A free tip for you then, something I figured out recently. One of the easy ways to get kids to focus (for a little while) is to create stress and fear. E.g., parental pressure, yelling, draconian deadlines. So it's easy for people to develop habits where they need stress and fear to really focus.
Once I realized that a lot of my procrastination and apparent struggles to pay attention were bad childhood habits (driven by bad parental habits), things got better in two ways. One, I started structuring work in ways that created modest, even pressure. In my case, that's a kanban system with small units of work and frequent delivery, so I always have next deadline that's pretty close. Two, I have looked for other sources of energy and have tried to build habits around that. For me it's that I enjoy being productive and feeling like I'm making a difference. So I've built habits around that.
And in case it helps, the habit-building secret for me is that if an experience is at least mildly pleasant or rewarding each time I do it, it'll turn into a habit. But if it's a negative experience each time, I'll build up an aversion that makes a mule look reasonable.
Inspiration or Desperation - the two human motivators.
Inspiration can easily lead to pursuing tangents, but conversely desperation can lead to tunnel vision and fear paralysis.
There's a sweet spot in the middle. Convince yourself you're passionate about something by visualizing the end goal, but also convince yourself that there is a real need to make progress.
Sure! I did not grow up with a taste for exercise. Between my bookish nature and some terrible gym teachers, I loathed it. But once I moved to San Francisco, everybody was so healthy here! So I decided to try it out.
For quite a while, I'd start on something like running. I'd do it doggedly but in retrospect too intensely. Each time, it was kinda awful. Eventually my motivation would run out and I'd quietly drop it.
But now my approach is that my first goal should be enjoying it. For example, after an injury I stopped all exercise for 6 months or so, and was totally averse to returning to it. Eventually I grabbed my laptop and just went on a long walk, stopping at coffeeshops, restaurants, bookstores, etc every time I felt my enjoyment flagging. After doing that a few Sundays in a row, I shifted away from the stops, making it a pure long walk. Again, focused on enjoying it. Then I added bits of running here and there, upping the challenge until I was back doing a 7.5 mile long run every Sunday.
I apply the same lesson to learning new technologies. Every time I dive into some new language or toolkit, I find it easy to get intimidated. So I structure it as a series of small, rewarding increments. I pay attention to when I'm tired or too frustrated, taking breaks and rethinking my approach so it ends up as a sequence of small rewarding moments.
I think the same lesson lies behind Kanban approaches for teams as well. Small units of value moving quickly though a pipeline become very satisfying. It turns the work week into a series of modest accomplishments that over the long haul add up to real results, building good habits along the way.
I'm not the one who asked, but I wanted to thank you for this write up. I find it very helpful and I want to apply a similar approach to exercise. These types of comments are a big part of why I come to HN.
Positive reinforcement is really the only way to motivate. Honestly I think the best managers would be ABA therapists and psychologists who are well trained in this area.
Talk to a doctor. I had problems my whole life with attention and memory. It turned out to be a neurological problem and now it's mostly under control thanks to medication and therapy. If you're randomly commenting about it on HN it's probably affecting more of your life than you think it is; that's certainly the way it was for me, and I am far happier having talked to a doctor about what I thought was just a thing everyone had to deal with.
Attention deficit disorder. Rather than the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive subtype that everyone imagines, though, I have the predominantly inattentive subtype. Replace all of the hyperactivity symptoms with a double helping of forgetfulness and attention fatigue. Then add a heaping pile of self-loathing because everyone condemns your "laziness" as a moral failing that you can get over by focusing harder. Which you are, of course, physically incapable of. It's great fun.
That said, I'm not going to diagnose OP based on two lines of text. Talk to a doctor.
I'm afraid there's not much to be done about that, other than finding something you're actually interested in.
Me, I've accepted that I probably won't become much better at what I do, and there's more important things to worry about than my performance. Like beer and video games.
Every activity is ultimately like sending money and energy to /dev/null. Meditating on a mountaintop is not inherently more fulfilling than playing playing a great video game, just because it is more "respectable".
I think people get trapped by always feeling the need to perfectly optimize their lives, without asking for what they are optimizing.
Disagree. Playing video games is so much fun and relaxing compared to the stress of work and Covid and daily life that I'm 100% sure it's net-positive if it's <= 10 hours/week.
I was hoping for some help holding my attention and performing better, was disappointed :/