How I hacked my concentration

“To realize the value of what one has, one has to lose it”

I had lost my ability to concentrate. 20 years back when in college, I could sit and read through an entire novel day and night without succumbing to any distraction. This was the non internet and the non social media era. The distraction you had was mostly friends and movies and hanging out. All of these activities had friction. Reading had no friction. You slept with a book by your side, you woke up in the morning and started reading it. That was it. Whereever you went, the book accompanied you. I would devour books, mostly fiction. Fast forward 20 years, I struggled to finish a book. Granted, I had moved to non-fiction from fiction but that shouldn’t cause a disparity so huge that I couldn’t finish books. I had to put so much effort to read that I would just give up in 10-15 minutes no matter how interesting the subject was. Naturally my Kindle library just kept filling up with unread books.

It was not just the books, I couldn’t sit and watch a movie, couldn’t hod a conversation with my kids, or anyone for that matter withougt getting distracted by the phone. At first, I failed to recognize this behaviour. For the last 3-4 years I dismissed this distraction as the ‘new normal’ in the social media era. Twitter becamse my productivity hack and I would scroll endlessly on Twitter believing that I was gaining knowledge. Just because I got a couple of career breaks from Twitter, FOMO took over. I didn’t want to miss any opportunity.

Slowly but surely, my phone consumed me and I just went by with it, like it’s the new normal. What struck me one fine day was my forgetfulness. I was browsing through my github repos and also the problems I had solved on LeetCode and I could barely recognize the code. I started watching a movie only to realize I had already watched it, halfway into the movie. I neglected these at first. When the pattern became persistent, I got curious. Was I having an early onset of dementia ? Literally scared the bejesus out of me.

I still did not recognize the problem of phone addiction. I was diagnozing a memory problem. By now, my reading comprehension is getting affeted. Any deep topic, I have to reread a passage multiple times to even figure out what was going on. By now, I have also tried Pomodoro, meditation, running, exercise pretty much every tool under the sun. So now I am convinced that I am definitely having a chronic concentration problem. Still not too paranoid about it but the problem is gnawing at me.

So about 10 days back, I start a conversation with Claude to improve my reading comprehension. Claude takes me through a series of passages to test my retention skills and am doing pretty decent. Not the top but not bad either. This gives me hope. Then I casually ask Claude

what are some of the best ways to improve concentration and do deep work. I have tried pomodoro but haven't been able to keep up

Let me share some evidence-based strategies for improving concentration and deep work capabilities:

Environment Design
Create a dedicated workspace with minimal distractions
Use noise-canceling headphones or white noise if needed
Keep your phone in another room or use apps to block distracting websites
Have good lighting and comfortable temperature

Biological Optimization
Ensure you're getting 7-9 hours of quality sleep
Work during your natural peak hours (are you a morning person or evening person?)
Take short walks between work sessions - physical movement improves mental clarity
Stay hydrated and maintain stable blood sugar with proper nutrition

Alternative to Traditional Pomodoro
Instead of strict 25-minute sessions, try:

90-minute focused blocks aligned with your natural ultradian rhythm
"Untimed" sessions where you work until your focus naturally wanes
Starting with shorter 15-minute sessions and gradually building up

Entry Rituals
Develop a consistent routine that signals "deep work time" to your brain
This could be making a specific tea, doing 2 minutes of breathing exercises, or putting on particular music
The ritual itself matters less than the consistency

Progressive Training
Just like physical exercise, concentration is a skill that needs gradual building:

Start with shorter periods (even 10 minutes)
Focus on consistency rather than duration initially
Gradually increase time as it becomes easier

What specifically made Pomodoro challenging for you to maintain? This would help me suggest more targeted strategies.

My next question

How to find out my natural peak hour. I wake up around 6.15-6.30 but immediately take up my phone and start browsing through Twitter, stocks etc

Ah, that morning phone habit is actually masking your natural energy patterns! Here's how to discover your peak hours:

First, break the morning phone habit:

Put your phone in another room before bed
Get a separate alarm clock if you use your phone as an alarm
For the first 30-60 minutes after waking, avoid all screens
Replace the phone routine with a simple morning ritual like:

Drinking water
5 minutes of stretching
Brief meditation or deep breathing
Making your bed
Opening curtains to get natural light
Track your energy levels:
For 2 weeks, rate your mental clarity and focus every 2-3 hours on a scale of 1-10
Note when you:

Feel most alert naturally
Have your best ideas
Find complex work easiest
Notice concentration dropping
Feel mentally fatigued

Early morning experiment:
Since you're already waking up at 6:15-6:30:

Try doing your most important work immediately after your morning ritual
Start with just 30 minutes
Notice if thinking feels clearer and easier than other times

Most people fall into one of these patterns:
Peak: 2-3 hours after waking (around 8:30-9:30 for you)
Peak: Late morning (10:00-12:00)
Peak: Early afternoon (2:00-4:00)

Would you be willing to try a 1-week experiment of keeping your phone in another room and tracking your energy levels? This could help identify your optimal work times.

This is all I needed, to realize that the main problem is my morning phone checking. Did not ever realize that it had such a devastating impact on the brain.

First week of de-addiction

Based on Claude’s response here is what I decided to do

• Wake up, make my bed.
• Take a cold shower (1 to 2 mins)
• Do light stretches, have a coffee and relax.
• 30 - 45 minutes after waking up 1 hour of productive work.

Absolutely no phone till then. Claude even recommended that I keep the phone in a different room.

• Day 1: Wake up around 6.20 follow the protocol until 7.55 finish off some producive work as well. Next I head to drop off the kids to school, and to my surprise, I don’t have the urge to check the phone for stock quotes or Twitter. I let it pass and continue with the rest of the activities for the day.
• Day 2: Same protocol 6.20-6.30 wake up, no phone, cold shower, productivity rest of the activities. Not a whole lot of urge to check the phone.
• Day 3: I catch a cold, so shift to warm shower, rest remains the same. No urge to compulsively check the phones.

The first week went by and I was aboslutely stunned by the outcome. I finishd off the 3 body problem, a book that was in pending state for nearly a year. I wrote 2 blog posts and got back to writing. In the class or when playing with my kids, I no longer checked my phone compulsively. This can’t be so good. So I asked Claude if this is a one time thing or what was going on behind the scenes.

What I understand is that early morning phone check is very similar to the early morning cigarette. It sets the tone for the rest of your day by providing your brain that dopamine hit. Your brain now craves for that dopamine all through the day. Because of this, the brain loses its ability to focus on long form tasks, and is hooked on dopamine. So you end up satisfying that immediate urge time and again, just like smoking one cigarette after another or one cocaine hit after another.

The second week

Now I am in the second week and my productivity has gone up significantly. Not only productivity, I am now able to read through books, write long form blog posts, tasks which took a monumental amount of energy before. I am now slowly able to do with a little bit of ease.

Rating my natural peak hour is a bit tricky now. However, I think I function best in the morning. So my current best rating is 8AM to 2PM and evening 5PM - 7PM.

I am now convinced that I can continue on this tragectory of improvement and it will yield compounding gains, if not exponential gains. I have quite a few tasks in my hopper and I need to get them all done. To echo the words of Marc Andreesen, it’s time to BUILD.