[HN Gopher] How I regained concentration and focus ___________________________________________________________________ How I regained concentration and focus Author : aiobe Score : 451 points Date : 2022-08-01 11:22 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.innoq.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.innoq.com) | thenerdhead wrote: | This is very surface level. These tips can help for periods of | time, but they won't last forever. | | I think the things that do change your perspective forever though | are philosophy and even other's philosophies on attention in | general. | | Reading books like "Four arguments for the elimination of | television" and "Amusing ourselves to death" changed how I view | our attention. | | Reading older books like "tao te ching" or "meditations" gave me | perspective into how much my attention matters. | smm11 wrote: | Duh. | davidkuennen wrote: | Hard for me since I'm addicted to my own app that I'd have to be | productive for. | adverbly wrote: | It always seems odd to me when it is literally writers or other | online content creators who are complaining about being | distracted by other writers or online content creators. | | I'd love to see someone write a blog post about why they think | their own content is good for others to consume while the content | that they were willfully consuming was not. | giantg2 wrote: | My distraction is from all the family stuff I have to deal with. | My lack of concentration is because I lack motivation - I don't | see any reason to try hard at work since it's all politics and | BS. | BLKNSLVR wrote: | Hi friend! | | My family stuff is what keeps me going though. My work is a | basket case at the moment, 12-month contract ends in 4 weeks, | and it's almost a full time job applying for jobs. | | I've had three managers in my not-quite 12 months, none that | I've worked with very closely, one that thinks I'm no good | because I unwittingly stepped on the toes of a couple of | institutionalized colleagues by "doing my job", who complained | to this guy who'd been my boss a total of less than a week at | the time. | | "Just do what you're told" was his advice. So, what you're | saying is coast until the contract is over? Done and done. | | Makes it hard to get a good recent reference though, lucky the | market is thirsting for warm bodies. | Tade0 wrote: | > My family stuff is what keeps me going though. My work is a | basket case at the moment, 12-month contract ends in 4 weeks, | and it's almost a full time job applying for jobs. | | Unsolicited advice: if you can, wait for September to really | start looking for employment. August is slow season in | recruitment because people are still on vacation while | September is the last month of the quarter, so recruiters | have targets to reach for the projects scheduled to start in | Q4. | giantg2 wrote: | Sounds all too familiar. | | I had 7 or 8 managers over the past 2.5 years. I picked up | and completed several extra stories over the previous couple | sprints only to recieve negative feedback that it wasn't what | they wanted me to work on, even though I asked them if there | was anything specific they wanted me to do next and had | recieved no response. Oh, and my company will not allow | managers to give employees recommendations/references at all. | tenebrisalietum wrote: | Work for money. | woweoe wrote: | Many cultures even in the West look down on that kind of | attitude. | giantg2 wrote: | What money? There's no way to get a raise at my company | without a promotion and they won't promote me. I have no | motivation to work hard if it won't be rewarded. I do the | minimum to get paid my shitty salary. | TameAntelope wrote: | Who said anything about your current company? | giantg2 wrote: | I don't have the skills to switch to a different company, | tech jobs are limited in my area, I don't perform well | remotely, and my wife won't consider relocating. My | current shitty job is the best job I can get. | TameAntelope wrote: | Get the skills, limited doesn't mean none, get better at | performing remotely, drop the wife... | | You are in complete control over your life, but you have | to accept that responsibility. Stop blaming externalities | and start owning your choices. | giantg2 wrote: | Everything is a tradeoff. Just because someone view the | weight of the choices differently doesn't mean they are | wrong. Check your ego. | bumby wrote: | It's okay to say tech jobs aren't the right fit as well. | giantg2 wrote: | They might not be. I'm hesitant to admit that because 1) | They used to be and I was a high performer at a mediocre | non-tech company 2) There's nothing else I can do to earn | enough to support my family. | bumby wrote: | > _There 's nothing else I can do to earn enough to | support my family._ | | Honest question that I know won't be well-received on HN: | I don't know your personal details, but do you think | there is not anyone else in a lower paid job who has | figured out a way to support their family? | | Frustration stems from when reality doesn't meet our | expectations. You can choose to try and bend reality to | your will or change your expectations. One is | significantly easier than the other. | frostwarrior wrote: | > I don't have the skills to switch to a different | company | | Go and learn. Skills are not set in stone. | | > I don't perform well remotely, and my wife won't | consider relocating | | I understand that. I don't know you, but maybe a nicer | setup with more (not too direct) sunlight can make it | better? | giantg2 wrote: | "Go and learn. Skills are not set in stone." | | Sure, but learning takes time, which I have little of. | It's also much easier for some than others (getting | significantly more difficult as I age). | | The main remote issue is that my wife interrupts me to do | stuff or answer questions throughout the day. I also feel | I'm slower to learn remotely. I think that if I'm an | expert in the tech already, then remote could work. | frostwarrior wrote: | I get it, but you already have a job. I assume you are be | pretty busy, but at least you already have a secure | source of money and you're not against the clock or | anything like that. | | You don't need to spend all day in a class like a | university student. An hour a day dedicated to lectures, | practice and taking some notes with pencil and paper* can | do wonders on the long term. | | As for your wife, maybe you can talk to her and ask her | to leave you alone for some specific times, unless it's | urgent. Or ask her to send you a message instead of | talking so it doesn't interrupt your focus so much. | | * Some research on learning has proven that taking notes | like that is way more effective than typing on a | keyboard. | giantg2 wrote: | Thanks. I have tried talking to her, but the results | weren't great. I do try to learn things outside of work. | The main problem is if you don't use it, you lose it. | Without constant practice it's hard to build and retain | skills. I don't even have an hour a day free for that due | to work and home responsibilities. | frostwarrior wrote: | You don't lose it completely, though. And it's easier to | relearn and get back on track than to learn it the first | time. | | I learned C like ten years ago and then I moved on to PHP | and then to JavaScript. I'm sure I forgot most of it. But | thanks to that, I'm now learning Golang and when it came | to pointers it clicked almost instantly. | giantg2 wrote: | True, the concepts transfer. But for me the concepts are | always easy. The implementation/syntax/libraries are | harder for me. I know at least I can go back and use | prior projects as a guide... if I ever return to that | tech. That's probably a big one for me, that I feel like | the work ends up being thrown away if i never use it | again. Although things like Android development has | changed significantly with things like apk to aab, Java | in Eclipse to Kotlin in Studio (Jet Brains), etc. | frostwarrior wrote: | If your current job can't motivate you, work on a side | project or look for another job. | | And don't be the weakest link in the (faulty) chain. It's | leaves a better impression by notifying external | inefficiency and quitting because lack of change, rather | than being fired because your motivation and productiveness | withered in silence. | giantg2 wrote: | Yeah, I have side projects. They aren't anything that I | could make money on though. If I had a better option I | would leave. | frostwarrior wrote: | Personally, I wish I could have more side projects to | post them on my Github and use them as a developer | portfolio. | | I have a few years of experience as a Web Dev, but sadly | my GitHub is barren from code. | giantg2 wrote: | I have an Angular site, a Python project, and a couple of | Android apps. I don't think it matters. The Android apps | helped me get a job out of college. But I feel like now | that I've been in the industry, nobody cares about dev | portfolios. It's all about the current/prior job. | VyseofArcadia wrote: | My experience is that the more politics and BS and | organization has, the more you can coast. Individual | performance can get lost in the noise. | | Even in orgs that have their stuff together, I see a | preference for internal transfer over termination. I think | it's some sort of HR sunk cost fallacy. | ge96 wrote: | I'm kind of coasting myself (not being a leader/taking | anything big on). What I like it about it is, I can leave | work at work after work and focus on my own things that are | more challenging. | | At the moment I burned money/got into a lot of debt trying | to get a start up going. When that failed I just grabbed | the first job/company that gave me an offer. I'm not that | pumped about what I do but I can deal with it for now. Pay | is still good for my level (low six figs) and it's 100% | remote. | giantg2 wrote: | My experience is that the politics and BS lead to BS | ratings that go against the written policies because there | are contradictory backroom policies. | | In this market, we can't seem to hire anyone (we aren't | competitive on salary). So I guess it makes sense that they | want to keep the low performers since they wouldn't be able | to backfill. This still sucks since there's a lot of stress | dealing with poor ratings and not know if you will get | fired. And then even if you do work hard and perform well, | there'd no guarantee that will increase your rating or | comp. | bumby wrote: | While I think it's healthy to not tie your identity and well- | being to your job, I think it might be a bad habit to view | everything through the lens of a financial transaction. | | We've all probably worked with people who will only lift a | finger if it benefits them. Create an organization of people | with this mindset and much of the necessary but un-glorious | work never gets done. I suppose you could say people can play | the long game and do that stuff in hopes of getting noticed, | but if it doesn't and you have a transactional mindset, it's | a recipe to be miserable. (We've probably all worked with | those people too - the ones who feel slighted because they | believe they've done all the hard work without getting | rewarded). | BLKNSLVR wrote: | > I think it might be a bad habit to view everything | through the lens of a financial transaction | | Unless you want to get promoted into management... | | Hire new people to do the inglourious work. | bumby wrote: | > _Hire new people to do the inglourious work._ | | But I'm assuming this means hiring people without the | same transactional mindset? Otherwise, there will just be | endless employee churn as they realize there's nothing in | it for them. | | It's hard for me to get on-board with a management | approach that effectively says, "I don't want to do this | stuff because I want to get paid but it's okay for you to | do it because I don't care whether you get paid or not." | Either you think the work is worth doing or you don't, | but it's a weak leadership style to say it's only worth | doing if someone else is doing it. (That's different that | strategically assigning duties to get the most out of the | team.) | giantg2 wrote: | "But I'm assuming this means hiring people without the | same transactional mindset?" | | Our company tries to outsource the more boring/routine | stuff to overseas contractors. The results vary. | giantg2 wrote: | "Create an organization of people with this mindset and | much of the necessary but un-glorious work never gets | done." | | I've done a lot of the work that nobody else wants to do. | It wasn't any harder than the work others do. So it's not | like I want to be rewarded more than them, but just not | penalized for it. People who joined the company around the | same time as me are managers and leads. I'm a midlevel. | I've even filled the role of a lead for a year, but | politics made it so my manager couldn't give me a high | rating. After 10 years you'd think I'd at least be a senior | and have a salary of $100k. I don't think I'm asking for | the world here, and certainly many of the other 10 year | employees are farther along because they're better than me. | brokenkebab2 wrote: | I don't think it's fair: it's absolutely possible to be | motivated by the recognized fact that you provide for your | family, and still have healthy friendly relations with | colleagues, and be interested in a long-term success of | your employer. | | It's also absolutely possible to create an ugly monster of | organization while cheering up your team with whatever we- | change-the-world mission. | bumby wrote: | I agree with you that it's possible. It's just been my | experience that the people who take that mindset