EPTThe funny thing was, I was labeled a smart kid. I never understood why, because I never really did all that much work at school, nor did I attend school that much due to sickness. Yet somehow I always did good. One of the main reasons I never focused on school was because I'd spend a lot of time playing games, a field where I actually wanted to improve I'd play Settlers 2 for hours and hours against the AI, trying to refine my strategies and developing new ways to rush my first gold coin production chain.
As I grew tired of Settlers 2, I looked into Age of Empires II and my family finally got a dial up connection, which I used to play against other people. The thing was, though, that I started to lose a lot and this frustrated me greatly. So I spent more and more time trying to improve, yet I kept losing and as a result I kept doing worse at school due to even more time spent on games. Eventually I stopped playing online altogether and kept playing against the AI, which I had no trouble beating. You could say I went back to my safe zone.
Fast forwarding a few years and I'm in the last three years of school before you either head off to uni or college. My life was a mess. I'd skip school to play more games and keep losing (at this time I played WoW and Warcraft III religiously). But there was one thing I noticed. Whenever I played with my 2v2 partner in WoW, he'd always have to tell me if he needed help or if we needed to switch targets.
My brain simply refused to register anything else in the entire world besides the one person I (I played a Warrior) was wacking on. As I started to notice this I talked to my 2v2 partner about this and he suggested I should simply try and make a physical check list that I would force myself to look at every so often. So I did.
A few weeks later we started floating around 2.5k, up from our former rating at 1.8k. Things were great. I also found that I had more time for everything else, like school and working out (side note: ironically I also did track 'n field and was one of the top mid-distance runners in the country, but an injury put a stop to that).
Could you imagine how relieved I was? I always felt like I had the potential to play at a much higher level, but I could never achieve anything because I'd always focus on one repetitive task. As a matter of fact, realizing the problem in the first place was probably the most relieving experience I've ever had in my life, both before and since. Because that's all it really was, a problem that needed to be dealt with.
Now I'd like to point out that getting rid of my tunnel vision almost entirely was only a temporary thing and when I play Starcraft 2 now I notice that I still go into «zealot making mode» or «micro mode» and completely forget about everything else. However I've found my passion and even though I still follow esports (Jinro fighting!) and still play a lot of games, I've come to peace with the fact that I'll never be a pro-gamer and to be honest, I'd rather be a part of making the next RTS-hit than be on top of the SC2-ladder. Not saying I could be the best SC2-player in the world, but hopefully you understand the gist of what I'm saying
I'd also like to point out that getting rid of my tunnel vision required a bit of daily training (30 min to 2 hours, depending on how much time I had to spare, etc.). I also wouldn't recommend doing this unless you actually want to improve This is simply a technique for people like me, with mild ADD symptoms, who want to improve and think they could benefit from it.
So what's there for you to take out of this blob of text if you, like me, have «attention issues» or you're just plain lazy?
- Identify the problem (it's not a disease, it's a disorder).
- There are a lot of techniques out there to combat the problem. My solution, obviously, worked for me. Find one that suits you.
- Tunnel vision is, as far as I know, something you'll always have to deal with. Although that does by no means mean that you can't snap out of it if you become aware of it.
- I'm not a doctor and my 2s partner isn't either. I can't tell you if you have ADD or any other condition.
- Take notes of any symptoms if you think you have ADD or any similar disorder and consult a doctor.
