Help Request: How to maintain focus when emotionally overwhelmed

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2q0/intelligence_amplification_open_thread/2n07?c=1

Net-positive is good! If congratulations are in order, then congratulations!

In my personal experience, the net-positive thrills are terrific, but too few and far between to merit extensive study. If you can arrange to take a bit of a break for a while until your life settles down, then do that. If not, then you probably don't have time right now to do much more than use a combination of common sense and sheer willpower.

The military and the emergency services have a lot of institutional knowledge of how to function during periods of extremely unpleasant stress. For example: http://www.hooah4health.com/mind/combatstress/default.htm .

I also feel familiar with this kind of feeling, despite not enjoying/suffering from a similar situation for some time now. Personally I utilize two different techniques:

To-do lists:

I usually would list all the things I want to achieve the next day. The order is quite flexible, but I have a habit of starting with the most boring thing if I'm feeling positively driven, and conversely with the easiest or most pleasant task if I'm feeling down.

Exercise:

Sometimes the positive emotion has been so overwhelming, that I have been unable to focus on anything remotely intellectual or abstract. So, to me the answer is to go to the physical level: go for a run, bash my drumkit or anything that is both physical and enjoyable. I've found it very useful to ride out the sort of excess enthusiasm and then pick up writing or reading again.

I am actually facing this same problem myself. My personal life also got very interesting, and incredibly enjoyable. So enjoyable, in fact, that I really don't want to do anything other than just enjoy myself and have even more fun!

My motivation has shifted entirely from getting things done to having fun, and the thought of doing anything significant to further my long-run interests seems too hard to bother doing. For the first time I can think of, I am now suffering from meta-akrasia: I know there are techniques I could use that would increase my productivity, but that would mean I would actually be working, and that doesn't seem fun at all!

Costanza mentioned taking a break until things settle down. This is the advice most of my friends and family have given - enjoy myself for now, and set a date down the road to check in. I suspect if I wholeheartedly give in to the enjoyment, it will eventually fade a bit and my motivation to do other things will return. Of course, life has continual demands, and I do feel a strong pressure to utilize every moment. I am very torn on this issue.

I'm dealing with this currently due to mild ongoing sleep-dep. A couple of suggestions. For putting the anxious/panicky emotions into context, I'm going to recommend daily meditation. You might start with Understanding vipassana meditation on this site. For focusing on tasks -- this is the hardest for me. The Pomodoro Technique works for me -- for a while, before it stops working. But it does help me get over productivity slumps from time to time.

You can't fight emotion with reason; you need an emotional frame for your work. If possible/appropriate, tell other people what is going on with you, and ask them to hold you responsible (they will appreciate your asking and be more inclined to nag you in a friendly and understanding way). And try to think of how work is meaningful in your new life developments. For example, if you were expecting a baby, you would want to think of yourself as a provider.

Good luck and congratulations!

Attention deficit as in your not using your attention in the way you want? People have discovered factors that increase or decrease self-handicapping tendencies. For example, you can increase it by making the test more relevant to your self-esteem: just say “this is a proven test of intellectual ability in general”).

Don't take any breaks. Escalate! Make your work more interesting to match, or take up other activities. This strategy works for me in times of extreme happiness and extreme unhappiness alike. Personal life must never be allowed to interfere with progress, no matter how exciting it feels.