tend to | slack off once they realize they can get the same | paycheck to provide for their family while also doing | less work. If your internal utility function is to | maximize money and minimize effort, that's going to occur | more often than not. To buffer that, management needs to | hold them accountable, but that's easier said than done, | especially in large organizations. | giantg2 wrote: | "It's just been my experience that the people who take | that mindset tend to slack off once they realize they can | get the same paycheck to provide for their family while | also doing less work." | | I think it's mostly the people who realized the company | has deceived them, either in the company values/mission | or the "pay for performance" scheme being BS. | | There shouldn't be anything wrong with someone just doing | their job for the salary. If their performance falls | below what's expected (and clearly defined) for their | level, then that's a problem. They shouldn't be penalized | for not doing extra work when they aren't being rewarded. | | Employers need to have compensation models that make | sense too. I was once told I could get a promotion if I | consistently worked 1 hour longer everyday. That's a 13% | increase in hours for a 7% pay raise, for a position with | more responsibility and expectations. These managers are | either idiots or predators - anyone with an MBA should | understand that's a shitty value proposition. Either way, | they lost my respect. | bumby wrote: | I think you hit on some very important points, but | there's a couple issues. For one, not every singular duty | can clearly defined. That's why many job descriptions | will have a clause like "and other duties as assigned." | Ultimately, we're hiring teammates in order to solve | problems. I want to work with people who try to solve | those problems irrespective if it adds to their personal | identity or was meticulously defined in their job | posting. If people are actively seeking out and solving | problems, that's not the same as the transactional | mindset I'm talking about. That mindset tends to actively | avoid problems because they are work or "not their job". | That's also not the same as framing the issue of "if you | work X more, you'll get paid Y more". | | That time-transaction mindset leads to exactly what you | alluded to. "If I spend 13% more time here, I should get | 13% more pay." What that doesn't say is if those 13% more | hours were spend solving previously unsolved issues for | the organization. | giantg2 wrote: | "If people are actively seeking out and solving problems, | that's not the same as the transactional mindset I'm | talking about." | | At least at my company, there's no differentiation. I do | look for problems to solve. I have volunteered for extra | roles and responsibilities that others didn't want. So | why do the the people that are too smart to take on the | role of application security champion for the team get | promoted, while those security champions are passed over? | | It seems you're describing that engagement is better than | transactional mindset. That's true from the employer's | perspective. That's only true from the employee's | perspective if the employer is rewarding that. | | The promotion I was talking about was brought up because | I was already performing at the next level and was | engaged- filling the lead role for the team the prior | year and volunteering for additional projects. So yeah, | the problems and work that I did would have gone undone | or the team's work would be uncoordinated. | | 'That time-transaction mindset leads to exactly what you | alluded to. "If I spend 13% more time here, I should get | 13% more pay."' | | To be real, that's the _company 's_ mindset that they | should require you to work an extra 13% for a 7% raise, a | rate decrease. The _defined_ expectations for that next | level are demonstratably higher. Arguably those higher | expectations should be matched with a higher _rate_ not a | lower one. This concept is critical to understand | bumby wrote: | > _So why do the the people that are too smart to take on | the role of application security champion for the team | get promoted, while those security champions are passed | over?_ | | To put it bluntly, it's likely because the company | doesn't value solving security as much as you may think | they should. Solving problems is the same as solving | valuable problems. If your goal is to be promotable, the | problems you should solve should be as close as possible | to the items your company values the most. Unfortunately, | things like quality and security are not often valued | until after things go wrong. | | > _The defined expectations for that next level are | demonstratably higher._ | | Maybe I'm misreading this, but it sure seems like you're | saying the performance for the higher pay is above and | beyond what you're currently doing. Now whether those | expectations are above what you're willing to do for the | pay is a personal decision. | | > _That 's only true from the employee's perspective if | the employer is rewarding that._ | | This is probably where we fundamentally disagree. I think | employees also benefit from being engaged. I've worked | with people on assembly lines who were engaged with work | that most would find monotonous. Instead of finding the | work some tedium to be put up with, they actually found | ways of getting personal fulfillment out of it. Same goes | for low-status jobs elsewhere I've worked. I think your | sentiment here is really what underlies unhappiness with | work and you'd eventually find the same regardless of how | handsomely you'd get paid. | | Everything you've outlined at this point seems to | indicate you work at a company that has a culture that is | misaligned with what you're after. But you also aren't | willing to take a risk of changing that. I doubt there | are any silver bullets here that will make some magic | happen without professional or personal risk. | ilikehurdles wrote: | > Install a swipe keyboard app | | iPhone keyboards have built-in swipe typing now. | rwoerz wrote: | Oh irony, a post about overcoming distraction gets 232+ comments. | leobg wrote: | Isn't it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination | posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site? | | (Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do | abuse it as a procrastination device.) | vosper wrote: | Just in case people don't realise: HN has a built-in anti- | procrastination feature. You can set it in your profile. I have | mine setup so that I can spend 10 minutes on HN every 2 hours. | mr90210 wrote: | Where would you go if you wanted to target procrastinators? | II2II wrote: | When it comes to HN, I definitely have mixed feelings about the | procrastination aspect. Yet I am unwilling to drop it since | there are stories that I am genuinely interested in and make | life better. So it is a net positive in my books. | atmosx wrote: | It's also funny how all these posts are so "western" in style: | 'Hey look at me, I did something a bit difficult for 3 days, | now I am a guru!' | | Not trying to knock the author but the time window is simply | too small and this approach is simply too common online. Let's | see if the author can actually change lifestyle for more than 5 | years and then we can discuss about "lessons learned". | WaitWaitWha wrote: | Many Asian, North African, and Middle Eastern countries | struggle with similar problems. And, this is not even | developed/developing nations. I see it in economically poor | or non-industrialized countries too. | marcinreal wrote: | This is a bit harsh; the article does contain a lot of useful | advice. I myself implemented many of these tips about two | years ago, and am still going strong. I do fall off the wagon | here and there and get sucked into my phone, especially when | I'm avoiding something in real life, but I really value | having minimal notifications. I also love focus modes (though | I've only known about them for about a year I think) -- great | for working, sleeping, and overall mental health. But I would | stress this important point: if you have trouble implementing | these steps, there may be a bigger issue in your life that | you're avoiding. | ninkendo wrote: | What does that have to do with being "western"? | Barrin92 wrote: | the self-help and productivity genre does have a uniquely | American bent (more so than Western I'd say), these blog | posts always read like some form of digital Protestantism, | they do love their busywork. Immediately jumping to | thinking you're procrastinating, rather than say | contemplating when you're not churning out one book per | year is an attitude you won't find everywhere. | leobg wrote: | Well put. That focus on "productivity" also has something | of what Nietzsche called the "slave mentality". That | belief that you're worth only what you produce, like a | cow. I actually subscribe to this reductionist belief | myself in many ways - but it's an easy target to feel | smug about when reflected back by somebody else out there | preaching it as gospel. | fleddr wrote: | I think this doesn't do the intentions of the author much | justice. He clearly explained how his addictions | destroyed his ability to focus on any task at all, no | matter how much value you place on that task. | | Reading a book or watching a TV series uninterrupted are | hardly ambitious or productive tasks, yet entire | generations now can't focus on such "lengthy" task. | jpeter wrote: | Hacker News doesn't count because i am "learning something", | even though i can't recall a single thing I read today | sockaddr wrote: | Hah. Yeah it feels like the knowledge I gain here most often | is just further training of my "intuition module" with little | to nothing discrete being committed to memory. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | My parents use the same argument about social media. | | "Facebook doesn't count because I only use it to keep track | of what people I know are doing." | | That has to be right up there with the number of times I have | heard "I don't use Facebook, I only use Instagram". | mtgx wrote: | eastbound wrote: | "I just watch this TV show because I want to witness how | stupid TV can get." | [deleted] | freediver wrote: | I collection of links and quotes on stop reading "news" | | We are what we read: https://tinygem.org/about#stopnews | | Entire TinyGem service was created with the purpose of collecting | content worth reading. | mingusrude wrote: | I recently switched Twitter to strictly timeline and that pretty | much fixed Twitter for me. I still use it but it no more doom- | scrolling. | ph1p wrote: | the "zero news diet" should really be done more often. For | myself, it would be "zero Twitter diet". | jansan wrote: | I put Twitter on my router's domain blacklist. The only way for | me to read Twitter is through nitter.net, which is not much fun | and readonly, so there is no risk to get addicted. | Kiro wrote: | Zero HN diet would be the most effective. | cocoflunchy wrote: | I managed to completely stop using Twitter by removing all my | follows. Then when I'd mindlessly open twitter I'd be presented | with a blank screen. After a few days I just stopped opening | it. | throwaway4aday wrote: | This is a very smart strategy. You effectively trained | yourself that there was no reward to be had from the | behaviour and so broke the habit. Someone should make a | browser extension that does this for other sites, essentially | allows the masthead and other boring trim to load but removes | all of the content. | ben_w wrote: | The browser extension kinda already exists -- I've | accidentally done that to a few sites with Adblock Plus. | Zanneth wrote: | Aaron Swartz wrote a blog post about the news[1] and just how | terrible it is for the brain. Reading his post had a major impact | on me--since then I have always thought differently about the | time I spend online. | | It's interesting how people, including myself, try to justify | various addictions. How am I supposed to stay informed about | important topics without the news? How do I know how to help | people in need without knowing what's going on? There are much, | much better ways than reading CNN/NYTimes every day. Also, there | really is nothing new about the human condition today compared to | a hundred years ago. | | [1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews | tootie wrote: | Man, I don't get it. News is bad for you so become deliberately | ignorant? Don't get distracted by the world so you can work | more? It's like saying traffic lights distract you from | driving. | edub wrote: | I can't square it either. Lets say that you live in a world | where rich people want to control the narrative by making | entertaining news shows to distract the populace from what is | important, but needed a way to trick the people that sought | to dig deeper from more authoritative sources that are less | TV-entertainy... then I think it would make sense to tell the | people that are digging deeper that it is bad for them and | they should stop paying attention to the news for their own | mental health and productivity. | | I recognized that I was over consuming the news during the | Trump presidency and needed a reset, and decided to not spend | any more time reading the news than the short summaries that | Axios posts and ignore all other forms (including John | Oliver, although I do still watch Closer Look). | | It appears that my actions and aspirations don't seem to be | making the world a better place, but it is too depressing a | thought to think that the best thing for me to do is be | ignorant to the bad things in the