The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me.
I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.
Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I'd tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn't stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who's just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.
A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.
I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there's some advice buried in it.
It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".
I have ADHD, and I also do not have a sense of smell (lost it in a TBI when I was a teenager). I tell people, "you take for granted what it's like to have a sense of smell. It affects every moment of your day, catching your interest and directing your attention all the time. Imagine not having a sense of smell. Imagine not smelling dinner or smelling your wife or smelling your baby. Imagine not smelling flowers or not smelling a gas leak. So much of what you take for granted comes from your sense of smell. Having ADHD is like that. You take executive function for granted, and can't imagine what it's like to not have that. When you say 'just write things down!' it's like saying 'just smell harder!'"
I'm not a medical expert or anything but I guess there is a good chunk of population who just procrastinates or can struggle with focus without having ADHD? Or is there always a 1:1 relationship?
> "It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".
Of course, this advice was never helpful and did not work. However, I was properly diagnosed, went to medication route, coupled it with therapy, and I'm still not better. Now, the medication and all that is definitely better than nothing, and I still rely on the relief I get. But the benefit of modern medicine for me is like taking a low dosage of painkillers for 3rd degree burns.
"doesn't it feel good to be consistent and achieve things" and I'm like yeah no shit.
"so you need to be consistent with something" yeah that's my problem dawg.
"what's the feeling you get when you want to quit?" it just happens that my life falls apart or I get really into sth else. does nobody else just lose track of all the bricks required to do things sometimes?
"it will eventually not become effort to do these things" no sir I can tell you from experience that it NEVER becomes natural for me to be organised and motivated. It takes substantial effort for me just to use a diary, which apparently is what is supposed to make me organised. Sometimes it becomes easiER because I have a streak of good habits, but it can fall apart at any moment because it's all a precarious conscious effort.
"that's because you've never stuck to anything long enough" i've stuck to different things for different lengths of time, at what point are you suggesting this actually starts working?
God I hate therapists. I sure do hope I actually have ADHD. Otherwise I'm fucked.
As the non-ADHD spouse I definitely understand this but it leaves us both scratching our heads when problem solving ADHD related things. I simply can’t comprehend what it’s like and nothing that works for me works for her. Mostly I just try to focus on myself and my needs (which has limits in our relationship). I can’t offer anyone advice except sometimes loving someone else is a choice you make for you, especially when it’s inadvertently (often but not always) one sided.
I think for me I can think of several examples when my desire to avoid another broken relationship was what motivated me to do whatever it is that they care about before they get angry about it. For example I used to be bad about doing dishes and left them in the sink for too long, to the frustration of roommates. There was something in my brain at the time that dragged me to my room to be alone. I eventually forced myself to just do the work and the pathways for doing that chore formed. I "couldn't" do it at the time for some reason but I "can" now.
While I can relate that it isn't simply about laziness, I think people getting angry can simply be their way of saying that they aren't your psychologist and they expect you to do your share regardless of your mental state.
That's fine and all, but where did I write it down again?
I lost my sense of smell for a few weeks with covid, and I actually can relate now. It's a very, very strange thing to be without. It doesn't seem that important until it's missing, but now I can't imagine life without it.
I could have written this... I've spent thousands on productivity and organization courses, and put a lot of effort into them, only to find myself unable to follow the system, for reasons I don't understand.
My whole life I've suffered from massive guilt, shame, and stress over not getting things done that were really important to me, and nobody understanding. "Clearly it's not important to you, or you would just do it."
I was actually diagnosed with ADHD 12 years ago, and the first medication and dose I tried didn't work, so I stopped, and basically forgot I even had ADHD. In part, I think I internalized the shame and dismissals from other people and still believed I was just "lazy" and "bad" and needed to try harder even despite having a clinical diagnosis.
It didn't help that my (now ex) wife also was totally dismissive of the idea that I had ADHD, as were most of my friends and family. Even from other people I know with ADHD, they would get angry or dismissive when I mentioned my diagnosis, saying I can't possibly have ADHD because I have been successful so far in my career.
I just recently decided to start looking into it again, now that my son has also been diagnosed. If I can learn how to help myself, maybe it will help me help him.
I recently heard a podcast interview with Jessica McCabe, and she said something that was mind blowing to me: that there is no one solution or cure for ADHD, and we need to stop looking for that. You will need a large toolbox of things to help, and will need to keep adapting and changing this, and it still won't ever be a "cure."
