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And yet, here we are, posting comments on HN. By the way is not being able to hear your daughter screaming for attention because you're deeply focused on your

And yet, here we are, posting comments on HN. By the way is not being able to hear your daughter screaming for attention because you're deeply focused on your phone being distracted, or not? Sounds like laser focusing to me. Which means that it's not a matter of being 'indistractable', but one of prioritising what's worth your attention. On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like 'indistractable', but that's personal taste.

afarrell 7y ago
We all have multiple roles in life we’d like to play. And limited time/attention/energy. So we look back on our time and ask “was I the person I want to be in that moment?” And hear our intuition sigh “no...”. But we were. In that moment reading an article on your phone, you were the well-informed citizen living the life of the mind, which is something you aspire* to be. But you couldn’t simultaneously be the caring father. And the regret of that moment stings more sharply than the satisfaction of thinking about the article you read. One theory I have for how to be more focused: narrow or combine your set of things you aspire to. This is hard. If you aspire to be both a caring father and a moderately-skilled hobby carpenter, you might find your daughter is interested neither in woodworking or in having a treehouse. And so in any given hour, you must choose. (* assumption I’m making about you just so I can write less abstractly)
gniv 7y ago
> On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like 'indistractable', but that's personal taste. It's likely that the success of this book will rely entirely on this word. After all, Cal Newport wrote recently on the same subject, so I'm not sure what this book brings new, other than the catchy/annoying word.
- ohduran 7y ago
  I loved Cal Newport's book. It's insightful, and full of takeaways, drawing from years of writing about the topic on his blog. While reading it, I was constantly looking on the Internet for the references and pieces of research that he was mentioning, the kind of reading you are meant to do when you are doing research on a certain topic, and him being a researcher has that kind of style that for the interested reader is full of depth. On the other hand, you have an annoying, made up word and the work of someone whose sole purpose at work is, and I quote, "help tech companies build products to keep you clicking". Now if I skip the mumble jumble of #likes4likes that you usually find on Amazon five star reviews, I can find a 3 star review that weighs the pros and cons. Pros: He knows a lot about distraction. Which makes sense; he does that for a living. Cons: the solutions. > Make a contract with yourself, he says. Make a money contract. If you fail to keep the contract you have to set fire to a hundred dollar bill. That's it. I'm choosing Cal Newport's "Deep Work" every single time.

afarrell 7y ago

We all have multiple roles in life we’d like to play. And limited time/attention/energy. So we look back on our time and ask “was I the person I want to be in that moment?” And hear our intuition sigh “no...”. But we were. In that moment reading an article on your phone, you were the well-informed citizen living the life of the mind, which is something you aspire* to be. But you couldn’t simultaneously be the caring father. And the regret of that moment stings more sharply than the satisfaction of thinking about the article you read. One theory I have for how to be more focused: narrow or combine your set of things you aspire to. This is hard. If you aspire to be both a caring father and a moderately-skilled hobby carpenter, you might find your daughter is interested neither in woodworking or in having a treehouse. And so in any given hour, you must choose. (* assumption I’m making about you just so I can write less abstractly)

gniv 7y ago

> On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like 'indistractable', but that's personal taste. It's likely that the success of this book will rely entirely on this word. After all, Cal Newport wrote recently on the same subject, so I'm not sure what this book brings new, other than the catchy/annoying word.

ohduran 7y ago
I loved Cal Newport's book. It's insightful, and full of takeaways, drawing from years of writing about the topic on his blog. While reading it, I was constantly looking on the Internet for the references and pieces of research that he was mentioning, the kind of reading you are meant to do when you are doing research on a certain topic, and him being a researcher has that kind of style that for the interested reader is full of depth. On the other hand, you have an annoying, made up word and the work of someone whose sole purpose at work is, and I quote, "help tech companies build products to keep you clicking". Now if I skip the mumble jumble of #likes4likes that you usually find on Amazon five star reviews, I can find a 3 star review that weighs the pros and cons. Pros: He knows a lot about distraction. Which makes sense; he does that for a living. Cons: the solutions. > Make a contract with yourself, he says. Make a money contract. If you fail to keep the contract you have to set fire to a hundred dollar bill. That's it. I'm choosing Cal Newport's "Deep Work" every single time.