[HN Gopher] How to get yourself to do things (2015)
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How to get yourself to do things (2015)
Author : gofiggy
Score : 115 points
Date : 2021-06-13 19:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.raptitude.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.raptitude.com)
| armchairhacker wrote:
| The 10 minute rule: if you want to do something, really force
| yourself to do it, but only for 10 minutes. If you want to build
| a daily habit, commit yourself every day no matter how you feel,
| but only for at least 10 minutes.
|
| More generally, if you have a bunch of tasks, commit yourself to
| _at least_ one. Don 't necessarily push yourself to do everything
| but force yourself, no matter how hard, to do at least one. If
| it's a big task, break it up into smaller tasks.
|
| This one rule is seriously like a magic bullet. 90% of the time
| you'll end up doing everything. Somehow you're brain just goes
| from thinking "I _hate_ this, it 's _so_ hard " to "wow, this is
| easy, let's keep going". The other 10% of the time, you can keep
| your pride, because 1) you at least tried, and 2) it's sometimes
| a sign of an actual issue (e.g. you feel bad running because
| you're actually sick). I've heard this advice many times, and
| somehow I've never yet heard a single person say it didn't work
| for them.
| bserge wrote:
| Yes, it can be extremely hard to deals with this type of ADD/ADHD
| without medication.
|
| People write whole books about it just to avoid calling it a
| disease and making medication more accepted.
| criddell wrote:
| I know what you are saying, but not everybody who is looking
| for some help with procrastination has ADD/ADHD. This article
| isn't for you.
| psadri wrote:
| Best advice I read (I think here on HN):
|
| Make it work, not crash, fast, pretty -- in that order.
| mirker wrote:
| Perfection is the enemy of the good.
| legitster wrote:
| Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education
| system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent
| people to avoid a lot of work. I feel like I learned really bad
| work habits early on and am cursed with a flawed brain now. I
| almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote
| practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is
| little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and
| accomplishing it.
|
| Still, I have also found the quality of leadership really
| determines my productivity. When working independently, and there
| are 100 different objectives I could work on, it's very logical
| for my brain to say none of them are important. I have come to
| appreciate how helpful it is to have a decent boss who can laser
| focus on objectives in a way that help me line up my work.
| carlmr wrote:
| >I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote
| practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is
| little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and
| accomplishing it.
|
| It has its downsides. I had mostly bad experience working with
| software developers from rote learning cultures, because you
| may guess it, they tend to execute but not think about it. IMO
| the main worth of a software developer is unpacking customer
| requirements and getting them to make logical sense so that a
| computer can understand them.
|
| If you don't question anything coming from authority, i.e. the
| customer, due to your upbringing, you're already off to a bad
| start.
|
| Because executing without thinking is not what you hire the
| humans to do, it's what the computer does.
| moate wrote:
| Do you personally feel that it would be valuable to have the
| high authority/rote people in place to execute and low
| authority/creative thinkers in place to plan?
| lazide wrote:
| The challenge of course is that detailed planning requires
| significant high authority work, hah.
| legitster wrote:
| I don't disagree with that assessment at all. I just wonder
| if it is possible to get the best of both worlds.
| u385639 wrote:
| Do slightly less intelligent people have non flawed brains
| because they were forced to do more work in an allegedly poor
| education system? Your brain is not flawed, and certainly not
| cursed, except perhaps by its own silliness.
|
| Agree with your comments on leadership!
| pdenton wrote:
| This is probably a good article and I should read it.
|
| I'll read it later.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Not a bad piece, but for me it turns out almost all of my so-
| called procrastination and laziness is rooted in a congenital
| medical condition. When I can manage to take good care of myself,
| energy and mental focus lead to productivity. When I can't, then
| I look like some kind of loser to the outside world.
|
| I suspect that under recognized health issues are a common factor
| in such patterns. I knew a guy who swore he wasn't allergic to
| anything but began every single day with something like an entire
| pot of coffee and ended it with up to an entire bottle of wine.
| Uppers in the morning and downers at night is a common medical
| approach to managing severe allergies.
|
| The other thing that helped me enormously was reading some book
| from a library when I was living in Germany in my mid twenties.