If anyone has any good info or resources to learn more about ADHD, please post them.
I always see these portrayals of ADHD children being hyperactive and just think: what if you just made them run outside for a while...surely they can't have never-ending energy and eventually tired themselves out.
And after this period of exertion, when they rest, do they then just instantly revert back to 100% hyperactivity?
Sorry to heard that. I also have adhd and I’ve looking for solutions since I was 11 years old, now I am 29 years old and pretty much tested all the vitamins, exams, medication, therapy and bunch of other things. Today I found how to manage my adhd, the basic stuff, eat well, exercise and sleep well. It seems so simple but we need to find a synergy between all the basic, vitamins we sometimes have to take, CBT and so on. The doctor Le Grand on YouTube helped to discover a lot of alternative treatments and it worked, so well that I think I am using the super power of adhd and not longer controlled by a incessant mental energy.
This isn't at all what they claim. Can you point out where they say that "if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days" ?
What it actually claims is to get you to "bearable levels of procrastination", which I find refreshing, since it seems like a very achievable and realistic goal for those of us that procrastinate. In fact, this claim is nearly the opposite of what you're railing against.
You also said you have personally started making a meaningful difference, but gave zero hint about what you have done, and what impact it has made. And you leave us with "maybe there's some advice buried in it". I'd like to say, no, there's none I can see, unless you'd like to offer something specific and helpful. I'm curious to see what you have done.
In fact my first reaction would tend to be the same as yours but then again,
- If you read the whole article you see that it is in fact a pretext to a subscription.
- There is in fact burried advice. The fact that reading articles like this is exciting and gives hope, but might turn out to be false hope in the end, especially if you have a severe form of ADHD. The advice is YMMV.
My first couple of weeks at Bridgewater I was diagnosed with a fear of failure - deep reluctance to set off on a journey unless I could see the entire path through to the other side.
I thought that was a good way to be actually (keeps you safe from doomed endeavors) but obviously keeps you from progressing on things where the only way to figure out the path is to walk it.
In retrospect it’s a form of anxiety. If you assume the world is against you and dangerous then setting into an ambiguous space is probabilistically negative. If you have faith that things work out for the best, it lets you set out on such a path easier.
I think this isn’t just me. We tend to procrastinate in the absence of “perfection “ because we perceive some sort of danger / downside for ourselves from that imperfection. Whereas the better way to think is with the end in mind: what outcome do I really care about? Does this messy step X make that outcome a bit more likely? If yes then you do it with excitement.
To lessen the cost of the first step that begins The Thousand Mile Journey: I plan to do everything at least twice. Leave room for failure in the prediction to (at least partially) avoid the planning fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy (if you haven't encountered this one weird quirk yet, it's a must read/skim). I believe most mammals tend toward optimism... They naturally have less fear of doomed endeavors.
I had an essay on Emergent Design Principles around here somewhere... For instance, I do a quick and dirty stab in the dark to map the problem space. Then totally rewrite and refactor now that I can make a more educated guess. Right then I generate the API and all (public function stubs), organizing and documenting everything. Management will demand I "ship it" without full docs and full of kluges otherwise...
I'll save the rest of that for a more on-topic thread. The gist is that procrastination can be countered by allotting time to play around in the problem space (incorporate procrastination into workflow -- can't beat it, join it). At worse I try a deliberate attempt at failure (well I knew it wouldn't have worked, but it would have been cool if it had), and at least I got myself into "code mode" doing something at all. No fear of failure, since I planned to fail that time anyway. Then I'll at least know a bit better the "lay of the land" (problem space features to fit against). It's oft the first step for me that's the hardest.
My favorite trick is to have at least one side project that I work on as procrastination of doing main projects. Without fail I'll be worrying about the main project enough that I'll realize some side-project procrastination-code I've just written shows an elegant way forward in the main project and I can no longer resist the urge to see it in action. At the least I'll be making some manner of progress, and getting closer to that "Zen" state wherein I do my main project work.
I love Louis CK but you're quoting a joke. In reality almost everything we do is rooted in some optimism.
Ever go on a job interview? It's because someone deep down you trust that it or another one like it will land you a job. Ever go on a date? It's because deep down you trust that something will work out with someone.
Maybe you don't do these things, or maybe you do these things expecting bad outcomes (which ironically nearly guarantees that outcome) but the majority of the world operates this way.
