[HN Gopher] A receipt printer cured my procrastination
___________________________________________________________________
A receipt printer cured my procrastination
Author : laurieherault
Score : 1121 points
Date : 2025-06-12 11:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.laurieherault.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.laurieherault.com)
| laurieherault wrote:
| Author here. It's my first article. I'm a bit nervous but excited
| to get your feedback. If you deal with procrastination too, I
| hope this method helps you like it helped me.
| lipowitz wrote:
| It's a very interesting solution. I've been thinking more about
| filling my online time sheet system in advance but I suspect
| its too impractical to stick to times or keep readjusting with
| interruptions, so maybe I will try post-its.
|
| I notice a bit of a link in behaviors between people I know who
| have ADHD and/or OCD. I'm not really sure what someone who
| "gives-in" to OCD impulses would feel as side effects, etc..
| But I'm kind of curious if you see a downside to having
| followed loops for their reinforcing effects over days of work,
| etc?
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback!
|
| Yes, the system needs to have as little friction as possible,
| otherwise it becomes very difficult to maintain. That's why
| the ticket printer is interesting.
|
| I don't really suffer from OCD so it's hard to say, but it's
| a very interesting question. I hope someone will be able to
| answer it someday.
| ayhanfuat wrote:
| I loved it. I think it perfectly captures the itch that causes
| procrastination: you had a working solution but it was not good
| enough for you. You've perfected it but you still have issues
| with it. You still managed to live with the imperfect version
| while working on improving it, though. I think that's the part
| most of us procrastinators fail.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, that's exactly it! If the system doesn't work 100% or
| feels like a hassle, we just abandon it. You've summed it up
| perfectly!
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| I'm glad you found a method that works for you, and as a fellow
| small-time blog author I can say I quite enjoyed reading your
| post.
|
| Sadly, I've tried the task breakdown stuff before and it hasn't
| helped. It's not even just the fact that I procrastinate doing
| it, but that even when I manage to do it, it makes no
| difference.
|
| Anything that requires more than a one off "session" of
| intellectual work is doomed. Even if I do manage to do some
| good work for a period of time, I'll undo it later, I cannot
| stop myself from throwing everything in the bin. If I force
| myself not to throw it in the bin, my brain refuses to
| function.
|
| ADHD medication also does nothing to help me. It makes me feel
| anxious for a bit, gives me a pile of side effects, and that's
| about it. I've tried increasing the dose and all it did was
| make the side effects worse (including extremely smelly sweat,
| for whatever reason).
|
| Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Helped a little while I was doing
| it, then I reverted back to normal.
|
| I've even tried the whole accountability thing, but nope. Even
| if I'm on a call with someone who (like me) commits to do a
| task, and actually does it, while I committed to do mine, my
| brain will just tune out and at best I'll be able to do
| something on autopilot (works for loading up the dishwasher,
| but not much else).
|
| On the days I manage to burn my willpower to fight it, it
| drains my energy like Windows 11 does battery on a portable
| gaming handheld.
|
| Perhaps one day I'll find my own solution and become a multi-
| millionaire selling a book on it.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I totally understand! Just for this article, I restarted it
| 12 times!
|
| What really made a difference for me was starting very very
| very very very small, with almost no ambition. That is truly
| the most important point in my article, but I am not sure if
| I managed to communicate it clearly.
|
| The idea is really to say something like: my goal is to write
| for 5 minutes, and if that is too hard, I do 2 minutes. And
| if I manage that, I consider the task done and I can pick
| another one, also 5 minutes long.
|
| This gives me a real sense of accomplishment and helps me
| focus on what I have already done instead of everything that
| is left to do.
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| Yup, I'm familiar, I've tried it, but my brain is somehow
| unable to treat the small accomplished tasks as separate
| from the larger task.
|
| It still costs me the same "percentage of willpower", if
| you will, as I would have spent tackling it as the first
| step of the larger task. And once the willpower runs out,
| it's out.
|
| With video games it's not that different. What keeps me
| playing aren't the small rewards. If small rewards were
| enough to keep me going I'd play pacman all the time. The
| only thing that keeps me going is curiosity.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I understand perfectly, when I'm curious or it's new it's
| so easy!
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Yep. Right now I'm trying to start an instructional video
| series. I know that I need to break it down into tasks
| and sub-tasks, and I've done that. So I could go pick a
| sub-task off the list, like "design a thumbnail image,"
| and just work on that. But as soon as I think of doing
| that, the entire project looms over me, and I freeze up
| thinking about the whole thing, including even thoughts
| like "What do I do in 6 months if I'm out of ideas and I
| have paying subscribers expecting new content?"
|
| I don't know how to zoom in mentally on a tiny,
| manageable task and block out the rest. I'm usually
| unable to start on any part of a project until I can
| comfortably hold the whole project in my mind.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Nothing helps me procrastinate like trying out a new trick, a
| new tool, a new list-making method, etc. I've killed time on
| dozens of different solutions, and some of them were pretty
| good at getting me to focus and work hard on implementing
| that new method, but none translated much into getting more
| actual work done earlier.
|
| Nothing really helped with that until one day I realized I
| was getting too old to keep being broke because I wouldn't
| finish work until I absolutely had to, so I got a job where
| other people give me stuff to do and expect it within a
| reasonable time frame. I still procrastinate more than I
| should, but there's too much to do for me to do nothing, so
| I'm always getting through something, and maybe that will
| become a habit.
|
| But I hope tools and methods like this help others. It seems
| like every new method is a great fit for someone out there.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I totally recognize myself in your comment!
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| My first comments may have sounded pessimistic, but I do
| think you've found a couple interesting ideas that I
| haven't seen before, in making individual notes for your
| daily habits and throwing the crumpled notes in a jar. I
| have a couple pads of sticky notes in front of me right
| now, to get started on items for tomorrow, so thanks for
| the inspiration.
|
| I've tried sticky notes before, but tended to use those
| just for the bigger tasks, while thinking I should put my
| regular daily habits on a single sheet that I could check
| off, to keep the sticky notes from becoming an unruly
| mess. But then the daily list always got neglected. I
| still got the dishes done, but I wouldn't get it checked
| off, so the overall system fell apart. Putting every task
| in the same single-note format may feel like overkill,
| but may be what it takes to work.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly it. It is annoying to do, but it
| works well, at least for me.
| mietek wrote:
| _> ADHD medication also does nothing to help me._
|
| I found that the usual ADHD medication (methylphenidate) does
| not work for me. However, modafinil does. YMMV.
|
| https://gwern.net/Modafinil
| encom wrote:
| It's a great and well written article. I read all of it, and as
| a fellow ADHD sufferer, that's rare. :)
|
| My experiences with ADHD align pretty closely with yours. We're
| of a similar age, but I was only diagnosed recently, and I'm
| still settling into this, adjusting medication and so on. But
| just knowing now what's wrong with me, is a game changer. It
| means I can work with it or around it, instead of being in a
| state of frustration and despair that I can't function like
| everyone around me.
|
| In my experience, if I find a task interesting and
| intellectually stimulating, I can grind away at it for hours
| and lose track of time. But if it's boring and tedious, it's
| nearly impossible for me to make any progress at all, unless
| the consequences for not completing it are severe.
|
| Breaking down tasks is a good idea, and it's something I've
| thought of myself. Just vacuum the stairs. Just press New
| Document in LibreOffice and write ONE sentence. Just wipe down
| the bathroom mirror. I'm not sure I'm ready for a solution as
| elaborate as yours, though I find the technical aspect of it
| fascinating, and I might explore it just for that reason.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thanks for your comment!
|
| I totally relate to the way you described it! You can try my
| solution in a really simple way using post-it notes. Just do
| a few tests and see if it works for you!
| hyperific wrote:
| I just picked up a used thermal printer to try it out myself
| and I'm looking forward to the release of the code.
|
| I did notice that on mobile the left edge of text on your
| website is cut off by about half a character.
|
| Also I liked how reading the article was its own game loop with
| progress bar, level up notifications and items! I hope you use
| that on future posts!
| laurieherault wrote:
| I will probably release the software as source-closed, but if
| you need help making a custom script, feel free to email me
| (you can find the address in the footer of my website).
|
| What phone model do you have? I suspect the screen is on the
| narrow side.
|
| Yes, I am even going to make a real little game to show that
| you can get absorbed by a very simple game if it uses the
| gameplay loop and multiple feedback mechanisms correctly.
|
| Thank you for your comment!
| ffin wrote:
| Great article, however, the word interactive in this sentence
| is styled like a link despite not being one, which was kind of
| frustrating. > Test the concept in this
| interactive demo:
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| You are right! I will change it!
| adamsilkey wrote:
| I loved your article! Thank you so much for sharing. Fellow
| procrastinator struggler here.
|
| What's been working for me lately is carrying a Field Notes
| notebook everywhere with me combined with some of the ideas you
| talk about here (breaking down tasks into smaller and smaller
| pieces). It's the perfect size for me to carry around every
| day.
|
| It's also been helpful as I've been defaulting to opening up my
| notebook as my basic distraction device as opposed to opening
| up my phone.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you for your comment. It is so important to be able to
| resist the temptation of a bad distraction.
| pmarreck wrote:
| The thing with the different columns of tasks broken down into
| subtasks could be replicated in any columnar filesystem view
| that opens the contents of a folder into a new column when you
| click on it, meaning every folder is a to-do!
| coliveira wrote:
| Exactly what I thought, if you have macOS, just create a
| folder and use the columnar view.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, exactly! But as coliveira said, you need a Mac.
| uncircle wrote:
| I was about to be a little snarky but your comment reminded me
| to be kind. Thanks.
|
| I don't have a receipt printer, what helps me is an A4-sized
| whiteboard with marker when I feel like I'm falling behind my
| tasks. Also, to use todos sparingly, so they retain their
| effectiveness. It's actually quite underrated to forget and let
| go of tasks; what's important tends to stick around in your
| head and keep you up at night.
|
| The snark was from my personal experience that serial
| procrastinators ride a particular high when they change their
| methods, especially if they spend money for something that
| hopefully solves their issues. It never lasts long, we return
| to baseline quite fast. This is why there is tons of posts
| about "here's how I solved my procrastination issue" when
| they've only used the supposed panacea for a couple of days.
| What's I find more interesting, is methods that have worked for
| someone for _years_. Then one can claim to have found a cure,
| albeit one that probably only works for them.
|
| In any case, keep writing. It helps a lot if you too suffer
| from squirrel brain.
| souvlakee wrote:
| > serial procrastinators ride a particular high when they
| change their methods, especially if they spend money... It
| never lasts long, we return to baseline quite fast
|
| That's probably why the author has beginner tasks on the
| whiteboard like making a bed, washing the dishes, etc. It's
| hard to imagine having such tasks throughout one's entire
| life while struggling with procrastination.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly why this method works. Because
| breaking tasks down into micro-tasks really does work. And
| the ticket printer helps remove as much friction as
| possible.
|
| That is what makes it a method that requires very little
| time and energy, and therefore something that can be
| sustained over the long term.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That matches my experience. "Write the report" will sit
| in my inbox forever. "Add 10 items to the outline for the
| report" will usually break the inertia and end up with me
| finishing the whole thing.
| resize2996 wrote:
| Then if "Add 10 items" seems to be sitting around for a
| while, I change it to "Add 5 items".
|
| The part where I end up finishing the whole thing doesn't
| always happen, but breaking it down into chunks that I
| can power my way through even if I'm in the worst mood
| with the worst working conditions at least lets me
| accomplish a small thing and get a better sense of the
| task for the next time I try. Sometimes "Add 5 Items"
| actually turns into "Add 2 items and realize you only
| need 7 total items."
|
| Some of my procrastination is "I haven't started the task
| because I can't completely visualize it, I can't
| completely visualize it because I haven't started the
| task."
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| You should try harder, I can easily keep "Add 10 items to
| the outline for the report" or even "Add 1 item" tasks in
| my inbox forever.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you for your message!
|
| You are absolutely right, and I have actually tried lots of
| different things and abandoned just as many methods after
| only a few days. But what pushed me to write this article is
| that this time, it was different. After several months, this
| method is still holding up.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| 4-8 weeks is about the range that a new task system works for
| me. Probably not coincidentally I had As in most of my
| classes around the midterms, but graduated with a C average
| (a semester was 17 weeks at my university).
| deadbabe wrote:
| If you're procrastinating, but then find a method that works
| and go on to use it for several years, you didn't have a
| procrastination issue, you just didn't know how to get
| started.
|
| Chronic procrastinators will inevitably procrastinate no
| matter what method they find.
| uncircle wrote:
| Yes, that's true, but chronic procrastinators also get
| older which means they know what works best for them, and
| also accept that some stuff might fall through the cracks,
| and that's perfectly fine.
|
| Wanting to have a perfectly organised life is unrealistic.
| We're not machines, but we're bombarded by the message that
| we can do better at organising our lives, often by those
| that want to sell us their product.
| Groxx wrote:
| Whiteboards have been my main strategy too. And a little
| while ago I ran across this:
| https://community.frame.work/t/whiteboard-input-module/58985
| and bought the same stickers and pens and it works _much_
| better than I expected - the pens write super-durably for
| dry-erase and light bumping doesn 't erase them at all. I
| have weeks-old reminders on there that are almost new
| looking.
|
| For day to day stuff I just use a more normal whiteboard that
| I do my best to erase at the end of the day, and migrate
| longer term stuff to some other location. I like it better
| than a regimented "always empty" system since reasonable
| leakage from one day to the next is pretty common for me.
| uncircle wrote:
| The good thing about todos on physical objects like a
| whiteboard is that the space is limited. Todo software
| tends to accumulate tasks until there are so many you're
| overwhelmed with anxiety just opening the app, and pruning
| them would be _yet_ another tasks on top of the mountain.
| Groxx wrote:
| Yep. Forces me to erase some and/or move it to some kind
| of backlog that I never look at.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > The snark was from my personal experience that serial
| procrastinators ride a particular high when they change their
| methods, especially if they spend money for something that
| hopefully solves their issues. It never lasts long, we return
| to baseline quite fast. This is why there is tons of posts
| about "here's how I solved my procrastination issue" when
| they've only used the supposed panacea for a couple of days.