| (No, I have no idea what the book was called.)
|
| It covered an idea that was supposedly fairly common before
| modern psychology became popular. The idea was that you have a
| certain budgeted ability to do a particular type of thing and if
| you aren't getting enough of that thing, you will do more of that
| type of thing voluntarily (as a hobby) and if you are being
| forced to do more of that type of thing than your internal budget
| supports, you will start experiencing burnout.
|
| Programmers routinely give a variety of anecdotal testimony that
| fits with this concept. Some can program all day at work and come
| home and program some more to work on a side project. Some are so
| done with it after programming all day. Others loved it when it
| was their hobby but have come to hate it now that it is their day
| job. Their internal budget only supports doing this part-time and
| such people tend to change careers at some point and then
| eventually rediscover their love of programming as a hobby.
|
| I think one key to making life work is figuring out how much
| internal budget you have for different sorts of things and
| arranging a life that fairly consistently uses up that budget
| without demanding more and also somehow pays the bills. And then
| everyone thinks you rock and you get to be contented.
|
| And few of us get told that. We usually get told x, y and z
| external things matter a great deal and we need to somehow
| conform to that instead of being told our lives should be
| designed around ourselves and that's the path to success.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| What is the medical condition if you don't mind me asking? And
| what does taking good care of oneself mean? Sleep enough?
| Exercise?
| [deleted]
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Is there a reason why uppers in the morning and downers at
| night helps manage severe allergies?
| [deleted]
| rkhassen9 wrote:
| This quote. From Doreen's long lost German book is pure genius.
| It is the first and best description of the reality I've been
| experiencing:
|
| "The idea was that you have a certain budgeted ability to do a
| particular type of thing and if you aren't getting enough of
| that thing, you will do more of that type of thing voluntarily
| (as a hobby) and if you are being forced to do more of that
| type of thing than your internal budget supports, you will
| start experiencing burnout."
|
| Everything else I've read has generally been about increasing
| capacity, and perhaps to some extent one can, but perhaps there
| is a sweet spot. For example, in lifting weights, you have your
| capacity for today and for this week, and you want to manage
| hitting your sweet spot for where you are at a given time so
| that you can grow without injuring yourself.
|
| This shifts the conversation from trying to find and endless
| source of creation inside yourself (not realistic) to an
| awareness of and managing your current energy budget for a
| specific type such as creativity so that you tend to your self
| and optimize your choices so that energy is not wasted.
| podiki wrote:
| Anything about procrastination always makes me think of
| "structured procrastination" [0], which frequently comes up here
| [1]
|
| [0] http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=structured+procrastination
| pjerem wrote:
| I've read a lot of articles, seen a lot of videos about
| procrastination (of course, when I had other things to do).
|
| But this one was an interesting lecture. Even if it sounds
| stupidly simple, I found it really helpful to link
| procrastination and level of anxiety and I'm glad it helped me
| put words on how my feelings are.
|
| Thank you
| imgabe wrote:
| For those who resonate with this post, it might help to know that
| the author more recently announced he was diagnosed with ADHD and
| that he started receiving treatment (including medication) for
| it.
|
| https://www.raptitude.com/2021/03/what-raptitude-has-always-...
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| I've had good results for the past ~6 months using Habit List
| [0]. What's worked for me is to slowly add 1-2 new items, being
| thoughtful about prioritizing them. Then when I'm consistent with
| those, adding more.
|
| [0] https://habitlist.com/ (ios only, just a happy user)
| paulpauper wrote:
| What about partial procrastination: doing something but only
| halfway
| type0 wrote:
| that's just dreadfulness
| pmoriarty wrote:
| At one point I spent a couple of days watching dozens of videos
| on procrastination, and this video [1] by Tim Pychyl was by far
| the best. I strongly recommend it.
|
| It's ostensibly focused on helping grad students with
| procrastination, but the tips and techniques he gives in the talk
| can be applied by anyone.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Agreed. His book is also highly recommended:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Procrastination-Puzzle-Concis...
| bserge wrote:
| _Eyeroll_. Read it. I read everything. Look, my brain is
| broken. It would literally be easier for me to off myself
| than do everything I need to do every single day. It 's
| simply hell.