I can definitely relate to this, and I found the only way past it (for me) was to not plan at all. Just show up and hope for the best, basically. Requires a different kind of prep (good habits vs direct planning) and an adjustment of attitude (it's fine if things aren't perfect).
One thing you have to practice is the art (science?) of separating emotion from action. My historical crutch is suffering from the emotion of failure or anticipation of failure and not learning as much from that failure. And, what looks like failure at the start of something may in fact turn the other way. Life, process, things evolve somewhat out of your control.
That ties to my other point. I think it's important to learn to give up power/control. Try to look things with an objective lens. What can you do, what can't you do, where do you need help, and methodically tackle. Worry less about where the power and control comes from and do things that drive toward an outcome.
I think it popped up on an assessment, or maybe my manager quickly tuned it. Either way, the organization was very keen to identify and help grow through such stuff.
Interesting that pretty much all submissions on the first page of results from this domain is both by the same user and broadly seems to be about the same overarching theme of procrastination.
Is OP the author of the site?
(OP also posts links to other sites, so not saying OP is doing anything wrong though.)
Since 7 of the last 30 submissions by OP are that site and the pattern continues, I find it absolutely understandable and good-faith to become suspicious.
I don't want to participate in a witch hunt here, but HN needs to stay vigilant against spam and self-promotion that exceeds the reasonable intersection with honestly showing personal projects.
Discussions including "human interest" topics like this one are often of exceptional quality here. It would be bad to lose that.
So I think it is fair to dicuss this openly. Sorry if I am being coming across as rude towards a one man enterprise or something, but self-promotion on HN should follow strict rules and if this is indeed promotion, it is breaking the rules.
I think given the OP is a regular poster and they often post content from the same domains multiple times (each with a different article, with decent amounts of time between posts, i.e. ~1/wk), they probably just follow the content on these sites and "cross post" it to HN whenever they find something particularly interesting to them.
I can say personally (while I don't post on HN), when I share content in a community, it's things I find interesting, which often I see from the projects/blogs I subscribe to/follow.
So odds are OP is just someone with ADHD who finds this content useful to themself and people like them so they share new content from the site when they see it.
> but self-promotion on HN should follow strict rules and if this is indeed promotion, it is breaking the rules.
What rules are you referring to? This is what the HN guidelines say:
"Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity."
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
I post whatever I find interesting and occasionally throw in one of the articles I worked on. If people find it interesting or useful, great, if not, that's okay too.
I'm not comfortable taking advice on "deprocrastination" from someone who made procrastination their career (or side gig?), except for the advice "if you find yourself procrastinating, quit your job and make what you'd rather do your job". But that rarely pays the bills .
Gee, I wish I had something stable that I'd "rather do". The problem is that even though I've had hundreds of hobbies, once I get good at something, I stop being able to do it. Not a single one of those hobbies lasts long enough to be a job.
All these advice on productivity ultimately seem to wanna turn you into some sort of assembly line robot, achieve maximum productivity, produce!
Well funk that, in the end what matters is persistence. You don't need to work 12 hours per day, heck don't even need to work 8 ;) ;) ;) I mean like everyone knows the productivity window is at best a couple hours. But those couple hours add up and in the end somehow stuff gets done, tasks get completed, company carries on.
And on my own side projects I'm applying the same philosophy. Ideally a little bit from time to time (not even every day coze it starts to look too much like work). And if it happens that I start working and some interruption comes along, so be it, there will be another day. I don't have to ship tomorrow as long as I finish eventually. Over the years this has added up to quite a bit of accomplishments.
I also suggest to add a physical signal on your typical life accessories like phone or watch.
E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into "day-dreaming".
Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let's keep it for its mnemonic value).
I have a little silicone thumb ring I use for this. No idea why I bought a handful of them in the first place but they're useful for this sort of thing!
If I'm wearing it, there's still work stuff on my todo list that needs doing today.
Brings me back to the PC rather than coming in from a walk and doing a bunch of housework I notice on the way in haha. Hard to miss being on my hand, almost anything I could do while procrastinating will make me see it :)
Great ideas. I believe that dealing with a messy ambient or situations is a nice skill to develop, some people can't handle it at all.
With time, you'll start to appreciate the imperfections, the fact that you can't absolutely focus for a task because people are sending you messages, will have a smaller impact on your emotions and your overall focus will improve.
