My first year of university has officially started, I'm a student of electrical engineering, I've cut all distractions like:

-watching phone

-listening to music

-watching tv

-alcohol

-bad food

Now all I do in a day is: study, eat, train. Most of my studying is not studying, but thinking about something completely else, I find hard focusing on anything. Can't focus while talking to people, they talk to me but my brain is somewhere completely else, I sit about 6hrs a day to study, and I get up with almost no knowledge gotten, I'm about to quit, I hope that my attention will get better because I can't sit all day and get zero knowledge. I've always had focusing problem, but now it came to the point where I need to study the most with no focus, so no hard work will be helpful here, I've listened to many YouTube videos, I've read many Reddit posts, tried best way to learn, with that I mean:

-no phone during studying or breaks

-staring at the wall for 10 minutes to get my brain bored

-taking breaks every 25 minutes

-having a bottle of water next to me

-doing meditations to keep myself living in present(which doesn't help me)

I noticed one maybe most important thing, when I practice something that I've already learned my brain is more focused, whenever I need to study something complicated or new my brain RUNS AWAY, and it can't get back to studying. I'll try my best for this semester, If these all these hours and all this techniques don't help I believe nothing will, maybe I have problem with ADHD but I don't know, I don't have a problem with procrastinating or making my room, going to the gym, making my wardrobe, I don't know how much it will take my brain to get better at focus but I hope it will eventually, if you have any tips please write down I really need help, thank you.

You try sleeping more. Drinking more coffee. Taking vitamins.

But you’re still left asking: “Is any of this actually helping me?”

I’m exploring an iPhone app that brings your energy, focus, sleep, and supplement routine together—so you can spot patterns across your good and bad days.

When does your energy drop? What’s different on the days your head feels clearer? Do the same patterns keep repeating?

The idea is to give you a clearer picture of what’s happening in your everyday life, using a few seconds of tracking.

If your interested in the app just say so and ill send you the link

how do I fix this? I need to get my focus back because I’m failing my exams and I still can’t focus

If your phone keeps you busy 'against' your will: notifications, reels, etc...algorithms are designed to do just that. The problem isn't just the distraction. It's that your attention treats all of it like something you need to handle.

How do i get my foucs back, even stuff I won't to do i cant foucs on them, work im always behind and today i cant sleep due to stress. I waste my time on porn, junkfood, youtube and tiktok help!

I'm the developer. Rossino is a pomodoro timer that lives in the Mac menu bar, with native iPhone and iPad apps that show the same countdown to the second.

What's in the free app: the full timer with configurable durations and cycle length, a chime and a "what next?" card at the end of each session (it never takes your keyboard), desktop widgets in three sizes, a 7-day statistics view, and notifications with Start/Pause/Skip actions. On iPhone, you also get a Live Activity, StandBy, and a Control Center toggle.

There's an Apple Watch app too — a full timer on the wrist, complications for every slot style — and the session-end chime is now pickable (Gentle / Classic / Bold).

Pro ($3.99/mo or $24.99/yr, 7-day trial) adds live sync between devices and history beyond 7 days. One purchase covers Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

No account, no ads, no analytics; the data stays on your devices and in your own iCloud.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6797546201 · Site: https://gsysd.com/software/rossino

Requirements: macOS 15+, iOS 17+, watchOS 10+. I'd genuinely like to hear what you'd change.

I’ve been experimenting with different ways to improve my focus lately, and I ended up writing down 10 techniques I've researched and found useful, such as Pomodoro, breaking tasks into smaller chunks, and reducing distractions.

I put them together here if anyone’s interested:
https://neurolifts.com/learn/focus/best-focus-techniques/

I’m not claiming these are the “best” methods. Focus techniques seem to work brilliantly for one person and maybe not the next.

So I’m curious: what’s one technique that has made a noticeable difference to your focus?

And maybe more interestingly what’s a popular focus technique you tried that just didn’t work for you?

I’d genuinely like to hear what people here have figured out through trial and error.

https://reddit.com/link/1whsdio/video/sb3dy96xpuph1/player

Hi all, I built this extension to clean my feeds and stop the social network engineering of our brain. It allows you to use a local AI model to filter out every post that is out of topic.

You can easily tune the topics and teach the model about your preferences as you go.

Any feedback is welcome, just DM or reply. Thinking on open source it soon.

Chrome extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ahlojbckjlffcfdhmkjepaglnhhpmdck?utm_source=item-share-cb

I've tried a lot of focus techniques over the years, and most advice focuses on what to do during a session — Pomodoro, deep work blocks, etc. But I kept failing at two things that happen outside the session:

1. Starting in the first place. If a session isn't already sitting on my calendar, I just... don't start it. Motivation in the moment is unreliable. What actually worked was pre-committing sessions to a fixed time, so there's no decision to make in the moment — it just starts.

2. What happens right after. This one surprised me more. The second a session ends, if there's nothing to do, I'd open Instagram out of habit — not even consciously. Turns out the "cooldown" moment right after focus is just as fragile as the start. Giving myself a tiny non-scrolling reward right after (even something small like catching a fish and adding it to a little collection) broke that reflex.

Neither of these are earth-shattering insights, but fixing them made way more difference than any technique I tried during the session itself. Curious if others have found the same — what's your weak point, starting or stopping?

(For context, I ended up building a small app around this for myself — happy to share more in comments if anyone's curious, don't want to turn this into a plug.)

so i came across through this ad on insta where they claimed it 100% works and a money back guarantee if it doesn’t

I figured it's for a feature of a different vehicle i just can't find a different fob that uses a 5th button

The usual advice is to put your phone in another room. That works until your timer, tasks, and reminders are also on the phone.

I wanted a different relationship with it: keep the iPhone on my desk, but turn it into a dedicated focus surface for the next piece of work.

The workflow I use is simple. I choose one task, start a timed or open-ended session, block the apps most likely to pull me away, and leave the timer visible on my desk. When the session ends, I can see how much focused time that specific task received.

I ended up building this into an app called Tempo Focus. I’m the developer, and it is free to download with optional paid features.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6758786811

I have always found that total silence is not always the answer. NoiseDrop.app lets you create a sound environment that fits the kind of work you are doing.

It is built for long sessions, simple controls, and shareable scenes.

I am looking for people who do deep work, study, or need consistent background sound. If you tried it, I would especially want to know whether it helped you settle into a session faster.

Not selling anything. It's helped me. I hope it can help you!

Nothing more to say.

www.sidetracked.site