[HN Gopher] Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it
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Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it
Author : ahstilde
Score : 166 points
Date : 2022-08-08 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.deprocrastination.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.deprocrastination.co)
| boredumb wrote:
| A lot of this stuff is great for when you're churning through
| some new features or a project you are invested in. Say for
| instance you have to find an issue in a legacy code base that is
| incorrect business logic and now you have to reproduce it, grok
| through tons of code, make some updates, rinse and repeat for a
| day or more.
|
| Just start? stop reading HN and go read the code.
|
| Start small? Open up my editor?
|
| Start sloppy? Dump some printlns?
|
| Anyway, time to go read* through some old cold fusion code I've
| been ignoring all morning.
|
| There is no magic to want to work which is why you are being paid
| to do it or there is some form of incentive. The only advice I'd
| give is pay attention when you drive under bridges and overpasses
| and remember you're only a few bad decisions away from meeting
| your new neighbors, drive home and remember you get paid to
| tinker on a computer, then get to tinkering.
| jewayne wrote:
| I love the word "grok", but I don't think it means what you
| think it means.
| machiaweliczny wrote:
| The trick is to either: get rest or change job.
|
| I am always most productive after actively focusing on rest.
| Today I solved in 2h what I've been struggling last 2 days
| because I went sunbathing, swimming and to cinema over the
| weekend and work didn't feel daunting anymore. I could chose to
| work over the weekend and try to complete because it because it
| felt like I am behind schedule but that's not a healthy nor
| correct way.
| andersource wrote:
| When I'm procrastinating hard on something, my best solution so
| far is to divide it to lots of tiny action items (~10 minutes
| each) and commit to doing at least one item every day.
|
| Sometimes that's enough to get me in the mood and I can
| satisfyingly cross out a dozen items in one go; other times I'm
| not in the mood, and after just a few minutes I can check the box
| for the day and move on. The knowledge that in the worst case I'm
| just literally 10 minutes away from feeling good takes the edge
| off a lot of causes for procrastination.
|
| Scroll HN for 30 minutes while agonizing on whether to commit to
| 3 hours of feverish debugging or just have a nice evening? No
| thanks, I'll just spend a few minutes setting up the debug
| environment in the most convenient manner possible, or find out
| just one tricky detail, and deal with the rest in the future.
|
| Of course, not all tasks can be split up like that, YMMV etc.
|
| Edit: if the task is big and just writing the todo list is too
| daunting, that too can be split up.
|
| Also, despite the simplicity, obviously some days will be missed,
| and that's perfectly fine. In my mind it's not even "at least one
| item a day" anymore as much as just making the smallest unit of
| work less painful than the baseline suffering rate of
| procrastinating on something.
| huntr wrote:
| Articles about procrastination always fall into a "work when you
| don't feel like working" catch-22 that makes them hard to take
| seriously.
|
| I didn't cure my procrastination until I internalized a sense of
| professionalism. I go to work like everyone else who goes to
| work. When I'm at work I have an obligation to my employer, my
| family, and myself to do what I'm supposed to do as well as I
| can. This also makes it easy to indulge in what I want when I'm
| off the clock.
|
| If you can't get started, at least try and avoid distractions
| during your "professional" time. You can work or you can do
| nothing. That is typically uncomfortable enough to gain some
| forward momentum on a project.
| yupis wrote:
| One of the best resource and text about procrastination that I
| have read. Life-saving!
| [deleted]
| bayofpigs wrote:
| mehphp wrote:
| One of my favorite quotes is "motion precedes emotions". i.e.
| don't wait around until you feel like doing something, just start
| and it's likely that you'll continue to want to so said thing.
|
| Works for both work and exercise for me.
| paxys wrote:
| Here's a better tip - get diagnosed and take antidepressants. All
| of the "just do it" bullshit motivational speeches in the world
| aren't going to work until you get to the root cause of the
| issue.
| tchock23 wrote:
| I recently came across an Aristotle quote that 'happiness is a
| state of activity.'