|
| A mediocre life is the best I can hope for without modern
| medicine. When I had access to it, I felt _normal_ for the
| short but brilliant time it lasted.
| Y_Y wrote:
| In my experience, even having access to all the medicine
| you need doesn't really make things that much better. Sure
| you can force yourself to work or sleep or smile for a day,
| but you can't do it every day.
| zigzaggy wrote:
| I feel this pain deep inside my brain. My head is like a
| million points moving in several directions at once, all
| the time. In fact, I just set up another appointment where
| I am going in full throttle for whatever medication I can
| get. I am completely exhausted trying to keep these points
| all lined up in a straight line.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| You might want to take a serious look at your nutrition.
| Nutritional deficiencies or imbalances can cause all
| sorts of very serious issues, including mental issues.
|
| Taking long walks in nature (as in 2 or more hours long)
| can help, as can unplugging from the internet and other
| media, and meditation.
|
| Many of us hyper-stimulated, and are in a pavlovian loop
| of jumping from one source of instant gratification to
| another, without taking much time to reflect one's own
| life and the world. Quieting one's life might help.
| beforeolives wrote:
| The nutrition point is so difficult to evaluate - a lot
| of personal variation, many anecdotes, few good
| scientific studies, a lot of subjectivity and
| misattribution, people getting fired up online and
| turning it into ideology... it's very difficult to figure
| out what's true and what actually works for you.
| floxy wrote:
| After reading the 1 and 2 star reviews, is there any one
| particular point that differentiates this book from the
| others? (Getting Things Done, Eat the Frog, The Now Habit,
| etc.)
| cruano wrote:
| It's easy, just procrastinate later
| savant_penguin wrote:
| I'm going to watch it as means to avoid doing what I should be
| doing
| dundercoder wrote:
| My key take away from that video was moving from goal
| intentions to implementation intentions.
|
| "in situation x, I will do behavior y, to achieve subgoal z"
|
| good stuff.
| profsnuggles wrote:
| Also he had a podcast https://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/
| OJFord wrote:
| The most helpful recommendation you could give it would be to
| tell us whether or not after watching it you did what you were
| supposed to be doing when you were watching dozens of videos on
| procrastination?
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| I watched this a couple years ago and found it had lasting
| impact.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. This gave me a chuckle:
| Tomorrow - a mystical land where 98% of all human productivity,
| motivation, and achievement are stored
| lostcolony wrote:
| I'll get around to watching it at some point. :P
| [deleted]
| Andrex wrote:
| Since we're all sharing, the concept of tracking progress by the
| day as popularized (but not created) by Jerry Seinfeld[1] has
| helped me quite a bit.
|
| What also helped is realizing there isn't a silver bullet or
| magic pill that will get me to do the work: the work has to be
| done, and I have to do it at some point.
|
| I started a few spreadsheets for things I'd like to log: amount
| of piano practice per day (aim for 30m), amount of script pages
| written now that I've transitioned away from programming, the
| amount of laps I swam that day, etc.
|
| It feels appropriately "bad" to keep filling in the cells with
| "0". And looking at the "streaks" I have keeps me going.
|
| Here are example pics of some of my spreadsheets, maybe this
| could be useful to some:
|
| Piano Log: https://i.imgur.com/H0TbSSC.png
|
| Writing Log: https://i.imgur.com/6Qb7Dka.png (not doing as well
| there, clearly...)
|
| Conditional formatting reminds me of various thresholds per day
| and per week. Red = below minimum, yellow = at or slightly above
| the minimum, green = above the minimum
|
| 1. https://lifehacker.com/how-seinfelds-productivity-secret-
| fix...
| nerfhammer wrote:
| FWIW Seinfeld seems to deny that he ever had anything to do
| with this idea
| https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ujvrg/jerry_seinfeld...
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Yeah, whether you like his humour or not, Seinfeld's insights
| into consistently producing are great, and the dude has
| consistently produced for a looong time.
| haskellandchill wrote:
| The great question of work, how to get yourself to do something
| you don't want to do daily for the rest of your life.
| floxy wrote:
| If you are looking for more ways to read about procrastination
| instead of doing something useful, I also heartily recommend:
|
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...
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