[HN Gopher] The Now Habit
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       The Now Habit
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2021-01-05 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.2uo.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.2uo.de)
        
       | gallegojaime wrote:
       | These points seem more applicable to me than the median
       | productivity content.
        
       | codemac wrote:
       | The Now Habit really helped me let go of procrastination being my
       | fault, and just seeing it as a systemic side effect of my
       | approach. Brilliant book, on the order of GTD or the Effective
       | Executive in terms of how true everything has held up over the
       | years. Recommend reading it for anyone, any single tip from the
       | book is likely to be worth your time.
       | 
       | However, the best for addressing procrastination for me was a
       | coach. They really worked through things with me to give names to
       | the bad habits I'd developed, and the tools to recognize emotions
       | as they occurred. It reminds me a lot of the "noting" practice in
       | meditation.
       | 
       | For example:
       | 
       | "foldering" - once, I decided that I needed to make folders and
       | put all the documents I needed to create & review in various
       | states (e.g. incubation, pre-review writing, published for
       | review, reviewed, complete, etc). This is not effective, as what
       | I needed to know was "what should I work on today" or "how
       | aligned are my projects with the business". Instead I was making
       | sure all my documents and folders were right. Now whenever I do
       | this over-organization-as-avoidance, the word "foldering" occurs
       | to me before I even notice I'm doing it.
       | 
       | One of the hardest things is that the best coaches come through
       | recommendations from others. If you don't have a social or
       | professional network where people have worked with coaches, it
       | can become very hard to find a good one. Many friends according
       | to their instagrams are "coaches" now who have never been near a
       | stadium.
        
         | Cactus2018 wrote:
         | _Effective Executive_. I gifted this book to the executives at
         | work. Recommended.
        
       | vcryan wrote:
       | Loved reading this book ~20 years ago, still remember/apply the
       | core principals.
        
       | viburnum wrote:
       | "Don't get overwhelmed." Well sure. Might as well say "just stop
       | procrastinating."
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | I take your point, but it's not quite that bad.
         | 
         | Getting overwhelmed, it turns out, is a big part of why we
         | procrastinate. Looking at why you get overwhelmed is somewhat
         | more likely to result in actionable information that is not
         | simply shame based. You can't white knuckle your way out of a
         | lifetime habit like that. You might have when you were 9, but
         | the 'damage' piles up.
        
           | nefitty wrote:
           | When I encounter that overwhelm, I try to break every single
           | step down.
           | 
           | "You'll stand up off the couch, you'll grab a trash bag,
           | you'll toss in trash, you'll move dishes to sink, etc"
           | 
           | That has helped me a little with the frequent procrastination
           | paralysis I get when some necessary task feels impossible.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | PragmaticPulp wrote:
         | The Now Habit is an entire book about how to identify problems,
         | form strategies to deal with them, and implement them in your
         | life.
         | 
         | Think of "Don't get overwhelmed" as the name of a chapter in a
         | book, not a solution contained within a single sentence.
        
       | eitland wrote:
       | One of my favorite books.
       | 
       | Particularly the example with a person who should walk on a beam
       | between two skyskrapers.
       | 
       | IIRC it goes like this:
       | 
       | - A beam lies ok the ground. Everyone can dare to walk on it.
       | 
       | - Now the beam gets lifted up between two skyscrapers.
       | 
       | - Now almost no sane person would walk across it.
       | 
       | - If it starts burning in the building, at some point one will
       | cross, if necessary by sitting and sliding yourself across:
       | embarrassing but better than the alternative.
       | 
       | - If however there was a reliable safety net right underneath the
       | beam a good number of us would enjoy crossing between even if
       | there was no fire.
       | 
       | I think this example speaks volumes about how to get oneself and
       | others to get past certain fears by making sure there are known,
       | reliable safety nets.
       | 
       | FWIW: I found out a while ago that the example with the beam (or
       | rather a plank) probably comes from Coue. (There's a reference
       | here: https://medium.com/s/radical-spirits/the-man-who-helped-
       | the-...)
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-05 23:01 UTC)