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> I'm really prone to letting my thoughts get off on the worst tangents, and it will take a while to get myself back on track Sometimes I'll be listening to an
by 3minus1 7y ago
> I'm really prone to letting my thoughts get off on the worst tangents, and it will take a while to get myself back on track
Sometimes I'll be listening to an audiobook and I'll start thinking about something else. By rewinding the audiobook I can figure out how long the distraction was (could be over a minute). It also amazes me how I have no recollection of the portions of the audiobook that were playing while I was distracted.
- meowface 7y agoThis happens to me a lot, but it often ends up being 5+ minutes lost.
- pmoriarty 7y agoI've mostly been able to solve this problem (unless I'm really frazzled and have a lot of other things on my mind) by adjusting the audiobook's playback speed. Too slow and I'll be bored and my mind will wander a lot, and too fast and I'll miss chunks even with the smallest mind wandering. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. For reading written material, I found a trick that worked for me in college, when I had mountains of assigned books to read. Whenever I noticed my mind wandering, I'd make an arbitrary mark (like a simple checkmark) on a piece of paper and immediately go back to reading. This kept my focus and I was able to barrel through a ton of reading.
- tikhonj 7y agoHappens to me with audiobooks, physical books, movies... even in-person conversations. The latter can be awkward, but I've gotten pretty good at guessing what I missed, or asking reasonable questions to get myself back on track :).
- Mirioron 7y agoLetting the mind wander like that is precisely why I read books in the first place. Sometimes I'll only read one chapter in 3 hours and the rest is just daydreaming.