How does one stay focused? How does one do it?

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My special interest was science, however I have gone through some kind of burn out and can't even stay focused on one thing. I have tried getting rid of the Internet - that doesn't work because I will get distracted by my surroundings and end up starring at the wall or a clock in the room. Either that, or I start day dreaming and pacing around the room. Dear me.

How do you guys stay focused? And does anyone else have trouble staying on task?

My only advice is to eliminate distractions. Only have around you what you need to work on.

Burn out....ewww. If you do tend to hyper focus on a special subject of interest then when burnout happens it becomes a double edged sword because your losing interest in it and like a roller coaster you have to let it go for a time, you cant force yourself to continue on it because the more you try the more you will procrastinate in doing it. I suggest to stop where your at so you can easily pick it back up once your interested in it again and focus on something else...I have had years dealing with this sort of feeling and this is the only way I know how without permanently losing interest.

Unfortunately because I always find myself thinking about a million and one things running concurrently and can get lost in a day dream for a good 45 minutes at a clip, I'm a master procrastinator and generally feel as if the only motivation I can find for a whole host of things (some work-related, some personal chore/appointment, some entirely leisure in theory) is to wait to the last minute and thus force a resolution out of desperation. Back in school, I used to wait until the morning of to type up book reports after having half of or even an entire marking period, but aside from a few duds, generally still found myself getting A's on these so it was a risky but workable formula.

I've been reading a number of your posts whilst lurking and value your insight here so I wish I could be more helpful, but instead I find you're identifying common problems (common between us). I find the ability to be distracted by even mere objects especially relevant. I'm not a shopper nor a materialistic person, but I've done a fair bit of traveling, so the majority of stuff I enjoy having are nostalgic things from my travels and other old stuff from my past I can't part with (many things people assessing material value would call "worthless"), so even without something else to do or anything real to distract me, I can literally find myself walking around my bedroom staring at different objects and reminisicing/day dreaming.

Yet I wonder if this is something inherently AS or another uncommon trait?

Morning rituals help somewhat, but I find that if I can't focus on anything it's not a matter of procrastination. Too little sleep, not enough water, hungry, etc.

A little variety helps, too. I find that if I've spent months on a short story I desperately want to put it down for awhile once I'm done editing and work on something else. Not a lot of people are happy to do the exact same thing indefinitely.

I sometimes burn out and lose focus. It's hard to get back in the swing of thing s but one thing that helps is to force yourself to focus until it becomes a habit again.

You could try writing a very detailed schedule for each day, divided into short periods where you concentrate on various topics, and interspersed with other short periods in which to relax and prepare yourself mentally for the next one. As others have said, this phase will hopefully not last too long.

BTW, we haven't exchanged pms for a while so I hope you're okay otherwise.

That's good advice! I sometimes have trouble sticking to it but in gradually getting better.