Threads of concentration.

[kool-ka-lang]

Long story short: I am a student in need of serious concentration skills.

short story long: For the past week or so, I've been working on a project for school. Here's the problem: I need the internet to complete it.

What's the problem with Internet? Distractions. I'll be working on my research for 2 minutes, then find myself hours later, browsing through forums and youtube videos and the like. Before I actually "begin" the act of "not doing work" I say to myself, "oh, I'll just take a look to see what's up on blah blah blah forums. won't take more than five." then it's ten minutes. fifteen. before you know it, I've lost 2 hours of my time, just internet surfing. The reason I put "threads of concentration" for the title, is that for each place I go to, there is like a vast canyon of stuff to do/read/listen/watch, that I can't seem to get out of.

I'm using wikipedia a lot, and when I find myself clicking on a link, the links never stop. I went from reading about photosynthesis, to something about the sun and heat waves, and then the moon, and then the solar system, and then mars, and then water on mars, and then extraterrestrials, and then paranormal events, and finally, to a weird "red rain" that happened on India, that people speculate could be extraterrestrial life raining down on us.:teeth: It's annoying as hell: I CAN'T STOP READING. SO MUCH TO READ, SO LITTLE TIME.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala

The exact same goes for conceptart, in terms of links leading me more and more off topic. Say I went to the art discussion thread, to check on a thread I posted on, (I rarely post btw). Seconds later, I see a few links: so I click. turns out that site is massive. so I click some more. and more. and more. Until I eventually end up back at conceptart.org.

These "threads" of links and stuff keep me from doing my work.

How do you guys concentrate when you need to do something online?

CAN you guys concentrate? or are you in the same boat as me? :/

[Interceptor]

Today I went to meet my girlfriend at the University in my city which is across the other end of town. We found the emptiest place in the top floor of the library and she studied while I drew and painted all day. I've never worked as much, and as consistantly as I did today. Putting yourself in a position where there is nothing around you but a pencil and paper is great motivation.

[Justin.]

Have other people around to moderate you. Make sure it's someone that won't let you slide.

[Ampersand]

I suffer from really poor distraction resistance too. It doesn't help that my studies are conducted online, so I'll be trying to read a document about Web 2.0 while chatting and browsing at the same time. Usually I'll get my friends on MSN to block or otherwise chastise me until I get my act together.

The internet is just too damn interesting. I'm a sponge for useless information, so it's hard to resist. :[

[Seedling]

Try giving yourself a window of time each day for non-research internet use. Outside of that window, no internet excpet for things directly related to your projects. Don't wait for someone else to cut you off. The time to develp goodhabits is now.

[JL.Alfaro]

is it distraction or procrastination?

is it A.D.D. or laziness?

when you sit down to do something, do it. There is a task at hand, correct? The task is not "whats playing on You tube today" The task is not who or what forum etc..

just get to work, and the reward for completing your task is your fun time.

[karichristensen]

Heh heh, this might seem obvious to most people. But some of us out there are easily distracted. I've been freelancing for years and the biggest thing I struggle with is staying focused and having fun- aka making my work more fun than xbox.

I agree with Interceptor, put yourself in a situation without distraction and you'll learn good habits. Find ways to limit your internet surfing time. Sometimes I use a timer. But it's even better if you can figure out ways to make your work fun. It's easy to be focused when you like what you are doing.

[Vigilandus]

Very interesting thread; I believe I'm in the same situation as some of you. About a year ago I started to bring structure in my life. Devise a schedule per day, so I wouldn't be spending too much time on each subject. Narrowing down the margins between tasks to a few minutes. It had helped me considerably, but it didn't last. Maybe that was because of the way I looked at these tasks. They were stuff I needed to do, at times I didn't feel like it. Rearranging the schedules didn't make a slightest difference.

Experimented with the cold turkey method too. Sometimes when I spend too much time on something, completely ignoring tons of homework assignments, I just realize what I'm doing. And then I decide to stop. Immediately.
You can change your life ANYTIME. There's this delusion that you can't change so suddenly. You don't háve to get back into your old habits, right?

Jibberish. --^

By the way.. in my case, it's not just the internet. And I'm sure it isn't just the internet in your situation too. I get distracted doing so many things.
Making a schedule stresses me out. But then again, if I go to bed early, it's not that of a hassle.

..I'm very interested in other people's opinions on this matter. I'll be checking up on new posts..

[kool-ka-lang]

Okay guys, I've finished the work, I've turned it in, and as it happened, a lot of the things you guys said actually happened, and helped me get through last week.
Now I'm trying to apply the same work ethic this week, for other things.

I just want to say thanks to all you guys for advice, because it just really pushed me over the hedge of wasting time, to doing work.

Okay, so two things happened that I"d say really helped me get through this:

My laptop broke
and, my dad was in the same room as me, doing some work stuff.

As justin said, having someone in there, especially someone that can REALLY get on your case, can do wonders for your work ethic.

And with the laptop: ALL my games, music, mini-games,- anything distracting that's based on my own computer: Basically GONE. Though I was pissed because the hard drive died, it was sort of a godsend: it forced me to do work on our old-ass computer, which was slow, and had nothing in it. So my only distraction now was the internet. (which isn't really that much of a difference considering the vastness of it, but it's better without the other distractions.)

Interceptor: Yeah I do that sometimes; I go to our local park (which only has really old or really young people in it) when I really need to do something: plus it's refreshing to be outside.
For J.F. Alfaro, yeah it's procrastination and laziness, not a.d.d. :)
Seedling,that's basically what I'm working on this week: being able to do work without needing someone else to monitor me.
Ampersand, hey, you never know when you'll need all that useless information riiiiight?
Karichristensen, definetely agreeing with you on the fun aspect. But then I've always admired the people who can do their work, no matter how boring, bland, and depressing it may be. (It's good to have those people in the world-they have discpline.)
Vigilandus: couldn't have summed it up better. :)

I guess this thread's served it's purpose for me: it can help other people, but I've solved my problem.

thanks guys.(and girls)

[shaoshao]

I know the point may be moot now, but I thought maybe somone else would benefit from it. If you force yourself to account for every hour that you have, you will start to feel bad if you keep writing 'browsed the interenet 1-2pm, 203 pm browsed the internet.' having a visual thing like that sometimes helps me when I really need to buckle down.

[Twiggy]

Oh I almost missed your last most, but I've already written... I'll share it anyways...


If this work that you do is work, don't see it as work, but instead is it as just fun or plesure. Find the enjoyment in this "work".
The projects that I easly move away from becuase I'm getting distracted by something else, means I'm not interested in it. When you browse through internet on anything, be it CA.org or anything, just ask yourself "hmm is there anyway this thing that I'm getting distracted by help or be used in my project?"

and when you do the work and bit a fews bits, you feel a sense of pride, which makes you feel good, and your workaholic self wants to feed on it some more.

also, being in a situation where high level of work is demanded it also quite moitvational, espeically when your surrounded by your competitors who are slowly beating you, but you won't let it happen.

another thing:we should appreciate todays technology more, back in the olden days things were much more difficult to do, you can do these things with ease today.

p.s. mastrubate!