Dealing with distractions from your values

[RobinReborn]

How to you ignore distractions when working towards achieving your goals?

[Brant Gaede]

Nicotine.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, RobinReborn said:

How to you ignore distractions when working towards achieving your goals?

RR,

If you spend a lot of time online, you will be constantly distracted. Programs like Facebook, Twitter, etc., are designed on purpose to hook you by abusing your dopaminergic system.

They eventually turn you into a distracted zombie. And it's physical--in your brain. Measurable by fMRI scans, too.

If you are interested, here is an excellent book that tells you why you are having such a hard time concentrating: The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains by Robert Lustig. His main focus before has been diet, but in this book he covers social media and other things that abuse dopamine highs (meaning, they try to addict people). You might like the guy since he leans left. His science is pretty solid, but this book is written for the layperson.

Here's an article that shows you some of the shenanigans they are doing to you online to destroy your concentration. It is written by a guy (Tristan Harris) who used to design addictive features that distract you for major social media platforms, then had a crisis of conscience.

How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist

These are just a couple of things to look at. If you want more about how to recover your focus, I can point you in some really good directions. But first I want to see if you will even look at this stuff.

Michael

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

RR,

If you spend a lot of time online, you will be constantly distracted. Programs like Facebook, Twitter, etc., are designed on purpose to hook you by abusing your dopaminergic system.

They eventually turn you into a distracted zombie. And it's physical--in your brain. Measurable by fMRI scans, too.

 Michael

 

Floods of data, factoids and ready-made opinions, one could get lost in without trace!  Making all the more critical conceptual minds. And there is every sign that conceptualism is on the decrease (from complacent reliance on the 'flood', sadly and ironically).

[KorbenDallas]

Dealing with distractions from your values, I think has to do with having a hierarchy of values.  Distractions affect your life, values, purpose(s); so having a hierarchy of values can help a person know (identify) when a distraction is taking place, and what to do.

Relatedly, Rand's Playboy interview came to mind, this question and answer:

Q: If a person organizes his life around a single, neatly defined purpose, isn’t he in danger of becoming extremely narrow in his horizons?
Rand:  Quite the contrary. A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of a man’s life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He does not know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot tell what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can enjoy nothing. He spends his life searching for some value, which he will never find.

[Nerian]

On 10/21/2017 at 11:18 AM, RobinReborn said:

How to you ignore distractions when working towards achieving your goals?

Maybe they aren't distractions, but your true values.  I dunno. Sometimes I wonder... if your values were really your values wouldn't you value them? 

[Peter]

I get amused at the “Hollywood cliché” of some young person being “forced” into a field of study they don’t like. But gramps was a doctor and dad is a doctor and my brother is a doctor so I must . . . . be a doctor. Or maybe I will work with the animals at the zoo.

Some of my family are going to see a Rock and Roll Revival at a local high school tonight. I went to one years ago and it was entertaining. Soon Herman’s Hermits will be doing a live show in the area too. “Henry the eighth I am, I am.”   

[RobinReborn]

Update, I've improved on this on my own.

 

The first thing I did was write down some goals in the morning after breakfast.  I evaluated how well I did in achieving them at the end of the day.  I also started using www.rescuetime.com to track how I spend time on my computer which I also use to evaluate and find patterns in my behavior.

 

I've also lowered my expectations.  There have been a few times in my life when I've been very productive in a short period of time.  When I tried to use those for inspiration it didn't work because most of the time I didn't get those sorts of results.  I could easily get positive results from doing things like youtube or facebook and that didn't seem that different from spending a lot of time working without seeing results.  But I've come to the realization that most time spent working doesn't lead to special results so I've come to value the act of just working without being distracted (and rescue time let's me know how much time I"ve been working).