Having the goal of having absolute uninterrupted time and the stars aligning so you can just do what you need is the root of all procrastination, doing something 10% is better than 0%.
I'm a perfectionist and as soon as I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.
You also don't need to worry, you can't unlearn being a perfectionist, but indeed, you need a few things or moments of your day to unleash that "perfection' energy, it just doesn't need to be everytime.
> I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.
Love it. Great job. I feel the same. Good enough works well in many situations.
Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
I agree wholeheartedly. I've been stuck in a rut of procrastination for the last several years, during which I hardly ever started side projects or experiments due to tired old excuses such as "I simply don't have enough time", "This would at least need x hours per day", etc.
When I eventually tried to start something, it would inevitably be delayed by other daily things to carry out (work, family, other life related stuff), so not taking notes would always result in "" have no idea what I was aiming for last time".
Add to that a fairly (un)healthy dose of perfectionism coming from working in the same field, and you have a recipe for years wasted on complete inactivity.
Another fiend of this kind, friendly to procrastination, is the inability to decide what to actually work on, especially when you have a lot of interests.
Then the question becomes "I have hours available to work on something, but I cannot pull the trigger on any of those things that interest me", so back again to square 1 with year wasted on indecisiveness with nothing to show for it.
For both of your cases, the "25 to 30 minutes task" trick won't work at all. For a case that persists for years, what I've learned is that it's either real ADHD, or some emotional problem around the topic. For me, it was 100% an emotional problem, though I do have a bit of a scattered mind, but I can focus it, whereas I've seen people with serious ADHD who can't do it at all and need meds (among other things).
For example, having many interests is fine, but when it comes to choice, what keeps you stuck can be something like a complete fear of regretting the choice. Words like lazyness or perfectionism are usually the sheep's clothing that the wolf (emotion) is wearing. How can some organizational trick from a blog post help here?
I've read lots of self-help books (among other things) when I faced these issues a few years ago, and there's a curious commonality: it's all small tricks developed for the author's personal experience. But what I've noticed is that there are two kinds of people in these situations: the ones who don't a solution and get out of the problem (which is the group that happens to include most of those authors), and the ones who stay stuck looking for an answer, a quick solution, a trick to escape.
The first type can get out by using something like the GTD book. That means their problem really was that they lacked some crucial bit of organizational knowledge to unlock their path towards whatever they want to do.
But the latter type (the ones who're stuck in the cycle) need to let something go rather than accumulate new things (in this case, tips and tricks about Getting Things Done).
There's the DIY path (hard, involves journaling, introspection, noticing and categorizing your emotions, reading Jung, reading ancient texts like the Bhagavad Gita) and the psychologist path (you need to find a good paychologist who doesn't just ask "and what do you feel about it?" over and over but actually takes an active role in your situation and your circumstances)
I don't have tasks I can do in 25 or 30 minutes, except for the exact kind of "marking messages read" tasks that leave me feeling empty at the end of the day.
> Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
For me, these notes would mostly be "spent 25 minutes rebuilding context, got pulled away" over and over again.
I think there are some good techniques in this article. Taking notes is good.
But I don't think embracing the chaos is the way to go, I think being a lot more proactive and firm about giving yourself the time you need to focus and do high quality work is the better approach.
If every day is becoming a mess, start by figuring out how to fix that.
This is part of my issue, too. Not having no things to do in a short amount of time, but knowing that I don't have time, preventing me from starting. A lot of people have the ability to just dive in regardless of how much time they foresee having. I don't. I need to have time in order to feel safe starting anything.
In the hours preceding something like a doctor's appointment, I can't do anything. Anything I start will be interrupted by the appointment, so I can't even try.
I didn't read it as embrace the chaos, rather to not fixate on the perfect non-chaotic day that's coming (it isn't). Instead adopt a "continuous improvement" stance where any little deviation from total chaos is a win. Iterate that process. Basically the same thing as continuous delivery: start delivering a crappy thing and progressively fix issues / add features until it's done.
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I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.
Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I'd tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn't stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who's just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.
A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.
I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there's some advice buried in it.
I have ADHD, and I also do not have a sense of smell (lost it in a TBI when I was a teenager). I tell people, "you take for granted what it's like to have a sense of smell. It affects every moment of your day, catching your interest and directing your attention all the time. Imagine not having a sense of smell. Imagine not smelling dinner or smelling your wife or smelling your baby. Imagine not smelling flowers or not smelling a gas leak. So much of what you take for granted comes from your sense of smell. Having ADHD is like that. You take executive function for granted, and can't imagine what it's like to not have that. When you say 'just write things down!' it's like saying 'just smell harder!'"