|
| This reflects my experience as well. Whether it's getting a
| special little "Getting Things Done" notebook/app or getting
| the accessories involved in this post, before long my brain
| has "helpfully" optimized them back out of my life and I'm
| back at square one.
| genezeta wrote:
| Just so you know.
|
| Offtopic but rewarding your article on Firefox on Android,
| there's a slight misalignment on the side. The left side gets
| cut off about 5-8 pixels, I'd say. It cuts off most of the
| first letter on every line.
|
| It might be just my phone, of course. But I don't have any
| particular extensions installed or anything else.
| petemir wrote:
| fyi I tried on my Android phone with Firefox and I don't see
| the problem you mention. Perhaps some additional display
| specs may be useful? My screen is 6.67" with 1080x2400px
| (20:9, 395ppi).
| laurieherault wrote:
| I also think, like petemir, that it is a width issue. What
| model do you have?
|
| Thank you for your comment! It is super helpful.
| genezeta wrote:
| Ah, sorry for not answering sooner.
|
| Admittedly it's not a hi-end phone. I use a Moto G7. Screen
| is 1080x2270 at 6.2 inches according to [
| https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g7-9357.php#eu ]
|
| Trying it again to verify... You're right that it's the
| width. I get a small-ish horizontal scroll. But the problem
| is that no matter if I scroll it completely to that side
| the left still gets cut off.
| genezeta wrote:
| s/rewarding/reading/
| stevage wrote:
| I have the same problem - missed the first couple of letters
| on every line. Also FF on Android (Pixel 5).
| kortex wrote:
| I love it. Using a thermal printer to print physical tasks you
| can crumple on completion and throw in a bin is absolute madlad
| goblin energy and I'm all for it. I think you've actually
| perfectly distilled the essence of "game-loop" and operant
| conditioning, and mapped it to the real world. I have been
| using a whiteboard for tasks, which is better than nothing, but
| the problem with that approach is the feedback is minor, and
| once erased, it's like "wtf did I even do this week". So there
| is limited short-term feedback and zero long-term feedback. You
| need both the power-up noise and the level progression for a
| loop to be satisfying.
|
| I have been planning on making a system based on those long
| scrolls of paper for doodle boards, so at least there is a
| history, but of course I procrastinated on building the mount
| for it.
|
| I would love to use your application, I know there's a million
| to-do apps out there but I get the overwhelm/daunting very
| easily, so I really appreciate the scope-hiding aspect.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you for your comment. Seeing the tickets in the jar
| really helps you feel like you actually got something done.
|
| I cannot wait for you to try my app :)
| flir wrote:
| One comment: You're dopamine hacking. My belief is that
| eventually the process will stop rewarding you with
| dopamine, and you'll drop it.
|
| Games eventually stop rewarding you with dopamine, and your
| brain loses interest in them. Same goes for the jar. ADHD
| brain needs to keep changing the process, in order to keep
| the reward novel. What works today won't work in six weeks.
|
| (With me it was tearing the index card in half when I'd
| finished the task. Very satisfying - for a while)
| Lu2025 wrote:
| > dopamine hacking
|
| Can we just not? Can we wean ourselves from the
| "addiction" instead?
| ascorbic wrote:
| As a former chef who lived by tasks on paper tickets for
| several years, I recommend getting a tab grabber and spike,
| for an extra little dopamine hit. It's very satisfying to
| pull the receipt from the grabber and spike it
| ventricity wrote:
| I love this, a great improvement or alternative on the
| original idea.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Definitely a tactily-satisfying motion. Those spikes
| always freaked me out- you're one slip away from a Final
| Destination "spike through the eyeball" situation.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| What features are you planning for your app?
| coryk135 wrote:
| Instead of crumpling, put a fun sticker on the task to mark
| it complete!
|
| You could also put the task on a spike like they do in
| restaurants with signed receipts.
| colgandev wrote:
| Thank you so much for writing this. I have recently discovered
| that I have both autism and ADHD, and increasingly it feels
| like this mind style has a steep counterintuitive learning
| curve but also very high skill ceiling.
|
| The video game analogy rings very true for me. It helps me a
| lot to read articles like yours because it gives me new ideas
| to try. I fully agree with your premise and I've been
| experimenting with indeed card based systems but have been
| frustrated by, as you noted, how having to repeatedly make the
| cards every day basically means I'll probably stop doing it.
| The receipt printer is a fantastic idea. Making mental only
| systems physical seems to invoke the spatial parts of the
| brain. I've been trying to find good ways to synchronize my
| mental, digital, and physical information. I'd love to read
| more of your ideas if you publish anything else on your mailing
| list. Cheers
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you so much for your comment, it means a lot to me!
| PKop wrote:
| I would avoid massively increasing your exposure to receipts.
| They have endocrine disrupting chemicals and it's advised to
| not even handle them from retail stores let alone in higher
| quantities in your own home.
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/receipt-paper-harmful/
| laurieherault wrote:
| Since the article was written, bisphenol has been banned in
| Europe.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| If the grocery store cashiers aren't getting cancer from
| handling 150 receipts a day then the todo list should be
| fine.
| wiml wrote:
| You can buy phenol-free thermal paper.
| plumbees wrote:
| The first two paragraphs made me realize I have ADHD. I had
| thought I didn't have it.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I think a lot of people are unaware of it :(
| chrz wrote:
| I realized after 40 years. I had a talk with a guy with ADHD
| about how drinking coffee makes us sleepy
| LeonM wrote:
| The one thing that is often a dead giveaway is how many
| stimulants seem to have the opposite effect on people with
| ADHD.
|
| I have ADHD, amfetamines help me relax, caffeine causes me
| to fall a sleep, some anti-allergy medication can cause me
| to stay awake for 2 days straight.
|
| I read that in some countries doctors can prescribe mild
| sleeping pills for babies to help them stay calm during
| long flights. They always advice to test it _before_ going
| on the flight, because some babies can actually become
| hyperactive from that medication. If that happens, there 's
| a good chance the baby has ADHD.
| dizze wrote:
| I think it depends on what sort of ADHD it is and what
| stimulant. I feel somewhat more alert after a coffee, but
| cocaine does nothing. Amphetamines calm the noise from my
| mind, but make it more difficult to sleep if they're
| long-release ones.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| It's diphenhydramine, or Sudafed. Also sometimes sold as
| Unisom but to be distinguished from the Unisom that is
| Doxylamine. My 18-mo old had the paradoxical reaction.
| teach wrote:
| You mention three different medications here:
|
| - diphenhydramine aka Benedryl is an antihistamine with a
| common side effect of sleepiness
|
| - doxylamine aka Unisom is also an antihistamine but
| these days people only really use it as a sleep aid or
| for nausea
|
| - psuedoephedrine aka Sudafed is a decongestant. Not sold
| over-the-counter because it can be used to make meth.
| It's a stimulant and appetite supressant
|
| Finally, there's "Sudafed PE" aka phenylephrine, which is
| also sold as a decongestant but it (literally) doesn't
| work
| imzadi wrote:
| This has been the most difficult part for me. I see
| people in reddit subs talk about how stimulants changed
| their lives. They are suddenly alert and productive and
| happy with the world. I get medication envy. I take
| adderal and fall asleep. Other stimulants I either get no
| effect or I get anxiety and zero benefits. It's very
| frustrating.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I think it still varies a lot between individuals.
| Caffeine often makes me more anxious, the effect on
| mental energy levels seems kind of random (either short
| burst of energy or just more tired mentally). Yet when I
| tried methylphenidate it made my mind calmer, clearly
| reduced anxiety and helped focus while increasing energy.
| At the same time it gave me pretty bad insomnia, stomach
| issues etc.
|
| The best I can describe it is that I felt calmer in my
| mind, but overstimulated in my physical nervous system.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Really well written. Thanks for sharing!
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you!
| stared wrote:
| Thank you for sharing!
|
| I am curious for two things:
|
| - How you stay motivated to create this task list each time. Or
| for another question - is it a new cool recipe, or have you
| been sticking to it for more that 3 months?
|
| - What to do so not to go into the rabbit hole of creating and
| splitting tasks? For me, it is easy to overdo this step, both
| in breadth (too many things to accomplish) and in detail (too
| many steps; if you think about it, making and easting a
| sandwich is a dozen steps or so).
| widforss wrote:
| This is great. I'm starting a new job after the summer. I'll
| get a printer and set it up in my new office and let it
| automatically print tasks.
| freetanga wrote:
| Hello! I did a similar thing - however I use TXTs and command
| line scripts to keep track of things (similar to task warrior).
| It's a great approach to pick up the list every morning as I
| have breakfast, put it in my notebook as I leave for the day.
|
| Calendar, weather, to-dos, all in a single thing I can keep in
| my wallet if needed. I recall somebody posted a project for
| printing daily news on the roll too (I don't)
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I think the authors solution is clever since this is like
| getting orders in a kitchen.
|
| You dont have to do this yourself. A partner or friend could
| remind you about stuff and literally send you an order.
|
| I'd personally use one of those spikes instead of scrunching
| up in a ball.
| vsupalov wrote:
| Really appreciate the graphics, in-between summary elements and
| the progress bar widget. A bit too much colorful font variants
| my taste as it leans towards distracting, but hey everybody is
| different. That was a swell read, thanks for sharing!
|
| As far as "app which helps create overview, reduce overwhelm
| and taks small steps" - I wonder how many of those are out
| there? I have written about 3 of those already for various use
| cases and in different flavors. Using them over a longer period
| of time, once the chaos subsides or the novelty wears off seems
| to be hard for me personally.
| ArekDymalski wrote:
| Congratulations on your first article - it's a really good one.
| I found the jar filling method especially inspiring. Thanks a
| lot and good luck with the launch!
| A_Stefan wrote:
| This article is so good! I applaud your efforts into making a
| change for your life for the better.
|
| Liked you included one of many studies from M Csikszentmihalyi
| lorenzk wrote:
| What a great color scheme! Changing colors over the course of
| the article makes it all a bit more fun and quirky and stand
| out against common templates.
| dakial1 wrote:
| Good article and DYI work. But I was surprised that you didn't
| plug a GenAi api to break the tasks for you, maybe on version
| 2.0?
| pbronez wrote:
| Pretty cool. It's interesting to see how the receipt printer
| evolved from your post-it system.
|
| One suggestion- mention the printer earlier in the post. It took
| so long to get around to it that I started wondering if the link
| was wrong.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to read and give me feedback!
|
| I wrote 12 different versions to try to be shorter, but I was
| losing way too much information that I thought was important to
| understand why this method works.
| unstyledcontent wrote:
| This is a great, simple breakdown of how to improve motivation. I
| would love to have this at home!
| laurieherault wrote:
| Try the method using just post-it notes and see if it works for
| you :)
| whalee wrote:
| Cool idea!
|
| I would note there are some known health hazards in handling
| thermal-paper receipts(BPA/BPS)[1] with your bare hands if you do
| so often. I don't know much beyond this, I would look into it.
|
| [1] https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-
| in-...
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, very true. It's paper with bisphenol. These papers are now
| banned in Europe, but not in the USA.
| jw1224 wrote:
| You can buy phenol-free thermal paper, it's about 20% more
| expensive where I live but much safer for you, and the quality
| is just as good.
| entrepy123 wrote:
| Yes, safety of thermal paper is the first issue that comes to
| mind.
|
| Secondly, IME thermal print can fade to nothing after 1-10
| years. So these are specifically for short-ish-term use. Not
| for labeling something that is supposed to last a long time.
| kiliankoe wrote:
| It's come up every time something related to thermal printing
| has been mentioned on HN lately, but this is honestly great
| stuff if you're in Germany: https://www.oekobon.de/
|
| These non-poisonous blue receipts have the added benefit of
| being able to be marked with a fingernail, which is nifty if
| you're using them to print your shopping list, crossing things
| off is very satisfying.
| JacketPotato wrote:
| Are these the ones that Lidl use?
| kiliankoe wrote:
| And many other retailers, yes!
| JacketPotato wrote:
| Good point, but luckily it's pretty easy now to find BPA free
| paper.
| fy20 wrote:
| You can also use dot matrix / impact receipt printers, they
| work in the same way, just with an ink reel. So no special
| paper needed.
|
| They are used in kitchens where thermal paper obviously won't
| work. Other advantages are they can usually print two colours:
| black and red. And the sound is rather satisfying :-)
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I'm going to try and see if this works better for me. The daily
| printout of "things that need to happen today" is a fun idea,
| especially if I could keep it by my bed and have it print off
| when my alarm goes off.
|
| Are there any receipt-style printers that can directly print some
| kind of sticky note? I feel like that would be even more useful
| since you don't have to keep pins around, though I can see the
| running cost getting a lot higher
| uxamanda wrote:
| Yes, you can get one that prints shipping labels
| laurieherault wrote:
| As uxamanda said, you can use shipping label printers.
|
| Personally, with receipt-style tickets, I print them and make a
| small stack. I usually go through them in the same order.
|
| But I can also use a small clip.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I would be worried that shipping labels might be a bit _too_
| sticky haha. I 'll shop around and see what my options are
| laurieherault wrote:
| Oh yeah, I don't think you'll be able to remove them. If
| you're referring to the photo I included in the article,
| it's actually just not a good idea. I only stuck the
| tickets on a vertical surface to get a good photo.
| TimedToasts wrote:
| sticking the shipping label to a sticky note might be the
| quickest solution
| encom wrote:
| >directly print some kind of sticky note
|
| It must exist. I noticed at McDonalds (in Denmark), that each
| item on the tray has a printed label attached that peels off
| easily, almost like a sticky note.
| jameshart wrote:
| Many short order restaurant kitchens use an overhead bar you
| can clip orders into. Should work just as well for these tasks.
|
| Amazon search for 'restaurant ticket holder' reveals many
| options for under $20
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, very good idea!
| uxamanda wrote:
| Plus you could get one of those long pokey sticks and stab
| the finished tasks on it. Seems satisfying.
| jw1224 wrote:
| Great first article, and very interesting to see someone else
| using a receipt printer for bite-sized task management!
|
| I have a variety of automations running which print actionable
| tasks to my receipt printer via a Raspberry Pi. It's nice having
| a real-life ticket I can take hold of.