|
| I'm sure I'm missing the context and nuance, but I've started
| applying the quote to mean I can be happy in any activity, no
| matter how small or short in duration.
|
| Has been working for me lately to get me moving on projects I've
| procrastinated on, but YMMV.
| winReInstall wrote:
| I bait and switch myself, i start working at something open
| source for me, then i switch once in the zone.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| We are all used to working in the office where pieces of work is
| cut out for us and the accountability is built in. This is the
| main problem, it's hard to create a system that can replicate
| office setting without a real business already in track. These
| trick will only duct tape the big problem in front of you.
| chegra wrote:
| Hmm... I am big believer in mini-habits[1] and chaining habits.
| The way how I structure by day is to start off small with one
| habit then keep chaining it to other habits. For instance, I
| would start my day brush my teeth. It is a small easy habit to
| get going in the morning. Then, I will chain this habit to
| exercising. With exercising there are two versions... one I call
| my minimum and the other is my regular training regimen. My
| minimum is like 2 min or so of working out, something easy to do
| that can be replicated each day without any problems. Then, I
| chain my exercise routine with creating a todo list of the day.
| Which is chained to tracking my spending. My goal right now is to
| establish some evening habits. Right now I am little reckless
| with my evenings.
|
| 1. https://www.chestergrant.com/26-highlights-from-mini-
| habits-...
| chimen wrote:
| I need quite the opposite
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| We need a "Tricks to remember tricks when we need it".
| tpmx wrote:
| Print and frame. Hang on a wall in your office, near the
| workstation.
| bil7 wrote:
| might actually work if you use identity based language, such
| as:
|
| My Rules:
|
| 1. When I feel like not working, I will commit to doing just
| 5 minutes of the task.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| My home office is the last place you'll find those kitschy
| "Just Eat" and "Love" signs that are so popular with suburban
| housewives.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Make it your passphrase
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I don't even know what my password is anymore it's just faded
| into a sequence of movements and clickity clack sounds.
| hinkley wrote:
| One year in high school I was in a mild panic the morning
| after Christmas break because I couldn't remember my locker
| combination. On the way to school I was mentally preparing
| myself for going to the office and asking them to help me.
| Then when I got to school, as I was taking things out of my
| locker I remembered that I needed to go to the office so I
| could... hold on. My locker is open. I opened it. What was
| the combination again?
|
| Then I stood there probably looking like an idiot
| (mercifully I came in a bit early so it was a mostly empty
| hallway) spinning the dial around trying to recall what I
| just did a minute ago.
| [deleted]
| wizofaus wrote:
| How about "start by helping another colleague" - it often feels
| like there are different reward systems in my brain for stuff I
| do "for myself" vs what I do "for others" - even if ultimately
| I'm just comparing two things the company that pays me wants me
| to do. I struggle far more with motivation on the "for myself"
| part, but if a colleague needs help with something I'm more than
| happy to jump in and provide it, and the act of doing so can be a
| pretty good impetus helping you refocus on your own tasks.
| tchelow wrote:
| I am currently procrastinating to start procrastinating.
| ziddoap wrote:
| The three 'tricks' to start working consist of: "just start",
| "start sloppy", and "start small".
|
| I get what they're going for, but it's sort of funny to me that
| the three 'tricks' to start working all amount to "well, start
| working".
| tomjen3 wrote:
| It may be funny, but if your mind is saying this will be hard
| and/or take a long time, then it's surprising empowering to
| limit yourself to work on something for just ten minutes.
| undreren wrote:
| I don't get why you got downvoted. A common piece of advice
| for building habits is to set trivial goals and to let them
| snowball.
| runevault wrote:
| A lot of people either don't understand or forget that options
| 2 and 3 in particular are very real. I know better and still
| sometimes forget. Particularly in my writing (my coding side it
| mostly comes to me continuing to put off a compiler idea I have
| because it feels so large). Reminders are good.
