I can't pay attention and it sucks.

Is it just me or are "important things" extremely boring? You won't believe what I actually have to go through before and while doing anything remotely important. This self-inflicted stumbling block is as frustrating as it is silly. These short breaks as I term them are part of an elaborate problem that's eating into my performance as a whole.

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I could be working on the most important project of my life and suddenly get lost in my own thoughts of some inconsequential bullshit that completely takes me out of the relevant frame of thought. The knock-on effect is that it slows me down and I have to find my way back to my current level and then start creating the way forward.

There are moments that I lose information or text copied or cut to the clipboard. I've unintentionally submitted half done projects and assignments, misplaced items, and generally find a way to fuck some basic situations up.

Every time I get to the end of an article, I give myself a mental pat on the back, and this is not just because every article is a fragment of my soul that I express through words or the rigours of going through research and fact-finding. Nope, the biggest challenge comes from overcoming the steep hurdle that comes from my short attention span and is the reason I have so many unfinished books to read, and an unfinished publication or three always sitting in the backburner.

One of the difficult parts of producing simple and relatable scribblings in my cultured rambles is piecing together the information from my brain and externally to sound coherent. This process involves simultaneously taking mental notes of the tone, tempo, presentation, and compliance with the information. This means that a certain level of concentration is required to perform this largely mental process but this blasted attention span keeps getting in the way and I have to work twice as hard to produce the bearest minimum.

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In the past couple of years, the longest activity I've been able to survive for up to 2 hours is writing an exam and to be completely honest, I'm usually exhausted after one hour, then spend the remaining hour fustily trying to squeeze out of information from my brain. yet the only thing my brain tells me to do is to submit that paper and walk out of the hall.

You'd think that this problem persists only when it comes to important stuff but it spreads into virtually every aspect of my life. I'm still surprised I managed to watch The Irishman from start to end in one go and to be fair, it is really an amazing movie. Other than that, I've not been able to watch anything longer than 30 minutes and would split the average movie into segments that last one week because they are generally monotonous and boring.

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If I'm not being distracted by my thoughts, then it's going to be something external like my phone or laptop notification that's getting in the way. I make conscious effort and progress to limit external interferences; I keep my phone at a safe distance away and turn of internet while working. Other issues like scent of food, thought of alcohol or sound from people talking in the background are also issues. I've managed to fix all but the alcohol part.

It's not all bad because I manage to get stuff done at the end of the day but I know deep down that I'm not nearly living up to my potential. You know what they say, a problem shared is a problem half solved, and after the love and encouraging words I got from sharing my battle with suicidal thoughts, it was only right to drop this here and hopefully interact with others that may be experiencing something similar
and hopefully learn how I can fix this issue.