I really need som tips on how to avoid getting trapped by my own hyperfokusing.
I very often i get completely consumed by either youtube shorts or something similar and i loose complete sense of time and spends literally 5 hours on just doom scrolling and wasting time. The worst part is that I’m hyperly aware that I’m doing it the whole time and I really want to stop but I just won’t shake myself off of it. I feel so bad because i should go walk the dog or go do my hobies instead. It happens the most often when I’m supposed to work from home and it makes the guilt feel even worse. If only I could do something for myself at least while not actually working. The only way I’ve found working so far is blocking the websites from me using blockers but I know that I’ll just either circumvent them or find something else that’s equally bad for me to hyperfokus on. And I do have legitimate reasons to use YouTube sometimes for work for tutorials etc so blocking it doesn’t really work so well for me.
How do I get out when I find myself in that trapped state? Let me know how you are dealing with it.
I wanna add that I’m medicated with methylphenidate but it doesn’t really work on getting out of the trap if I’ve first gotten in.
Some great advice here, probably repeating others a bit but stuff that works for me:
- to do lists for each day / physically writing stuff down
- Generally work in 4 blocks (~60 - 90 mins each), 2 in the morning with a break in between then the same in the afternoon after a decent lunch break. (Afternoons are always less productive mind)
- Seperate work/home laptops. Only work stuff happens on work laptop.
- if I find I’m not being productive I just leave my desk for 5 mins then come back and try again.
- lots of walks
For YouTube stuff I’d recommend an alternative front end like freetube. Much less in your face with throwing vids at you, plus no ads!
For YouTube stuff I’d recommend an alternative front end like freetube.
Just wanna add I’ve REALLY struggled with YouTube and found success with Firefox add-ons. One is called “unhook” which has a range of features, but namely it disables the front page and the side recommendations that keep you infini-clicking through more videos! (All of this is toggleable as well, in case you want to go on an algorithm odyssey for a bit.)
The other one is “clickbait blocker” I think it’s called. It replaces the video thumbnails with a frame from the middle of the video.
I swear both of these have seriously given me SO MUCH time back. YouTube opens to a main totally blank page now so I can go straight to my music playlists without getting mentally-hijacked, or search specific Blender tutorials or something without infinite recommendations. It’s awesome!!
Memes always cheer me up
Wait a second
This is my daily experience with ADHD
WFH and the biggest simple hack. Drink water… If properly hydrated you release fluid approx once an hour. Enough to get up and should allow for reset.
No data on this approach other personal experience
Awesome idea… But you won’t believe how good I’ve become at holding 😅
My Dad was a truck driver and died from bladder cancer. Please don’t hold it when you don’t have to.
New fear unlocked
Interesting organic approach
My husband deals with that, and one thing that has helped him quite a bit is setting alarms. If he knows he is taking on an extended task, he will set an alarm on his phone for every hour or so. When it goes off, it distracts him from whatever he was doing and interrupts anything he is watching, so he is reminded to get back on task.
Another tool is accountability to another person. If he is having a bad focus day, he will sometimes ask me to bug him if I notice he is distracted for too long. Use this sparingly. I have been this person for a few people with ADHD, and using this too often has resulted in me being responded to like a parent asking their kid to stop playing games and eat their dinner. You don’t want to end up viewing your friends and partners as though they are an authority figure.
As someone with ADHD and who also works from home 4 days a week, alarms are your friend. I have specific alarms set for tasks i need to get done every day aside from my main duties.
Depending on your job, setting up automations can also help. Anything to make your life easier will give your brain more bandwidth which ive found helps me focus better. For me, i have a script that automatically refreshes a webpage that i need to monitor all the time. I always keep this tab separate so that when it does refresh, i almost always notice.
I’m an automation engineer so this is literally my job. I’ve automated everything I can but since it’s my job it literally never ends.
As another eng, let me suggest two things:
- Macrodroid can be configured to announce the hour every hour:
I find that helps me a ton.
2. Consider looking at getting a “Time Timer”. They are a little pricey for what they are but they a) move the alarm from digital – which is a mental space for me – to physical, and that seems to matter for my noticing it; and b) seems to be the only commonly available timer that ticks in a way that matches an analog clock, which allows you to align it with the current clock and see the hour burn down in front of you.
If you find something that helps you avoid “well… What’s 15 minutes more? This would feel good to be done…”, let me know. I’m now very aware of how much time I’m spending on shits and giggles.
Dude that’s awesome thanks!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.cwiesner.android.visualtimer&hl=en-US is a free android version of a TimeTimer that looks to be privacy respecting, and doesn’t have ads, as far as I can tell… (Although I run an android variant that let’s me turn off an app’s access to the internet, so YMMV)
Awesome idea. There is actually one of those time timers at work that noone uses. I’ll steal that for my WFH days. I used to use it at work myself before I was medicated and it helped me a lot but I forgot about it completely because while at work I don’t really need it anymore now I have my meds.
TIME TIMER. that’s my alpha and omega. Game changer.👍🤟💪
Ah yea i see how that would be an issue. Someone else in this post made a comment about switching meds. Might be worth talking to your doc about it.
That said, its not uncommon for those of us with adhd to try to find dopamine when doing things we dont wanna do. Sometimes having a video on in the background can help and distract your brain a bit. The key is finding something that doesnt distract you too much.
Stuff you watched before can be good.