| vandreas2 wrote:
| But it would be even funnier if the advice was something like
| "to start working don't start working", although I can see how
| this advice can be very attractive if you 're into counter
| intuitive zen aphorisms that make you feel smart.
| speedylight wrote:
| > if you 're into counter intuitive zen aphorisms that make
| you feel smart.
|
| Can you elaborate a little more on what you mean by that? I'm
| genuinely curious because the sentence doesn't make a lot of
| sense to me!
| RetroGorilla wrote:
| Think, "If you love your job, you'll never work a day in
| your life", it's not "work" if it's fun, even if it is
| "work"
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Start small has worked for me really well recently. Can I find
| 1-10 lines of css that I can fix first thing in the morning?
| Great. That is enough for me to actually get into code and get
| started for the day.
| dangus wrote:
| The only one that works for me is "a little bit of something is
| better than none of something."
|
| e.g., Don't feel like working out? Well, it's harder to commit
| to 30 minutes than it is to commit to 10 minutes, and 10
| minutes is still beneficial. Who knows, you might accidentally
| go for 20 minutes.
|
| Dumb article though.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| The version I like is "Anything worth doing is worth doing
| poorly." Vacuuming the grossest parts of the floor is better
| than not vacuuming, even if I don't bother to clean up all
| the toys and do a thorough job.
| canjobear wrote:
| Of course the ultimate content of any advice for this problem
| will be "start working". The question is what mental frame to
| provide so that it actually happens.
| bergenty wrote:
| I have a weird form of procrastination where I can't get
| myself to read/watch content I consider myself an expert on.
| Probably something along the lines of it will prove I'm not
| an expert on the subject or something. So I compensate by
| telling people I'm not good at said thing. It probably comes
| off as self deprecation but it really isn't.
| koheripbal wrote:
| For me, I visualize myself doing the work. Thinking about
| working for long enough reduces the mental barrier to
| actually doing it.
|
| The problem is often distraction, so turn off your screens
| and just think about the work you're not doing. Not the
| consequences of not doing it - the actual doing of the work.
|
| It works.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| What struck me was the irony of having to skip over its
| rambling introduction.
| tafekih wrote:
| It reminds me of that meme that says : If you're homeless...
| just buy a house.
| dentemple wrote:
| Me: "I don't feel like working today."
|
| This article: "But have you tried... just working today? :)"
| hinkley wrote:
| Barney Stinson: When I get sad, I stop being sad and be
| awesome instead.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Me: "I don't feel like going to the gym."
|
| 'Have you tried just going?'
|
| I'll tell myself I can do the most absolutely abysmal 3 sets
| of whatever lift, and I can walk out if I'm not feeling it.
| 99% of the time, I stick it through.
| hinkley wrote:
| I hear you can exercise your pecs and triceps by punching
| someone in the face. If you grab their neck with the other
| arm, you can get your lats involved too.
| merpnderp wrote:
| This is my trick. I tell myself to just do something small
| then I can quit, which always turns into doing it all like
| normal. But having the option of bailing makes it feel so
| much better, which makes the suck less sucky.
| mikedelago wrote:
| reminds me of the common advice for people with depression
| (that often comes from people without depression):
|
| "Well, have you tried not being sad :)?"
| bergenty wrote:
| Not in every case but many times it really is a valid
| approach. Perspective matters a lot for our mental well
| being. There are definitely people that get "addicted" to
| being chronically unhappy.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| If I had a bullet for everyone person... well, I'd be in a
| lot of trouble. :)
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Or common advice when someone mentions that they're AD(H)D.
|
| "Just be structured", "try to focus more", "just write a
| journal", "Oh we all feel these things from time to time"
| euroderf wrote:
| Me: "I don't feel like working today."
|
| This article: "But have you tried... redefining 'work'
| radically crapward ?"
| christophilus wrote:
| I find it is helpful to have a baby step. For me, that's: open
| my laptop and read my notes from where I left off. It takes
| almost no effort and nearly always gets me into the swing of
| things. When it doesn't work, I just take time off (a perk of
| working for myself).
| grigri907 wrote:
| Agreed. My baby steps often require baby steps ad nauseum
| until I arrive at something so ridiculously simple I _can_
| bring myself to do it right now.
|
| Alternatively, most of my housework starts off as, "just wash
| dishes for two songs..."
