I really need som tips on how to avoid getting trapped by my own hyperfokusing.

I very often i get completely consumed by either youtube shorts or something similar and i loose complete sense of time and spends literally 5 hours on just doom scrolling and wasting time. The worst part is that I’m hyperly aware that I’m doing it the whole time and I really want to stop but I just won’t shake myself off of it. I feel so bad because i should go walk the dog or go do my hobies instead. It happens the most often when I’m supposed to work from home and it makes the guilt feel even worse. If only I could do something for myself at least while not actually working. The only way I’ve found working so far is blocking the websites from me using blockers but I know that I’ll just either circumvent them or find something else that’s equally bad for me to hyperfokus on. And I do have legitimate reasons to use YouTube sometimes for work for tutorials etc so blocking it doesn’t really work so well for me.

How do I get out when I find myself in that trapped state? Let me know how you are dealing with it.

I wanna add that I’m medicated with methylphenidate but it doesn’t really work on getting out of the trap if I’ve first gotten in.

  • bob@feddit.ukEnglish
    3·
    11 hours ago

    Some great advice here, probably repeating others a bit but stuff that works for me:

    • to do lists for each day / physically writing stuff down
    • Generally work in 4 blocks (~60 - 90 mins each), 2 in the morning with a break in between then the same in the afternoon after a decent lunch break. (Afternoons are always less productive mind)
    • Seperate work/home laptops. Only work stuff happens on work laptop.
    • if I find I’m not being productive I just leave my desk for 5 mins then come back and try again.
    • lots of walks

    For YouTube stuff I’d recommend an alternative front end like freetube. Much less in your face with throwing vids at you, plus no ads!