[HN Gopher] How to reduce 'attention residue'
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How to reduce 'attention residue'
Author : prostoalex
Score : 73 points
Date : 2020-02-07 21:34 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| zackmorris wrote:
| The related article in the sidebar is moderately insightful:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200121-why-procrastin...
|
| I've been working to overcome burnout that took me out of the
| game a year ago. What it basically came down to is that midlife
| crisis feelings had come to dominate my psyche. I found myself
| asking "what's the point?" about basic tasks that must be done.
|
| The start of a cure turned out to be separating a task into
| writing the todo list for it and then doing it afterwards. The
| next evolution of that is to also separate your evaluation of the
| work from the work itself, so that you don't wallow in critical
| feelings as you work. Try to be zenful and just concentrate on
| the now.
|
| Basically it all comes down to anxiety management. So for
| example, say you are cleaning and you get a text message to deal
| with an issue. I normally would make a mental note to remember to
| do it, since I lean towards intellectual pursuits. But it's
| better to add the item to the top of your todo list and stop
| thinking about it or the fear of forgetting it. Better yet, pause
| cleaning (since it's low-priority) and deal with the issue
| immediately.
|
| I've found that mechanizing the thought processes that I had
| taken for granted until they failed me boosted my mood. If you
| think of it as a scale from 0 to 10, our default with stress is
| to hover below a 5 (say 3). It takes effort to get above 5. But
| there is a stable orbit around 7 if you can maintain it for a few
| weeks. I think this is why people with a positive disposition
| have so much difficulty understanding people with anxiety,
| because physically they actually feel similar, it's just that our
| subjective interpretation of them are different:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU
|
| Edit: the above is a TED talk about changing this subjective
| reaction to stress.
|
| Edit #2: I accidentally shared the wrong video, I was thinking of
| this one:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rRgElTeIqE
| DantesKite wrote:
| This is a great comment. Thank you. I appreciate the insights
| very deeply.
| kingbirdy wrote:
| > The University of Melbourne has run a GYLIO week once every
| semester for at least a decade. It usually takes place around the
| middle of the semester in week five or six, and while the
| academic programme continues, the extensive social and partying
| schedule is paused to help students shift their priorities.
|
| The whole article falls apart right here for me, there's just no
| way this is true. I seriously doubt the University of Melbourne
| is in any way able to get its almost 50,000 enrolled students to
| stop partying for a week. They may run GYLIO events that week,
| but that doesn't mean it's going to get a bunch of college
| students to stop drinking.
| blyes wrote:
| It sounds like GYLIO is for all social events and commitments
| which can be a HUGE part of university life for many people.
|
| I wouldn't equate it to just "not drinking and partying"
|
| From the article: "Given the many stimuli of life today, with
| students who are juggling the many opportunities colleges offer
| across all the areas from sport and culture to volunteering and
| leadership, having a week to 'take a breath' and get things
| done is essential," she says.
|
| Also, many universities have the social scene orientated around
| the university social clubs and the university student
| association(s). Events and parties are often organised and run
| through these. Having them suspended for a week could easily
| have a huge impact on the 50,000 students, depending on the
| social culture of the university.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Maybe having endless to-do lists is more a symptom of an
| underlying issue that should be handled?
| [deleted]
| dboreham wrote:
| Sounds very similar to GTD
| mobattah wrote:
| Yep. I already do this.
|
| Saw it was trending on LinkedIn. There's a LifeHacker article
| explaining how to use Trello (Kanban) + GTD. I do that for my
| life tasks.
|
| I look at the board most mornings, it helps keep me on track
| with life admin as well as career goals.
| dboreham wrote:
| fwiw you can use github for this also: project == kanban and
| issues == tasks. Set the repo private, probably.
| benjaminsuch wrote:
| What is GTD?
| grzm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
| PeterisP wrote:
| Getting things done, one of the widespread methodologies for
| organizing your life based on a book with the same name by
| David Allen.
| [deleted]
| marcofatica wrote:
| tl;dr do your chores
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Some good tips for us mortals. I have admired Donald Knuth for
| many things[footnote] but especially for his stance on email
| which I use here as a stand-in for distractions. I wish I had 10%
| of his discipline!
|
| "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to
| be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the
| bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and
| uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of
| computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that
| knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have
| time for such study.
|
| On the other hand, I need to communicate with thousands of people
| all over the world as I write my books. I also want to be
| responsive to the people who read those books and have questions
| or comments. My goal is to do this communication efficiently, in
| batch mode --- like, one day every six months. " https://www-cs-
| faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
|
| [footnote] I'm from the physical sciences, not CS, but the man
| transcends departments!
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