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Do you somehow imagine there's a way to start working that
| _doesn't_ involve starting working?
|
| It's an important skill to be able to reframe things for your
| brain, and not just in this context.
| Bjartr wrote:
| Actually, I have a trick for exactly this.
|
| Start _playing_ in a domain as closely related to the work as
| possible (i.e. explore a tangent you 're curious about),
| then, if/when you gained some momentum try to identify a good
| stopping point try to smoothly pivot into what you should
| really be doing instead of stopping.
|
| It doesn't always work, but every now and then it does.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Do you somehow imagine there's a way to start working that
| doesn't involve starting working?_
|
| Obviously not.
|
| If this article helped you, great! I did not find re-stating
| "just start" to be an effective motivator for me.
| lazyant wrote:
| Something that can help is "greasing the path" to the task so you
| make it easier to start. Say you want to go to the gym tomorrow.
| Instead of thinking "I'll see tomorrow when I can go", you can
| block time in your calendar, get your gym bag ready by the door,
| text a friend to go together at an agreed time, etc.
| hinkley wrote:
| Some of the tools I create for work are about fighting my own
| procrastination, half of the rest are about fighting the
| procrastination of others.
|
| If your partner won't go to the gym, you can't make them, but
| you can make sure their gym clothes got washed. If your
| coworker won't do things, you can't make them, but their boss
| can, and that's easier if you've made the task more
| straightforward.
| intelVISA wrote:
| I always assumed work procrastination was the standard response
| if you're fairly divorced from the positive outcome of said work.
| For a majority of people working hard enough to stay employed is
| the goal; why would you exert yourself to make a corp more money?
| mehphp wrote:
| I mean, that happens but I exert myself to make myself more
| money. So far that has worked well.
| personjerry wrote:
| That other front-page article about "insight porn" was referring
| exactly to this clickbait.
|
| > 3 Tricks on how to get it done! 1. just do it 2. just do it
| messy 3. just do it small
| nnoitra wrote:
| There's no such thing as procrastination. There's definitely
| depression and the reason why many people "procrastinate" is
| because accomplishing tasks simply does not produce any feelings
| of reward in their brains.
|
| Otherwise the natural aspect of wanting to do work would have
| kicked in and with it the loop of work hard -> reward cycle.
| Every single thing I've learned about productivity is wrong. If
| you ever go down the rabbit hole of productivity or battling
| procrastination the odds are that something else is very wrong.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Depression may be the only way procrastination surfaces _for
| you_ , but it's not the only way _for others_.
|
| For one example, someone who knows themselves to do certain
| work well under pressure and even get a thrill from it, and who
| has many interests that "pay rewards" available to them at any
| time, may choose to procrastinate on work until there's enough
| pressure to trigger that special lovely "no time to waste" flow
| state.
|
| There's no depression there, no lack of reward triggers, just a
| priority sort and a special extra reward for working in a
| certain pressured mode.
|
| But it still looks like procrastination from the outside and
| still raises some inner dissonance over risk management and
| social conformity that make people fret over it as a strategy.
| chrsig wrote:
| As a person on the extreme end of the ADHD spectrum, this is a
| interesting take to me.
|
| From a strict definition point of view:
|
| > pro*cras*ti*nate
|
| > /pr@'krast@,nat/
|
| > verb
|
| > delay or postpone action; put off doing something.
|
| I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment. That is,
| procrastination has no implication of _why_ the action was
| postponed, merely that it is.
|
| Procrastination is a symptom of depression, ADHD, and other
| disorders that impact productivity -- the actions _do_ in fact
| get postponed. The neurological process driving the
| postponement is irrelevant to the classification.
