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Hyperfocus less as an adult

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Lady Strange
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19 Apr 2022, 6:19 pm

I've noticed since being an adult I think I do this less than I did when I was younger, getting really into something and being so into it that's all I wanted to do. Have others of you noticed this as life has gone on? I suspect it is because with working I don't have as much time to devote to topics of interest, and I just get too tired/burned out and don't have the energy to get into much.

ETA: I do get interests that I go into but its more in a span of weeks or months, not super all consuming like it used to be when I was younger.



kitesandtrainsandcats
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19 Apr 2022, 7:38 pm

Lady Strange wrote:
and I just get too tired/burned out and don't have the energy to get into much.


In my experience adulthood and working were far less a cause of the above than acquiring ME/CFS about a decade and a half ago was.

Am pretty sure that a good chunk of the stress energy which came from working got used by hyperfocusing.


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ToughDiamond
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19 Apr 2022, 7:48 pm

I don't think it's changed much in my case. But I've become more aware of it, and concerned that there should be an end point before any one particular matter starts to impact too badly on the rest of my life, so I suppose the awareness motivates me to pull out of a hyperfocus a bit quicker than I used to do when I didn't know myself so well. I guess I don't hyperfocus much less, I just enjoy it much less. I seem to spend a lot of my time with this nagging feeling of "why am I trying so hard with this crap?"



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20 Apr 2022, 6:28 am

I think that as an adult one is almost backed into a corner to learn better management skills regarding focus.

i use the comparison of learning to drive. If one only looks at the speedometer, an accident is likely. As a result, one has to interrupt one's focus to make peripheral scans periodically. This tends to force a person to take "manual control" of focus (to some degree).



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20 Apr 2022, 7:13 am

One of the things that I noticed was when I was young I had only one special interest at a time. But as I aged, I just added more and more items into my list of special interest. In a sense instead of becoming an expert in only one area, my mind grew and grew and I became an expert in many areas.

An that quality made me a well rounded person, highly intelligent in many different fields.


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20 Apr 2022, 4:33 pm

timf wrote:
I think that as an adult one is almost backed into a corner to learn better management skills regarding focus.

i use the comparison of learning to drive. If one only looks at the speedometer, an accident is likely. As a result, one has to interrupt one's focus to make peripheral scans periodically. This tends to force a person to take "manual control" of focus (to some degree).

Some truth in that, I think. As adults we're usually less protected than children, and more often have to manage multiple hazards. Indulge in the Aspie habit of focussing on one thing too long and hard, at the expense of all else, and you can die. So we have to learn to merely glance at things, which is essential for safe driving.



Lady Strange
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20 Apr 2022, 6:18 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
timf wrote:
I think that as an adult one is almost backed into a corner to learn better management skills regarding focus.

i use the comparison of learning to drive. If one only looks at the speedometer, an accident is likely. As a result, one has to interrupt one's focus to make peripheral scans periodically. This tends to force a person to take "manual control" of focus (to some degree).

Some truth in that, I think. As adults we're usually less protected than children, and more often have to manage multiple hazards. Indulge in the Aspie habit of focussing on one thing too long and hard, at the expense of all else, and you can die. So we have to learn to merely glance at things, which is essential for safe driving.


Very true and well said. It becomes more about survival as an adult. I do miss being able to really bury myself in a topic for hours on end a day, was very fun.