Like you said
> "It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".
Of course, this advice was never helpful and did not work. However, I was properly diagnosed, went to medication route, coupled it with therapy, and I'm still not better. Now, the medication and all that is definitely better than nothing, and I still rely on the relief I get. But the benefit of modern medicine for me is like taking a low dosage of painkillers for 3rd degree burns.
"doesn't it feel good to be consistent and achieve things" and I'm like yeah no shit.
"so you need to be consistent with something" yeah that's my problem dawg.
"what's the feeling you get when you want to quit?" it just happens that my life falls apart or I get really into sth else. does nobody else just lose track of all the bricks required to do things sometimes?
"it will eventually not become effort to do these things" no sir I can tell you from experience that it NEVER becomes natural for me to be organised and motivated. It takes substantial effort for me just to use a diary, which apparently is what is supposed to make me organised. Sometimes it becomes easiER because I have a streak of good habits, but it can fall apart at any moment because it's all a precarious conscious effort.
"that's because you've never stuck to anything long enough" i've stuck to different things for different lengths of time, at what point are you suggesting this actually starts working?
God I hate therapists. I sure do hope I actually have ADHD. Otherwise I'm fucked.
While I can relate that it isn't simply about laziness, I think people getting angry can simply be their way of saying that they aren't your psychologist and they expect you to do your share regardless of your mental state.
I briefly lost my sense of smell after having COVID, and I almost gave my kid spoiled milk, so yeah, it is actually a crucial sense.
That's fine and all, but where did I write it down again?
I lost my sense of smell for a few weeks with covid, and I actually can relate now. It's a very, very strange thing to be without. It doesn't seem that important until it's missing, but now I can't imagine life without it.
Dead Comment
My whole life I've suffered from massive guilt, shame, and stress over not getting things done that were really important to me, and nobody understanding. "Clearly it's not important to you, or you would just do it."
I was actually diagnosed with ADHD 12 years ago, and the first medication and dose I tried didn't work, so I stopped, and basically forgot I even had ADHD. In part, I think I internalized the shame and dismissals from other people and still believed I was just "lazy" and "bad" and needed to try harder even despite having a clinical diagnosis.
It didn't help that my (now ex) wife also was totally dismissive of the idea that I had ADHD, as were most of my friends and family. Even from other people I know with ADHD, they would get angry or dismissive when I mentioned my diagnosis, saying I can't possibly have ADHD because I have been successful so far in my career.
I just recently decided to start looking into it again, now that my son has also been diagnosed. If I can learn how to help myself, maybe it will help me help him.
I recently heard a podcast interview with Jessica McCabe, and she said something that was mind blowing to me: that there is no one solution or cure for ADHD, and we need to stop looking for that. You will need a large toolbox of things to help, and will need to keep adapting and changing this, and it still won't ever be a "cure."
If anyone has any good info or resources to learn more about ADHD, please post them.
I always see these portrayals of ADHD children being hyperactive and just think: what if you just made them run outside for a while...surely they can't have never-ending energy and eventually tired themselves out.
And after this period of exertion, when they rest, do they then just instantly revert back to 100% hyperactivity?
This is something I also struggle with and as I get older it feels like I’m losing opportunities to do the things I want to do to ADHD
Jessica McCabe of How to ADHD is another one. https://youtu.be/sErtHttYOL4?si=ZZ2bGQ5HgbCIxSg8
I’ve measured the work I get done over sprints where I listen to brain.fm and where I don’t, and I usually get 2-3 more cards done of weeks that I do.
Not a scientific measurement, but it is what it is.
What it actually claims is to get you to "bearable levels of procrastination", which I find refreshing, since it seems like a very achievable and realistic goal for those of us that procrastinate. In fact, this claim is nearly the opposite of what you're railing against.
You also said you have personally started making a meaningful difference, but gave zero hint about what you have done, and what impact it has made. And you leave us with "maybe there's some advice buried in it". I'd like to say, no, there's none I can see, unless you'd like to offer something specific and helpful. I'm curious to see what you have done.
> From distraction to calm focus in 14 days
- If you read the whole article you see that it is in fact a pretext to a subscription.