|
| I think perhaps a better phrasing may be "there's no such thing
| as laziness" -- laziness being an attributed cause of
| procrastination.
|
| There's generally a reason other than laziness, but society
| likes to dismiss those excuses and instead insist that the
| person themselves willfully choses to procrastinate. This is of
| course incredibly unhelpful in every regard, but society loves
| a good opportunity to shame people outside a standard deviation
| of typical.
| hinkley wrote:
| When you explain apologies to children, it often comes down
| to explaining to them that it doesn't matter what their
| internal narrative is, it matters what the other person's
| internal narrative is.
|
| Yes, you didn't mean to hit Sally with a stick, and yet here
| we are, with one crying child, and you, protesting your
| innocence. You need to apologize. Even if it was an accident.
|
| Similarly, you can avoid doing a task because you are
| mortgaging future you to deal with something you don't want
| to, or you can simply forget that it needs to get done. The
| motivation is different, but the outcome for the person who
| expected that you made a fancy dinner reservation you keep
| forgetting to make until after the last responsible moment is
| the same.
|
| I think in part this is a big factor of tension around The
| Last Responsible Moment with respect to Agile and YAGNI.
| People know themselves or their coworkers better than the
| author does. The last responsible moment is quite a bit
| earlier than you'd think, once you factor in not only queuing
| theory but also illness and distraction. You're not being
| responsible if you haven't accounted for predictable failure
| modes, Parkinson's Law, and some extra buffer into the
| equation for Hofstadler's Law, and then some extra buffer
| into the equation for <checks notes> Hofstadler's Law, and
| some extra buffer into the equation for Hofstadler's Law...
|
| For my money, you should tackle a task when it pisses you
| off. You will never be this motivated again. But I will
| qualify that advice by saying that one of my favorite
| passtimes is to invent Plan B and sometimes Plan C in my
| head, so at any given moment if you ask me to fix something,
| odds are at least 50/50 I have a coherent solution tucked
| away in the back of my head somewhere, instead of just
| throwing bullshit at the problem until it looks different, so
| YMMV.
| boplicity wrote:
| I often give myself a clear task, and then set a 10 minute timer,
| and make myself focus for just 10 minutes. This is usually enough
| to get the ball rolling, and let me overcome the hump of not
| wanting to work. It's a simple little trick, but is usually
| enough to help me focus for much longer than 10 minutes.
| dageshi wrote:
| What usually happens with me is I do the thing for 10 minutes
| and then reach some logical breakpoint or a point that needs a
| context shift and I come crashing out of the "work zone" and
| back to square one where I don't want to do it any more.
| bratbag wrote:
| I wish my subconscious was fooled so easily.
| mvdwoord wrote:
| But what if I suffer from recursive procrastination?
| (Procrastiception?)
| hinkley wrote:
| Are you talking about when you figure out you can make task A
| less onerous and avoid task B entirely if you do this other
| thing first, and then you can't get yourself to start on Task C
| because there's no immediate payoff?
|
| Because if that's what you mean then I'm sure I don't know what
| you're talking about. Lovely weather we're having, right?
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| You need to shift into structured procrastination [1]. Play
| your tasks off of one another. Beware that sometimes you are
| avoiding doing truly important tasks, but you'd likely be
| avoiding those anyway so you may as well make use of their
| existence.
|
| [1] http://www.structuredprocrastination.com
| mvdwoord wrote:
| Haha, my ex always burst out in laughter, whenever she
| visited my place and found it spotless. Just meant a deadline
| at work was coming up.. :) She was never wrong (on this).
| mslupski1 wrote:
| this made me laugh way too much than it should, thank you.
| Think I suffer from the same thing, still trying to find the
| underlying pattern
| dentka69 wrote:
| You can easily boil it down to "start working" what's the point
| of starting a website called "de procrastination" when the tricks
| are so naive?
| honkler wrote:
| how else would they make money?