|
| One thing to be aware of if you're handling receipts frequently:
| make sure to buy phenol-free thermal paper. Phenol is toxic and
| some types of it are banned in certain countries.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, I think having a tangible task is really important!
|
| Since I'm in Europe, we don't really have paper with bisphenol
| anymore, but that's not the case everywhere.
| hgomersall wrote:
| AFAICT, BPS is still widely used in Europe.
| cocothem wrote:
| What about the ink? What's the keyword to search for nom
| toxic printer ink/cartridge
| rozab wrote:
| Receipt printers don't use ink, instead they use thermal
| paper which darkens when heated. You can test this by
| scratching it with your nail, the heat is enough to leave a
| mark
| gaudystead wrote:
| I agree with you on the first part, but are you sure that
| the heat from the fingernail is what's leaving that mark?
| I can take a cold object and run it on the receipt paper
| to get the same effect, so I think that's a different
| mechanism at play but I'm open to being proven wrong.
| z2 wrote:
| The developers in the paper only require a small flash of
| local heat to turn black, which is why thermal printers
| can print so fast given the time it takes to heat up and
| cool down the print head. Friction produces enough heat
| to do that. You can test this by pressing an object down
| only, or running it very slowly across the surface in
| comparison.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| I thought most receipt printers were thermal, no ink, just
| heat
| fauria wrote:
| Is there any way of knowing, just by examining it, whether a
| given thermal paper is toxic or not?
| account42 wrote:
| Yes, you look at it carefully and if it looks like thermal
| paper it may be toxic.
|
| If the substances used are known to be toxic is another
| matter but you won't know that even with a correct label
| because it takes time for us to find out that new substances
| are toxic.
| z2 wrote:
| I think this is the right approach, speaking as someone who
| went down the rabbit-hole of looking at alternative non-
| bisphenol or non-phenol image developers. The very little
| research on the new ones tend to conclude "we don't know if
| it's toxic in the long term" or in the case of urea-based
| papers, "it's highly toxic against aquatic life."
|
| To the GP, if the goal is to avoid phenol papers, phenol
| papers tend to develop deeper black. And in the US, phenol-
| free papers are new enough the backside often advertises
| it. Some are very misleadingly labeled BPA-free, which
| usually means it's made with the very similar and likely
| equally toxic BPS.
| fauria wrote:
| Thank you for your insightful reply, I greatly appreciate
| it. However, it does not answer my question, unfortunately.
| orphea wrote:
| I found this tool helpful with breaking things down to as small
| steps as you need: https://goblin.tools/
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, I know that tool, but the user experience really isn't
| great. That's why I made my own. But thanks for the suggestion
| :)
| orphea wrote:
| Oh, I should have read your article further enough!
| laurieherault wrote:
| Oh, did you procrastinate finishing the article? :)
| orphea wrote:
| Yeah, I bookmarked it to read it later! jk :P
|
| Seriously though, I'm going to try your idea with the
| receipt printer (I didn't need an excuse to buy it, no-
| no, that's not it, haha) and I'll see if it can help me.
| Sadly, even games cannot interest me for long enough; the
| longest I could play a game, recently, is a week, then I
| abandon it.
| graboid wrote:
| I like it! For me, I can confirm that the smaller the task, the
| less likely it is for me to procrastinate on it. I also didn't
| know that receipt printers don't need ink, that's cool. On a
| similar note: me and my partner recently also started using an
| app that divides up the household chores into small tasks and
| schedules them for us (e.g. "today you have to vacuum the living
| room"). For us, this prevents conflicts and also frees the mind
| of having to keep track of those things.
| hyperific wrote:
| What app are you using?
| graboid wrote:
| See my answer on the sibling comment.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thanks for your comment! I have the same question as hyperific
| -- which app are you using?
| graboid wrote:
| https://sweepy.com/
|
| There is also one that is called "tody" that we didn't try
| out. Both require a small subscription fee though, which I
| really dislike. I wish I had found a nice open source
| alternative. Besides the subscription fee (which was like
| 18EUR/year for us both), I have no complaints yet about the
| app.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thanks for your answer!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This is immediately one of my favourite articles of all-time.
| It's well-written, visually appealing, and the subject matter is
| absolutely down my alley. I might actually just buy one and try
| this out.
|
| I absolutely love how you show _and_ tell, by having an article
| with an EXP system. But when do I get skill unlocks? I 'm really
| hoping to be able to enjoy your next article with upgrades.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you for your comment, it really means a lot to me! I put
| so much time (and heart) into making it that a comment like
| yours is the best reward I could ask for.
|
| Haha, I'm planning to make a real mini-game for an upcoming
| article!
| pryelluw wrote:
| Congrats. Finding your flow is quite the journey for some people.
| Glad it worked out for you.
|
| My flow is the right kind of coffee. It energizes and allocates.
| The lavazza espresso 100% arabica is the current that works. Try
| it out!
| laurieherault wrote:
| I reply to your comment with coffee in hand :)
| orphea wrote:
| Oh, thank you for the reminder, a kind stranger! I should go
| and treat myself with some coffee.
| igtztorrero wrote:
| I need it NOW for me and for me company
| laurieherault wrote:
| I'm working on it! :)
| fidotron wrote:
| It's increasingly strange how psychologically different something
| is when it's physically in front of you vs a representation of
| that exact same thing on a particular sort of display, especially
| given apparently some representations of activities on the
| display are addictive, while others become repulsive. As I
| mentioned yesterday I'm hearing more from people that attempt to
| avoid screens as much as possible, and this seems like yet
| another manifestation of that tendency.
|
| If our UIs were more skeumorphic would that help with all this
| and remove the need for the physical printer?
| tomrod wrote:
| I doubt it. Skeuomorphs make me think of ipods, Shadowrun and
| Papers Please.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's not the skeumorphism but this:
|
| I might have 5 virtual desktops and 3 different web browsers
| and each of those has 4 windows open and each window has 20
| tabs. Never mind the terminal windows which themselves
| participate.
|
| Conventional thinking is that if you can't find things you need
| to download and install some new program, maybe one that splits
| your tabs into "subtabs" or maybe one that organizes your
| virtual desktops into "virtual superdesktops", etc. Trouble is
| now you have another thing to find with all your desktops,
| windows, and tabs! You just can't win that way even though
| people insist that you can.
|
| Paper, however, is privileged because it lives off the desktop.
| It doesn't disappear when you switch tabs, it doesn't disappear
| when you switch windows, it doesn't disappear when you switch
| virtual desktops. You can tape it here or there _and it stays
| there_ even through reboots.
| fidotron wrote:
| Do not Mac sticky notes do all that, except they don't live
| in the physical domain?
|
| Isn't it just reflective of the fact that you are more
| disciplined about tidying up your physical world than the
| virtual one? (And this might be the basis for why the hack
| works).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I switch virtual desktops.
|
| Physical objects don't disappear.
|
| I switch tabs.
|
| Physical objects don't disappear.
|
| The power goes out.
|
| Physical objects don't disappear.
|
| Hard to understand in 2025, isn't it?
| fidotron wrote:
| Mac Stickies absolutely can be set to float above
| everything else, and survive power outages (battery
| permitting) and reboots. It is true they are tied to the
| Space they are in though.
|
| They also have the advantages associated with not being
| physical of course.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| But they cover up things you might want to interact with
| on the screen!
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think an old e-ink reader could be the solution here.
| gatane wrote:
| I see it like when you compare digital books vs physical
| books: physical requires less context in your mind, and it
| provides direct rather than abstract stimulus to the brain.
|
| When you go digital, your brain is writing the sticky note,
| but also has in its cache the instructions for the menu,
| the apps you normally use, that annoying notification, etc,
| plus your rl context. But on physical, you only have loaded
| the instructions for the pen and paper (and your rl
| context).
|
| Having too many things in mind can reduce your executive
| function battery. Hope this helps! (ofc, this is an
| oversimplification of ADHD)
| coliveira wrote:
| Correct. Computers are the realm of procrastination because
| there are so many ways work can hide and so many forms it can
| morph into. If you need to work from paper, there's not much
| you can do other than move through it. It may get
| disorganized, but it is still there. There is no question
| that modern workers have exponentially more reason to
| procrastinate than workers from 50 years ago.
| haswell wrote:
| I don't think the issue is a lack of skeuomorphism. It's more
| that the devices we use can't replicate the feeling of
| something tangible that exists in the same space we do. And
| that these devices are bottomless portals to any number of
| other things unrelated to the task at hand.
|
| Picking up the phone to check my todo list puts me in contact
| with 100 unrelated things, and at some point becomes
| counterproductive.
|
| If something like the Apple Vision Pro was more accessible and
| wearing it was more like wearing eye glasses, I think its
| ability to render objects in space would make it more likely to
| be an effective interface for virtual task management. Emphasis
| on "more like wearing eye glasses" because it needs to be an
| always-on type of experience to come close to replicating a
| physical piece of paper.
| laurieherault wrote:
| You've started a very interesting discussion. I think that
| unfortunately nothing replaces paper. I understand Paul's
| comment, I have an infinite mess on my computer but on my desk
| I only have my paper tasks.
| tajd wrote:
| I love this! definitely inspired, I'm quite good at using a
| journal but there's a lot I lose track of
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, same here. I also struggle to stay consistent with a
| journal.
| tajd wrote:
| love the receipt printer idea I'm looking into it now
| netaustin wrote:
| Having not thought about it at this level, the feedback loop
| explains why my Bullet Journal works well for me. I can write
| down any task and break it down to any level of detail without
| worrying about software, which is nice, and I get a nice little
| reward when I cross off a bullet. I have used post-its in this
| way in the past and found that it's more effective than the
| bullet journal if I need a real kick in the pants. Also I move
| around a lot between home, office, and work trips. While post-its
| don't travel well, the phone apps just don't work for me.
|
| When I need to coax my kids (7 and 10) into completing a tedious
| list of chores, like cleaning their room and playroom, practicing
| their instruments, and doing their homework, I also reach for the
| post-its. They each get their own color and we talk through the
| best way to break things down, arrange them in a backlog on the
| wall, set a timer, and agree to meet when the timer goes off to
| review our progress.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I also had good results with bullet journaling, but I had
| consistency issues. The advantage of the ticket printer is that
| it is much quicker to print. But I also have the advantage of
| working from home, so I do not need two separate systems.
|
| Thank you for your very interesting message!
| lionpixel wrote:
| This idea really resonates. Like others have mentioned, there's a
| unique power to a physical artifact that a digital to-do list
| just can't replicate. I went down this exact rabbit hole a while
| back, trying to bridge the gap between my digital planning and
| physical, actionable "tickets." The setup part can be a bit of a
| pain, especially getting a printer reliably online and talking to
| it from different apps and services. This is the exact problem I
| built Printercow1 to solve (author here!). It's a small service
| that lets you turn any thermal printer into a networked API
| endpoint with a one-line install command on a Raspberry Pi. The
| idea is to handle all the backend plumbing so you can focus on
| the fun part--triggering prints from Zapier, a script, or your
| own app to create a system just like the author's. Happy to
| answer any questions about the setup!
|
| (1) https://printercow.com
| swah wrote:
| See also https://github.com/NaitLee/Cat-Printer
| n3storm wrote:
| Does anybody else feel like he has invented pomodoros and
| todo.txt
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am the author, and thank you for your comment!
|
| What I am talking about is really very different from the
| Pomodoro method. That method uses 25-minute sessions, while I
| am talking about micro-tasks of 2 to 5 minutes printed on
| receipt tickets.
|
| As for todo.txt, I mentioned in the article that this kind of
| tool with a hierarchy does not work for me at all, given the
| massive number of tasks I have. And I proposed a more
| interesting and truly innovative solution in response to that
| :)
| netsharc wrote:
| Hi Laurie, reading your article, I'm wondering to myself,
| maybe I should copy this, and add a Duolingo aspect to it,
| the first feature I can think of is a button (near the
| printer, or a virtual one on the app) that is basically "Give
| me a random task". Duolingo also has lessons (where the
| learner has to complete several questions), and maybe a
| "lesson" can be a big task, that encompasses its subtasks.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I accidentally found an effective speedup tracking tasks to
| be done. Normally we make Github issues and Pull-requests to
| fix them with long descriptions in both.
|
| Instead made a single issue with a table and each row having
| an emoji, item title, and when complete link to the fix. As
| new items were identified I added a row with emoji for 'not
| started'. Had emoji's were 'under construction', 'already
| done above', 'not needed', etc. This snowballed with me
| completing one item per day over 30 days until it was all
| done. I'm called it EDD Emoji-Driven-Development.
| n3storm wrote:
| Taskwarrior maybe?
|
| In Sleek (todo.txt for linux) I can have multiple txt with
| multiple context inside.
|
| On the other hand, I don't think pomodoros are strictly 25
| minute sessions. I can setup any structure in my pomodoro app
| of choice Solanum and chain sessions.
| melvinmelih wrote:
| > Modern games provide much stronger feedback. Now, when you hit
| an enemy, you might see:
|
| > the crosshair briefly changes to confirm the hit, damage
| numbers pop up above the enemy, sound effects, enemy death
| animations, a progress bar filling up, a new skill unlocked,
| random reward and more...
|
| I wonder if we can gamify todo apps in the same way, most are too
| boring and too corporate. It should implement all gaming bells
| and whistles for ensuring you complete your tasks.
| laurieherault wrote:
| It is coming along more and more. But I think the core is being
| able to handle a lot more tasks, and therefore being able to
| easily break them down into smaller ones. That is really the
| heart of the game loop.
|
| I am working on an app!
| ramses0 wrote:
| Habitica. "Destructomatic" paper tracker:
| https://davidseah.com/2005/11/task-progress-destruct-o-matic...
| jameshart wrote:
| I feel like you could increase the visceral satisfaction of task
| completion by getting one of those old desk spikes to spear each
| task receipt onto when you're done with it.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, I thought about it, but I was afraid I might hurt myself
| stupidly one day :p
| jameshart wrote:
| They are terrifying.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| > Why can I focus for hours on a game but procrastinate when
| writing an email?
