LESSWRONG
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LeviHart
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How have you become more hard-working?
Answer by LeviHartDec 02, 202370

I've always had a lot of ambition and energy but didn't have the executive function or focus to really channel it. I had quite a few breakthroughs, most of which came after intensive meditation and ADHD medication (Ritalin+serotonin and gaba stuff for my gut).

I have a seriously weird brain from what I gather from other people. I found certain exercise practices worked very well to pump me up while calming and focusing my mind, a lot of it is about the duration. Always having an ability to focus after working out I use that to my advantage, I do what is called Greasing the Grooves which I believe was created by strength trainer pavel tsatsouline. Essentially you just do 5 reps, good form, but for explosive strength for whatever exercise you're doing but then you rest for 15+ minutes. The magic is you repeat this for a really long time. I will do 5 reps of several exercises to hit my whole body then wait 15 or more minutes and i will repeat this for something like 6 hours and in between I will have incredible ability to focus on any task I set myself.

I also meditate fairly often and do a specific thing EY mentioned which is to set a 5 minute timer and work on a problem if I'm stuck. It did wonders for me personally.

With my weird adhd I find that standard advice doesn't work for me. Some people say to focus on only one thing, yet I always struggled reading a book, but then i read on a stationary bike and it was trivially easy. I do this in a lot of things. People say to focus on 1 project and thats it, I listen to Isaac Asimov who would force himself to write for 9 hours a day without really stopping. He could switch projects but not stop. I do that, I keep focusing and im allowed to switch to another project but I just have to keep going. It's done wonders for me personally.

I also like to listen to music with sound proof earphones, a lot of classical techno etc. Sometimes the same few songs on repeat over and over, but nothing to vocally (usually).

I think a lot of this comes down to what you is your drive. I have a lot of ambition and endless ideas but the problem I have is consistency, I'll write for 9 hours one day on a story I'm passionate about then forget about it for like 3 weeks and its the same for most things. It works really well in super busy projects where I'm managing large teams, but stuff on my own where i dont hire people it's a different story. But i have a extremely strong drive to help as many people as I can and that seems to motivate me a lot.

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