| nicbou wrote:
| The real tricks are in the course they sell
| dboreham wrote:
| Another one I picked up from a guy on youtube: write the words
| "do it now" on paper in front of you (not type, not say, write).
| afhammad wrote:
| you could end up in an infinite loop of writing "do it now" and
| never do "it"
| drdeca wrote:
| That a technique can possibly fail doesn't mean that it
| doesn't have a decent chance of helping
| marto1 wrote:
| Here's my method: start by drawing on a piece of paper. Doodling
| helps with focus and is something you can't really screw up. Do
| that for a while until your brain becomes more single-tracked.
| Helps me every time.
| j3th9n wrote:
| Procrastinate until you feel so bad about it that you fall into a
| depression. The only way to get out of the depression is to get
| started. It can take up to a few months/years, but it will get
| you started at some point. Works for me every time.
| [deleted]
| chrsig wrote:
| protip: if you develop a keen sense of anxiety, you can short
| circuit the depression.
|
| of course, as a side effect, you'll start to _only_ work, being
| wonderfully productive as the depression wraps everyone around
| you in your irritability blanket and snuffs the life out of
| your relationships
|
| ...but hey, it keeps you productive
| alivenotions wrote:
| This used to work for me for the longest time until it slowly
| didn't. And then anxiety slowly kept building up since I
| stopped being as productive as before and it overwhelmed me
| to the point where I couldn't do any work.
| chrsig wrote:
| oh, it wasn't real advice -- i was just having a bit of a
| dark sense of humor about mental health. apologies if this
| wasn't as obvious as i'd intended.
|
| it _does_ work, but as you note, it 's not sustainable.
| It's horrible for the mind and body.
|
| please take care of yourself -- overwhelm is the pits.
| alivenotions wrote:
| Haha yeah, thanks! It just hit a bit too close to home as
| I'm going through this right now where thinking about
| work gives me the shakes and I can't seem to do any sort
| of long term deep work.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Don't worry, you aren't the first! Take care of and be
| good to yourself, even acknowledging the problem "out
| loud" here is a good start. (Like the article says,
| "start small!")
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Last time I felt like this it took a couple of months
| until I broke down completely and was fired, so take care
| of you!
|
| If what's stressing you out is the work you have to do or
| where you're working, now is actually not a bad time to
| search for a different workplace. You don't have to prove
| anything to anyone if that means that your mental health
| takes a toll, and you'll not be able to prove anything
| anyways in such a state.
|
| If it's something different then feel free to chat here,
| or write me via mail(if you want to vent to a stranger),
| or look after your mental health by visiting a
| professional, if that's possible for you.
| chrsig wrote:
| oh no! I'm really sorry to hear that.
|
| Are you able to take any time off to decompress at all,
| or have a mental health professional you can talk to
| about it?
|
| I'm fighting the urge to tell you all sorts of different
| things that I've tried and have helped me in that spot --
| but I recognize that's probably not what you need.
|
| do you have any sense of how a random group of HNers
| could support you? If nothing else, I hope knowing that
| you're not alone in the experience helps.
| hinkley wrote:
| Existential threats are also really good for procrastination.
| avgDev wrote:
| This would be a good way for me not to do anything for years. I
| suppose as long as I could fake working for that long and keep
| getting paid it could work....but then my skills would still
| suffer.
| nouveaux wrote:
| I'm not sure how serious you are but have you ever considered
| that the procrastination is caused by mild depression?