It’s just the truth 😂 and they are paying me for it 😎
Alarms actually does work. I use it for taking my meds and it’s working really well. I should maybe use it more for work as well. Thanks
Turn off all notifications on the phone. This is the easiest and most effective way to stay away from it.
Beats the hell out of me. I’ve got no clue how I manage to get anything done at all, my focus just slides right off work.
I have separate logins on my machine for work vs home.
I also have my obsidian task manager synced on both machines so when non work stuff pops into my head, I add it to my list to work on after work in my personal task manager and get back to work.
I have a sacred 30mins at the start of the day to drink a coffee, and review my work task list, and plan what I will do today. From there, I ONLY work on what’s on the list, unless my boss rings me and changes the priority (or equivalent person etc).
As for not getting sucked into these things at all: I just avoid anything non work related while working, until I’ve achieved my list of work deliverables for the day, and finish work…
That works for me, until I have some work related YouTube video or equiv… I had a 4hr YT Shorts spiral the other day, was just lucky it started at 430pm!
I’ve since found that the DuckDuckGo browser let’s me watch YT videos without going to YT, so I don’t get the autoplay trap sprung one when the work related video is finished, which has helped a lot.
I also have my obsidian task manager synced on both machines so when non work stuff pops into my head, I add it to my list to work on after work in my personal task manager and get back to work.
This is my first time meeting another obsidian user on lemmy! What plugin do you use to manage your task? (I use habit tracker 21 myself)
Built in tasks and data view for filtering.
Ping me separately if you want to compare notes…
Built in tasks and data view for filtering.
I didn’t know you could filter for tasks using dataview. That’s so cool
I schedule “Focus Time” sessions in outlook tied to specific things I need to get done. This sets Teams to DND and I get the meeting reminder pop up that guilts me into either continually delaying the reminder or just doing the work. I set each period to a task/topic that needs worked on.
I also leave emails unread until I’ve dealt with them, my anxiety over having unread emails then forces me to do something with them.
It helps that we block pretty much everything in our work laptops and force use of a different browser that’s pretty slow and shitty for all sites that aren’t strictly work related. Combined with having a phone from work for work things means I can just put my personal phone away and not get tempted by it.
Discuss with your doctor that’s prescribing your ADHD meds. It’s quite possible another medication or a different dose will work better.
I can only say that I had a very similar issue with concentration at work while WFH and getting on medication resolved it.
Tell yourself you’ll try to work for like 5-10 minutes or on the shortest, easiest task you have, and that if you aren’t focusing on it, you’ll take another break after 10. It’s easier to sit down to 10 minutes of work without being committed to a ton after, and it can get you to focus and actually work for an hour plus sometimes.
This actually does work sometimes but not every time. Especially if I’m tired. As soon as those 10 min is up i immediately shift my fokus away from anything work related. I guess sleep will help, but going to bed in a timely manner is hard when you have low will power.
Training probably? It’s a shitty answer but it’s something that I’ve only gotten good at with time.
I try to keep distracting devices away during work hours and I’m not too hard on myself if I get briefly diverted - I’ll let myself indulge for about fifteen minutes before I try and clamp down and refocus. I do think there’s a danger in trying to be too strict with yourself because your brain will be shit if you try to maintain continuous focus but you also can’t continuously indulge wander brain (at least - not unless you’re rich).
If I do indulge in 15 min distraction i have no stop button and i keep going for multiple hours and its so bad. I can only win of i don’t ever start, but it’s so hard.
That’s very fair - my brain is pretty responsive to alarms so I can use a timer to limit how long I’ll be submerged for. A trusted partner can also help.
What has worked (a little bit) for me…
Make notes and reminders everywhere. Everywhere. I have time blocked off on my work calendar, do this specific task at this time, do this specific task at this time, 15 minutes of fucking around time in between. I will literally make a calendar appointment for taking breaks from work. I have a Kanban board of personal tasks to work on. I have alarms on my phone and watch reminding me to take a break for lunch or when to clean the litter boxes, etc.
One benefit of having reminders everywhere is that even when I’m consciously avoiding “The Thing I am Supposed to be Doing,” there’s a higher probability that I will land on something else productive to do instead of zoning completely out. I know I need to write this report by the end of the day, but I just saw a reminder that I need to reschedule my dental appt. Great, I still did something productive. Now I’m one step closer to actually writing that report.
It’s also important to give yourself grace and acknowledge that you’ll never be perfectly productive. Sometimes my 15 minute fuck-around break last 30 minutes. That’s OK. Breathe and get through it. Find the next post-it note or block of time on the calendar that tells me what I should be doing and make an honest attempt to do that. It’s not 100% effective, but it does help set the guardrails so I don’t get too far off track.
I never go on YouTube or social sites on my work laptop. I either convince myself my work can see that shit or it’s probably actually true. So if I want to use those sites my option is my phone or my own laptop. The solution is simple then. Just lock them up or put them elsewhere. There is nothing on YouTube or social media you need for work that you can’t find on a regular text based webpage.
The pomodoro method works well too. You only have to focus for 25 minute blocks, then you have some 5 minute breaks in between.
I personally prefer the pomodoro technique. The good thing about it, is that it requires a task list to work properly. I start every day by writing down what I need to do today, then use the timer to focus on one task at a time.
Strict separation of work and personal devices, plus focus mode on my private phone for the work hours.
I often end up hyper focusing on the wrong work tasks, but at least they’re work related.