|
| OK I got a bit triggered by this sentence. Not at TFA, but
| sharing my own experience: Games are _fun_. And I don 't mean
| Type 1 vs Type 2 fun and the email is somehow type 2 fun. I mean
| that the stimulation / "hit" from a game is just higher than
| 90-99%% of work tasks (writing a new CLI or optimizer
| excluded!!). We pile on much stimulation to the work to get it to
| hit harder: Working by others (social/peer), snacks (biological
| rewards), free caffeine, money (sometimes lots), etc. And
| physical trinkets.
|
| We have studied this to death in other parts of our own biology,
| like food. Unhealthy food/drink is _fun_. It 's a pleasurable
| reward sometimes, but if it forms the basis for your diet you are
| going to have a lot of trouble enjoying healthy stuff. You can't
| outrun a bad diet. You can't add a kale salad after a bowl of ice
| cream and expect your insulin levels to go down. You have to
| treat the underlying problem: A hugely stimulating / rewarding
| thing is displacing the healthy stuff. Almost every piece of sane
| health advice after 1900 has focused on removing unhealthy
| factors _first_.
|
| Work/hobby is no different. When I'm obsessed with factorio (it
| happened a lot once or twice), I find it harder to focus on work.
| When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-
| ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong _technical_ term,
| but it nails the _practical_ effects well.
|
| I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. We all have our
| vices.
| mfro wrote:
| This is the point I think many people fail to understand about
| consumption. Yes, it is usually perfectly sustainable to spend
| most of your free time scrolling tiktok or playing high-reward
| video games, yes you can live without regular exercise or a
| strict diet, but there are hard to quantify effects on an
| entire range of other things in your life. I think it is very
| important for the modern person to pay close attention to their
| mental state with and without the things they turn to the most,
| especially if experiencing problems with focus or motivation.
| al_borland wrote:
| > I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some.
|
| This is one of my big objections do 2FA. My work has been
| pushing it hard, and from a security perspective, I get it.
| However, it's all via an Authenticator app on the phone. We can
| no longer set down our phones and simply work. To start
| working, and periodically throughout the day, we are now forced
| to pickup our phones to authenticate. This invites the chance
| to see other notifications, check and app quickly, or more
| generally, break flow as we have to switch to another device
| and back again.
|
| All of this seems like a suboptimal solution.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Time to get a "work" phone.
| krustyburger wrote:
| The optics of that can be questionable. Just ask Skyler
| White or her brother-in-law.
| al_borland wrote:
| I carried 2 phones for many years. It was more trouble than
| it's worth. Especially these days. Working from home, my
| only work use of the phone is for the Authenticator app.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| You should try a CLI-based workflow for 2FA. As long as you
| can exfiltrate the secret (and you often can by pretending
| you can't scan QR codes), then you can use oathtool to
| generate passcodes.
|
| 1. use 'pass' to save the secret: 'pass edit work.secret'
| <enter it and quit>
|
| 2. use oathtool to generate 2fa given a secret:
|
| ' #!/bin/bash
|
| oathtool -b --totp "`pass show $1.secret`" >&1 '
|
| use it like '2fa work'
|
| If you have 'xsel' you can even do
|
| 'oathtool -b --totp "`pass show $1.secret`" | xsel -ib'
|
| to copy it to clipboard automatically.
| mxmlnkn wrote:
| Even if you only have the QR code, you can download the
| image or screenshot it and then extract the secret without
| ever having to use a smartphone by using zbarimg and then
| manually extracting the secret from the URI:
| sudo apt-get install zbar-tools oathtool zbarimg
| qr-2fa-code.png
|
| Output: QR-Code:otpauth://totp/username?s
| ecret=ABCDEFSECRET012349BASE32&period=30&digits=6
|
| If you have some 2FA that you need to enter 10 times per
| day, then you can also add a global shortcut to
| automatically paste it. Of course, this undermines the
| "second device" security. Some PC password managers also
| support 2FA, e.g.
| https://github.com/paolostivanin/OTPClient ( sudo apt
| install otpclient )
| Gormo wrote:
| I have this little one-liner mapped to a hotkey combo:
|
| `bash -c 'xfce4-screenshooter -r -o zbarimg | gxmessage
| -title "Decoded Data" -fn "Consolas 12" -wrap -geometry
| 640x480 -file -'`
|
| Works great if you have xfce4-screenshooter, gxmessage,
| and zbarimg installed. It allows you to draw a box around
| a screen region, screenshots it, decodes it via zbarimg,
| and pipes the output into a dialog box with copyable
| text.
| pmahoney wrote:
| Just to add, 'pass' has an otp extension to simplify this a
| bit [1]
|
| With that, you can do $ zbarimg -q --raw
| qrcode.png | pass otp insert <some-name> $ pass otp
| <some-name> # or pipe to xsel
|
| [1] https://github.com/tadfisher/pass-otp
| chriswarbo wrote:
| Heh, I use pass like this; but it's on my (Pine)Phone, so
| it doesn't solve the parent's original problem ;-)
|
| Although the nice thing about CLI workflows is that I can
| easily run it by SSHing into my phone (just make sure you
| set up GPG so the passphrase prompt will appear in your
| terminal, and not as a popup on the phone!)
| reddit_clone wrote:
| We also have Microsoft authentication that displays a
| number on the browser and asks you to enter in on the
| device! :-(
| roywashere wrote:
| My company also uses MS auth + 2fa for everything. Even
| signing into corporate G-suite :-). But I do not like the
| Microsoft Authenticator - I previously had issues where
| it would not show the number - and I was able to switch
| to a different TOTP provider. It's a bit buried in the
| menus but possible
| svelle wrote:
| Unless they have explicitly disabled it even m365 has the
| option to add a totp 2fa method. Might be worth double
| checking.
| Sanzig wrote:
| Hmm. I wonder if there would be a market for a super simple
| TOTP authentication device with an e-paper display. Kind of
| like those RSA tokens with the LCDs, but more modern and able
| to hold any number of TOTP credentials.
|
| Getting the credentials loaded could be a bit of a pain
| without a camera for QR code scanning. Easiest solution would
| be via Bluetooth to a companion app, which you would probably
| want anyway for periodic time sync (likely wouldn't be worth
| it to embed a GNSS receiver just to update the time).
|
| Probably be a pretty small market, but as a niche Kickstarter
| device? I could see a small but loyal customer base.
| fifticon wrote:
| they exist, in my country they are available as alternative
| to smartphone apps for identity auth. (ie you can choose
| between android, iphone, and TOTP LCD device.)
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I would love this, but only if it also successfully
| implemented a few disparate authentication protocols that
| essentially do the same things (prove identity) but are
| regrettably proprietary - like the de facto standard
| electronic ID in Sweden, BankID.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| Sounds like a job for a second phone, one which you'd just
| be extra careful to only use for one purpose. It can be
| cheap as balls, but it will have a QR-compatible camera and
| whatever else we may have come to expect from such a
| device. :)
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| Yup. Just use a secondary 5-year old phone for dirt
| cheap. I was actually considering doing it once, but the
| convenience takes a hit.
| hbn wrote:
| Yubikey?
| Sanzig wrote:
| Yubikey does TOTP on-board, but you need to connect it to
| a phone or computer (no display or on-board power). It
| solves a different problem, where you want to have your
| TOTP credentials on a tamper resistant hardware security
| module. It doesn't solve the "don't want to carry around
| a phone for TOTP" problem.
| tigereyeTO wrote:
| If you read a six-digit pin from an e-ink display, you
| have to type it into your computer.
|
| If you grab it from a plugged-in yubikey, you can copy
| and paste it. That seems way easier
| bawolff wrote:
| This doesnt make sense. If you need a 2FA code then you
| are obviously using some device like a laptop already.
| Yubikey totally solves the "need a second personal
| device" problem.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > It doesn't solve the "don't want to carry around a
| phone for TOTP" problem.
|
| It does--if you carry the Yubikey you don't need a phone.
| ValdikSS wrote:
| Flipper Zero supports that
| tigereyeTO wrote:
| A yubikey works great for this
| lazyeye wrote:
| I used to use a yubikey but have now moved onto a
| fingerprint sensor and passkeys. Doesnt work for all
| sites but does for most of them.
| billyjmc wrote:
| This is nearly what you're looking for (well, not that
| close, but it's got the right spirit):
|
| https://blog.singleton.io/posts/2022-10-17-otp-on-wrist/
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| Token2 make this:
| https://www.token2.com/shop/product/molto-2-v2-multi-
| profile...
|
| They also do single-token cards:
| https://www.token2.com/shop/category/programmable-tokens
| myself248 wrote:
| Make sure your GNSS receiver supports OSNMA, and be
| _extremely_ trusting of your battery-backed RTC and
| profoundly skeptical of time jumps over a certain
| magnitude.
|
| GNSS spoofing is trivial now and it's an extremely useful
| way to manipulate a target device's idea of time, which
| breaks all sorts of things. (SSL certificate validity
| periods...)
| radnor wrote:
| For Windows, here's a free little authenticator app that
| lives in your system tray: https://github.com/richard-
| green/Authentiqr.NET
| thenaturalist wrote:
| Get a Yubikey or similar, have a USB port close, one finger
| tip, done.
| mcherm wrote:
| First of all, I'm not a fan of constantly needing to re-
| authenticate.
|
| But for your specific problem there is a simple solution that
| isn't particularly expensive. Buy a new phone. Install 2FA on
| it, and don't install anything else.
| GianFabien wrote:
| I just use an old phone that I've wiped clean and removed
| the SIM. Sits on the desk and I just glance at it when I
| need a new 2FA code.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yubikey nanos are the way out of that specific problem
| unshavedyak wrote:
| I imagine Yubikey doesn't support all the stupid custom-
| app-2fa that companies push out.
|
| I really wish they'd just stick to classic TOTP.
| mjfisher wrote:
| Is there a way of getting them to store a dozen or so totp
| secrets? And if so, how do you select which one you want to
| use?
| dckx wrote:
| > However, it's all via an Authenticator app on the phone.
|
| Why not save the secret on your laptop and generate the OTP
| on your laptop?
| joombaga wrote:
| I use MS Authenticator for work too. It doesn't do standard
| TOTP, at least not for Entra. The QR codes don't contain
| the secret. IDK that anyone has been able to exfiltrate a
| secret and generate codes with a third party app.
|
| I personally use an Android emulator on my laptop, which
| achieves the same goal. It saves and restores state
| automatically for quick startup.
| jaffee wrote:
| 1Password can be your 2fa and autofill those fields. It has a
| built in scanner which will look at your screen and read the
| QR code on the screen (no separate device needed).
| netsharc wrote:
| The comments here have the genre of "2 factor, 1 device"...
| InitialBP wrote:
| Two Factor doesn't mean 2 devices. Two factor generally
| has been thought of as "something you know, and something
| you have."
|
| Let's do a quick threat model on putting both passwords
| and MFA tokens in a 1password vault.
|
| 1Password employees a recovery key + password login by
| default, and logging into a vault requires you to either
| have a device with the encrypted vault on it and your
| password, or have knowledge of your password and
| knowledge of your recovery key (normally in a file which
| makes it something you have) essentially traditional 2fa
| needed to log into a new device.
|
| If someone steals your phone with 1password installed -
| they need your 1password to be able to access your
| credentials on the physical device. At that point they
| already have both your factors - your phone (have) and
| your password (know) - still protected by 2fa.
|
| If someone manages to fully root your computer, they
| could wait until you unlock your vault and then extract
| your credentials. However, if you use traditional 2fa on
| a separate device - then they can just wait until you log
| into the target app, and then ride your session and get
| the same level of access to the target. While there may
| be a small difference in level of effort or how long it
| takes, the same access level is possible, and the
| requirements are that they have very privileged access to
| your operating system. Someone rooting the device that
| you login to services is grants them "single factor"
| access to your services when you access them.
|
| There is some subtle differences between these, but
| except for situations where you have very high privileged
| requirements, at which point you should be using yubikeys
| or standalone MFA devices, using 1Password with OTP and
| password is very comparable to using a separate device
| for MFA.
|
| I'm a previous red teamer and currently a blue teamer.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| It was never meant to be two device authentication.
| treetalker wrote:
| I imagine you've considered it already, but maybe your work
| would be willing to put the 2FA secret into something like
| 1Password, which you could access on your computer instead of
| your phone.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Defeats the purpose of 2FA though. I'd argue a cheap 2FA-
| only phone would be good, if they're struggling to touch
| their real phone without being consumed by distractions.
| xanthor wrote:
| It does not defeat the purpose of 2FA as possession of
| the decrypted 1Password vault is the second factor.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Well i'm assuming 1Pass is also storing the password. Ie
| if it's in the same place for your pass and token, it's
| 1FA, no?
| dullcrisp wrote:
| No the two factors are something you have and something
| you know. Not something you have and another thing you
| have. In this case decrypting the vault requires two
| factors.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| In my view the factors are attach vectors. If i wrote
| both my token and my pass down on a single sticky note,
| it's 1FA. If i have them on two stickies stored in two
| locations, it's 2FA.
|
| Though i have no idea, that's just how i internalized it
| over the years. In your 1Pass example, it's a single
| attack vector (the password of my 1pass) to compromising
| both the token and the password of the
| product/server/thing.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| How many feet apart do the two sticky notes have to be
| before it's 2FA? :)
| unshavedyak wrote:
| In the spirit of the idea, it would be the attack vector
| imo. So behind locked doors, buildings, safes, etc.
|
| Eg a hacker can access my computer, even have a
| clipboard/keylogger on my machine, and have a difficult
| finding my token if it's on my phone. They need to attack
| my phone and my computer.
|
| Having them both in your unlocked 1Password vault means
| if someone walks by your computer they can access your
| account. A single location with both of your "2FA". If
| they had a keylogger installed on your machine, they only
| need your single 1Pass password to breach your "2FA".
|
| Granted i imagine that a Phone TOTP would still be a
| concern with a keylogger on your PC, since you still
| enter it on your compromised machine. Still more
| difficult than the having the totp key though, of course.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Isn't that just remembering two passwords instead of one?
| And isn't two passwords instead of one basically the same
| as remembering one very long password?
|
| For that matter, how do they prevent you from using the
| same password for both?
| InitialBP wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44259556
|
| I posted another comment explaining why 1Password Vault
| with both a password and a OTP code is still secure, but
| in short it does not defeat the purpose. Your vault's are
| protected and in the situation where someone gets access
| to your vault it's most likely to be full access to your
| computer at which point they have other viable methods to
| get access to a specific service you use.
