| A short walk and breath of fresh air is one of the more consistently serendipitous things that help creative work. Music helps too, though silence can help too - it depends on your emotive response at the time I guess. "Brain dumps" - the act of transferring mental information to another medium can itself be a great mental relief. eg.: - drawing diagrams w/ pencil and paper. things are more complicated than we first imagine them, often... remember, "the right perspective is worth 80 IQ points" - alan kay - debugging by talking to yourself out loud - post-it note reminders everywhere -> your short-term/working memory doesn't feel cramped It is possible, maybe, that you are a bit concerned about enjoying programming/working to the fullest extent.. because you expected it to be more enjoyable. All that said... good focus is not just maximum momentum -- what you are really asking about, imo, sounds like a question of laminar vs turbulent flow :) To go "down the rabbit hole" with great momentum, versus a fragmented mind pulled apart in every direction with equal momentum :P Well, we all know how time flies when you're having fun, or enjoying good company, right? Yet it almost seems you are asking for tips on how to make time fly when it shouldn't, hypothetically kinda like this: >"if -- while I am working on something difficult -- I had the capacity to just make time fly quicker, then I'd have no problems with stamina or keeping focused, by design. Furthermore, it would be a momentary-enough challenge to /become fun/. So how do I hasten the passage of time when work is hard?" The answer to this is: unimpeded flow = mastery. Extrinsic obstacles are easy to spot but one's intrinsic obstacles take much longer to become aware of.. Only after intuition replaces the tendency to hesitant deliberation will deliberate action come easily. As you gain experience, you subvocalize less and operate 'fluidly' at the right mental level of semantics.. With mastery comes the use of "the voice as an object that can be seen as the lever of thought" [0]. Just think of the last time you were amazed by a display of talent or performance by someone that left you so amazed you wished for a few minutes more of their time. imo, to solve your problems, you have a few options: - you could improve to the point that coding gains a new and desiring appeal. - you could find something (or somebody) with exceptionally inspiring talents to code with - or, you could look deeper into yourself, and see if the focuslessness is really just a desirelessness [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/voice-and-nothing-more |