The author describes increasing difficulty focusing, needing a 15-minute timer to write this piece. Distractions fragment work into 10-minute cycles across programming, learning, writing. The urge to escape boredom or hard tasks manifests in many forms — browsing, phone, even making the bed.

This wasn't always the case. In high school circa 2015, the author avoided passive browsing, keeping charger away from bed. Computer time was intentional: reading, programming, strategic games. Then Hacker Noon and Medium introduced easy boredom escapes, later replaced by Hacker News, YouTube, and Slack — where tracking revealed 8 hours weekly on chat. Work culture rewarding minimal attention normalized distraction.

LLMs now compound the problem. Outsourcing tasks creates parallel mental threads; waiting for responses fragments focus. Interactive use feels slow, yet the speed of results makes deep work like reading papers feel reluctant. The author tries countermeasures: livestreaming for accountability, balcony gardening as low-addiction break, reading physical books. A 15-minute timer provided initial momentum for this reflection.