world. | | I plan on trying out subscribing to Delayed Gratification to | see if that is a better path. https://www.slow- | journalism.com/ | fleddr wrote: | There's a lot of wiggle room between sane consumption and | addiction. And addiction is becoming the norm. I'd add that | even if you were to consume no news at all, you'd still get | the summary of it one way or another. | | I'll now continue with my hot take: being informed, even | being an expert, on anything outside your field of work is | overrated, if not useless. | | Say you've been following the recent war in great depth. Or | the pandemic. Or US politics. You've invested hundreds of | hours reading about it and have developed an understanding | far above average. | | Now what? What are you going to do with it? Debate online, a | lost cause? What is the tangible benefit of understanding | without purpose? | JacobThreeThree wrote: | Agreed. People just want their worldview spoon-fed to them. | Once they realize that it's not healthy, it's too daunting to | actually put in the effort needed to construct their own | worldview and apply it to their life, thus the head-in-sand | ignorance approach. | | I'm surprised Aaron Swartz, of all people, had this view. | dageshi wrote: | No, they just realise it's not productive anymore. It's a | time sink that pushes misery and drama into your life | without any practical way to do anything about it. | | I don't think the human mind is designed to absorb all the | worlds ills and misery, the news amplifies the worst of | what's going on in the world and delivers it to you minute | by minute, the only rational way of dealing with it is to | either cut it out or become unspeakably cynical about it | all. | ben_w wrote: | I realised a long time ago that even shedding merely a | single tear every time an evil deed is done would lead to | dying of dehydration in one's sleep. | | I mostly try to cut out the news, but the options are not | limited to _just_ cutting it out or becoming cynical: an | ex went into politics with a genuine desire to make the | world right. She is (or was) Green Party (US), so not | making much progress, but it is at least a different | path. | | I definitely agree our minds aren't fit for this world: | more people online than heartbeats in our lifetimes, | combined with a psychology that treats a list of more | than 7-ish items as infinite. | maccard wrote: | > News is bad for you so become deliberately ignorant? | | I actively avoid news (to the point of changing channels on | the TV and Radio when it comes on), and yet somehow I still | managed to be kept aware of what's going on, and avoid being | ignorant. | | > It's like saying traffic lights distract you from driving. | | It's actually more like saying every pedestrian in a city is | going to jump in front of you when you're driving. You can be | aware of pedestrians, cars, bikes, and be a careful | considerate driver without needing to fear that every person | is trying to jump in front of your car, in the same way that | you can be an informed person without getting daily updates | on the top 10 stories in the UK right now. | koonsolo wrote: | I much rather want to talk to the person who reads books | written by experts, than to talk to the person who watches | the news every day. | | I'm sorry but there just isn't any comparison. Have you ever | read news about something you are an expert at? It's just | laughable inaccurate. | | News is entertainment, not information. If you want | information, read a book written by an expert at the field. | tootie wrote: | News is as much about breadth as depth. There's relevant | news on topics I'm never going to read a book about. And a | lot of news is very much written by experts and a lot books | written by biased cranks. | misterprime wrote: | Also, if you engage with someone who consumes from a | different news bubble than you do, it's incredibly | irritating, while engaging with someone who consumes from | the same news bubble as you is incredibly boring. | aeze wrote: | Reading news that will have little to zero impact on your | life takes away time you can spend doing more meaningful | activities. It doesn't just have to be 'work'. It can be | hobbies, spending time with your kids, whatever you want. | tootie wrote: | Not all news is global. And besides we all vote. I hope. Do | you live your life with no perspective of your world? | landemva wrote: | More time to play in white water river parks and more time | well wasted on ski lifts. I sometimes chat with tourists and | listen when they tell me what is important to them. | | 'Deliberately ignorant' is your value judgment. Spend some | time in rural eastern Europe, and the perspective changes for | the better. Media propaganda is simply unimportant. | tootie wrote: | I don't understand this at all. Work and family restrict my | travel. Reading news on my phone is inherently portable. | And I'm not sure what visiting rural Easter Europe is | supposed to prove. A lot of it is engulfed in war and I | can't imagine those people are better off being completely | ignorant of what Russia is doing. Certainly many of them | are to everyone else's detriment. Media propaganda is | obviously a bad thing, but reading credible news isn't. | Unless you want to descend into abject solipsism | ben_w wrote: | Are you going to do anything about the war in eastern | Europe? | | If the news causes no change in your actions, you might | as well have put a small pebble in front of the phone and | had it, instead of your eyes, absorb the photons emitted | by the screen. | fleddr wrote: | I think this is a brilliant remark, although it likely | will be taken the wrong way. | | I've personally come to the conclusion that us humans | aren't designed to take on the misery of the entire human | population, and that we should stop projecting this | assumption. | | If there's no difference between caring and not caring, | we should be quite a lot more humble in virtue signaling, | or best just shut up. | landemva wrote: | You suggest I do what? I could talk to people about two | decades of NATO encroachment on (shall not be spoken) R. | Or discuss with people how in the weeks prior to | conflict, VP Harris was in Munich and said Ukraine should | join NATO. Or discuss how comedian and Vogue model | Zelinsky said Ukraine should re-acquire nuclear weapons. | While true, none of those fit the rythmn of the | mainstream narrative. | tootie wrote: | I'm not sure what you're getting at aside from asserting | Russian propaganda. Ukraine has every right join NATO and | if Russia thinks that's a provocation then they should | take a look in the mirror. NATO isn't a mutual defense | association, not an anti-Russia club. The only reason | they think so is because they keep invading countries. | landemva wrote: | February 20 Zelensky in Munich started to talk back the | 1994 no-nukes agreement. | https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14001201000618/Ukraine- | Threa... | | https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800 | 000... | | Donbas vote on self-autonomy has curiously not been | allowed. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49903996 | | "Proposed in 2016 by Germany's then-foreign minister, | Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the plan details free and fair | elections in the east under Ukrainian law, verification | by the OSCE international security organisation, and then | self-governing status in return." | | 'Ukraine has every right join NATO ...' | | Maybe. Just as Cuba had every right to host USSR nuclear | missiles in 1962? | | 'Why the hell would Ukraine join NATO? I thought Russia | was their brother?' | | Yes, eastern Ukraine aligns with R. Western Ukraine hates | R. The movie 'Mr. Jones' may enlighten you about the | starvation, and the NYT propaganda at the time. | tootie wrote: | Maybe Nazi Germany had a right to the Sudetenland? You | can't just make these assertions as though we're talking | hypothetically. Maybe in 2019 you could pass this bs but | now that Russia went and invaded and is indiscriminately | killing and kidnapping civilians it's beyond question | that Russia is an unequivocal bad guy and Ukraine missed | a chance to better protect themselves because Europe was | too timid. | ben_w wrote: | Fun fact: the USSR asked to join NATO. | koonsolo wrote: | Well, joining NATO at this point seems like a wise | decision, don't you agree? If you want to call it "NATO | encroachment on Russia", why doesn't Russia attack NATO | then? | | Why the hell would Ukraine join NATO? I thought Russia | was their brother? Any idea why they would want to join | NATO? Ah! Maybe it's because they don't want to be | invaded by the brother neighbour that likes to invade | little countries around them. | | NATO expansion is Russia's fault, don't be stupid and | claim otherwise. Look at how this war already quickly | expanded NATO. | | Keep listening to your Russian propaganda. | ben_w wrote: | I'm suggesting you limit your news to things which are | actionable rather than affective. | spacemark wrote: | Yes, deliberate ignorance pendulum swings too far. Of | course "free" information is not very useful because | someone else is paying for it, motivated by their | interests not yours. So do the adult thing and don't | throw up your hands and give up, instead pay just a bit | for useful information. That way you know a bit more | about who is funding it and why. | JoshCole wrote: | Rhetoric is a dangerous sword - its sharpest edge is the | pommel. You seem to think you've pointed out a logical | inconsistency in Aaron's argument structure. What you | actually did was propose that news does not exist; actually, | that information itself doesn't exist. | | In the actual argument they claimed that news wasn't the best | information source in an argmax over sources on the basis | that other mediums have selective pressures which more | strongly correlate with utility generation - partly because | of medium influences and partly because things which aren't | new are subject to selective pressures for longer and thus | the filtering mechanism of that selective pressure is more | discriminating. | | You aren't engaging with that argument, but you act like you | are. So when you claim that no information is the alternative | proposition you've actually made a mathematical claim: that | the count(set{news, **other_sources}) == 0. This is clearly | nonsensical because the minimum size of the argmax over | information sources necessarily included news and so was | obviously at least one, but often more. So your basically | asking people who would agree with you on the basis of your | argument to take on the claim that 0=N. Yet if it does then | it follows that news doesn't exist in the set where you only | get to choose news. So they have to not only believe that you | are right, but also that news is not a source that they can | choose, but this contradicts your premise. | | Some questions to ponder to help you get it: | | 1. Why aren't you trying to refute the existence of evolution | and natural selection? | | 2. Why aren't you trying to disprove that approximation | accuracy is a function of the computation that goes into the | approximation? | | If you _really_ thought you were right you would be trying to | tear down the works of Charles Darwin and would be laughing | at Donald Knuth for the stupidity of classifying things by | computational complexity. Yet you aren 't. | mtnygard wrote: | I hadn't seen that post before. This paragraph hit me as a | tragic irony: | | 'This seems to be true, but the curious thing is that I'm never | involved. The government commits a crime, the New York Times | prints it on the front page, the people on the cable chat shows | foam at the mouth about it, the government apologizes and | commits the crime more subtly. It's a valuable system -- I | certainly support the government being more subtle about | committing crimes (well, for the sake of argument, at least) -- | but you notice how it never involves me?' | Balgair wrote: | Kinda like the Murry Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect | | https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect | Buttons840 wrote: | Plus, whatever the news is talking about endlessly this week | will most likely be far down the list of important events | come next voting seasons (or whatever milestone is important | to you). | khaledh wrote: | For me, the zero news diet would be really hard to apply to HN. | Any suggestions (in addition to noprocrast)? | pacifika wrote: | Use one of the Havkernews Digest services to get a periodic | email. Fomo is the biggest reason for me to keep checking back. | pella wrote: | try check only 1x weekly AND only the "top 10%" | | go https://hckrnews.com/ -> set "top 10%" | khaledh wrote: | I've seen this one before, but never tried it. I'll give it a | try. Thanks! | hvs wrote: | As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm | hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the _biggest_ | help for me was cutting out caffeine. | barking_biscuit wrote: | hmm... caffeine actually helps for ADHD as it's a stimulant. I | can only take my meds on weekdays and I've pretty much had life | long addiction to either coke, pepsi or red-bull. When I | started taking effective medication I basically stopped | drinking caffeinated drinks. Just don't need it. I can't take | my meds on the weekends, and virtually always I go get | something with caffeine in it to help. | lazide wrote: | _it depends_ - caffeine uses different receptors than are | helpful for many people with ADHD, and since it isn't managed | by someone outside, it's easy to get big swings of