| jascha_eng wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of 2fa that if someone gets access
| to my computer they can't do shit because they'd need my
| phone too?
| InitialBP wrote:
| The "whole point" of 2fa is that even if someone knows
| your password they cannot login with just credentials.
|
| Compromising or stealing a device is a significant
| escalation from guessing passwords.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| It is also more obvious when your device has been stolen
| vs just the password.
| vitro wrote:
| Check this out: https://github.com/Authenticator-
| Extension/Authenticator
| password4321 wrote:
| Taking the 2 out of 2FA since 2017!</sarcasm>
|
| Thanks for sharing a potentially useful tool but I will not
| use it without a lot more details about how this browser
| extension secures the 2FA secrets from sketchy
| websites/ads.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Most trusted desktop password manager apps can manage and
| autofill OTPs in browsers as well, e.g. KeepassXC and
| 1password. (If you're making the tradeoff anyway, I think
| you may as well use a password manager you already trust
| with other secrets.)
| dicknuckle wrote:
| keepassxc does great with TOTP codes, but the default
| client isn't the easiest to add them with.
| Tokumei-no-hito wrote:
| do you use a pw manager? bitwarden (OSS) has it built in if
| you pay for premium. i think it's an extra 1-3/mo but well
| worth it to support the team
| tigereyeTO wrote:
| Use a yubikey
| dwedge wrote:
| If it's Authenticator you can use bitwarden from your
| browser, that's what I do. If you're using a custom app or
| something different then yeah it's annoying
| mattbee wrote:
| These look swish https://www.reiner-
| sct.com/en/produkt/reiner-sct-authenticat...
| umvi wrote:
| Get a keyboard with a usb port on the side. Insert yubikey
| nano. Now instead of annoying 2FA you just reach your finger
| over and touch.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| You can use the Freedom app.
|
| url freedom.to
|
| Or just disable notifications. The iphone has a do not
| disturb mode that can be scheduled.
| bwestergard wrote:
| In my union contract we have language that requires the
| employer to provide us with a hardware 2FA token for just
| this reason. I and some of my coworkers don't use
| smartphones, and we didn't want to be obligated to use one
| for work.
|
| "So long as [employer's] access management vendor... supports
| the use of physical two-factor authentication devices (for
| example, a YubiKey), [employer] shall make such devices
| available to Employees upon their submission of a request for
| the device."
| autoexec wrote:
| I've worked in places that wanted to push cell phone apps
| on the team for auth and we also pushed for hardware
| tokens. It worked extremely well. The concerns we had were
| mainly centered on privacy since the app wanted
| location/camera access and apps can (or at least at the
| time could) get a ton of data from your device without
| requesting any permission at all like getting a list of
| every app you have installed, or data from sensors like the
| accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, barometer, thermometer,
| etc.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Most password managers (Bitwarden, 1Password etc) have a
| function for generating TOTP codes.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| It's not your job's responsibility to cater to your lack of
| self control
| al_borland wrote:
| Even doing nothing beyond the authentication, it is still
| requiring task switching, changes devices, waiting for
| codes, entering them, switching back. It's very disruptive
| to any type of flow state.
| yard2010 wrote:
| But it's in their best interests.
| slumberlust wrote:
| Why does it have to be an app on your phone? IT should be
| able to support yubikeys (or similiar) and even printed OTP
| lists.
| al_borland wrote:
| I see some evidence that yubikeys are used somewhere in the
| organization, but not sure where or how.
|
| The only information we were sent to get this all setup was
| specifically for a phone. The portal that exists to add
| devices only appears to support phones.
|
| I have a co-worker who simply tried to use Authy instead of
| MS Authenticator and it didn't work. There is a lot of
| bureaucracy that typically makes it not worth the fight.
| icoder wrote:
| Reminds me of when I was developing an application 'in'
| Facebook (when it was mostly friends but with adds for
| addictive games in the sidebar)
| yard2010 wrote:
| Ever since I disabled all the notifications on my phone my
| life has been happier. It won't work for everyone (50% of the
| time it doesn't even work for me), but I can't help but write
| this anecdote here.
| haswell wrote:
| I'm old enough to have lived through the era of standalone
| authenticators. The downsides of that approach are also
| numerous.
|
| I understand where you're coming from though, and I think
| this is where OS features like Focus Modes come into play.
|
| When I'm in a "Work" mode, I literally don't see
| notifications from most of my apps. They don't show up in the
| notification center, or on app icon badges, or anywhere.
|
| This takes a few minutes to set up, but once it's in place,
| it's fantastic. I also do this for other aspects of my life:
| Photography, Research, etc. When I'm in those modes, I don't
| want to see anything except for the apps that are specific to
| what I'm doing. It's worth the effort of setting this up IMO,
| and extends far beyond just work.
| Game_Ender wrote:
| Have you tried a smart watch? The Duo 2FA app lets you add an
| arbitrary TFA code based authenticator with same QR code
| Google Authenticator supports and generate those from their
| Apple WatchOS [0] or Android WearOS apps. I have used it
| successfully for years, it's a huge reason I got an Apple
| Watch in fact. Now you'll have to configure your watch with a
| "work" focus mode that turns off all notifications and not
| install any fancy apps on the watch (do those still exist?),
| but it can free you from your phone.
|
| Along the same lines the Meta Wayfarer[2] smart glasses lets
| you take slice of life photos and videos without needing to
| whip out your phone. You lose a ton of quality but stay in
| the moment more. The AI features are getting better so
| eventually you'll be able to use it for basic information
| lookup.
|
| 0 - https://guide.duo.com/apple-watch
|
| 1 - https://guide.duo.com/duo-wear
|
| 2 - https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/wayfarer
| octatrack wrote:
| Apple Watch with Authy is a great solution for this. I don't
| need to have my phone in the same room to use 2FA.
| hippari2 wrote:
| This is one of the thing that smart watches should be doing,
| or even better, something like
| https://blog.singleton.io/posts/2022-10-17-otp-on-wrist/.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Invest in a password manager that stores it all, including
| the rolling codes
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| I often trick myself imagining life is a game that throws
| boring or difficult tasks (boredom often equals difficult ) at
| me that I need to survive. It often helps because I I can
| picture finishing these things as rewards that help me get to
| the next "level". It was particularly helpful getting beyond
| difficult times (many bad events coinciding). Not sure if this
| can be transferred to others, or if it works because of my
| brain chemistry.
| kamaal wrote:
| This stops working after a while. The real deal is you begin
| the realise the 'points' you accumulate playing this game
| can't be redeemed to do something fun or satisfying. This
| game begins to appear totally pointless as you age(Points are
| less useful as you age, and dying with lots of points means
| time and effort was spent to acquire a thing that can't be
| spent now). Which causes even more procrastination.
|
| I think humans crave freedom and free time, with good health
| more than anything else. This frees you up to care about
| doing things which we feel more rewarding and fun.
|
| Several times you are better off skipping the drills and
| rituals and just focus on making lots of money as quickly as
| possible. And of course competing to accumulate more money
| just for the heck of it is equally demotivating as well.
| Focus what you want from the money and that is likely to move
| you along better use of your time and effort.
| gofreddygo wrote:
| > This stops working after a while.
|
| yeah and i figured thats fine !
|
| I take time spent on HN as an example. I used to think if i
| limit my HN time to under 10-15 mins a day, would be ideal.
| But the slippery slope was stopping. It felt rude. And i
| had no one but myself to get angry on. Weird loop.
|
| I then go the opposite, allow myself to binge. Kinda forced
| looking at HN every occasion i had a few mins. I get
| bookmakes to avoid typing the url. Browse on every device.
| Add comments, browse past lists, front page, best comments,
| etc. All the dopamine boosts. And I notice the dopamine
| effect reduces. The fun in comments, upvotes and finding
| something new just evaporates. A day or two of this makes
| me sick of the orange banner and the beige background. I
| delete bookmarks, remove everything. Make a new account to
| start fresh. Add a rule to block the domain, all out of a
| natural reaction, mind you.
|
| i dont have real stats but it feels like over 2 years of
| this, i've spent less time on HN, than before. I'm not
| constantly fighting myself. It comes and goes in waves,
| like seasons of nature. Right now its spring and slowly
| getting into HN summer as explained by my flurry of
| comments past few weeks.
| infogulch wrote:
| Pretty sure my commenting pattern is similar. I write a
| bunch of comments in a short period then none at all and
| just lurk for a while. All the HN comment data is
| published, right? (BigQuery?) I wonder if we can find
| cyclic comment patterns for individual users. It might be
| harder to find patterns if the user creates a new account
| every cycle like parent, but maybe just users that have
| been active for 2+ years.
| guztaver wrote:
| That's also occurs with me, but in games! Sometimes, I
| feel "obligated" to play, the urge of _playing that
| unique game_ , then suddenly, it disappears.
|
| I'm not a psychologist, but I believe that occurs often,
| some things just lose that sparkle with the time, and
| it's okay, you just need to find a new way to make your
| task. This article is a good example of how you can do
| this, and, with some time, change your methods!
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| I believe that having urges come and go is the natural
| way human motivation works. Doing something every day,
| whether you feel like doing it or not, is the artificial
| thing that you need to be trained to do.
|
| Some things require larger blocks of time. For example,
| you need several days in line to take a vacation; you
| can't simply take "5 minutes of vacation" every day. Some
| things are done much better if you dedicate an entire
| day, or at least a few consecutive hours to them: whether
| it is learning something new, writing a blog article,
| relaxing, hanging out with your friends, etc.
|
| It would be more natural to work 16 hours a day when you
| feel like it, and then take a day off.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| My approach is to gather HN articles via RSS (then
| convert to maildir) a couple of times a day. That has two
| effects:
|
| - It reduces the subconscious slot-machine mechanic
| (compared to refreshing a Web page) since I _know_ there
| won 't be anything new in my feed for the next several
| hours.
|
| - There are also tangible benefits to using a proper feed
| reader, like only seeing unread items. That also
| discourages "cheating", since reading things outside of
| my feeds will require me to mark them as "read" after the
| next update.
|
| I receive comment-replies via email, filtered into an
| IMAP folder that refreshes a bit faster than the RSS
| feed, to allow conversations.
|
| These don't have notifications, but if I'm in the mail
| reader I can see their unread count (usually zero; and
| hence can be dismissed with a glance)
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Yeah. Sometimes the reason you can't focus on something is
| that some part of your brain is trying to tell you that you
| _shouldn 't_.
|
| Unfortunately, that part of the brain usually sucks at
| coming up with an alternative plan, and "do something else,
| anything" is not very actionable. And you still need to pay
| your bills somehow.
|
| The natural reward for work is work done. I don't need a
| motivational system to do the dishes. The motivation is
| seeing the dirty dishes gradually disappear, and the
| kitchen become cleaner. I don't need to create pieces of
| papers to represent that, because it is already happening
| right there, in real life.
|
| If I work on a project, it helps to specify all things that
| need to be done (as opposed to working on something open-
| ended), so that I can see how I am getting closer to the
| moment of "done". A nice thing about test-driven
| development is that you produce a set of checkboxes first,
| and then you gradually check them off. Even if the work
| _is_ open-ended, if I keep thinking about new features that
| would be nice add, it helps to specify a "version 1.0",
| and after achieving it, a "version 2.0", etc. The idea is
| that after each version I can take a break and feel that my
| work is done.
|
| The least motivating thing is probably the job, as an
| employee. You work for 8 hours a day (generously assuming
| no overtime). There is no way to complete those 8 hours in
| e.g. 4 hours of working harder and then take a walk. In
| theory, if you do Scrum, you should have a certain
| reasonable amount of work assigned per sprint, and if you
| do it faster, then I guess you can take a short break and
| do something enjoyable (such as refactoring). In practice,
| almost no one does Scrum by the book; you will probably be
| randomly interrupted by extra tasks, and given unrealistic
| deadlines to avoid the possibility of completing the work
| earlier.
|
| Another demotivating thing about the job is that there is
| no personal consequence of completing a project; you
| immediately start working on a new one. The natural
| response to completing a work is to congratulate yourself
| and take a break. But at work, the vacations are mostly
| unrelated to projects. Also, you are paid per time spent
| working, not by the number of projects finished. So it is
| all disconnected.
|
| So I guess it all needs to be a part of some greater
| project, which can possibly be completed one day. Such as,
| putting your money in index funds, and planning to retire
| as soon as you reach a specified amount. Then each day you
| can congratulate yourself for getting 0.01% closer to the
| goal. (Or you can save money for other specific things, if
| that is what you desire.)
| randysalami wrote:
| Or if you work remotely, lie. Complete your projects and
| do whatever you want with your newly minted free time.
| You still need to be available and maybe keep a status
| indicator green but otherwise you should be free to
| reclaim 10 - 20 hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes
| less. Thoughts?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Really, most people's adult lives are just a constant stream
| of boring/difficult tasks they need to grind in order to get
| through: School, work, paying bills, managing money, doing
| taxes, cleaning the house, cooking food, doing dishes, fixing
| this, maintaining that... If you don't have a way to trick
| your brain into grinding these things over and over, you're
| not going to get very far.
| taeric wrote:
| And what about those of us that find they have stretches where
| they don't focus well on anything? Games included. There are
| several games I'd like to spend a bit of time on. It ain't
| happening.
| myst wrote:
| Sleep until you can't take it anymore. In less than 12h
| something will appear more interesting than sleeping.
| taeric wrote:
| I find this intensely amusing. In grade school, I got
| "mono" and dang near literally slept for several days.
| Granted, being sick is a bit different than being
| disinterested.
|
| My problem is typically more that there are plenty of more
| interesting things to do than anything I'd like to do right
| now.
| gitpusher wrote:
| When you are feeling this way it's good to take stock of your
| 3 fundamentals... Food, Sleep, Exercise. If any are
| suffering, then it's almost guaranteed to be the source of
| your problem. It sounds elementary but I have to remind
| myself of this constantly. Particularly the sleep part
| taeric wrote:
| I posted in another thread how reliable some old/popular
| answers can be. Frustratingly so. :D
|
| Exercise is annoying, as without a lot of modern life, it
| largely takes care of itself. Back when I could just walk
| to a grocery, as an easy example, it was unsurprisingly
| easy to stay in decent shape.
