Ask HN: How to regain the ability to read with focus and learn
I have noticed my own decline in terms of attention spans, and (in)ability to read long-form text online or offline. This leaves me with a disaatsifaction and I would like to rebuild a good habit cycle.
Curious to know if any of you went through the same and managed to recover from this rot. What worked for you, and any thoughts and learnings you might want to share.
I faced a similar thing at one point. The thing that fixed it for me was going back to fiction. Started with a fantasy series. Did a little sci-fi. Did some easy classics (e.g. Dracula). Eventually that joy of reading, long focused reading, and effortless comprehension all came back. Just took practice.
Much like advice for writer's block being often "just write!". The same goes for reading. Start with something easy breezy and eventually it'll all start flowing again IMO.
Also, don't be afraid to revisit your favorite fiction and/or try young-adult fiction. IMO what you read matters less than building a habit or routine of reading.
Agreed. I have discovered at 53 that teenage fiction is my happy reading place. Impossible Creatures was my favourite read last year and currently reading the Eragon series. 30;years in IT has resulted in me scanning rather than reading.
Yes! Just find any page-turner like The Name of the wind and have fun!
Or a nice biography on someone you find interesting.
Practice. I've had a couple periods where I went from reading constantly to not reading at all, and the only way to read more in one sitting is to read more. At the start you may only be able to do 15 minutes or so before you have to get back to the feed, and that's ok. Later that day you can do another 15 minutes, and tomorrow you can bump that to 30 minutes at a time. You can jump-start that by reading things that keep you glued to your seat rather than things that you need to read, like fiction instead of, say, an O'Reilly manual, but those books that are in the "want to have read" category instead of the "want to read" group are always going to be harder
> Practice. ...you may only be able to do 15 minutes
Exactly.
Initially, I set aside 30 per day just for reading. It was tough going at first. But I improved rapidly. Within about 3 weeks I was reading (and finishing) books again.
I'm going through that process as well, as I switch my projects away from coding and back to academic reading and research, which I have not done in 30 years.
What is working for me is to take it slow. To get actual books, not e-books, sit down with them in a cozy reading corner I set up, and read what I can. To go to libraries, browse the stacks, take a few books to a table, and skim through them. Basically, to avoid middle grounds and go all the way back to how I used to read before the web took off. It is not fixing my attention overnight, but I am improving over time.
It also helps to have a focus. Reading for its own sake doesn't give me the endurance I used to have, but deliberate reading to further some research goals helps me get more done.
So I discovered the opposite. My reading was always tied to a goal of some sort. I started reading on a kindle and turning off progress indicators and suddenly I had my attention back. I wasn’t worried about improving or reading a certain amount per day or finishing a book by a certain date. I just read.
Try this: never read without a pencil in your hand. Make it a point to not only orally or mentally restate but also rewrite by hand everything you read (on-screen and in real life) in your own words, and to make multiple drafts of each restatement until it is as succinct, orderly, and logical as possible.
This practice will probably help you:
* recognize and stop reading low-value material;
* read less on your phone;
* deeply understand what you're reading;
* identify errors in what you're reading;
* identify errors in your own understanding;
* improve your own writing (and possibly your handwriting!);
* recall what you've read and what it says and means; and
* build a record of your reading, reactions, and thinking.
And, of course, I think it should improve your ability to focus.
You can also make flashcards while you're at it (again, handwritten ones) and develop a spaced-repetition practice for the important information and skills.
--- Later Edit ---
You mention long-form text in particular. One of the most effective tactics to use while reading is to discern the writing's architecture/structure — at all levels, from the writing's genre, to its main components and their arrangement, to how each main part is composed, and so on. Doing so not only helps to understand and critique the author's ideas, but also becomes a fun game that keeps your attention directed.
And also keep in mind that > 99% of all writing is not only not great but also probably not worth reading in the first place. It's ok to use boredom as a guide: your mind may be indicating through boredom and distraction that what you're reading isn't worth the time and effort and attention it takes to do so. But if you have decided that you must read something, or that you want to read it and understand it, then I've found that there's no substitute for the handwriting technique. Check out the Mortimer Adler book How to Read a Book for further suggestions.
