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EliRivers
Do yourself a favour; remove the distractions. The first few times, you'll
probably give up pretty quickly, but as with everything, you'll get better at
it.

~~~
Tycho
Sometimes removing the distractions is not an option though, eg. in the work
place.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
My dad liked to go to work at 5 AM. (Official start time was 7:30). He'd get a
couple hours of no distractions, being able to really get stuff done. Then
he'd be there when other people needed to interact with him.

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deegles
Unfortunately, I don't think there are any tricks. Focus is a learned skill
just like anything else. Try practicing meditation, removing/reducing constant
attention sinks from your life (such as HN or Reddit), making sure your sleep
and diet are good, and setting yourself up for success by removing excuses and
distractions for the work you want to get done. Make a schedule and keep to
it. It's not easy. Good luck.

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ommunist
Active noise cancelling headphones. Also, very important, train attention
span, just by doing that ancient 'trataka' exercise, when you look at small
flame as long as you can with no blinking, tears will fall, but its ok. Do it
at least once a day. In a month you will gain some terrific skill of
controlled attention span.

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tuna-piano
Question (as someone who has been told by friends and family he has attention
problems but has never been diagnosed with anything):

What is the difference (or where is the line drawn) between laziness and
attention issues? Do they have similiar affects (procrastination, etc)

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autotune
Context switching is not a good way to do things. I've found listening to
music and using my tendency to get distracted on finding songs and artists
that go for 10's of minutes to keep myself occupied while doing work.

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ReedJessen
Adderall.

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bossx
Headspace.com learn to focus

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masscontrol
I visualize how the information being studied could apply to my particular
situation, then I practice what was studied in the same day.