usage or | other problems due to, well ADHD. | | It's common that folks with ADHD will use Caffeine, it just | doesn't work as well as other stimulants for many people. | hvs wrote: | As I said, I _may_ have ADHD as I have a lot of the classic | symptoms, but I have a daughter with diagnosed ADHD and I do | not have nearly as significant symptoms as she does. All I | know is cutting caffeine improved my general concentration | and significantly decreased my anxiety as a bonus. | toyg wrote: | As a person completely unqualified to diagnose anything but | with similar problems, I suspect the real root of your | issue might just be the anxiety. If you could address the | roots of that, caffeine would probably become irrelevant. | cja wrote: | Untreated ADHD is a common cause of anxiety | rr888 wrote: | Me too, mild sedative helps, like after a beer I can finally | concentrate. Makes RTO a problem. :) | saos wrote: | Even tea? :( | gatane wrote: | I stopped drinking tea and my daily anxiety halved :) | hvs wrote: | You might be able to get away with a cup of tea every once in | a while, but I tend to be an "in for a penny in for a pound" | type of person, so it's complete elimination or 4-5 cups of | coffee for me. | swah wrote: | Was this on the short term? | hvs wrote: | No, it's complete. I was drinking 4-5 cups of coffee a day | and my brain was a cluttered mess. Now it's just mildly | cluttered. | EForEndeavour wrote: | On a much smaller time scale, I _have_ noticed that when I | skip my usual morning coffee (say, running out of coffee, | going for a run with an accountability buddy, or traveling | and staying in a "coffee desert"), I feel remarkably | clear-minded and calm, even though I crave the smell, | taste, experience of coffee. When I let it last, this | mental calmness lasts until early afternoon, when I'd | usually get coffee #2 of 2, as the dull withdrawal headache | sets in and I chemotactically writhe my way toward | increasingly desperate sources of caffeine. | | I've been drinking at least 2 cups of coffee ("cups" is a | fuzzy measure) for maybe 15 years. Maybe I should power | through the withdrawal and discover for myself if I've | accidentally been undermining my mental clarity and life | quality this whole time, instead of giving myself energy | and helping concentration as I'd been assuming. | kzrdude wrote: | I don't think there is a silver bullet or a tick box solution. | You have to want to stop. Change your behaviour. | TimTheTinker wrote: | Sometimes there really is - for people who want to focus but | find it frustratingly difficult because of their brain | chemistry (ADHD or whatever). | | For me, it's sleeping enough, nicotine patches, green tea, | L-Tyrosine, Avmacol, and no coffee. This regimen has helped me | improve my work performance significantly. It doesn't "fix" | everything, but it sure makes it so much easier to function and | to focus what I want to focus on. | kzrdude wrote: | That sounds great, I've certainly too gone through a better | sleep period where I focused on better sleep - no coffee for | two years and lots of other measures like that. And it works. | That's not a silver bullet, that's hard work. :) | ge96 wrote: | For the last couple of years my sleep pattern has been | crazy. Sometimes I would stay up two days in a row to rest | my sleep pattern back to 9-5 schedule. I preferred to be | sleep deprived as it made my job more interesting. | | But lately (since a month ago) I have been thankfully able | to maintain a 12/1-8:30 range sleep pattern. | | I do a 15 min workout 5 days a week. I have been fasting so | I eat a big meal a couple hours before sleeping. Read a | book half an hour before sleep. | | So far it's been working. Fasting is weight loss reasons. | Also helps me personally focus since if I eat too much I | get lazy/tired. | | Other thing I'll comment on is regarding personal projects. | I lay out a plan, when the day begins (weekend) I don't | open anything (social media) I just immediately work on | this project. Thankfully I can dump the most of the weekend | days toward the project. | Kye wrote: | [deleted] | [deleted] | fuzzfactor wrote: | If you have trouble doing this on your own, an alternative | often not considered is going away to camp for the summer. | synergy20 wrote: | Block websites will help definitely. | | another "threat" is when you have a few kids, your daily life is | cut into pieces with random and sometimes strong background | noises 24x7x365, not much you can do there. | | personally, that impacts my focus the most and there is no cure, | and it usually lasts for about 20 years when kids are finally | into colleges. | | obviously there are many good stuff out of raising kids, and I | enjoyed it, but focus-on-tech-advancement is not one of them. | koheripbal wrote: | This is why many people with kids want to physically return to | the office - fewer distractions. | jader201 wrote: | I've WFH for the past 8+ years, my kids are now 18 and 15 (so | they were 10 and 7 when I started WFH). | | They can definitely be a distraction, but I was able to | minimize it by having an office with a door + setting | reasonable boundaries. Also, they're out of the house at | school for many hours (except for COVID -- that was a bit | tougher, but that was the case for everyone). | | I have no regrets. One of the reasons I WFH is to have less | time on the road and more time w/ family. My oldest has said | that he's glad I WFH, and that he didn't like me being away | when he was younger. | | Of course, every person/family is different. But for me & my | family, I think minimizing the distractions in other ways | while WFH + accepting the remaining distractions was worth it | in the end. | watwut wrote: | Among my peer, parents want to work from home. Single | childless people want to be in office. | treyfitty wrote: | My kids leave me alone at home. My PMs at work however... | ChrisPebble wrote: | Anecdotally all but one of the parents I know (including | myself) prefer working remotely. I tried to find if there | were any survey results and found a survey by Harris Poll on | behalf of Zapier that said that "56 percent of parents want | the option to work remotely" [1]. | | I have a private office in our home and know that's not a | luxury for many others, but the quality of life as a parent | working from home vs being in the office is dramatic. With | the kids home during the summer the noise and distraction | levels do go up, but honestly are still less bothersome then | the open office floor plan I was in previously. I think it | really depends on your home situation as well as how your | office was setup, but my guess is that a majority of parents | would prefer remote positions if available. | | [1] https://zapier.com/blog/remote-work-report-by-zapier/ | [deleted] | mberning wrote: | Having kids in the house is like being in a damn WWI trench | with shells exploding over your head constantly. Ok, maybe not | that bad, but it's horrible for your ability to get anything | meaningful done. And then by the time they hit the sack and you | finally have a few moments peace, you are worn out and ready to | hit the sack yourself. My ability to burn the midnight oil has | gone to zero basically. | subpixel wrote: | I find that when I regularly exercise and don't drink at | dinner I can put kid to bed and have a few more hours | available. But - big but - spending that evening time working | has become anathema to me. | | The best rule I've put in place is work happens during the | day or it doesn't happen. | 1-6 wrote: | I'm curious because I've had kids early. Will I ever be able to | catch up with peers who've decided their focus would be on | their job and forego having children later in life? | insightcheck wrote: | I'd like to question the premise that you have to "catch up" | with peers, and that comparisons make sense. Especially in | the private sector, career growth isn't solely dependent on | technical skills. | | Some peers can get big career boosts due to nepotism or | networking and switching companies. Others leave a large | company, giving up the chance of promotions to senior | management, and create their own startup or join another at a | senior level for advancement. Other people change industries | and start at a junior position. Yet others decide to work a | stable job for lesser pay, maybe at certain departments or | agencies in the public sector. | | I honestly don't see where competition with peers becomes a | factor, so long as you're working enough to maintain valuable | skills that hiring managers and organizations are looking | for. | lampshades wrote: | I don't think you will. I don't think I will either. I've | stopped caring about career advancement because it's a fools | errand for me. | | Competing with single people is incredibly depressing. (I | have to find a way out of this hell hole, I hate tech) | sethammons wrote: | I had my first kid at 15; are you that early? It was a rough | start. Mom and I are still together 24 years later. We played | life on hard mode and I don't recommend it. I got a near full | academic ride to a university but had trouble getting books | and supplies. My wife worked mostly as a waitress at first. | After several attempts at different jobs, I landed as a | software developer. I was in my 30s before we could save a | penny. I make a couple hundred grand a year now and can buy | my (now three) kids what they need and want and my retirement | account is healthy | tylermac1 wrote: | You will get out of your career what you put into it. I had | kids at 24/26 and have found success relative to my peers in | the field. | | Sure there are sacrifices to be made with respect to career | options. You can't (or shouldn't) just move cities every | three years when a new job comes up, but working remotely can | level that playing field quite a bit. | rvba wrote: | It depends. | | The "mid" positions often require a grind. For example to get | a skill. | | The "top" positions often are a new set of hoops that you | need to jump. First you need to actually get the position: | what sometimes is about who you know, sometimes about what | you do, sometimes sheer luck (e.g. those above you quit) or | by just grinding and applying everywhere. Also at some point | a new hoop are sales. Nobody cares that you cant do your job | if you can bring in new customers worth millions. | | In many ways life is pure luck. If you choose the right | company you can get options and become a millionaire while | someone better will rot in a failed startup (If you are in | Europe you are out of luck - generally no options). | | Maybe you start a company while you are still relatively | young? Many did. Many failed. There are also those | motivational lists who show billionaires who started a | company after a certain age. | | I was thinking of writing a book about this, but I am not | sure if there is a market for that. Since what I wrote above | sounds a lot like those sharlatan self help books. | insightcheck wrote: | You can write a longform blog post and submit it to HN, I | would read it. Ribbonfarm's "The Gervais Principle" (2009) | [0] is a top example of a very long blog post split over | multiple parts, yet insightful enough to be shared widely | on HN and still provoke thought, long after a first read. | | [0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- | principle-... | tiahura wrote: | It depends on your wife. If both of you work, then probably | not. | cortesoft wrote: | The commenter could be the wife. Or it could be two men | sanedigital wrote: | Maybe. Maybe not. But no matter what those other people do, | they'll never ever be able to get more youthful, energetic | years with their children and (hopefully) grandchildren. All | that money and even Elon can't buy time. | | I had kids relatively young for a yuppie male (27) and while | that was 100% the "right time" I would have done it earlier | if I had known how great they are. | yao420 wrote: | I'm really struggling with this right now. | | I'm turning 33 next month and really want children. I have | endless memories of my dad and grandfathers teaching me | amazing lessons and being best/strongest men I have ever | been around. I want to fulfill that role that for someone! | We didn't have much money but camping or diy building is | something fondly reminisce on and made me who I am. | | My partner is 25 and is not decided on children yet due to | also growing up poor and and having a rougher realationship | with their fam. We've lived together a year now but she | recently got an IUD and was happy about the '10 years of | freedom'. | | To her kids is a 'probably after I finish all my | goals/traveling'. | | We were recently vacationing in Barcelona and met 3 young | boys at the hotel and played a game of uno with them in the | lobby. They lived in the Bay Area and I imagine their | parents were techies, they were indian, 6-12yrs, long hair, | well spoken, had skateboards, and wearing tie dye. | | I CANNOT stop thinking about them. | | I'm considering an ultimatum but I love her so much. | | Sorry for the rant HN, I just needed somewhere to say it. | insightcheck wrote: | The biggest concern is that there doesn't seem to be a | concrete end goal for when you can have children. From | what you've written, your partner is 25, has an IUD, and | communicated that she doesn't want children for the next | 10 years. The endpoint of "probably after I finish all my | goals/traveling" is so vaguely defined, that it could | never happen. One can spend a lifetime pursuing goals and | traveling. | | You likely already considered the fertility odds, but to | add context, according to a resource approved by the | department