Maybe we could do this with just a voice recorder? writing stuff with a pencil seems unnecessarily laborious - unless the physical part is the point. you still get the mental exercise by trying to understand synopsize, and present the information
Well, physicality is part of the point: it slows the writer down and provides more engagement with text (with the text being read; and the text representing the reader's ideas about the text being read; and the text representing the reader's ideas about text representing the reader's (prior) ideas about the text being read). Furthermore, handling, pushing around, and organizing actual paper on an actual desktop has (in my experience) effects on the mind that are both different in kind and superior in degree to those achieved by merely thinking, speaking, or typing about something.
The availability and simplicity are part of the point too: pencils and paper are ubiquitous; and easily found and inexpensively purchased if not immediately available. Written jots and drafts of ideas, summaries, and reactions (of the kind we're talking about here) are easy and quick to make; they readily reveal their content; and they're easy and quick to view simultaneously, to rearrange, to stack, reorder, organize, store, and share.
Compare voice recorders: the devices are not ubiquitous and are costly; they break and are costly to repair or replace; they have many dependencies (batteries/charging/charging plugs; switches prone to failure; firmware; drivers; USB plugs or adapters that can become missing, damaged, or obsolete themselves); etc.
And compare the audio tapes or audio files: they don't really and fully reveal their content by glancing at them; they're hard to keep track of; and they're more difficult to change or reorganize.
All that said, I think voice recorders have a place and I use a dictaphone myself on occasion — but primarily to spit out several ideas quickly when time is of the essence, I'm afraid I'll lose the thoughts, or I can't find the words to describe them in writing but somehow can blab about the gist of them to create a sort of bookmark for later processing.
But then I have to remember to check to see if I have audio files of orally recorded thoughts to process and then either transfer the files to my computer for transcription and printing, or else listen to the audio files and write the thoughts down myself. <Inevitably: oops, I forgot I had these; oops, device isn't here or isn't charged when I need it; oops, Wi-Fi is on the fritz; oops, I want to reorder, reword, or cross out some of these thoughts but not others, and I can't remember or retain in working memory the whole of my spoken audio to restate it all from scratch; etc.>
In a way, doing it by hand avoids the same type of virtualization problems I experience when budgeting and spending and tracking money: doing it physically instead of by computer keeps or makes it "more real" to my mind, and I seem to make better decisions and fewer errors. That benefit alone more than makes up for any time supposedly lost in doing it by hand: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
-- Later Edit ---
The slower pace of writing by hand is also a big help because it acts as a filter. I find it helps me to filter out low-value reading (because I easily perceive when analyzing, summarizing, and reacting to something in handwriting would not be a fun or beneficial use of my time). And I find that it helps me filter out my own thoughts (because writing out the less-important ones would similarly take too great a share of the time and energy I have to spend).
Nice synopsis. I’d second How to Read a Book.
In January I left the house without my phone. I visited Leipzig and Dresden from Berlin. After 5 days I grew bored of the German winter, but I could have gone on longer.
It took a 3 hour train ride to lose the impulse to check my phone. After that it was easy.
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At home, I leave my phone on silent mode in a different room. The smallest delay is enough to keep you reading.
You can also make it an activity. Reading with the morning coffee, reading before bed, reading in a café or a park, etc. Making time for it helps.
Try the basics of speed reading.
One very simple thing is to just scan your page really fast, jumping one word towards the beginning of the line -> one word towards the end, maybe skipping every other line. Try to vaguely notice these words, but really just move fast. Do that for like 20-30s. Then go back and read at normal speed, it generally feels much slower and you get more details. It's the analogous of coming out of the highway and having the feeling that you're now driving super slow.
Note: I can't read fast, I'm not affiliated to speed reading philosophies, I know that speed reading is not just the trick above, but here and there I use it to (re)gain focus and for me it works.
A few things may help:
1. Learn something you like with Anki, every day (spaced repetition does wonders)
2. Read a book that captivates your attention
3. Meditate on your breath for 20-30 minutes, when your attention moves to something else, go back to the breath. Just keep to it, every day.
4. Write something or journal every day
5. Deconnect from social media. It conditions our minds for short attention spans.
6. Rest and sleep, a lot
7. Set a short todo list every day of what you want to do that day, and keep to it
First of all, listen to your body and calm down. I've been to an otolaryngologist recently because of recurrent dizzy spells. The test results were all good, and the diagnosis was simple: I've been unconsciously flexing my muscles and clenching my teeth. The advice was to build consciousness to this and actively relax.
