Ask HN: How do you focus during the workday? - sflanagan
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sflanagan
For me, the most difficult part of transitioning from working for other people
to working on my own pursuits was a lack of structure. No deadlines, no daily
accountability to others, no ladder to climb. This is freeing, but makes it
very hard for me to get work done.

One option I'm considering is converting as much of my work as possible to
offline. I've already deleted social media, but even still, I find myself
getting more and more creative with ways to distract myself on my laptop
during the workday (for example: Posting this right now).

Wanted to feel out the community here, many of whom are in a similar position,
to understand if others have struggled with this and any strategies available
to me/education on the matter.

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acangiano
I made a video about my approach here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hMVy4aKEZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hMVy4aKEZ4)

But the gist of it is, you need to block distractions and be present in the
moment, focusing on the task at hand. When I'm not feeling it, I use the
Pomodoro Technique to get me started. Once the initial inertia is gone, I can
keep going even without the technique.

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tpmx
As a remote CTO in a smallish company, because of timezones.. it's relatively
easy to get alone time.

(I'm in Europe.)

In the morning (their afternoon): ~3 hours of communication/cooperation with
coworkers in Taiwan.

Then lunch/break.

Then ~3 hours of focused work, without any interruptions!

Then a break.

Then 1-2h working with the CEO etc in the US. Or more alone work if there's
nothing big to work on together.

