I’ve trained myself to hyperfocus for a few minutes when necessary, but because I don’t like to do it for long periods of time, I tend to do it in fifteen minute chunks. I’ll put my sleep timer on my iPod to play music[1] for fifteen minutes then just dive into whatever I need to do until the music turns off.
I made a bit of mistake in my playlist today. I had the theme from Jurassic Park in the playlist. That did not help my concentration, as it sent me into a reverie.
The first career I ever considered was paleontologist. I was that annoying kid who would correct the museum guard or guide about them. There’ve been millions of us over the years. To this day, I could not tell you why I loved dinosaurs so. I’ve known of few children who were that into the monster aspect of paleontology. Most of us who loved them did so from a very scientific standpoint. Maybe that was it. Kids love logical puzzles and paleontology is all about learning to construct logical theories. It was many of our introduction into many sciences[2] – from geology to biology to forensics… You could branch off into so much.
For those who are misguided enough to think that emotions and intellect are polar opposites, I’m sure the sight of someone sitting in a dark movie theater watching Jurassic Park for the first time with tears running down her face at THAT SCENE[3] with the brachiosaurs would be a bit of a shock.
To this day, I cannot hear that theme without recalling the power of seeing the dinosaurs living and moving for the first time. So it’s a bad one to play when I’m trying to concentrate on something else.
[1] Usually classical, but almost invariably instrumental.
[2] Though not mine. I was introduced to computer science before I could read.
[3] Anyone who has had the experience knows the scene.