- There is in fact burried advice. The fact that reading articles like this is exciting and gives hope, but might turn out to be false hope in the end, especially if you have a severe form of ADHD. The advice is YMMV.
I thought that was a good way to be actually (keeps you safe from doomed endeavors) but obviously keeps you from progressing on things where the only way to figure out the path is to walk it.
In retrospect it’s a form of anxiety. If you assume the world is against you and dangerous then setting into an ambiguous space is probabilistically negative. If you have faith that things work out for the best, it lets you set out on such a path easier.
I think this isn’t just me. We tend to procrastinate in the absence of “perfection “ because we perceive some sort of danger / downside for ourselves from that imperfection. Whereas the better way to think is with the end in mind: what outcome do I really care about? Does this messy step X make that outcome a bit more likely? If yes then you do it with excitement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy (if you haven't encountered this one weird quirk yet, it's a must read/skim). I believe most mammals tend toward optimism... They naturally have less fear of doomed endeavors.
I had an essay on Emergent Design Principles around here somewhere... For instance, I do a quick and dirty stab in the dark to map the problem space. Then totally rewrite and refactor now that I can make a more educated guess. Right then I generate the API and all (public function stubs), organizing and documenting everything. Management will demand I "ship it" without full docs and full of kluges otherwise...
I'll save the rest of that for a more on-topic thread. The gist is that procrastination can be countered by allotting time to play around in the problem space (incorporate procrastination into workflow -- can't beat it, join it). At worse I try a deliberate attempt at failure (well I knew it wouldn't have worked, but it would have been cool if it had), and at least I got myself into "code mode" doing something at all. No fear of failure, since I planned to fail that time anyway. Then I'll at least know a bit better the "lay of the land" (problem space features to fit against). It's oft the first step for me that's the hardest.
My favorite trick is to have at least one side project that I work on as procrastination of doing main projects. Without fail I'll be worrying about the main project enough that I'll realize some side-project procrastination-code I've just written shows an elegant way forward in the main project and I can no longer resist the urge to see it in action. At the least I'll be making some manner of progress, and getting closer to that "Zen" state wherein I do my main project work.
One of the main things holding me back in life is this fear of taking risks (which translates into a lot of things, like procrastination)
I'm great at mapping project risks though. So there is that. :)
1) your ability to perceive risk that is there to be perceived and act accordingly.
2) your ability to operate in places where you are not able to make risk-based decisions and you have to just "go for it"
I am very good at #1 and it has been a handicap in navigating #2 because I keep searching for a "risk model" where one isn't available.
That was the thing I've learned to overcome somewhat, as mentioned in the post you replied to.
I have seen zero evidence that this is not true in my 31 years on this planet.
> If you have faith that things work out for the best, it lets you set out on such a path easier.
As Louis C.K. said:
> "An optimist is somebody who says, 'Maybe something nice will happen?' Why they fuck would anything nice ever happen?"
Ever go on a job interview? It's because someone deep down you trust that it or another one like it will land you a job. Ever go on a date? It's because deep down you trust that something will work out with someone.
Maybe you don't do these things, or maybe you do these things expecting bad outcomes (which ironically nearly guarantees that outcome) but the majority of the world operates this way.
One thing you have to practice is the art (science?) of separating emotion from action. My historical crutch is suffering from the emotion of failure or anticipation of failure and not learning as much from that failure. And, what looks like failure at the start of something may in fact turn the other way. Life, process, things evolve somewhat out of your control.
That ties to my other point. I think it's important to learn to give up power/control. Try to look things with an objective lens. What can you do, what can't you do, where do you need help, and methodically tackle. Worry less about where the power and control comes from and do things that drive toward an outcome.
I'm practicing constantly!
Interesting that pretty much all submissions on the first page of results from this domain is both by the same user and broadly seems to be about the same overarching theme of procrastination.
Is OP the author of the site?
(OP also posts links to other sites, so not saying OP is doing anything wrong though.)
Other users have been accusing the same https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28894120
I don't want to participate in a witch hunt here, but HN needs to stay vigilant against spam and self-promotion that exceeds the reasonable intersection with honestly showing personal projects.
Discussions including "human interest" topics like this one are often of exceptional quality here. It would be bad to lose that.
So I think it is fair to dicuss this openly. Sorry if I am being coming across as rude towards a one man enterprise or something, but self-promotion on HN should follow strict rules and if this is indeed promotion, it is breaking the rules.
