[kaashif]

This reads like someone with ADHD took Adderall and accidentally focused hard for a day on the wrong thing. It has happened to me.

I guess if this writerdeck works persistently for many projects then fine. But if every 2 projects the writerdeck gets revamped then it seems like a way to get a dopamine hit or distract ones self. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't seem like it's a net benefit in terms of focus.

[cortesoft]

> focused hard for a day on the wrong thing

Entirely depends on what the author wanted to focus on. Who are we to say what is the right or wrong thing to focus on?

[TeMPOraL]

I built my whole career on focusing on the wrong thing. In fact, focusing on the right thing makes me slow down, struggle, and get bogged down with frustration. I still learn 10+x faster when focusing on the wrong thing, and after two decades of this, I now know I have to regularly focus on the wrong thing with passion - those are the moments I pick up knowledge and experience that, few months to years later, people pay me to apply to their problems.

[nine_k]

Structured procrastination [1, 2] was invented full 30 yeas ago, and works very well, given some skill.

[1]: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-procrastinate-and-s...

[2]: https://pennyzenker360.com/how-to-procrastinate-and-still-be...

[napkin]

This is me. I’ve gamified it to the extent that, to control my passion, I play tricks to ensure that the right thing becomes the wrong thing. My brain must believe it is procrastinating.

For example, I often don’t pay my bills (the money isn’t the issue). I have to have sufficient debts that they become convincing boogeymen. Work can’t feel like escape if there’s nothing to escape from.

[phalangion]

I love this. Feel like I’m the same way. I also feel like some of this “focusing on the wrong thing” is sharpening the saw, preparing my mind and my environment for greater productivity. As long as I eventually return to the right things.

[komali2]

> Who are we to say what is the right or wrong thing to focus on?

Just observers pointing out that her stated goal was "to write more." If she uses the writerdeck as-is for a couple years, then, she was one of those rare people that discovered an actual single structural obstacle that stood between her and her goal, and then solved it in one fell swoop.

As an ADHD guy, I completely understand the cycle: have a thing you wish you did more, identify some "obstacles" between you and the thing, or just some friction points, and then really enjoy the process of fixing all those things. Then doing the originally desired thing in my perfect new environment and reveling in the fruits of my labor for a glorious day... Or hour. Skyrim modpacks, emacs configs, keyboard setups, OS tweaking, camping gear fiddling, pen and paper gear fiddling.

That's life, it's valid, whatever. I did find though that there's more effective ways to actually do the things I originally stated I want to do, and the more effective ways seem to be a bit more brute force. So for example, trying to quit my reddit addiction, I tried all the little tricks, little apps that track time, browser extensions, host file blocking, etc. The most long term effective strategy though was asking myself, "am I really going to go my whole life without a reddit-free week?" And then escalating that to a month and so on. Basically escalating cold turkey. I wrote about it - https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/how-to-quit-social-media/

Learning mandarin, was what pushed me over the edge of my plateau the fancy apps I kept trying, all the books I was buying, the really slick annotation setup I had on my Boox? Nope, daily simple Anki deck fed by a spreadsheet combined with going to the south more where people don't speak English that much.

To be fair some of my fiddling has resulted in cool outcomes. The handwriting experiments all finally concluded after years of device fiddling onto a specific kokyu notebook size, a specific journal, and a specific set of pens, all of which I own enough to last a while now. My workout tweaking led to a fun form of cardio where I ruck with a lot of weight, a 360 camera sticking out of my bag, and some OSM apps open, letting me ruck around for hours without getting bored while I do OSM contributions. And lo, my emacs tweaking seems to have finally settled down into a config set that for coding hasn't changed for years, though the note taking/ journaling one did get revamped earlier this year so it's not done.

[moondance]

This really resonates with me. Not to be annoying but I think that the people challenging you in your replies haven’t experienced this as a consistent and problematic pattern in their life in the way that many people with severe ADHD have. It’s a very specific, almost obsessive behavior, and it’s less romantic than they’d like to imagine when observed as a habit.

[kaashif]

Indeed. And someone accused me of being hostile and thought my initial comment was me making a mean joke:

> This reads like someone with ADHD took Adderall and accidentally focused hard for a day on the wrong thing. It has happened to me.

It is very far away from being a joke.

[dv35z]

Can you share more about your journal specifics, and Anki deck + spreadsheet? Thanks!

[komali2]

Yeah np, I go into the writing and journaling here https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/in-defense-of-pen-and-paper/

And more detail about the daily reflection activity here: https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/my-new-life-stack/#journal

However I'm back on emacs lol, but basically I still do the same flow in emacs that I was doing in trilium. Dotfile: https://github.com/komali2/Configs/blob/master/emacs/.spacem...

Anki I haven't shared online yet, but for writing practice I just grabbed a "top 5k most common characters" deck online, and then reading/listening/speaking, I just chuck words into pleco and then use its build in flashcards system (it can use anki as a backend if you want).

Also re: journaling, I do a handwritten journal + calendar in a Hobonichi, but those don't have enough spare paper for day to day notes and book notes. For that I use kokuyo 80 sheet 8mm ruled w dot lines, soft ring, 148mmx105mm which is basically the exact same size as my Kobo bw, genuinely pocket sized.

For daily todo list it's a mnemosyne... 192? Is that the model name? They're relatively tall but extremely tall pocket notebooks. Basically I'm constantly strapped with hella paper.

[akerl_]

What a strangely hostile thing to say to somebody's earnest post about their setup.

[crimsontech]

I don't think it was meant to be hostile. It is a pattern I always find myself repeating personally. I think they just recognised it as something they do themselves.

If I feel like I have too many things to do, I can end up installing all sorts of todo list apps instead of doing the things. When I feel like a need a nap, I look up optimal nap times, end up reading stuff and then realising I missed the window I could have had a nap in.

I've set up vimwiki and loads of other note taking type apps (or knowledge management apps as they are often called now) and I export my notes from one system into another, and forget to use it.

[altairprime]

Flatly: “How dare you lovingly handcraft a bespoke wordworking tool when you could have written a short story instead! We hackers would never spend time improving our circumstances to create more efficient flow states going forward rather than just drearily producing output less efficiently!”

[kaashif]

Well if it's strangely hostile I'm sorry but "I need to focus on writing so I spent a few days stripping down a Linux distro" seems pretty disconnected.

I mean it's a fun project!

But it really reminds me of something I would do that isn't entirely positive.

[akerl_]

Disconnected from what?

The reason it feels hostile is because you led with a joke about the whole thing being a big mistake, but also that the author wrote about a thing they built to solve a problem they had and ended their post by saying that it worked, and you've popped up to pitch that it might not work.

[kaashif]

There isn't any joke in my comment. Apologies for the confusion.

[nicbou]

Same. However, for a while, I did not need to work much, and indulging in such things was an absolute delight. It was entertainment, but it also benefited me when I actually worked.