| pas wrote:
| Murkier mental health issues? You desire what games used to
| give, unadulterated innocent fun, but nowadays they don't?
| You are a bit "stuck in life" (maybe even going through mild
| depression) and you are not the addictive/escapist type.
| taeric wrote:
| This feels overstated. Though, it isn't like current
| affairs aren't trying their best to make the overstated
| seem tame. :D
| vonneumannstan wrote:
| >When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-
| ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong technical term,
| but it nails the practical effects well.
|
| Man no offense but this sounds devastatingly sad. "We must
| starve ourselves of fun so that the barest excitement at work
| feels good."
| laurieherault wrote:
| I agree with both of you, but when I am fasting and also
| doing activities with a high level of dopamine release, I
| actually find it easier to focus on my tasks as well.
| avidiax wrote:
| > We must starve ourselves of fun so that the barest
| excitement at work feels good.
|
| Much like people that struggle with their weight need to turn
| every meal into accounting for lean protein and leafy
| vegetables.
|
| Eventually, you crave the broccoli a bit more than you used
| to, and it makes the diet easier.
| card_zero wrote:
| Yeah, it denies that games are any good, and demonizes fun as
| a vice. People who talk about dopamine and procrastination
| are just looking for ways to beat themselves up and start
| conflicted fights with themselves over what they want.
| raincole wrote:
| Do you do drugs?
|
| If not then you're already 'starving' yourself of the purest
| form of pleasure (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong).
| I don't think taking one step further is that sad.
| cluckindan wrote:
| That's insanely stereotypical. There is no "drugs" that is
| "the purest form of pleasure".
|
| Instead, there are many thousands of different substances
| which can elicit, heighten, prolong or enable pleasure;
| some illegal, some legal, some included in your favourite
| meals and snacks.
|
| Even vanilla is a "drug" which enhances pleasurable
| feelings. (Vanillin and ethylvanillin are monoamine oxidase
| inhibitors and consuming them will increase serotonergic
| and dopaminergic activity)
| diggan wrote:
| > There is no "drugs" that is "the purest form of
| pleasure"
|
| Yeah, I mean I think we barely know what that would even
| be. But some drugs come pretty damn close I'd wager, and
| I'm not talking about vanilla or ethylvanillin.
|
| I think if you've dabbled in opiates, you've come pretty
| close to what the purest form of pleasure would feel
| like.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Most "normal" people react to opiates/opioids with
| intense nausea and discomfort.
|
| People unable to feel the full spectrum of pleasure sober
| have quite a different experience, since these substances
| completely eradicate any pain, grief, anxiety and stress
| that commonly prevents pleasurable feelings for
| occurring.
| munificent wrote:
| _> There is no "drugs" that is "the purest form of
| pleasure"._
|
| Having had fentanyl for a couple of surgical procedures,
| I am inclined to disagree. No one should feel that happy
| after having their colon inflated like a balloon or
| chunks of metal screwed into their bones.
| cluckindan wrote:
| You are missing the point. Sure there are individual
| substances that can provide such experiences. However,
| talking about _drugs_ as some sort of infinite pleasure
| inducers is intellectual dishonesty: the category is not
| homogeneous.
| vonneumannstan wrote:
| I think this is more akin to literally starving yourself so
| that a single bit of spinach tastes great. It turns out you
| can in fact eat a candy bar and have pizza and not become
| obese or otherwise damage your health. It's not one or the
| other and OP might need some kind of professional help to
| mediate their moods...
|
| Like this is clearly not healthy.
| kinjba11 wrote:
| What about restricting yourself is not healthy?
|
| When I was a kid, I'd eat Trix cereal. I enjoyed it. Now
| - I find it sort of gross. It's too sweet. You can reach
| that same point with cake or pizza or a candy bar, etc. -
| in that, those foods become sort of gross. Foods like
| spinach become more satisfying. Not only that, but that
| satisfaction may yield a higher reward than you ever
| could with Trix cereal. But you'd never reach that higher
| level of satisfaction as long as you're eating Trix
| cereal every day.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| > It turns out you can in fact eat a candy bar and have
| pizza and not become obese
|
| That is extremely dependent on an individual's
| metabolism. When I was young I had hyperthyroidism and
| could not keep enough weight on. I could, and needed to,
| consume a huge amount of calories without gaining a
| pound. Now, my thyroid's burnt out, and my sleep is
| terrible, and it feels like I gain wait from breathing in
| air.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I wouldn't overthink it, or take it to extremes just to
| find a strawman. A charitable reading of my comment shows
| we agree. I talked about indulgences displacing healthier
| options.
|
| More specifically, when TFA talks about difficulty
| writing an email vs playing hours of video games, I
| thought it was worth mentioning that 2 hrs of factorio 3
| or 4 nights a week might actually dampen the excitement
| of work a little by providing a perfectly tailored
| experience designed to engage the part of your brain that
| your employer would pay your for.
|
| The analogy isn't about "hunger is the best seasoning"
| (although isn't that an apt colloquialism !), the analogy
| is insulin resistance is something like "dopamine
| resistance" both take consistent large over indulgences
| or poor decisions (however socially acceptable!) to cause
| a runaway effect which degrades "health".
|
| Hope that's clearer. It's about establishing healthy
| habits not starving oneself.
| SamPatt wrote:
| It's quite difficult for some people to allow themselves
| a candy bar without sliding down a slippery slope. I'm
| formerly obese, I lost 100 lbs, and I know when I relax
| my standards even for a few days, it can spiral.
|
| Self-discipline looks different for everyone. I don't
| think it's necessarily unhealthy.
| niam wrote:
| I suppose in some sense, but how is this sadder than the
| reality that we're not all doped up on space cocaine?
|
| A desirable (practical) reality would seem to stem not just
| from first order effects now, but also in summation of all
| the credits and debits that it leaves us over time.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > "We must starve ourselves of fun so that the barest
| excitement at work feels good."
|
| Don't worry, that rule only applies to poor people!
|
| .
|
| More seriously, how long does it take to stop the dopamine
| high? Could we schedule our lives so that we would e.g. spend
| one month doing the most exciting things ever... followed by
| three days of meditation... which would make us ready for a
| few months of hard work... and then do it again?
|
| You know, so that we are still productive at work, but don't
| have to sacrifice most of the joy in life to achieve that.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > Man no offense but this sounds devastatingly sad. "We must
| starve ourselves of fun so that the barest excitement at work
| feels good."
|
| Interestingly these seemed to be one of the messages of
| Severance, and Dylan's character even appeared to have ADHD
| geoka9 wrote:
| > You can't add a kale salad after a bowl of ice cream and
| expect your insulin levels to go down
|
| Sorry for being off-topic, but you actually can (not a
| scientist, just speaking from experience). My guess is the
| digestion slows down and the sugar gets released into the
| system at a slower rate (probably because of the lower overall
| Glycemic index?). Anyways, it actually works! Just eat your
| salad before the ice cream to make sure it does :)
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I don't even get that kind of hit from a game though unless
| playing with friends, and that's because I'm with my friends.
| If I was playing alone I'd play for 30 minutes max and then
| stop.
| d--b wrote:
| Playing sudoku is not fun at all, it's Lumon-level shit work.
| Yet people definitely procrastinate on it.
| yapyap wrote:
| TFA? the fucking author?
| krupan wrote:
| Article, usually
| brailsafe wrote:
| > I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. We all have
| our vices.
|
| Hard agree, and yes we have our vices, but wouldn't life be
| better if we had more agency over them?
|
| My phone is overwhelmingly a detriment to my life, it's just
| disguised as a necessary utility by doing the same things I
| could do anyway if I didn't have it. It's not _never_ uniquely
| valuable to me, but those rare signals don 't need to be
| tightly coupled with so so so much noise.
|
| The big one for me lately is the aptly named tethering. It's
| wild that it's not just built into my mac at this point, if it
| weren't for that, (maybe 2Fa as well) I'd leave the phone at
| home so often I'd probably forget about it, and I long for that
| future.
| sn9 wrote:
| It's not necessarily true that games being fun is the reason
| why you can play them for hours.
|
| Think about games where you're grinding doing tedious stuff to
| level up your character. Not nearly as fun, but still something
| you can end up doing for hours.
| crq-yml wrote:
| I think I do some of this, but my framing is not explicitly
| about adopting monastic practices - rather, it's about having a
| "novelty budget" each day. Every novel stimulus is an
| opportunity to careen off course.
|
| However, if the task ahead of me is great and I'm motivated,
| then I automatically seek less novelty to focus on it. IOW,
| maintaining a boring baseline of routine so that novelty is
| selective is important as a way of being able to "jump into
| action". It's good to get off the phone. It doesn't replace the
| intrinsic motivation.
|
| There's an aspect to productivity advice that is about shouting
| down your burnout by adding more productivity hacks or taking
| stimulants or flagellating oneself. Burnout's root cause has to
| be approached by asking the tougher questions about life and
| aligning with a philosophy that is truthful to that. The work
| itself will have moments of routine boredom, exhilaration, and
| heartbreak, but the motive has to endure all of it.
| mrheosuper wrote:
| even the Gen Z and Gen Alpha have noticed this effect and came
| with their own term: Brain Rot.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| > The rule is simple: the more you procrastinate on a task, the
| more you should break it down into micro-tasks, even ones that
| take just 2 to 5 minutes in extreme cases.
|
| This breakup alone could allow someone who can procrastinate on
| something big but doesn't like to be burdened by many tasks the
| shortcut, without further gamification, of performing some micro-
| tasks either to reduce the queue or to "procrastinate" on the
| rest.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I had a time when my condition was acting up and I was struggling
| to deal with JIRA and got the idea of making paper tickets with a
| receipt printer. I bought a few receipt printers on Ebay and
| learned how to use them but never really wound up coupling them
| to JIRA because handwritten tickets were good enough and my
| condition got better. Wound up printing a lot of Pokemon
| characters do, as reference art for Pokemon is intended for low-
| quality small screens and does great on thermal printers.
|
| You can get a range of different thermal printer types, one
| discovery I made was that if you went looking for thermal
| printers in North America and looked for a width in millimeters
| you'd get cheap Chinese printers that were often adequate, if you
| looked for a width in inches you'd get name brand printers that
| were more expensive. Most thermal printers these days connect to
| USB but you can get one that connects to Ethernet which I think
| is ideal if you want something to be controlled by a server.
| laurieherault wrote:
| That gives me an idea. We could have some kind of random
| character that comes out with each task from the printer, with
| different rarity levels. It is an idea that might hook some
| people and help them stay consistent.
|
| Yes, I have a printer with both RJ45 and USB. I spent a bit
| more to get that, so I can stay flexible depending on what I
| want to do with it.
| kortex wrote:
| "I got a shiny task!"
|
| Absolutely brilliant. It's so stupid (in that it's kind of
| silly how easy it is to game our mammal brain) but I can
| absolutely see this giving an extra kick of motivation.
|
| Have you heard of the INCUP model for ADHD? Interest,
| Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion. The more factors an
| activity has, the more drive the ADHD mind has. Rarity system
| adds novelty and a bit of passion.
|
| Also if you have looked into operant conditioning at all, you
| know that variable interval reward schedules are the
| strongest behavior-forming systems (hence, slot machines and
| every game that act like them).
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, I was familiar with the concept of INCUP, but I had
| never seen it summarized so simply.
|
| As for variable interval rewards, I knew about the concept,
| but I did not include it in the article because it is
| already too long, and also because I have not yet found a
| smart way to use it in my productivity system.
| abadar wrote:
| I tried creating my own loot box reward system where I
| earn points for completing tasks (literally spare
| change), and I can use the money to buy a die roll, with
| a d20 dictating what prize I got. Prizes would be things
| like permission to buy Pokemon cards or a full price
| video game, etc, with a guaranteed "high rarity" prize
| every X rolls.
|
| Maybe it'd be fun to combine this with your receipts,
| where random tasks reward points to earn prizes.
|
| Or maybe this is just more procrastination!
| user_7832 wrote:
| > Or maybe this is just more procrastination!
|
| Well, what is life but procrastinating on death?
| TimByte wrote:
| Now you've got me thinking about hacking one of these into my
| home network for random reminders or even silly prints from
| friends.
| dukoid wrote:
| One "trick" that helped me some times: If you don't make progress
| with a task, count breaking it down into subtasks as an
| accomplishment
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| In computer systems, this could be added by default as the
| first subtask when you create a task: "either do the entire
| thing, or split it into smaller parts".
| regularfry wrote:
| > It's harder to procrastinate on something physically in front
| of you.
|
| Oh you sweet summer child.
| dackle wrote:
| This reminds me somewhat of a system by David MacIver:
| https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/using-a-list-to-manage-exec...
|
| He builds his list from scratch every morning. The list is flat,
| so as you go about your day and subtasks occur to you, they are
| added to the list without explicit links to the main task.
|
| I thought it might be risky to start with a blank list, because
| something important might be forgotten. But it turns out that a
| blank list is a great filter for what is truly important and
| motivating. If it is important, you will remember it at some
| point during the day.
|
| This system is also excellent for shorter periods of time. If I
| come home and want to get started on dinner, want to tidy up a
| bit and have a few other demands on my attention, I put my laptop
| in a central location, open up Notepad, and just start typing in
| everything I see around me that I need to do. Usually I start
| with maybe 5 items, but as I start doing things I quickly add
| tasks to the list, and it might grow to 15 or 20 items. But then
| at some point the list starts to shrink again as these small,
| granular tasks are completed. It is strangely satisfying to see
| the list initially grow and then shrink to nothing. It also
| leaves me with a feeling of having thoroughly attended to
| everything that was bothering me when I first walked in the door.
| kamaal wrote:
| It would do people a whole lot of good, if they start looking
| at a great day as executing well tested 'checklist' rather than
| a 'todo list' built from scratch every day.
|
| No wonder some of the most productive people like Knuth, or
| people like presidents many times have fixed schedules, clothes
| they wear, food they eat etc etc.
|
| If something is working, do it more often, you want to do more
| of what works, at some point things that don't work wont be on
| your check list.
| turtlebits wrote:
| You can't generalize. Everyone has things that work for them.
