Hang Your Attention, But What’s The Hook? (1/2)

How to be more focused and in tune with your brain.

I packed this article with everything I know about focus - its maintenance and improvement. As always - no unnecessary talk, just pure useful value.

First things first

Obviously, you can’t stay focused for long if you don’t get good sleep regularly (caffeine is not a substitute for sleeping well). Sleep deprivation is detrimental not only to concentration but to the entire body. There is no way around it.

It’s also optimal (but optional) to get:

• Sunlight early in the morning (10 minutes, double if it is cloudy).

• Cold shower or immersion (30 sec to 3 minutes, if shower, avoid cold water on head).

• Caffeine (early in the morning).

• L-Tyrosine supplements (early in the morning, 500 mg - 1 gr,). More about supplements later.

• Exercise: anything will give you everything.

• Reduce smartphone usage = max 2h/day.

• Be well hydrated.

• Meditate (3-17min. Choose an “anchor” to focus on. If you lose focus, imagine cutting a ribbon as the end of distracting thought).

• White noise or

• 40Hz Binaural beats before work. Here’s a warmup for you:

  If you want more actionable steps, go here.

Find your focus indicator

The idea is to give your brain a visual representation of entering “work mode”. What I do is put the figurine on my desk and tap it 2 times on its head every time I am about to work. This is a kind of signal that the focus block just started.

The figurine in question:

My sessions are 90 min each. If I really need to take a break (toilet or anything unpredictable) I tap once and turn the figurine around. I also stop the timer. As you can see - the idea here is to enter “deep work mode” whenever the figurine is looking at me. I treat it as my personal discipline guardian. The thing is that no one will know if you are cheating. That's why you also need willpower. But we will talk more about this in the rest of the article.

It would be best to have a separate computer in a separate room. An office, just for work. But that's a comfort that many can't afford. In that case, a separate browser just for work is not a bad idea either. Something on the desk as a “guardian” and a separate browser (template or whatever you work on) to give work a different feeling is a good combo.

It won’t work instantly, but as you keep doing it, your brain will connect the dots. This Pavlov’s dog-like idea may seem stupid but it helps.

Willpower