Focusing??

[NotAChevy]

you've had a long morning of meetings, you're in the middle of completing this ridiculously complex spreadsheet for your boss that's due in 3 hours, and your Co-worker keeps interrupting you with questions about another project you're working on together. You finally get rid of him/her by telling him you'll have to get back to him after your next Zoom meeting- which begins any minute. Now comes the “fun”- aka hard part- getting yourself refocused on that crazy spreadsheet.

How do you do it? How do you trick your mind into concentrating all your effort into that project?

Scenerario II:

You've been working hard on that spreadsheet for hours and happen to look up at the time- you have 30 minutes to complete it, so you've worked on it for 2.5 hours straight. You've “hyperfocused” on it and haven't even noticed. However, there's just one cell that you're obsessing over and won't turn it in until you get it right. To break my hyperfocus, I rely on the old rubber band on the wrist trick. I notice the band and start to pick it. That way, I'm paying more attention to the band that the original thing. That breaks my concentration and allows me to refocus on the world around me.

What do you do to break your hyperfocus?

[StanleyThyroid]

I don't know now to break it -my approach was always to double down and Push to get it done but ultimately it burns you out. What I find really annoying is that I become more obsessed with formatting and layout of the sheet than actually getting the job done 😵‍💫

[Finneus_vonfinklefry in reply to StanleyThyroid]

Holy cow i couldn't agree more. What focus I do have is spent on endlessly perfecting its formatting.

[Salah_09]

In general ADHD medication has helped me with this slightly but I still require the use of tools.

It is common to get into the details and to waste a lot of time by hyperfocusing. But being more focused on moving and making progress is sometimes better, especially if you will get it rechecked later.

Just to give you an example, if there is an engineering problem I am trying to solve or say an email I'm trying to write. I will write whatever I can including all my rough thoughts and ideas, even if they aren't entirely accurate. The process of refining happens at a later stage. It's better to have something out there and to look at the overall picture.

And allowing yourself to relax while you work is very beneficial because your mind is operating in a natural flow like state. Getting overly stressed out never helps because we tend to hyperfocus more and also make more mistakes.