of health for Victoria, Australia [0], the | odds of having a child increasingly drop from age 35 | onwards. There are also likely risks for men trying to | have children after the age of 40, according to a | balanced article on WebMD [1]. | | Negotiation is an option besides an ultimatum, and I | actually think most opinions on the internet about | relationships go for breakups far too soon. You have | valid concerns that you can address with negotiation; in | specific: | | 1) There is no clarity for the timeline of having kids | (10 years plus after a vague goal of reaching all other | goals of your partner). | | 2) From the tone of your partner, it's possible she | doesn't seem to be taking your valid concern with | seriousness, though perhaps serious conversations may | just didn't come to mind at the time you wrote your | comment. | | 3) Your partner hasn't seriously discussed the fertility | implications of having children that late, at least from | the contents of your comment. | | To compromise, consider the red lines. Would you be | willing to stay in the relationship without kids? If the | answer is "no," it's almost inevitable you will be | resentful and the relationship is likely to have a very | negative effect on your life. | | Would your partner be willing to have kids? If the answer | is "no," it's also almost inevitable she will be | resentful if she reluctantly goes into it; if the answer | legitimately is "yes, but after a certain point of time," | then you have room to work it out. The compromise | solution is to have a specific endpoint when you will try | for kids (with a clear "yes" for trying for children at | that point). If there is none, moving on may be a hard | decision but the right one for personal happiness for | both people in the long-term. | | As with any online advice, please take this comment with | a huge grain of salt because there is an enormous amount | of information and nuance lost when communicating a | situation over text (or even over a conversation in | person). However, the main principles of compromise-- | knowing each others' red lines, and account for possible | long-term resentment due to agreements favoring one side | disproportionately--may hopefully still be helpful. Best | of luck to you. | | [0] https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditions | andtrea... | | [1] https://www.webmd.com/men/news/20141202/older-dads- | health | unity1001 wrote: | > I'm considering an ultimatum but I love her so much. | | Dictating, forcing things is not the way to go for such | things. You cant force children onto an unwilling mother. | Its best if such things are handled amicably and with | consensus. | lampshades wrote: | You should find a new partner. | insightcheck wrote: | Not necessarily. There is almost always room to have a | discussion and to see if there can be compromise | acceptable to both sides first. | | In this case, it may be acceptable to have kids at a | later age; in addition, there could be other related | concerns not mentioned in the comment (a lot of | information is lost when writing about something online), | which could make having kids acceptable. | | Then if it's truly a red line issue (one partner | absolutely does not want to have kids, while the other | does), both people will know that they at least tried | very hard to work it out, and reached an understanding | that there could be long-term unhappiness or resentment | if the relationship persisted. Then there can be few to | no regrets with moving on, which is difficult after being | in a relationship for a long period of time. | Arainach wrote: | There is no compromise on children. Some people want | them, some don't. This is one of the biggest sources of | relationship strife and needs compatibility quickly or | folks should agree to part and stop wasting time. | insightcheck wrote: | It's not a black-and-white issue. There is compromise if | a person doesn't want children right now, but is | genuinely open to it when there is more career stability. | Some people may also be open to children, but not at the | expense of giving up one's career (some couples have | worked it out by having the man de-prioritize his career | for a while). | | I do agree that people can waste time if a person says | they "don't want children right now," but really mean | that they "don't want children ever." In either case, | there is no harm to clarify this before going right to | breaking up over hesitations. | goblinux wrote: | I know the feeling. I think your best bet would be | sharing with her gently and honestly, and if that doesn't | go like you hope then looking into some couples' | counseling/therapy to resolve this if she's agreeable. | | Family baggage is tough and there may be stuff she needs | to work on within herself too before she's ready. | Encouraging that is a good way to be supportive and work | towards the goal of kids together. | | Strongly advise against ultimatums | ryanwaggoner wrote: | The worst thing you can do for yourself, your partner, | and your future kids would be to pressure your partner | into having children when she's not ready or doesn't want | to. Her path is her own, and it's completely valid. | | My advice is to have an honest conversation where you try | to understand where she's at on this and why, without | trying to change it. | | And then if you determine that she really doesn't want | kids, or may not ever, you might have to make a very hard | choice to either accept that and let go of your dream of | having kids, or to follow another path without her. | | But own it as _your_ choice, without resentment. She | doesn't owe you a child. | 1024core wrote: | I met a guy who was ~ 45 or so. He had been with his | (then ex-) partner for 15+ years. She had wanted kids, | and he kept saying "next year", "not ready yet", etc. | Finally, at the age of 43 she gave him an ultimatum to | make up his mind, and he replied "nah... don't want | kids". She dumped him right away. | | I met her too a little bit later, and boy, the resentment | was strong with her. I couldn't blame her. | | With things like kids, please don't be wishy-washy; make | up your mind and set specific goals, timelines, etc. Kids | are an expensive investment of both money and time. | usefulcat wrote: | Let's say you stay together now, and 10 years from now | she still doesn't want children (which, for the record, | is very much her prerogative). What will you do? | | If you don't split up at that point, this difference is | likely to become a source of resentment. You may also | regret not having split up earlier so that you could meet | someone who is a better match for you sooner. | | This is the kind of thing that people really need to be | on the same page about for the relationship to be viable | long-term. Attitudes towards money (how much to spend, | save, etc) is another. | daniel-cussen wrote: | I read generated. Too much, too dense. | | But let me still respond to this, as freedom of speech: | | Leave a message for the top female executive at the | company she most admires. Ask your wife then leave the | message. Just tell them leave this message. I've heard of | similar messages. That executive _will_ talk to your wife | and _will try_ to give her the message you want to give | her. | | Apparently for women once you realize you're a fertility- | dead-end your body takes its toll on your failure. Not | for men as much because a man is fertile much longer, and | more uncertainly, and it's more reasonable for him to be | a fertility-dead-end because men are better and worse | than women, they are a gamble by their very nature. | yoyohello13 wrote: | I feel you. It's a really tough place to be. | | I'm 32 and my wife is 33, we've been together for 12 | years. I started having the itch to have kids when I | turned 30, but my wife 100% doesn't want them. Choosing | between a life without children or leaving the person | I've shared my whole adult life with is intolerable. | | All I can say is you're not alone and I wish you the | best. | j7ake wrote: | You won't beat them by absolute number of hours. However, you | can surpass your peers by having more focus, being more | organized, and thinking outside the box. | | Anecdotal evidence: PhDs with children often are just as | productive if not more than those without. Most PhD students | are inefficient due to not focusing and thinking they | infinite time. | mattgreenrocks wrote: | It's really up to you and depends on what you want your | career to look like. | | Also, be careful of playing games where people are willing to | give up more than you are. For me, I don't derive as much | meaning from a career as I thought I would, probably because | I put too much expectation that it would provide that. | insightcheck wrote: | > "For me, I don't derive as much meaning from a career as | I thought I would, probably because I put too much | expectation that it would provide that." | | "Designing Your Life" is a book based on a Stanford course | on career planning that explored this idea very well. A | summary is at [0], and a relevant idea is that focusing on | one area of your life is likely not sufficient for a good | life. For example, over the course of a week, it can be | useful to make sure you are hitting goals in "work, play, | love, and health." It can sound like common sense, but it's | useful to consciously do this, especially for people | inclined to optimize for just work, at the expense of | physical health and relationships. | | An anecdote that stuck out to me was a positive example | about a person who rose to a high level at a large company, | then kept refusing promotions because he finally struck a | good balance between career and having time for family. I'm | sure this may not always be the best idea, but I liked the | idea behind inclusion of the anecdote, which is that | continuously climbing the career ladder may not actually be | helpful for one's personal goals. | | [0] https://dansilvestre.com/designing-your-life-summary/ | mattgreenrocks wrote: | Thank you for your reply. I will try this out soon. | | I'm already at the point where I'm uncertain if I want to | progress on the career ladder. Advancement in my career | at this point mostly means striking out on my own more | through product-based businesses. | AzureShill420 wrote: | Do you feel like there is really anything to "catch up" on? | | I'm in my mid 30s with no kids - while I can see that my | career happens to be more advanced than close friends who had | kids early, the signal to noise ratio is pretty high. | | I'd think about it this way: enjoy the path you've set | yourself on and savour the years where you have both your | kids and your health. When they become less dependent on you, | the option to lean in to a career is still available, and | with a few more grey hairs you probably won't have to work so | hard to prove yourself to begin with. | lampshades wrote: | Tip: don't give advice to people with kids when you don't | have them yourself. We don't want it because you all have | zero idea what we go through. | davidro80 wrote: | bravetraveler wrote: | Another unsolicited tip: take quality advice anywhere you | can get it | | This reads harsh, so apologies if that wasn't intended. | Just... I feel this is more of a disservice than anything | haswell wrote: | Nothing about their advice is specific to the role of | parenting itself, but more about perspective on life | choices in general. If they were telling you how to be a | parent, sure, but there's nothing wrong with trying to | learn from each other's experiences. | | Not having kids may afford some advantages in some | circumstances, but in my experience, the decision is | often made for reasons that most people don't see, and | not just because of career goals. I know plenty of | parents and non-parents, and if there's one thing I can | say about non-parents, rarely is career progression a | sufficient form of purpose / satisfaction in life. Most | parents I know would never trade their decision to have | kids for a slightly faster trip up a career ladder, but | that faster trip isn't necessarily real either. | | I'm in my mid 30s, and I personally will never have kids. | I made this choice partially because of the environment I | grew up in, where I was a defacto parent for younger | siblings for most of my formative years. I love my | siblings, but simply put, I'm done parenting, and have | enough of my own baggage I'm still dealing with after | that experience. This baggage is heavy enough that work | is still a struggle. I may appear unencumbered to those | around me, but that doesn't automatically equate to more | bandwidth to advance my career. | | I've found career success, yes, but not because I don't | have kids. If anything, my career focus impeded my | personal growth, so I'm working on that in my 30s. | | Ultimately it's a tradeoff, and while some people may | occasionally find themselves at an advantage in some way, | it's unclear if this is an advantage to aspire to, or if | it leads to any improvement in life satisfaction. | | If there's one thing I can say, it's that work and career | progression isn't really what it's cracked up to be, and | isn't "enough" for long. | lampshades wrote: | haswell wrote: | If you continued reading, you'd see the context behind | why I made that decision. At this point, you are not | making any attempt at a good faith conversation here, and | that's unfortunate. | | But since I'm curious, is it the age that made you stop | listening? | lampshades wrote: | haswell wrote: | I see. It's really unclear why you're engaging in such a | hostile way throughout this thread, but it's really not | in the intended spirit of discussion here. | | Apparently you did continue reading, but in case it | wasn't clear, it was an abusive environment, and sharing | my personal decision not to be a parent again is just my | attempt to share one perspective on what it means to have | or not have kids when working through one's career. | | Based on what you've written elsewhere in this thread, I | hope you find some peace. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | lampshades wrote: | > It's really unclear why you're engaging in such a | hostile way throughout this thread | | The depression that I previously mentioned. | pb7 wrote: | Coincidentally, you are seemingly the least mature person | in this discussion right now. Speaks somewhat to your | "anyone who doesn't have kids isn't an adult yet" comment | holding little weight. One would expect a parent to have | more empathy, not less, but here we are. | vkk8 wrote: | This is a bit crude way to put it, but maybe you're | right. | | At least for me, becoming a father changed my perspective | on everything so much that it's almost like I'm not even | the same species anymore as I was before having them. | Sometimes people without children feel like they're not | even proper adults even if they are older and/or more | senior at work or whatever. | lampshades wrote: | Spot on, I'm so different now than I was then I disregard | anything anyone without kids says. | | > Sometimes people without children feel like they're not | even proper adults | | I feel like they're not real adults too. | ska wrote: | > I feel like they're not real adults too. | | FWIW, This doesn't sound like a healthy place for you to | be. | | Childless people giving parenting advice to people with | children is on average going to be just as off target as | most times where humans try to give advice without any | personal lived experience. It doesn't indicate anything | else though, prima facie. | wiseowise wrote: | Seek therapy now. | wiseowise wrote: | Are you the parent hive mind or what? | acdha wrote: | This reads as somewhat mean spirited, which I hope you | didn't intend. I thought his advice was supportive - they | very clearly acknowledged not being a parent but then | pointed out that there isn't a clear cut productivity | gap. That kind of reassurance seems useful since people | can easily tell themselves they're irrecoverably behind | and worry far more than is helpful. | lampshades wrote: | Maybe it is. You're responding to a mentally broken man. | acdha wrote: | That sounds rough. I hope you can find a path to | recovery. | jader201 wrote: | I'm sorry you feel broken. Virtual hugs from an internet | stranger. | lampshades wrote: | Thanks, I appreciate it. | nonrandomstring wrote: | Switching to text only [1] browsing changed my relationship to | information and vastly improved my focus while using computers. I | highly recommend it. | | [1] Text mostly (90+%). Those few occasions I want to see images | as part of a web page it's possible to turn that on. | nunodonato wrote: | do you use any particular browser or extension? or do you mean | stuff like gopher/gemini? | b215826 wrote: | On Firefox, setting permissions.default.image in about:config | to 2 blocks all images. | | http://kb.mozillazine.org/Permissions.default.image | nonrandomstring wrote: | I use w3m a fair bit, because of emacs. Also have "Links" | (variant of Lynx maybe) set up in some environments. | aszantu wrote: | may sound stupid... I recently started to test around with | vitamin B supplements, inspired by some NMN interview, refined | Vitamin B seemingly turns back age #inmice. Decided to play | around with the real thing first... B3 itself helps me sleep | better, Yeast tablets feel like coffee, a full vitamin B complex | seems to aleviate focus issues. For the first time in a while I'm | able to actually work on something without getting distracted | much. | | Suffering from some adhd-like symptoms I used to be happy to be | distracted. Now I'm even unhappy when a coworker wants something. | AND I don't enjoy gaming... which is weird and frustrating | because I consider myself addicted to video games. | flawn wrote: | can you introduce me to that NMN iceberg? what the heck do | these people using that experience, this undoubtedly can't be | 100% legit | HellDunkel wrote: | I had a similar problem. My solution is to go offline in the | evening- 3 hours before going to sleep. | djohnston wrote: | I've managed to consolidate all my distracted news consumption to | HN but indeed I need to break myself from this reflexive habit. | bckr wrote: | I'm in the same boat! I feel better because my twitchy fingers | always lead to learning or discussing something new and | interesting, but they're still twitchy fingers. | Jeff_Brown wrote: | I try to keep my productivity improvements secret, because any | time I announce one -- especially if I also explain why it | happened -- I immediately falsify whatever I just said by losing | all focus and producing nothing of interest for a while. | rpmisms wrote: | This resonates deeply. It has to feel like a secret to me. | webscout wrote: | I use sites like https://biztoc.com once or twice a day and I'm | more or less done with news. Just make sure you only read the | headlines ;) | marcinreal wrote: | Great article and important message. | | > Lifting the phone should not unlock it. This setting is called | "Display & Brightness/Activate on Lift" on the iPhone | | On my phone it's called "Raise to Wake". I didn't know that you | could turn this off, but I just did so because it's inconsistent | and sometimes doesn't work. I like predictable behavior, even at | a minor cost to convenience. | [deleted] | endisneigh wrote: | Ironically this page is a great example of why it's hard to | focus. Unnecessary images, stylization and colors. Unnecessary | links to other distracting websites. Flashy flash. | pristineshatter wrote: | Let the man create the blog he wants to create. | dxdm wrote: | Maybe there's a lesson for him in that comment. | papito wrote: | If you want to get your life back, read Stolen Focus. It has all | these tips and tricks but it does a lot more - it explains _why_ | our focus is shot, and dissects the forces behind it. | | It's much more sinister than most people suspect. | | https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/d... | | I was spending hours per day on Twitter, and then I learned that | overusing social media _rewires_ your brain, and you essentially | unlearn to digest information in bigger chunks. This book will | horrify you, and that 's exactly what needs to be done. | | And if a book (to listen to) is too much for you to focus on - | listen to Ezra Klein's interview with the author, at least: | https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/its-not-your-fault-you... | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | I did not see it listed here, so I will mention Digital | Minimalism by Cal Newport, who, among other things, discusses | news in particular, but digital distractions in general and | proposes a way to deal with it by changing our relationship with | technology. | | I am currently going through the steps proposed by him and while | not easy, it generally supports the point of the article. | | That said, it is not just news. | | edit: Just in case. No connection to the author other than being | a happy reader. | rr888 wrote: | I really like his message but I feel each of his books could be | a blog post. Good blog posts, but nevertheless something you | could read in a few minutes. Instead you have to buy/borrow a | $10 book, then he rubs it in by talking about how productive he | as he has written so many books. | pphysch wrote: | It should frankly be criminal to predate on user's attention to | the extent that most popular apps do. | | I keep my phone on DnD 100% of the time and ruthlessly disable | notifications, but have a semi-smart watch that vibrates for | texts/calls. I'm still addicted to checking my news feeds but at | least they aren't literally yanking my attention. | y42 wrote: | I'm doomed. Did not read more than the head line. | namaria wrote: | Turning off all notifications on my personal phone was a life | changer. No longer I feel like I'm wearing an electronic collar. | Giving everyone who has your contact information access to your | attention is poison to the ability to concentrate. Another big | thing for me was cutting down on infinite scrolling, blogs and | videos and spending a lot more time with long form content | (mainly books). Attention is our most precious resource and we | should guard fiercely against attempts to monetize it. | ge96 wrote: | My phone is always on mute (no vibrate either) | | Only alarms to wake up | andrewljohnson wrote: | Having a family and responsibilities made this infeasible for | me. Most apps on my phone are denied notifications, but | people can still text/call me. | LeonM wrote: | Not sure about iOS, but with Android you can create | exceptions for selected contacts in the do-not-disturb | mode. | | I've added my family members to that exception list, and | leave the phone on do-not-disturb mode 24/7. | ska wrote: | This works well for some people, but not universally as | noted elsewhere in the thread. | | I guess it basically comes down to: how likely is a call | from an unknown number to be important for me? It turns | out this is wildly different for different lives. | namaria wrote: | I also have family and responsibilities. But I am very | careful whom I give unfettered access to my attention. | copperx wrote: | Everybody who depends on you directly (partner, children, | parents, and extended family) should be on you VIP | contact list and have direct access to you. I find that | reduces my anxiety. I don't get distracted by | notifications, or the thought that someone might be dying | and trying to reach me. | ge96 wrote: | Just commenting about phone calls | | I have stranger phone call anxiety and the other thing is | spam/scam calls. Which thankfully my phone has been good | at flagging/blocking. | | Regarding notifications I used to have phones that either | had LED blinking indicators or sound/beeping ahh, crazy | used to just drop what I was doing to check it. | andrewljohnson wrote: | The issue for me is, for example, my wife drops my kid | off for a camp and then the camp calls me in an | emergency. So I can't just only take notifications from | known callers. | NRv9tR wrote: | You can do this. I do. Known numbers only and whitelist | school, doctor, etc. If you really wanted to go further | you could have a second number via google voice you only | give to those places. Maybe even tie notifications on | that to your calendar where you put your kids events. | watwut wrote: | The teacher from school or preschool will call from | basically random phone. Possibly own phone. Or whatever | office she is in phone. Camp counselor always calls from | own phone which is fairly often different one then where | you are supposed to call. | | Neither of these calls often. Maybe once a year you get | call like that. But when they call, you really want to | pick up. | andrewljohnson wrote: | I just can't... it might be some counselor's random cell | phone calling me. Plus the kids go to many camps per | summer, and many activities during the year, so I'd be | constantly updating my phone book even if not for the | main issue. | happimess wrote: | I am also a parent coming on the end of a summer, and | whitelisting people who _may_ contact me about my child | sounds like a nightmare. | layer8 wrote: | Kids survived perfectly fine in the past without their | parents being available 24/7. | misterprime wrote: | The kids that survived, survived perfectly fine. | | The kids that didn't survive were buried and no longer | interact with us. | happimess wrote: | Many summer camps require that you be available to | retrieve your kid if e.g. they start showing Covid | symptoms. I'd love to drop them off and forget about it, | believe me. | andrewljohnson wrote: | It seems disrespectful to my wife and the camps to refuse | to be available for emergencies. | v-erne wrote: | Few years back brother of my spouse took his wife to | Spain (thousends kilometrs from here) to drive around and | see some sights. At some point they got a flat tire and | while he was trying to fix it two nice gentlemans on | motorbikes took everything they had by force (including | phones). My spouse brother managed to borrow a phone | frome some stranger that was driving by. And when he | tried to call the only number they both could remember, | his fathers, he did not answers. | | Can You guess why? Thats right - he also had a policy to | not take phone calls from unknown numbers (especially | foreign). They had to go to ours country ambassy in Spain | (which took a while) and beg for help. | | Since that day his father answers all calls :) | elenaferrantes wrote: | You can leave a voice mail. I don't answer to unknown | number anymore due to heavy phone spam. My thought is "if | it's really important they will leave a message". | mirekrusin wrote: | If wife is nice, she can be whitelisted, no? | Popeyes wrote: | If you have Android. Minimalist is very helpful in blocking | app notifications. | mprime1 wrote: | If you're looking for a 'lean' source of news (just the facts, no | commentary) try Wikipedia: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events | | (RSS feed available) | bananabiscuit wrote: | Unfortunately, it is a mistake to think that just because you | are only presented with high quality facts (statements that are | very likely to be true), that you are getting an objective view | of the story. You would be surprised how unrepresentative a | story can