|
| Taking a few minutes to recreate that todo list for the day
| from a blank slate helps my brain get ready for the day and
| makes me more productive. (akin to stretching before
| exercise). I don't need a checklist for eating, cleaning,
| etc, but maybe some do.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| I'm going to try that too. An ongoing todo list just starts
| to slip from my mind. I have a whiteboard in my kitchen,
| where I figured I'd write tasks I needed to do and erase
| them off when I finished them, so it'd be a continuous todo
| list. But after a while, it'd slip my mind and I'd go weeks
| without even seeing the whiteboard in my awareness, and
| then when I did remember it was there, it'd be half
| outdated and I'd have to start all over.
|
| Getting into the daily habit of using _any_ tool /method in
| the first place is the hard part for me, so making it as
| tangible as possible and not-too-convenient might help.
| kamaal wrote:
| A recipe has a great chance of success, there are few such
| recipes.
|
| If you think you will try out a new recipe from scratch
| everyday it shouldn't be surprising if most of your days
| don't add up to much, or even add up to a negative.
| small_scombrus wrote:
| > A recipe has a great chance of success, there are few
| such recipes.
|
| My partner vibe-cooks and it's almost always great.
|
| I follow recipes I know will work because if I deviate
| the food will be BAD
|
| This sort of thing seriously is dependent on the person
| heygarrett wrote:
| > If it is important, you will remember it at some point during
| the day.
|
| As someone with ADHD I've never found this to be true. I often
| forget to eat. I'd forget to file my taxes without reminders.
| borski wrote:
| I have reminders and _still_ forget to pay my property taxes
| sometimes.
| Flowzone wrote:
| Oh shit, this just reminded me that I have a tax deadline
| this week. I ignored the reminder from a few days ago.
| rogueparitybit wrote:
| We're on the same brainwave. Literally thought to myself,
| "but I forget to eat all the time" and scrolled down to see
| this.
|
| ADHD obviously can make stuff like this hard, and most
| neurotypical people seem to operate on a "if it's important
| I'll remember it" mentality, which I'm incredibly jealous of.
| I still haven't found a good system for tracking important
| tasks without getting "overloaded" with too many tasks and/or
| subtasks.
| dboreham wrote:
| Heck I forget things between remembering I need to do it and
| adding it to the list, in the time it takes to get my phone
| out and open the todo app.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Serious question: in those scenarios, do you never have
| awareness about your need to eat? Or does it occur at some
| point, but then you decide not to eat at the moment, and
| after making that decision then you never revisit it?
|
| I ask because I often realize I'm hungry or it's time to eat,
| but I'm too engaged in the task I'm doing and I think "I'll
| eat a bit later" and then once I've done that the first time
| I often never consider again, at least until the next meal
| time. I wonder if that's what people mean when they say it,
| or if the idea of stopping for a meal simply didn't even
| occur to them?
| flakeoil wrote:
| How do you get so engage in the tasks you are doing so you
| forget to eat? I suppose most people here have the opposite
| issue, we do not engage in the task at all and once we
| start, we stop doing it after a short while because we find
| a more interesting things to do such as eating, grab a
| coffee or reading HN, news etc. We would love to be able to
| stay on the task and not go and eat.
| small_scombrus wrote:
| Not the person you asked, but in my experience one or
| multiple of the following happen:
|
| - I just don't notice I'm hungry (this one happens most to
| me)
|
| - I notice I'm hungry but get distracted and forget
|
| - I notice I'm hungry but I don't have the energy to devote
| to making/finding food
|
| - I notice I'm hungry and I straight up don't care even
| though I'm aware I should
| heygarrett wrote:
| Yep, everything here, plus "Why am I dizzy? Oh, I haven't
| eaten anything in 15 hours."
| komali2 wrote:
| Quite literally, my awareness vanishes into the task or
| nothing at all. The conscious experience of it is basically
| blinking at 2pm and discovering it's actually 7pm and I'm
| dizzy for some reason.
| kaashif wrote:
| > It's been my experience that any TODO list system I use will
| acquire an ugh field around it that gradually turns it into a
| thing I'm guiltily avoiding.
|
| Considering that all of my tasks come from my to-do list and
| there's no way at all I could remember the dozens of tasks on
| my to-do list (I'm a manager, maybe that makes it worse), it's
| actually just impossible for me to avoid my list. Guiltily or
| otherwise.
|
| The list doesn't make me anxious, having all of these tasks
| undone makes me anxious. Forgetting them makes me anxious.
| Having everything written down then doing everything and being
| on top of everything keeps me calm and sane.
|
| > If it is important, you will remember it at some point during
| the day.
|
| Varies person by person. My memory is nowhere near good enough
| for this to be true.
| laurieherault wrote:
| The type of job can definitely vary a lot in terms of the
| number of tasks and their complexity.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I did not know about this article, thank you! It definitely
| goes deep into task breakdown, just like what I am proposing.
| But I have a hard time starting from an empty list in the
| morning, because I can totally forget that I need to work if I
| do not jump straight into my tasks (ADHD brain).
| bluGill wrote:
| The real value of paper year planner books is your todo list
| can't grow to infinate length - if you don't do something today
| you have to decide at the end of the day will you forget about
| it or manually copy it to tommorow.
|
| it is easy to make todo items. The hard part is realzing you
| can't do everything and you must not do something
| andai wrote:
| >it turns out that a blank list is a great filter for what is
| truly important and motivating. If it is important, you will
| remember it at some point during the day.
|
| I started using GTD, but due to sprawling list overwhelm,
| evolved it into nanoGTD, where I start each day with a blank
| page and recreate my projects and next actions from
| memory/imagination.
|
| This works best on paper. To make sure nothing fell through the
| cracks, I just turn to the previous page.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| That BPA/analog ink is going to do your health no good. Estrogen-
| mimickers are not exactly your friend.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I do not use tickets with bisphenol (it is banned in Europe).
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Will estrogen-mimickers help with my MtF transition?
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Not a good idea. Use real estrogenic agents. Mimickers don't
| even function like estrogen. Mimickers block function.
| hliyan wrote:
| Not bad. I have a stack of unused index cards. I just tried
| writing down some recurring household chores, one per card, with
| some instructions below the title. I'm now thinking of hanging
| two boxes -- todo, and done -- in the hallway, so that I can just
| pick up a task, complete it and then move the card from "todo" to
| "done". I suspect the wife will have no trouble moving the full
| stack from "done" to "todo" at the end of each week.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Ah, the idea of the two boxes is super interesting!
|
| Your wife will have the easiest and most satisfying task :p
| uxamanda wrote:
| Appreciate the quest indicator on the article :-)
| laurieherault wrote:
| Haha thanks!
| gavmor wrote:
| Ah! Thanks for pointing it out.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| Oh this sounds amazing! This reminds me of a todo list app some
| indie dev has been running for years which has a ton of
| configuration parameters based on various psychological models
| for productivity. There were options for gamification, Getting
| Things Done, task breakdown. It was kind of expensive. Does
| anybody remember the name of this software? I've been trying to
| remember for a while.
| rolisz wrote:
| Amazing Marvin maybe? https://amazingmarvin.com/
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I am not a mental health professional. But author may be
| suffering from mild depression and burnout. Vacation from
| electronics, online life and doing some of their hobbies would
| help a lot
| laurieherault wrote:
| I appreciate you caring :)
| orangebread wrote:
| I truly appreciate how well thought out this post is. However,
| it's one of those things where if you didn't have motivation in
| the first place, it's not going to work. I've tried atomic
| habits. I've tried different ideas from social media of grouping
| rooms and things into piles to sort.
|
| Sure, I'll get it done... eventually. But no amount of
| gamification will motivate me to put this much effort into
| habitual cleaning. I hope the author's strategy helps someone,
| but it assumes you have the motivation but not the methodology.
| Void_ wrote:
| What helps me is to set up "morning routine" with tasks such
| as:
|
| - get up with alarm - make the bed - shave - take vitamins -
| read 5 pages
|
| Checking off 10 small tasks right in the morning sets me for a
| productive mood.
| dgb23 wrote:
| If you can, actively examine your thoughts/emotions and dissect
| them from a distance so to speak, when you feel stuck and have
| trouble to reach for motivation.
|
| There's a power in simply accepting that it's just a feeling,
| whether you're tired, motivated, hungry... The feeling that you
| want instead, is a sort of disassociation. The stronger the
| feeling, the harder it will be. And then you just do the thing
| you need to do despite lacking motivation or being tired or
| whatever.
|
| There's something liberating about it that is a bit difficult
| to put into words. Like "fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway".
| Sounds a bit stupid, but it's not entirely wrong.
|
| However it's not a magic trick, but rather a kind of thought
| muscle you can try to train so to speak. It works for me
| increasingly, despite being quite terrible at this kind of
| thing. Or rather two muscles: One is creating a
| distance/objectivity to your feeling or state of mind, the
| other is to start the action. Sometimes the second part is
| almost automatic once you do the first part well from my
| experience.
| amendegree wrote:
| Yup, and conversely, we've all trained the opposite "muscle"
| that basically says "I don't wanna so I won't". Being aware
| of your feelings and emotions is the first step to being in
| control. Most people fail to adequately understand themselves
| and thus fail to ever overcome their lizard brain behaviors.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Actually, my method works even with very very very little
| motivation. The idea is that having a list of easy, routine
| micro-tasks ready in the morning gives you momentum. Even on a
| day when I have no motivation at all, I still reach a basic,
| acceptable level of productivity.
|
| I even gave an example in my article about this for initial
| cleaning, specifically with emails. We usually wait for a day
| when we feel motivated to sort everything out, but that day
| never comes, and we end up never doing the task. The idea is to
| have one micro-task every day, like processing a maximum of
| five emails. Or even five separate tasks of one email each. And
| on a day when you really have no motivation, you just push
| yourself to handle one overdue email.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I think most competent games innately flashes you your progress
| constantly(levels, maps, story progress, upgrades) and also how
| easy you can start making progress after you started playing.
| This system is exactly doing that with the see through jar of
| finished micro sub tasks. In theory you can create your own "easy
| progress" flasher system that is tailored to you and would
| achieve this.
|
| Get on it lol
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| That's really clever. I have never thought of a thermal printer
| before to spam out tasks.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you :)
| m3kw9 wrote:
| For creative tasks this won't work, the issue is with the many
| branching direction and dependencies each new idea creates that
| affects the system. I'm having great difficulty with this
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am a developer and I actually struggle with this myself. That
| is why I use the app I showed in the video in the article. When
| I get stuck on a task, I break it down into smaller tasks. But
| at first, I only write basic logical steps. I do not try to
| plan my whole day in advance because that usually leads to
| failure.
|
| And if something is really hard to plan ahead, like doing
| research, I can create 5 minute tickets.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Yeah I do the time "ticket" concept for this, I create a
| timer. But I do have hard time jumping to create these tasks.
|
| To me I sometimes see past these patches for my problem,
| which is a pain threshold that I need to resist running away
| from when facing a complicated problem, and why is there pain
| at all? It all becomes a math equation where you have a
| better thing to do vs the one you are doing and how to rework
| your mind to calculate it differently
| souvlakee wrote:
| > A simple solution is breaking tasks into smaller parts. Let's
| take an example everyone can relate to: cleaning the house.
|
| Cleaning the house is fundamentally boring. It doesn't matter how
| many parts you split it into lexically -- it's just inherently
| boring.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Cleaning the entire house is first and foremost a gigantic task
| that many people tend to procrastinate. Cleaning your desk, on
| the other hand, is quick to do and much less likely to be put
| off.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I try to frame it as meditative. I can think about other stuff
| while I wash dishes. It can be a nice break from work, while
| actually being less boring than a normal break because you
| still have something to do.
| warmjets222 wrote:
| I made a strict rule years ago that I only listen to my
| favourite podcast while cleaning. This works for me
| surprisingly well.
| gaws wrote:
| Great article, Laurie. Can you provide more technical details on
| the software you used to send tasks to print?
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you :)
|
| It is a piece of software I developed myself using Tauri. The
| only major difficulty is that you need to send a specific
| format to these printers. But there are plenty of libraries
| that make it fairly easy to do.
| losthobbies wrote:
| Great read. I'm sure I have some undiagnosed ADHD and I suffer
| from getting stuck into to work or executive dysfunction...the
| tactile effect of pulling the receipt paper down and chucking it
| in the bin must feel very satisfying.
|
| Kinda like those chefs working the plating section. Order up!
| laurieherault wrote:
| That is exactly the case! It gives me the feeling that my
| "digital" work becomes "real".
| ofjcihen wrote:
| Great article and great system.
|
| A little out of scope since the article wasn't about the finer
| points of ADHD but I've always wondered if we're being
| disingenuously hard on ourselves by labeling it a disorder.
|
| So many people show the symptoms and they've only gotten worse as
| the world has become more complicated that it seems less like a
| problem with the individual and more like an natural effect of
| putting what are essentially still caveman brains in a world of
| flashing lights, vibrating phones and notification noises.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Your remark is very interesting. I was recently thinking that
| ADHD is kind of like an allergy to the modern world.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Agree with both. I'm undiagnosed and slowly wondering if I
| have it the more I see exact language matchups to what feels
| to be a very hard to describe experience.
|
| Puts me in a tricky spot as I experience similar descriptions
| of the problems, and I deeply resonated with deliberately
| seeking out stress as a fix, which I realized worked over
| time. I have specifically done this.
|
| That said, that's an unhealthy approach via playing with fire
| (missed deadliness, etc) and the over time negative impacts
| of stress.
|
| That said, I am firmly in the camp that some or a lot of
| modern ADHD is caveperson brain finally DDoS'ing itself via
| too much info throughput. We hit a max ingest limit sometime
| in 2013, and it never got better. Some folks loose their mind
| very publicly online, others live and die in tech jobs via if
| they can manage tabs and attention properly. Not a bad
| outcome vs worst case, if the latter is my case.
|
| So where does that leave me - I go on modern era drugs with
| what seems to be life-long requirement bc of modern era tech
| decisions I never agreed to? This seems wrong in 10 different
| directions. To start if I can barely maintain control over
| what goes into my mind and attention for reasons I didn't
| agree to but must adapt to, at least I can control if I put
| new problems, fixing other problems, into my body.