I can say personally (while I don't post on HN), when I share content in a community, it's things I find interesting, which often I see from the projects/blogs I subscribe to/follow.
So odds are OP is just someone with ADHD who finds this content useful to themself and people like them so they share new content from the site when they see it.
What rules are you referring to? This is what the HN guidelines say:
"Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Doesn't seem very strict to me.
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
I would do so in the past too.
Stop harassing people!
Well funk that, in the end what matters is persistence. You don't need to work 12 hours per day, heck don't even need to work 8 ;) ;) ;) I mean like everyone knows the productivity window is at best a couple hours. But those couple hours add up and in the end somehow stuff gets done, tasks get completed, company carries on.
And on my own side projects I'm applying the same philosophy. Ideally a little bit from time to time (not even every day coze it starts to look too much like work). And if it happens that I start working and some interruption comes along, so be it, there will be another day. I don't have to ship tomorrow as long as I finish eventually. Over the years this has added up to quite a bit of accomplishments.
So one word: persistence.
E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into "day-dreaming".
Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let's keep it for its mnemonic value).
If I'm wearing it, there's still work stuff on my todo list that needs doing today.
Brings me back to the PC rather than coming in from a walk and doing a bunch of housework I notice on the way in haha. Hard to miss being on my hand, almost anything I could do while procrastinating will make me see it :)
Makes me wonder why I see bringing my phone being a safer bet than bringing my hands :)
With time, you'll start to appreciate the imperfections, the fact that you can't absolutely focus for a task because people are sending you messages, will have a smaller impact on your emotions and your overall focus will improve.
Having the goal of having absolute uninterrupted time and the stars aligning so you can just do what you need is the root of all procrastination, doing something 10% is better than 0%.
I'm a perfectionist and as soon as I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.
You also don't need to worry, you can't unlearn being a perfectionist, but indeed, you need a few things or moments of your day to unleash that "perfection' energy, it just doesn't need to be everytime.
Love it. Great job. I feel the same. Good enough works well in many situations.
Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
When I eventually tried to start something, it would inevitably be delayed by other daily things to carry out (work, family, other life related stuff), so not taking notes would always result in "" have no idea what I was aiming for last time".
Add to that a fairly (un)healthy dose of perfectionism coming from working in the same field, and you have a recipe for years wasted on complete inactivity.
Another fiend of this kind, friendly to procrastination, is the inability to decide what to actually work on, especially when you have a lot of interests. Then the question becomes "I have hours available to work on something, but I cannot pull the trigger on any of those things that interest me", so back again to square 1 with year wasted on indecisiveness with nothing to show for it.
For example, having many interests is fine, but when it comes to choice, what keeps you stuck can be something like a complete fear of regretting the choice. Words like lazyness or perfectionism are usually the sheep's clothing that the wolf (emotion) is wearing. How can some organizational trick from a blog post help here?
I've read lots of self-help books (among other things) when I faced these issues a few years ago, and there's a curious commonality: it's all small tricks developed for the author's personal experience. But what I've noticed is that there are two kinds of people in these situations: the ones who don't a solution and get out of the problem (which is the group that happens to include most of those authors), and the ones who stay stuck looking for an answer, a quick solution, a trick to escape. The first type can get out by using something like the GTD book. That means their problem really was that they lacked some crucial bit of organizational knowledge to unlock their path towards whatever they want to do.
But the latter type (the ones who're stuck in the cycle) need to let something go rather than accumulate new things (in this case, tips and tricks about Getting Things Done).
There's the DIY path (hard, involves journaling, introspection, noticing and categorizing your emotions, reading Jung, reading ancient texts like the Bhagavad Gita) and the psychologist path (you need to find a good paychologist who doesn't just ask "and what do you feel about it?" over and over but actually takes an active role in your situation and your circumstances)
Dead Comment
I don't have tasks I can do in 25 or 30 minutes, except for the exact kind of "marking messages read" tasks that leave me feeling empty at the end of the day.
> Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
For me, these notes would mostly be "spent 25 minutes rebuilding context, got pulled away" over and over again.
I think there are some good techniques in this article. Taking notes is good.
But I don't think embracing the chaos is the way to go, I think being a lot more proactive and firm about giving yourself the time you need to focus and do high quality work is the better approach.
If every day is becoming a mess, start by figuring out how to fix that.
In the hours preceding something like a doctor's appointment, I can't do anything. Anything I start will be interrupted by the appointment, so I can't even try.