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| This entire thread reeks of burnout.
|
| Source: Am burnt out.
| racl101 wrote:
| Another trick: your boss threatens you with job loss.
| rrradical wrote:
| I think there's room to be a lot smarter here. For example, is
| the thing you're trying to do a single time task or a habitual
| task?
|
| If it's a habitual task, e.g. practice guitar or write my novel
| or get 1 hr of code review done, then the best thing to do in my
| experience is to associate the habit in your brain with a
| dopamine hit. For example, as you sit down to do code review,
| have a cup of coffee or maybe a sugary drink. Or as you sit down
| to practice guitar, have a twitch stream on. After 5 or 10
| minutes, let your focus switch move over to the activity and turn
| off the video and continue the task.
|
| But the point is, after weeks of this, the beginning of that
| activity will be tied to a dopamine hit for you. And then you
| won't dread the activity (but actually look forward to it!)
| honkycat wrote:
| Here is the only thing i have found that works:
|
| 1. Do less.
|
| For me, this means playing fewer video games, watching less
| television, and going to bed earlier.
|
| There is a ton of other knock-on stuff that I can add to this,
| but doing less is the first thing. If your job eats every waking
| moment of your time and is paying less than 200k, it is time to
| find a new job... or move to a new city that isn't stupidly
| expensive.
|
| Other things I do:
|
| 1. Keep track of time. No goals. Only time.
|
| 2. Get up early and do it.
| nreece wrote:
| Here's one from Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder):
|
| "If you don't want to do something, make a deal with yourself to
| do at least five minutes of it. After five minutes, you'll end up
| doing the whole thing."
|
| https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-5-minute-hack-insta...
| bengy5959 wrote:
| The problem is my procrastination brain knows this hack. It
| knows that once I do the 5 minutes I won't be able to stop and
| it doesn't want that. So it still doesn't let me start.
| tdeck wrote:
| That works for many kinds of tasks, but not those that involve
| other people. For example, if you have to call someone it's not
| compelling to say "if I don't like talking to this person I'll
| just hang up after 5 minutes".
| etskinner wrote:
| You could conceivably still make yourself an out for that.
| You could have an excuse for hanging up ready to go. Or, if
| you're talking in person, there are probably several apps
| that allow you to receive a fake phone call, and step away.
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| This does not work if you have ADHD. I've tried this, and I'm
| like: "Ok. 5 minutes, and I'll do the very simple task" and
| then it will be an hour later and I'm like "Oh no! More than 5
| minutes has passed!"
|
| I've tried setting timers too, and those help, but I also
| sometimes turn them off because I'm more focused on something
| else, and I don't understand what the timer is supposed to
| mean.
|
| I find a lot of this advice is well intentioned, but it does
| not solve mental illness.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| That can work but unfortunately it's not very reliable.
| Sometimes it just takes a lot of motivation to keep going,
| especially if the task is cumbersome from the start.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Narrowing the scope of what you need to accomplish is extremely
| effective. The best advice I've ever gotten for dealing with
| depression is to just do one thing at a time.
|
| For example, if I'm sitting in a chair and I need to do
| something, I only need to try standing up. I can always sit
| back down if I don't have the energy to start walking. Most of
| the time, I keep going. The times I don't, well, I know I
| tried.
|
| If you can define what trying looks like, then you know when
| you've tried your hardest and failed through no fault of your
| own. (For most people, it's a lot more than just five minutes!)
| Accepting failure makes moving forward in another direction a
| lot easier. Guilt isn't a good emotion to dwell on.
|
| The important thing with this advice is to remember you
| probably don't know your limit. Most people keep more energy in
| reserve than they realize and they can afford to spend that
| occasionally. This means the advice to push beyond your limit
| is really good advice for most people. But for many people
| dealing with chronic health issues, we already tend to push
| beyond our limits and hurt ourselves. Thus we need the opposite
| advice. :)
|
| Edit: I should clarify, by "dealing with depression", I mean
| trying to be productive when you are depressed.
| elefantastisch wrote:
| I think this is somewhat similar to what I often do when I
| need to work on something and never seem to get started:
| Define the absolutely minimal next step very concretely.
|
| Procrastinating on filing taxes. Next step is to log in to
| tax preparation app.
|
| Procrastinating on cleaning office. Next step is to pick up a
| piece of paper off the desk and throw it away.
|
| Whatever it might be, once I get to something absolutely
| concrete and absolutely doable... I can usually get started
| and make some progress.
|
| It's much easier (for me) to procrastinate on "do your taxes"
| than "log in to tax prep app." Once it's that clear it's
| like... ok, why procrastinate on that?