I've then realized that with that flexed state a kind of mental flex follows. I got used to this kind of stressed-out context switching that put my brain in a racing thought state. Noticing when this happens and consciously stopping and then actively releasing the bodily pressure has been an important step in regaining control of my brain. I've realized that I kind of conditioned myself to this kind of dopamine seeking that persisted regardless of the medium I'd consume. I'm >30 and therefore skipped the TikTok phase, but even as I got rid of the Instagram habit (it helps that the algorithm is really poor at predicting content I'd want to watch) I would find myself doing the same kind of short bursts of short-term attention and immediate switch even with text-based media such as Reddit or Wikipedia.
Try to capture your mental state when you are in this "mindless consumption" mode and learn to identify it. Develop a habit to notice when this happens and then stop and ask yourself what are you chasing, after all. Try to pause at the content you're currently reading and read it till the end once you calm down.
It also helps to find books that keep your brain active while being engaging to you. I've had a lifelong passion for linguistics and I found myself digging into language philosophy, for example. This is the kind of literature that keeps me engaged, but forces me to slow down as well to think and properly process what I've read. Your mileage may vary; we are different people and definitely you have different interests than me.
While I'm not a fantasy fan, I'd be a little wary of picking up fantasy books. My observations tell that the most successful ones read like action movies or first-person video games, and fast-paced action is something you want to steer away from for the purpose of this exercise. Pick up something that challenges you a bit, but is still comprehensible with the context you have right now.
The problem is really that most texts are poorly written, not engaging, not emotional, just pure cold facts. Compare this to fiction, it has it all.
That's the real reason you don't like reading, you actually don't like poorly worded texts for aspergers.
No phones in the bedroom.
Go to bed at a reasonable time.
If you haven't read in a while, grab some graphic novels! Two personal recommendations are "Saga" and "Sapiens."
In my opinion it is enough to REMOVE distractions (mostly electronic devices) and force yourself into reading for > 20 Minutes until you get into a flow state (Deep Work). This will probably work better if you enjoyed, what you're reading.
If you have to use ebooks for a specific reason, use a dedicated device (ebook reader or tablet) with wifi disabled and do not disturb mode.
Read fiction for fun. You don't need to optimise your reading time to maximise learning.
Read a paragraph or a sentence. If you got it, move on, if you didn't, re-read it but sound it out in your head. If you still didn't get it, re-read it aloud. If you still didn't get it, get some more sleep and try again another time.
I'd suggest trying to work in intervals. I use Black Screen (https://blackscreen1.com/) to black out my screen for 3 - 5 minutes every X number of minutes. I start from 30 minutes and gradully reduce the interval as long as I'm getting more tired - even down to ridicules 5 - 10 minutes. The interval should be long enough to have an undivided attention span. If you get distracted then set up shorter interval. This approach helps me a lot lot.
Do you drink alcohol? I once felt this way, and as COVID fell I decided to abstain.
Suddenly, I was open to trying healthier foods, I'd go on long walks, I shed about 50lb and learned a lot of things I'd struggled with back when I'd have a few beers and watch a movie before going to bed instead of a bowl and a salad.
If you're an intelligent person, you'll get bored with binge watching and find something engaging to do, and you sound intelligent OP. It doesn't have to be permanent (I'm actually having a nice scotch before I devour a succulent chinese meal)... but to get here I had to stop completely for a spell.
Try it.
Do you mean bowl like cannabis? That's how I read it.
Some things that might help:
1. Starting a meditation practice.
2. No screens after sundown. Turn them off and charge them overnight.
3. Print out long-form text on physical paper.
4. Make sure you're getting quality sleep, exercising regularly, eating relatively healthy, etc.
For me, it was being more selective about what I choose to read and actually reading that thing carefully once I start.
I think clicking many articles and abandoning them after some skimming had trained my brain to not focus as much on the meaning of the sentences. Like my habits had lowered the stakes of reading somehow, so I just ignored things.
I now only start reading things if I think I'll actually read the thing. I will abandon if necessary, but only after a real attempt.
[random advice from the internet]
I don't know how old you are, but my experience is of phases when I read less and phases when I read more and all of it depends on my interests.
Deep learning™ changes our interests...but we are culturally conditioned to a positivist (line go up) model of learning. Anyway, the periods where I read less are generally periods where I learning by doing (and the doing-learning is not learning writing).
