I have a trick at my work as a developer to gain hyperfocus on difficult tasks, with 3 simple steps.

Step 1. Prime your brain Search for content on the internet like youtube videos, Tutorials, articles etc. anything that is somewhat related to the task and interesting to watch and even enjoyable. Your mind needs to latch onto it. Keep doing this and procrastinate until…

Step 2. Take the insipirational exit At some point your minds interested will peak and your mind wonders how to solve this yourself. Its going to itchband you will not be able to sit still. Take the inspirational exit and jump straight into your project.

Step 3. Its focus time! You mind is now filled with ideas and you jump into work. You start with the easiest thing and your mind will keep pushing you to finish all those great ideas it got from watching/reading all that content. Go from easy to hard to stay in the flow state, but this will mostly solve itself.

If everything works out, time will fly and you will have completed the task using your hyper focus. If not repeat Step 1.

This method works best with programming or digital art, but can also be applied to anything else.

Hope that helps some of you.

Cheers

  • fiat_lux@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    Makes sense, I’ll have to try this out. I have definitely managed to create the right mood accidentally.

    I’m going to struggle to find entertaining tax information though. Some topics are truly joyless.

    • OmgItBurns@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      It might be enough to break it down and find bits and pieces that are interesting to you. Things like why do certain tax laws exist, the history of taxation, potential reasons tax laws are so complex, etc. Maybe there are even some videos on different strategies for filling out boring documents that might help.

  • Juju@sh.itjust.worksM
    5·
    1 year ago

    Love this.

    As a teacher I often have to jump on a task that isn’t actually that urgent but scratches an itch (to do with some research I’m excited about / solves a problem in a cool way / feels novel etc) in order to get me working through my to do list.

  • yuri@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    1 year ago

    very good advice, you did a great job making the directions easily digestible. i’m a hobbyist metalworker and this is a process i use frequently.

    i will also add that as long as you’re not under a pressing time constraint, let your mind wander from time to time! sometimes the project you want to work on isn’t the same one your brain wants. and occasionally you can find inspiration in the impromptu side projects that cause a major breakthrough in whatever you just backburnered!