Is There An Easier Way?

First of all, don't be alarmed by your inability to focus on such kinds of material. I was just like you but what has really gotten me to keep focus is simply thinking of what the end results could be like. Look at for example this website (myLot), wouldn't you want to build something like this yourself? Or even make your own facebook or youtube. Realising the potential end result is what will keep you steady, and whenever your attention faulters simply regrasp it with that knowing. But that would be long in the coming, not because it takes a while but because to truly learn you will have to take your time and absorb the material, then apply what you have learnt. Start by building simply things. In your examples always do things that you find interesting. Don't put the default hello world in your first program, put something funny or something that makes you as an individual remember it. And when you're looking at the functions or structure of how a particular example block of code is, try to change it and suit it such that you remember and enjoy what you're doing. Always be sure to check from time to time for what other people have accomplished and realise that you can very well do just the same.
I could recommend books for you that might hold your interest. I am thinking about making my own PHP tutorial but I haven't come around to making it just yet. You need to start off with some basic procedural programming.
Have you tried a book by the title PHP by Example? I don't know what your current experience is with PHP is, but if you have the basics down and you need to start object oriented programming a good book is PHP in Action.. That one teaches you how to properly build applications by building them in small pieces making up a whole so you never have to destroy all your code because you can't figure out what the hell you were doing in the first place some weeks or months after.
You could very well read any book, just read a few pages a day. If after you read a paragraph and you just dont know what you just read (because your mind was on something else), go back and read that paragrpah right away. Sometimes it takes 2, 3, or 5 times. If after that you still didn't feel like you extracted some piece of information, forget it for now and try back later or another day.
On the last note, that is a very good decision on your part to have knowledge on web programming, but it would be a waste to not apply these skills. You could make a fortune....

i used http://www.w3schools.com . it is very easy to follow and teaches the basics first then gradually gets into more complex things, you should try this out. By the way its free too!