focus

Andrew Huberman discusses ADHD, its biology and myths, behavioral and pharmacologic treatments, and training protocols to improve focus for people with or without ADHD. It covers dopamine and the coordination of brain networks.

A three-minute clip of Steve Jobs at WWDC 1997 explaining that focus means saying no to many good ideas. It is a short answer about product strategy and its effect on people.

Andrew Huberman's long Huberman Lab episode is a masterclass on dopamine. It covers the neural circuits, peaks and baselines, dopamine depletion, and 14 tools for motivation, focus and avoiding addiction.

A Huberman Lab episode on setting up a workspace for productivity, focus and creativity, covering light, posture, movement and sound. It touches on ideas like ceiling height and the effect of screens on the brain.

Evan Czaplicki, creator of Elm, talks at Curry On 2015 about user-focused language design. He explains the principles behind Elm and how to make a functional, typed language as approachable as JavaScript.

A one-minute scene from the film Enemy of the State showing absurdly implausible image enhancement, with freezing, rotating, zooming and focusing on a video.

Psychology professor Marty Lobdell gives a one-hour lecture on how to study effectively, covering short focused sessions with breaks, study environment, note-taking and memory techniques. It was aimed at students who cram without improving.

David Rock gives a Google Tech Talk based on his book Your Brain at Work, using neuroscience to explain why focus and productivity are hard at the office. He gives strategies for managing mental energy and distraction.

A 24-hour loop of Star Trek TNG starship engine ambience, meant as background sound for relaxing, sleeping or concentrating.

Ten hours of uninterrupted pink noise, intended for relaxation and masking background sound. It is a long ambient audio loop rather than a spoken video.

Jon Kabat-Zinn leads an hour-long Google tech talk on mindfulness, introducing the basic ideas and including a guided meditation. It is aimed at newcomers.

A one-minute clip of Bryan Cranston at an Academy new-member reception, advising actors to approach auditions without desperation and focus on solving the problem rather than landing the job.

Josh Kaufman's TEDx talk argues that you can reach practical competence in almost any skill with about 20 hours of focused practice, rather than the 10,000 hours often quoted. He describes how becoming a parent led him to rethink how adults learn, and lays out a short method for rapid skill acquisition.

The introductory lecture of Richard Hamming's capstone course, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn. It focuses on style of thinking and on educating rather than training, using technical material only as illustration.

Adam Savage answers viewer questions on dealing with condescending colleagues, focusing on dismissive phrases such as 'why don't you just' and 'I would have'. He explains why such language undermines the person receiving it.

A long Huberman Lab episode laying out science-based daily tools for focus, sleep, exercise and mental and physical health, organized around a 24-hour day.

A short clip of George R.R. Martin asking Stephen King on stage how he writes so fast. King describes setting daily page goals, around six pages a day, and keeping focused hours.

A full performance of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians by eighth blackbird with Third Coast Percussion and others, recorded in Chicago in 2011. It is an hour-long minimalist piece built on phasing and repeating patterns.

A clip from Steve Jobs's 1997 WWDC session, in which he answers a hostile question from an audience member about Apple killing OpenDoc. He says to start with the customer experience and work back to the technology, and that saying no is part of focus.

A full-length album by The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, a dark, cinematic electronic jazz group. It runs about 55 minutes across nine tracks.

Andrew Huberman introduces how the nervous system produces sensation, emotion and behavior, and how neuroplasticity lets us change it. It covers neurons, synapses, brain chemicals and the rhythms governing focus, learning and sleep.

A 60 Minutes report on neurosurgeon Ali Rezai using focused ultrasound on the brain to treat Alzheimer's and addiction. It shows experiments opening the blood-brain barrier and targeting addiction-related regions.

A one-minute clip of Steve Jobs describing how he cut Apple's product line down to a four-quadrant matrix of consumer and pro, desktop and portable, during the 1997 turnaround.

A short clip from HBO's Silicon Valley in which a focus group savages a product by calling it as bad as Apple Maps. It satirizes tech product launches.

Patrick Winston's long-running MIT lecture on public speaking teaches heuristic rules for talks. It covers how to start, use time and place, boards, props and slides, and how to inform, persuade and finish.

Steve Jobs's 2005 Stanford commencement address, built around three stories: connecting the dots, love and loss including being fired from Apple, and death. It is a 15-minute talk on finding work you love.

Randy Pausch's 2007 last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, given as he was dying of pancreatic cancer. He reflects on achieving childhood dreams, overcoming obstacles and helping others reach theirs.

A two-minute animation of an Alan Watts talk arguing that life is like music: it is meant to be danced to in the moment, not rushed toward a final goal. It is a short, accessible take on living in the present.

Rich Hickey's philosophical talk from the first Clojure Conj in 2010. He argues that good design comes from deliberate, away-from-keyboard thinking, and describes how to feed the background mind so it solves problems.

Richard Hamming's 1995 recording of his talk 'You and Your Research', drawn from his graduate engineering course. He discusses how great scientists pick important problems and build careers, drawing on his years at Bell Labs.

Mike Monteiro's CreativeMornings talk on getting paid for creative and freelance work, covering contracts, working with lawyers, and refusing to work for free. It is delivered with blunt humor.

CGP Grey argues for picking a theme for the year or season instead of setting goals or new year's resolutions. He explains how a theme gives direction without a pass/fail target.

CGP Grey argues that your brain treats a whole home as one room during lockdown, blurring work, rest and leisure. He recommends creating separate spaces and routines for different activities to stay balanced.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement address, told through three stories: connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. It includes the calligraphy class and the 'stay hungry, stay foolish' close.

CGP Grey's sarcastic animated video adapted from the book How to Be Miserable, listing habits that reliably make people unhappy. By inverting the advice, it shows what to avoid and prompts reflection on goals and routines.

A five-minute clip of Ira Glass on the gap between good taste and early creative work. He says beginners know their work falls short and must keep producing to close the gap.

A roughly three-hour San Francisco workshop by Marshall Rosenberg on Nonviolent Communication, with full English subtitles added by a fan. He teaches the model with his jackal and giraffe language examples.

Larry McEnerney of the University of Chicago Writing Program argues that good writing is defined by what readers value, not by rules or the writer's own ideas. He explains why academic habits fail outside academia and how to write so readers find the work valuable.

A short How to ADHD explainer, featuring Brendan Mahan, on why simple tasks can feel impossible for people with ADHD. It introduces the 'wall of awful', a pile of past failures, shame and anxiety that builds up in front of a task and blocks starting it.

A short excerpt from a 1994 interview of Steve Jobs in which he says everything around us was made up by people no smarter than you, and that you can change and shape the world.