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I know you mean well by posting this, but this isn't going to
| help anyone with depression "deal with it."
| drdeca wrote:
| If it helps them, why wouldn't it help other people?
| [deleted]
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Well, I'd like to know what I missed or got wrong. I'm
| attempting to cover the common case I've seen and what's
| worked for those I've helped.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Well, to start, you're literally saying "to deal with
| this particular symptom of depression, just don't have
| that symptom." That's _extremely_ invalidating and
| completely denies the nature of depression as a
| condition. It 's not something you just "get over" or
| "stop having." If it was that easy, a depressed person
| wouldn't need this advice. Getting started is very often
| the whole problem.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| a depressed person
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Ah, let me reframe what I'm saying. This is meant to
| apply to any task, including getting out of bed and going
| to the bathroom.
|
| The advice is to break the goal down into the smallest
| possible pieces and start there. For getting out of bed,
| I'd probably start with rolling onto my side.
|
| It's not a cure. It's not guaranteed to work. It's a
| strategy for expending as little energy as possible to
| get started. If you can focus on one small, actionable
| item, it can help reduce how overwhelming the entire task
| feels.
|
| If you don't have the capacity to do something, there is
| no advice that will make that thing possible and no one
| should be expecting you to do it.
| a_c_s wrote:
| This is one of the techniques I use for my depression and
| it does help me "deal with it".
|
| In my case "deal with it" doesn't mean "make me not
| depressed": I'm still depressed but it does help me turn
| some some of my bad, hard-to-do-anything days into ok or
| even occasionally productive ones. And having something
| useful come out of a day I thought I would be useless is
| also helpful in fighting depressive thought loops about
| being a useless/lazy/bad person generally speaking.
| zapzupnz wrote:
| The trick to not procrastinating is to stop procrastinating. I'd
| never have guessed!
| hinkley wrote:
| Perhaps you would be interested in my manuscript on depression.
| It turns out that the trick is to stop doing things depressed
| people do, and start doing things that depressed people don't.
|
| I really think it's going to be a profound addition to the
| literature. I am thinking it's going to be a NYT best seller,
| but I can't seem to find an agent.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Some thoughts since I should have started working an hour ago..
| right now the only thing working for me is to "practice" what I
| have to do since I no longer derive satisfaction from most of
| what I have to do each day to survive. I tell myself that I'm
| practicing doing chores so that I don't devote conscious
| attention to them, I pretend at going to work, going through my
| mountain of mail to pay bills, etc etc.
|
| I just remembered where I was going with this: the practicing
| helped me remember learning certain tasks like brushing my teeth.
| So now I replay good memories of a task as I perform it instead
| of concentrating on the task itself. The higher the percentage of
| time spent NOT thinking about what I'm doing, the easier it is to
| start the task next time.
|
| Maybe this doesn't make sense if you don't struggle with anxiety
| or haven't burned out yet. But for people who have, changes
| happen in the brain where it's hard to forget what happened, so
| you come out of the experience a different person, disillusioned.
| The games help overcome the mental logic that (often correctly)
| predicts bad outcomes after years of negative reinforcement
| loops. Spending more time daydreaming helps restore the feeling
| of novelty and being young.
| kortex wrote:
| Wow, this is exactly the comment I needed right now! I've long
| connected the source of procrastination with some kind of
| avoidance/learned helplessness behavior, but haven't been able
| to make much progress towards actually doing anything about it.
| "Just start doing it, even if it's only a tiny bit or done
| poorly" doesn't work when the stimulus of "start it" is exactly
| what is causing feelings of distress.
|
| I really like the idea of "practicing in order to devote less
| consciousness to it". I think this works well for a lot of low-
| thought tasks that aren't very mentally stimulating. Not sure
| about those where it requires conscious effort (paying taxes)
| but it's certainly a new avenue I haven't tried before.
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