For me, reading gets supplanted by self-motivated creative work requiring physicality. No matter how many books a person reads about dancing, reading books about dancing is not dancing (even if it is something a dancer might do).
recover from this rot
Nobody cares how many books another person reads unless they are being paid (e.g. teachers) or are the person's parents. Although reading can be imaginative, it is not creative. Nobody cares how many books JS Bach read except grad students desperate for thesis topics -- hopefully their committee will steer them away from that dullness.
Or to put it another way, give yourself permission to grow beyond what you believed growth looked like when you were younger. Good luck.
From 2017 "You are more likely to remember something if you read it out loud, a study has found." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171201090940.h...
You have to remove stimulation from your life so your mind becomes active. You're naturally information seeking. Some call it a dopamine diet but whatever you think about it, there's a reason cloistering yourself away can improve focus and dedication.
Read something that actually interests you and you like. Choose to start with something short so you get over your anxiety, because I suspect there is an anxiety component.
One thing to keep in mind is that it takes practice. It won't be easy at first, even if your strategy is perfect. So don't be disheartened by bouncing off books or only being able to read ten minutes at a time to start with. Just keep trying, and over time it'll get easier.
Wear a high-quality mask like a KF94 or N95 in public and filter your air.
I have been struggling with similar issues. Although writing this alone was a struggle for me, I hope I can offer some helpful advice and information, and I tried my best so bear with me! Reading this will be a nice workout for your brain at the least.
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The pandemic never ended- it just changed shape. The virus keeps changing, and acute symptoms may fade. But for many, the infection never truly ends.
A major new review from Yale (Moen, Baker, Iwasaki) offers a comprehensive picture into the neuroimmune pathophysiology of long COVID. Common neurological symptoms in Long COVID include new onset cognitive difficulties, dysautonomia, fatigue, and peripheral neuropathy. Neurological difficulties resulting from COVID infection include reductions in attention span and difficulty maintaining focus for extended periods of time.
--According to Dr. Michael Hoerger, Director of Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative of Tulane University, latest data shows the current average number of COVID infections per person is at 3.77 as of last week (6/16/25).
Pair that with the fact that damage from COVID infections are cumulative and each infection increases your chance of noticeable long-term effects, there's a good chance your issues may stem from COVID-related damage. That's why I recommend to mask indoors to protect your brain from further cognitive damage. You want to reduce the amount of times you get infected as much as possible. Masking is an easy step. If you need access to free masks, check here to get connected with a local group: https://maskbloc.org/
Again, wear a mask! Check if you can get into a long-covid clinic (difficult in many places, I realize) for a neurological evaluation. There are brain exercises and a combination of medication treatments that may be able to help.
From another article on a study (I'm so sorry, I'll summarize & put link at bottom), apparently the brain exercise app called BrainHQ (brainhq.com) has shown statically significant cognitive function improvement in long COVID patients. "The UAB study ... showed significant benefits in many secondary measures, including large to very large benefits on depressive, fatigue, and brain fog symptoms, as well as a significant benefit in brain processing speed, and a trend toward large benefits on anxiety symptoms. No significant change was noted in a measure of global cognition."
Essentially, "intensive, repetitive, and progressively challenging activities can drive beneficial changes to the brain." However, you do want to be careful with triggering fatigue and post-exertional malaise if you suffer from that, so pacing can be important.
Sorry again for making so much reading for you, but I hope this helps. Mask up, eat well, and exercise your brain over time, find a specialist if you can, and things hopefully will get better. I've gotten a lot better with help. Feel free to reply if you have any questions!
www.news-medical.net/news/20250505/Breakthrough-brain-training-shows-promise-for-Long-COVID-recovery.aspx
Weaning off of social media and other engagement traps would likely help with attention span too.
What worked for me is 5 years ago I canceled my cellular subscription, and about 4 years ago gave up regularly carrying devices when I leave home at all. When I travel I carry a tiny laptop which requires some intention to pull it out when I need to, but it cannot notify me.
This has dramatically improved my attention span and I deliver far more personal and professional projects now in my late 30s than I could at any point in my 20s.
I am completely serious. You do not need to let apps and people be able to reach you at any time to lead a socially rich life in the modern world. Schedule time to do internet things, then walk away from your desk and live in the real world.
I run a b2b tech company in Silicon Valley. If I can do it anyone can.
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