be made purely through omission or selective | emphasis, and Wikipedia is very guilty especially of the | latter. The talk pages are usually very revealing of what the | articles fails to mention, if you happen to catch them before | the discussion gets archived. | nequo wrote: | This is very true about agenda setting. | | What _is_ great about Wikipedia 's "Current events" portal is | that you don't have to sift through tweets that are selected | by the news feed algorithm to make you angry, or a stream of | op-eds that are selected by an editor to do the same, in | order to get to the facts. Much healthier psychologically | while still staying reasonably informed. | anonporridge wrote: | This is something a lot of people don't understand. | | It is impossible to have an objective and bias-free source of | information, simply because the amount of information that | exists is unimaginably enormous. It's impossible for any | single human mind to absorb everything that's happening, so | we have to rely on services whose job is filtering that | information into a small set of important bits. | | By selectively choosing which bits of information you share | or emphasize, multiple different sources can all technically | be telling the gods honest truth, while also all pushing | completely contradictory narratives. | | Everyone is pushing a narrative, and it's critical that we | all try to understand the incentives of the pushers of | information we ingest. | kej wrote: | I liked the way Howard Zinn (who had his own rather strong | biases, of course) made that point in the afterword to _A | People 's History of the United States_: | | >But there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of | interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world-- | by a teacher, a writer, anyone--is a judgment. The judgment | that has been made is that this fact is important, and that | other facts, omitted, are not important. | stripline wrote: | I learned this when I dated a law student while in college. | They teach an entire class to the first year students | dedicated to presenting the facts of the case, the way | lawyers do in their opening statements. They actually had | to create the set of facts for each side. It was really | interesting how you could totally bias it by what you | emphasized or left out and the different words used (i.e. | word connotations). | LesZedCB wrote: | Manufacturing Consent is a must-read | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent | everybodyknows wrote: | > Everyone is pushing a narrative | | But this an exaggeration. Some people are truly equivocal | on a question, yet still able to muster the effort to write | about it. | | One way this happens is that some specific issue puts the | author's internal values in tension. An example would be | recall/impeachment of some corrupt official, where the | tension is between the two goods of removing the bad actor | from power, and maintaining the norm of orderly transition | of government power. | stephendause wrote: | I would recommend people use sites like allsides.com or | ground.news to read from a wide variety of sources across the | political spectrum. Any one site (even one edited by a variety | of people) will have its own set of biases, so I find it best | to visit Web sites that contain links to coverage of the same | event from a few different sources with different biases. | insightcheck wrote: | I think it's better to manually assess bias and think | critically about how news articles report information. The | sites you linked are interesting, but had some major flaws. | | For example, AllSides includes Breitbart as a source. While | it identifies it with the maximum value to the right, it | doesn't give a barometer of credibility. For a reader | deciding whether Breitbart is worth reading, one should | closely examine credibility, not just political leaning. | PolitiFact and Media Bias/Fact Check discussed the | credibility of Breitbart at length [0] [1]. | | Then for ground.news, the way it portrays bias is also | relatively simplistic. The most prominent indicator is | left/center/right, but biases have a lot more nuance. It's | more useful to account for how certain publications take | certain policy stances. Leanings can be anti-establishment, | pro-establishment, socialist, neoliberal, pro-consumption | (e.g. Wired), or anti-consumption, and this information is | lost when relying on left-center-right categorizations. | | The best way to do this is to manually select a few | publications that are high on factual credibility, write down | their specific biases or leanings, and compare stories across | the personally-curated selection of publications. You then | personally have more control and understanding of the | articles you are presented. | | [0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/28/stella- | imm... | | [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/breitbart/ | divan wrote: | Also https://legiblenews.com | woweoe wrote: | Wikipedia is incredibly biased in terms of what news it cherry | picks though. Just read through the debates of what gets | proposed for inclusion, and then think about the stuff that's | outright deleted. | lloydatkinson wrote: | Do you have some examples? | mcphage wrote: | There was a great article posted here a few years back I'd | love to find again, that discusses how to use Wikipedia to | reinforce a position without lying. Splitting your side | into a bunch of mutually reinforcing pages, careful choose | of when to include or exclude adjectives, and so on. I | found it pretty eye-opening. | woweoe wrote: | "Just read through the debates of what gets proposed for | inclusion, and then think about the stuff that's outright | deleted." | marginalia_nu wrote: | I kinda also would like to see a concrete example. | erdewit wrote: | For example, the entire entry for "mass formation" was | deleted. The Dutch version still exists: | | https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massavorming | leobg wrote: | Ok. So the author tells us that news is bad for us. Isn't that | well known since like ten years ago? When opening the article I | had been hoping for something new... | | ...if y'all catch my drift here ;) | tmaly wrote: | The one thing I really like after switching from Android to | Iphone was the consistent interface to be able to shut off all | notifications in one screen. | semidetached wrote: | I stopped watching 24-hour news channels in 1991 when I saw how | the Gulf War coverage was turning so many into zombies. By 2010 I | had stopped regularly reading a list of news web sites I'd | constructed. HN is about the only thing I read regularly online, | and I'm getting less regular with that. I watch local news | sometimes but only to sneer at the local weatherman who's job | here in central Texas could be performed by one of my pugs. If | I'm going to starve to death pushing a pleasure lever it ain't | gonna be one connected to the infotainment industry. | planarhobbit wrote: | Hear hear. | | To add, I started treating most information outlets, including | HN, as endless faucets of propaganda, misinformation AND | misdirection. The outrage is, at best, a farcical play of human | dramas unfolding on a stage. To take any of this seriously is | borderline pathological. | tessela wrote: | Extra tip for iOS/macOS/iPadOS users: go to Settings / | Accessibility / Display & Text Size / Color Filters and enable | the Grayscale filter. | smoussa wrote: | I went on a zero news diet a while back and have recently got | back on this diet again. It's one of the best decisions I've made | for my productivity. | | For those with fear of missing out on current affairs -- events | are really only worth knowing about if someone has made you aware | of it in real life. Otherwise it's likely not that important. | ckosidows wrote: | You're on HNews? | [deleted] | lordnacho wrote: | Get one of those browser extensions that limits your use. This at | least tells you how much time you've spent. It's easy to get | carried away reading one long form article after another. | woweoe wrote: | So basically block the entirety of Reddit, which I agree would be | good for all humankind. | shakow wrote: | > which I agree would be good for all humankind. | | I disagree with that statement. I know it's fashionable on HN | to spit on Reddit, but for all its flaws, Reddit also birthed | fantastic communities that are hard to replicate somewhere else | due to the network effect, e.g. /r/WarCollege, /r/hoggit, | /r/AskHistorians, /r/Rust, /r/LinguisticsHumor, etc. - come for | the dumb memes, stay for the niche communities. | woweoe wrote: | But surely these are just commercialized versions of forums, | the latter being a far more versatile medium to have | discussions on? Reddit has monopolized the entire forum | industry and ruined online communities. | PaulsWallet wrote: | If you are talking about default subreddits then sure but there | are some great communities on reddit that I think are great | pieces of the internet. A lot of which I'm sure exist because | people don't need 100 different forum accounts to access them. | Also generally, I see no difference between reddit and Hacker | News except Hacker News drips with a unique brand of elitist | smarm you can't get elsewhere. | vinny2020 wrote: | I'm proud of myself for reading the article to the end without | distraction. I have been news free since the 2020 US election | results were broadcast so I agree that a news diet is an immense | boost for productivity. Why worry about things you can't really | change. If it's important enough, trust me, you'll find out about | it. I also use screen time to limit social media apps, but they | are truly the crack cocaine of the the 21st century. | Scarblac wrote: | I see that Rolf Dobelli has a book on avoiding news now. But he | made his point crystal clear in an article he wrote in 2010 | already, and put as a freely downloadable PDF on his website. I | can't find it there now, but here's a link to that PDF on some | other site: https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf | planarhobbit wrote: | One would think he would also avoid the great majority of books | out there too, as they're just as trashy and toxic as news are. | walleeee wrote: | Gwern's site is a gold mine of various interesting tidbits | KindAndFriendly wrote: | "...I cancelled my subscription to my formerly favourite online | news portal (the German "Spiegel-Online")..." | | Very good. Spiegel Online - unfortunately - became terribly bad | over the last years, with click-bait headlines, sensational | reporting as well as pushing fear & anxiety throughout their | articles. | muffinman26 wrote: | Do you have a different German newspaper you would recommend | now? I used to read der Spiegel regularly to keep my German | from getting too rusty. | going_ham wrote: | I disabled chrome and youtube for most of the time. Unless I am | looking for something specific, I keep them disabled. This alone | reduced by HN scrolling and YouTube binging by factor of 2-3 | hrs/day! | | Finally I have free time to relax and do nothing! | fleddr wrote: | I think the follow-up needs some more elaborating. | | "I won a lot of time back so that I can go back to writing 15 | novels" is a little off putting for many. | | Start simple with usage of your reclaimed time. Put your phone in | another room and watch a 2 hour movie, uninterrupted. That's a | thing a lot of people today can't even do, so already an | accomplishment. | | Even pure boredom, doing absolutely nothing, is healing. The | point is that you have uninterrupted time, it doesn't matter if | you spent it "productively". | mberning wrote: | It is said that Napoleon did not open his mail for 3 weeks after | it arrived. His belief was that most issues would resolve | themselves and were therefore unimportant for him to attend to. | | If you go back and watch the news from 2-3 weeks ago it is | amazing how much of it is just nonsense. It's especially hard to | go back and watch covid discussions from a year ago and hear just | how wrong most information was. | kortex wrote: | Sounds like a great way to get a bench warrant for avoiding a | legal summons in today's day and age. | | Knuth has a secretary which prioritizes his snail mail. I think | filters are a great way to go. I have tried to pre-bin my mail | but my tray organizer has just been covered over with assorted | cruft, which kinda makes the system untenable until I stop | procrastinating... | rr888 wrote: | What I did is tell my boss about my difficulty and now they check | in on me twice a day to look at my progress. I hate being micro | managed, but really helped me to work on delivering. | ramblerman wrote: | I'm not sure if this was sarcasm, but if not ... | | It's a dystopian nightmare, that you would voluntarily request | this. | rr888 wrote: | Lol I hate it but the extra eyes makes me focus. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Get out and ride a bike or something. More blood to the brain; no | digital distraction. Take a shower and bam! productive. That's | how it works for me. | LesZedCB wrote: | agreed the days where I get out for a morning bike ride are | some of my best | frostwarrior wrote: | To me, mindfulness meditation helped me a lot with concentration | because it was like learning mental aikido, in the sense of not | trying to remove invasive information, but redirect it in a way | that doesn't affect my focus. Everything stops being so important | by default | paulpauper wrote: | _During the aforementioned train ride, I cancelled my | subscription to my formerly favorite online news portal (the | German "Spiegel-Online") and deleted the associated app from my | iPhone. I used the initial motivation to cancel additional news | subscriptions and deleted the related apps from my smartphone and | iPad so that I wouldn't be tempted._ | | Here is what he should have done: replaced his smart phone with a | dumb phone if possible. It does not mean he gets rid of the smart | phone but deactivate it. And have two computers: one for business | and one for leisure and keep in different rooms. If possible | disconnect the work computer from the web. That way there are | fewer possible distractions. It's not enough to just remove apps. | The device itself is addictive. | mauliknshah wrote: | Typo: It's Daniel Kahneman and not David Kahnemann. | jansan wrote: | I think routers should have more fine grained settings, so I can | block social media during weekdays, HN on weekdays except | lunchtime and evening, and allow my children only to access their | 5 websites that they need for homework/study during a few hours | in the afternoon. This would help me a lot. | terminalcommand wrote: | A more extreme measure some users here used to take was not | access the internet at all during their downtime. When you come | home from work simply not use the internet. I guess exceptions | can be made for streaming movies/music. Ideally you should | download and stock up on these. | | I remember some users deliberately not connecting internet to | their homes to stick with this. There were also some users who | switched to "dumb" phones to reduce distractions. I guess these | could work. | bishopsmother wrote: | even with your router's domain blacklist, it may not be so easy | to block all social media (specifically, apps[0]). I don't | imagine cigarette manufacturers are keen on making it easier | for people to quit smoking either. | | [0] https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/tech/facebook-app-and- | un... | closedloop129 wrote: | Did he regain concentration and focus? It's more like he just | reduced distractions. That's not the same. | | What if being distracted is not a bug but a feature and his mind | doesn't want to continue the path of constantly writing books? | Instead of eliminating distractions, it could be more helpful to | find the activities that don't create the desire for | distractions. | Digital28 wrote: | He also says the pandemic didn't affect him, but honestly, | whether it was Long COVID or an indirect psych effect of | isolation, I've had extreme issues concentrating ever since | 2020 that have been absolutely bullshit to manage. | andai wrote: | Re: wide-scale reports of cognitive decline since lockdowns: | | > In lab animals, isolation has been shown to cause brain | shrinkage and the kind of brain changes you'd see in | Alzheimer's disease -- reduced brain cell connections and | reduced levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is | important for the formation, connection, and repair of brain | cells. | | https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/how- | isolation-a... | giraffe_lady wrote: | my mind doesn't want to continue the path of constantly | working. I've done a lot of kinds of work and am not young, | coding is my third career, and I've never found "the | activities" that pay rent and don't create the desire for | distractions. Want it or not (I don't want it) that's a problem | it's on me to solve. | kortex wrote: | "Trivial inconveniences" are a big hurdle when trying to build a | habit, but are a great tool for breaking bad ones. Anything you | can do to break the dopamine loop helps, however small it may be. | I've had success with: | | - setting long passwords to social media that aren't autofilled | (saved in bitwarden) and logging out after each session | | - nerfing addicting parts of webapps (plugins which block the | facebook news feed but allow messaging/groups helped a TON) | | - forbidding dedicated social media apps and only using "worse" | internet sites | | - router DNS blockers, even if I can get around them, the act of | having to bypass it raises my awareness I'm doing something | subpar for myself | vbezhenar wrote: | My method is using private browsing to open addicting websites. | This way their address will not be saved in history and I'll | have to type it which sometimes stop me from doing that in mid- | way. Also helps with automatically logging out. | kibwen wrote: | I've done this with YouTube and it's been extraordinarily | effective for me. Without the history associated with my | account, the recommendation engine just shows me the default | junk, preventing me from falling down rabbit holes when I | just want to watch some video. For keeping in touch with | channels that I still want to follow, I've subscribed to them | via RSS. | | If you need an extra push to enforce that you only use | private browsing, you can install any browser extension that | blocks sites and then tell your browser to not permit that | extension to run in private windows. | eastbound wrote: | We sound like casino addicts who voluntarily try to be | banned from casinos. | | At least we're only losing time, not money. But we're still | losing health, by staying in bed too much because of social | media... | kibwen wrote: | The problem is that whereas casinos are strictly | recreational, a lot of YouTube content is actually | extremely informative and educational. The problem is | that going to YouTube just for the educational stuff | still subjects you to the addictive stuff. | stevage wrote: | There are also extensions that block all recommendations. | Makes YouTube a much calmer experience. Go watch one video. | Now...you are done. | ben_w wrote: | Adding to that list: disable mobile data for Safari and Chrome | so I don't mindlessly browse on the go or during lunch. | LukeShu wrote: | > and logging out after each session | | I started using a Cookie AutoDelete plugin for privacy reasons; | but it's also been great for this purpose, so I don't have to | remember to log out. | brudgers wrote: | I find trivial inconvenience essential for establishing | _positive_ habits. | | They make me focus on my intent to establish a habit. | | Habit establishing requires perseverance in the face of a bit | of bother. | | The big hurdles are the big hurdles. Small frictions get | smoothed by repetition...or by simply becoming ordinary parts | of the process. | | Willingness to do things that suck is the nature of positive | habits. | | To a first approximation if it doesn't feel a bit unpleasant at | first, it probably isn't a positive habit. | tartoran wrote: | Interesting take on how habits feel at first as without | system 2's input (From Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and | slow) habits carve their way into our brains basically | seeking the most reward or dopamine. So without constant | monitoring of system 2 we end up as entertaining craving | systems, seeking patterns to satiate the urge for dopamine. | Good habits may be bitter at first but the rewards are reaped | in the long run. | Melatonic wrote: | Getting rid of the apps I think is the most effective - and as | a bonus - much less opportunity for intrusion and manipulation. | | Although if we are specifically talking about social media such | as Facebook then I mainly advocate at this point just to dump | it. You can still use the separate messenger app and function | even with a fully deactivated account. | | Instagram I found (for myself) relatively easy to spend a small | amount of time on every few days but the amount of | advertisements has just gotten insane. After not logging on for | 3 days or similar it appears to now be giving me about 5 ads | for each real post of someone I follow (half of these are | "suggested posts" which are not true advertisements but are | really not much different). You would think they would be able | to track the fact that when they do this I almost immediately | close the app and use it less. I am just amazed they do not | start with at least a few page scrolls of no ads and then | slowly transition them in. | stevage wrote: | I stopped using FB in the traditional way by unfollowing | literally everyone. however I use it much more for groups | now. I really get a lot of value out of local community | groups in particular. | daniel_iversen wrote: | A few other suggestions too: | | - if you need an app, turn off notifications at least (and move | it occasionally to another folder) | | - turn on iOS Screen Time so you have that second to re-think | if you want to use the app in the first place (pattern | interruption) | | - turn your phone colors to greyscale - I know it sounds odd | but I had it like that for a couple of years or so and it made | me reduce phone time, more productive and less stimulated by | the phone (even for a good long while after turning it off) | stevage wrote: | This one never did anything for me. But then, I was never | into scrolling things with pictures, much more into reading | text. | | Do you know why it worked for you? | cultofmetatron wrote: | this so much. I had tried giving up twitter but the convenience | was always there. Then one day I had enough and told a gun nut | to set himself on fire. Now whenever I am tempted to get on | twitter, I have that offensive "delete this tweet" screen show | up to remind me that I shouldn't bother with this crap. I'm all | the better for it. | nextstepguy wrote: | I never archive my passwords on social sites and the idea to | reset every time is a real burden. This helps too. | everybodyknows wrote: | Also: | | - delete browser bookmarks, desktop icons, "favorites" ... | throw93232 wrote: | >> CNN, WSJ, and BBC | | That is a news equivalent of junk food. Clickbait partisan | outrage generator. | | I would suggest some independent podcast with daily or weekly | summaries. Much higher information density. | ben_w wrote: | Given the junk food analogy, things with much higher | information density would be like drinking neat olive oil. | | I think a more useful thing is to filter news down to only that | news which is _important_ rather than merely _engaging_ , and | leave engagement for either friends or hobbies with a ratio | depending on your personal level of introversion/extroversion. | throw93232 wrote: | I just checked front side of CNN, first 6 titles are about | some unofficial trip. They do not know if it will happen, | what will happen, where it may happen, what that means... | | There is no value for me there. Even if I invest time into | filtering, there is no value to gain from that. Maybe it is | important, but I am not policy maker or investor, it is not | important right now for me! | | I can find out about that visit week later, after it actually | happened. Without all the speculations and opinions. And | since it will be podcast I can listen while running or | exercising, and with much lower investment from my side. | ben_w wrote: | I think you've underestimated what I mean by filtering in | this case: unless you're a politician, almost literally all | political news is pointless; unless you are a game | developer or unsatisfied with your VR headset, literally | all news about VR headsets is pointless; there's no point | watching a weather forecast for any place you are not going | to be in; unless you're an investor or looking to invest or | borrow, financial news is pointless; unless you're in the | royal family or selling memorabilia, gossip about any royal | family is worthless; ... | | Does CNN have any content that's genuinely important to | you? | | But the argument also applies to podcasts: no value in any | fact-based podcast if you don't act on the information it | gives you, just as there's no point in fiction-based | podcasts if they don't entertain you. | zorg42 wrote: | thanx - pragmatic collection of suggestions | epolanski wrote: | Removing social medias reclaimed lots of my life, the absolute | peak of my happiness was when I stopped following any news at | all. | | There's some sort of stigma agaiinst people who don't follow the | news but I ask, what positives doesfollowing the news brings to | your lifes? | | I realized none and there is a huge proven link between following | news and anxiety/depression. | | Sadly I felt back to watching news with the war in Ukraine. | 121789 wrote: | Does anyone know how to block websites at something like the | router level? I find myself able to get around normal browser- | level blockers fairly easily. I'd love to use some parental | controls against myself from like 6-5pm on weekdays | 1123581321 wrote: | A custom DNS provider in the router is probably easiest. Use | NextDNS or CloudFlare for Families with controls on, and then | give the login for the DNS and the login for your router admin | to someone else. | bishopsmother wrote: | If you're willing to be a beta tester - I'll set you up with a | free account (see about[0]); I'm open to | suggestions/implementing new features based on user demand | (e.g. Slowdown as a Service). | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bishopsmother | dehrmann wrote: | If you have DoH enabled, it's hard. If you don't, with OpenWrt, | it's easy enough to configure its DNS server to add IPs to | ipsets after a lookup, then configure the firewall to drop | those requests over a time window. | | > I find myself able to get around normal browser-level | blockers fairly easily. | | You're still just 30 seconds away from disabling the rule. | nop_slide wrote: | Might be able to do that with a pi-hole | rr888 wrote: | I did this, works great until you realize how easy it is to | pause blocking. | cloudking wrote: | Put Adguard Home on a Raspberry Pi, and point your router DNS | to it. https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-01 23:00 UTC)