|
| So... needless to say receipts sound like a cool method to
| test. At least it was nice to see others discuss the exact
| buzzwords I think to myself - I can pay attention there, but
| god f'ing dang it why can't I do it over here?
| annie_muss wrote:
| My worry about any new system, todolist, app etc is that when the
| initial busy of energy wears off I'll be back to square one. The
| novelty and energy that I have at the start is impossible to
| maintain, but I need novelty to engage with tasks
| laurieherault wrote:
| I wrote this article precisely because, for once, I found a
| system that actually sticks. I have been using it every day for
| six months, whereas other systems would last a week at most.
| ddmf wrote:
| Literal tickets.
| trainyperson wrote:
| I like how the author mentioned typing speed tests as a "warm up"
| to the day. I frequently find myself going to do a typing speed
| test when I'm at my desk but unable to work, and have often
| wondered why I do that and if anyone else does that.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am glad to see that I am not the only one doing this :)
| footy wrote:
| I do this too. I can tell from my MonkeyType graph which work
| periods I felt more demoralized or distracted during.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I had never thought of that, but you are right, it is a
| solid source of information.
| ajuc wrote:
| I like this simple model. There's 2 variables:
|
| - pleasure
|
| - achievements
|
| Both reset daily. Both can be changed by each activity.
|
| Well-being is calulated sth like this: def
| wellBeing(pleasureNow, pleasureSoFar, achievements):
| return pleasureNow/(pleasureSoFar+pleasureNow) +
| len(achievements)
|
| It's weird, but it's how it works. If you did 100 small things it
| feels like you achieved much more than if you did one big thing.
|
| And pleasure experienced is scaled by the pleasure experienced
| that day so far. Which means if you do 3 things that provided 1,
| 10, 100 pleasure - you'll experience ~2.8 pleasure, but if you do
| the same things in reversed order 100, 10, 1 - you'll experience
| ~1.09.
|
| So ordering the pleasures and splitting the achievements matters
| A LOT for your well-being.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I completely agree with that perspective
| datameta wrote:
| I've found that having tasks last 10 minutes is an activation
| energy economizer (with option to extend 2x10 or 3x10 if in
| flow). It also simplifies the overhead of deciding how long
| something should take. I think the key takeaway from it all is
| that one would benefit most from iterating on their system of
| choice, keeping what works and carrying it forward, instead of
| doing impassioned rip-ups or switching to entirely new systems
| frequently
| laurieherault wrote:
| I totally agree with you!
| zoom_enh4nce wrote:
| I've implemented something similar (but digital-only) which has
| been working for me lately. I have a script running continuously
| that monitors my Obsidian files for new due tasks, and whenever
| it detects one due today, it sends it to my notifications server.
| Now I have a notification for each thing I need to do today,
| which I keep up on my device(s) until I've completed the task,
| and then I clear it.
|
| I am a compulsive notification-clearer so this mostly works for
| me. But I also have a receipt printer and have thought about
| doing something like this before, so I appreciated the ideas in
| the article! Maybe I'll rip up some scrap paper and try it that
| way (or just send the tasks to my printer instead of my
| notifications server, haha).
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am glad I was able to inspire you. A paper task is even
| harder to forget than a notification :P
| zoom_enh4nce wrote:
| Unless I stuff the note in my pocket and promptly forget it,
| but my phone/computer is always nearby :) Maybe the
| notifications are best for things I have to do out in the
| real world and the paper is better for sitting and doing
| things in one place.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| "actional tasks" but the printer is kind of fun. You need a
| "manager" / planner / architect in order to create those tasks
| though.
|
| Clarity is key
| kazinator wrote:
| Social media, YouTube and television before them shows us that
| people don't need _feedback_ in order to stay glued. You can drop
| the _back_ and just give them a _feed_.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Every image is feedback. Scrolling Instagram or Facebook gives
| you constant feedback.
| kazinator wrote:
| Feedback is a response to an input. Okay, sure, clicking the
| remote to turn on a TV and selecting a channel is input. So,
| by a stretch, we can call the four hour binge a kind of
| feedback generated by two button clicks.
|
| Sometimes people get glued by a screen that they did not turn
| on; is that still feedback? E.g. kids watching a screen in
| some waiting room at a children's dentist.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I think we can talk about feedback without input, yes. The
| reality of feedback is actually very broad. If we just look
| at the world of video games, and consider all the different
| types that exist, there is a wide variety of feedback, some
| more or less tied to input. In some cases, like narrative
| games, the feedback is much less connected to the input
| than in a fast-paced FPS, for example.
| kazinator wrote:
| I think that the consumption of streams is not entirely
| passive; there is an internal feedback. The stream itself
| is not part of the feedback loop.
|
| E.g. suppose the subject is watching a game show. They
| get internally involved, within their mind, by trying to
| guess an answer before the contestant does and then fist
| pump when they get it. When watching a crime story, they
| try to guess whodunit. That sort of thing.
|
| There can definitely be a sense of working toward a
| reward.
| chazeon wrote:
| If it is just chores, gamifying it with a receipt printer would
| be just fine. But these are just such minor stuff compared to the
| real challenges of life.
| laurieherault wrote:
| The idea is precisely to use our daily tasks to build momentum
| for the more difficult ones.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| my receipt printer is a whiteboard in the gym. I went from "I do
| some scattered, random assortment of lifts when I feel like it"
| to "I have 3 routines I cycle through every day" and what it took
| was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last
| time. Checking off my daily workout is my pulling a ticket down
| off the chore kanban. Every once in a while, as I get stronger, I
| get to "take a number off the board" meaning I've surpassed that
| amount of weight in my routine (eg: after a few weeks of doing 25
| pound lateral shoulder raises I'm able to bump my routine up to
| 30. if no other exercises use 25 pound dumbbells I can erase the
| 25 off the board). That's my "dumping out the jar". It's worked
| for 2 years, I've gone from being at best a dilettante in this
| space to losing 50 pounds, gaining the ability to bench press my
| weight and, and this is the important part, I feel good about my
| body for the first time in my forty years. I think the difference
| is that it's several gameplay loops at once. The short loop is
| "do today's workout, get today's dopamine pop", the medium term
| loop is "let me see if I can work out more days this month than
| last month" and the long term loop is "let me see if I can get
| strong enough that 30 pounds is trivial for me". With those
| multiple, simultaneous loops there's a variety in the (ephemeral,
| immaterial, entirely made up and internal) reward that stops it
| from becoming meaningless. I think OP's system has a parallel
| structure: the two reward loops are completing a ticket and
| emptying the jar.
| hk1337 wrote:
| > and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking
| the weight I did last time.
|
| I think there's a huge connection to physically writing it as
| opposed to typing and printing. I never did anything with the
| weight lifting logs, I thought I might, but the most I ever did
| with anything in the past was looking at the progression from
| the last few days or weeks.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I really do think that there's something reifying about the
| physical act of writing it down. I think that because in one
| of my many stutterstepping starts into the world of
| weightlifting I tried keeping a log on my phone and it did
| all the same things that keeping a log on the wall does
| (arguably more, the whiteboard doesn't track historical data
| and can't automatically generate charts for me) but it just
| felt like shouting numbers into the void every day. There was
| no sense of job-well-done satisfaction when I hit a personal
| best, there was no little ceremony of removing a number from
| the board to make room for a new, higher number. There was
| just a bunch of individual workouts and I either did them or
| I didn't and no one cared either way, including me.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly it. The tools may be different, but the
| essence of the method is exactly the same.
| bengale wrote:
| I don't want to be a downer on this because it sounds like a cool
| system, but it might be worth checking whats in the receipt paper
| as a lot of it is pretty bad for you:
|
| https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-toxic...
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, the main problem is the paper with bisphenol, which has
| been banned in Europe.
| akavel wrote:
| Even though bisphenol-A is banned in EU, I believe
| bisphenol-B is still allowed. I suspect - though I don't know
| how to research whether it's true or false - that everyone
| just switched to bisphenol-B, which is said to be either
| similarly, or more toxic than BPA... :(
|
| Even assuming that "BPA-free" paper I'd buy is really so, and
| not just BPA-covered one imported from China and said/labeled
| to be "BPA-free" by someone somewhere in the pipeline...
| imtringued wrote:
| You need to go out of your way to buy phenol-free paper.
| It's a thing but unfortunately it's a niche rather than the
| default.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| If the labeling can be trusted it isnt hard to find
| phenol-free receipt paper on amazon.
|
| However, none of them say what their actual 'active
| ingredient' is and I am curious if these are necessarily
| known to be better. Most of them describe themselves as
| 'plastic coated'.
| tharakam wrote:
| Yes. A short video I watched mentioned that even touching these
| thermal papers with normal gloves is unsafe.
| krupan wrote:
| The receipts that a large majority of humanity has been
| handling on a daily basis for decades? Unsafe? In what way?
| MaxGripe wrote:
| THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING THAT COULD WORK. Does anyone have an
| idea or know of a 100% digital alternative? I work in different
| locations, so using a printer isn't an option
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am working on my app to break tasks down into smaller tasks
| (you can see it in the video at the end of the article). I
| think I will release it in the next few weeks :)
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| One trick I learned a while back to just sort of get my mind
| right first thing in the morning was to make my bed. I got it
| from a TV show, The Bridge, I think. It's such a small and
| seemingly insignificant act, but the routine is comforting and it
| feels good to have done something that will also bring me comfort
| when I go to lay down that night. It's nice coming to lay down in
| a nicely made bed.
|
| I'd love to learn more of these sorts of little actions that
| bring calm and joy to my brain.
| davio wrote:
| The "Make Your Bed" speech by US Navy Admiral William McRaven
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NudLfyl2cXc
|
| I picked it up from Tim Ferriss, "The goal is visual tidiness,
| not Four Seasons."
| MMK16 wrote:
| How is this printer system any different than keeping a simple do
| to list??
| laurieherault wrote:
| It makes the task tangible. You will have a much harder time
| ignoring your tasks if they are physically on your desk.
| Tearing up the ticket and putting it in a transparent jar adds
| an extra layer of satisfaction.
| MMK16 wrote:
| How is this printer idea any different than a simple to do list?
|
| To break down tasks one can simply indent a list.
|
| A to do list gives feedback every time you cross an item of the
| list.
|
| Sticky notes and printers seem like exaggerated form of a todo
| list.
| darccio wrote:
| As far as I understood, the point is the physical feedback from
| crumbling the paper.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I already replied to part of this in another message, which I
| am reposting here:
|
| It makes the task tangible. You will have a much harder time
| ignoring your tasks if they are physically on your desk.
| Tearing up the ticket and putting it in a transparent jar adds
| an extra layer of satisfaction.
|
| You are right, crossing off an item on your to-do list is a
| form of feedback. But having it on paper and throwing the paper
| into a transparent jar makes the feedback even stronger. If you
| look at the first part of my article, modern video games
| strengthen feedback loops much more than they used to.
|
| As for list indentation, it may work well for many people, but
| not for me. I deal with very large and complex lists, with many
| levels. If I use one single indented list, I end up with a task
| list that is too long to be pleasant or practical to use.
| cout wrote:
| I learned how to gamify work tasks from my mom.
|
| She worked as a librarian in the seventies. Tasks like restacking
| books was not fun, so she turned it into a game. Her coworkers,
| on the other hand, drew out the boring tasks as long as possible.
| When it came time to pick someone for advancement, they chose my
| mom, because she was more productive at the menial tasks.
|
| I also use post-it notes, but if I used them for everything, I
| don't think it would work for me. The reward is in pulling down
| the note and setting the wall cleaner. But if I were to add notes
| every day, I have a feeling the effect would be disheartening.
| Similarly, I love getting the living are clean, but when
| kids/family make a mess again within hours, I'm less
| incentivized.
| laurieherault wrote:
| That is why I use a ticket printer, to make sure I can start
| fresh every day without having to spend dozens of minutes
| creating my post-its by hand.
| akavel wrote:
| There's also a kind of super-cheap Bluetooth "Chinese" thermal
| receipt printers, also known as "kitty printer" or "cat printer".
| There's plenty of reverse-engineered software for printing to
| them in a number of languages; one I use is:
| https://print.unseen-site.fun/ The disadvantage is they don't cut
| automatically, and their "cutter teeth" are super crappy. But
| cheap!
| shayway wrote:
| I have a version without cutter teeth at all, what I did was
| take a piece of the cutter thing from an aluminum foil roll and
| attach it to the printer. Works perfectly. Looks a little
| menacing though.
| psadri wrote:
| Back at Polyvore we used real post-it notes on a board to track
| progress. We had a weekly cadence but the tasks were granular
| enough to be completed in a day or two. Each week we'd peel off
| and crumble the completed tasks into a bin. It was a really
| satisfying experience in a way that digital facsimiles can't
| quite match.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Totally agree, the tangible aspect cannot be imitated by
| anything digital.
| androng wrote:
| this sticky notes method likely works well when it comes to
| breaking down tasks into small pieces. I struggle on that
| sometimes but I think I struggle more when the task is inherently
| boring like exercise with long (boring) rest periods or the
| outcome is uncertain, like working on software with no users. In
| this case I think I would procrastinate on making the sticky
| notes too
| laurieherault wrote:
| Let me give you a concrete example. I have one ticket per
| exercise I need to do. A 20 minute workout session equals about
| 4 to 6 tickets.
|
| It is easier to get started when the task is very small.
|
| But I also used to procrastinate a lot with post-its. That is
| why the ticket printer is the perfect solution for me.
| tines wrote:
| This is a topic that's really interesting to me, and I've thought
| a lot about it.
|
| The approach that this guy is taking to break out of the
| addicting loop of gaming/scrolling/whatever is to try to take the
| principles that make those things appealing and port them to the
| things that we know we should be doing. Video games have these
| short feedback loops and quick rewards, so his idea is to make
| real life more like a video game, in some small way. I was
| surprised to see that even this website has little achievements
| in the bottom right corner, when you scroll or see a section for
| the first time you'll get a little popup congratulating you.
|
| There's nothing evil or wrong about this on the surface, of
| course. But I wonder if it's not making the situation worse by
| ingraining a need for quick feedback and frequent external
| affirmation into wider and wider areas of our lives. In one of my
| favorite books of all time, Amusing ourselves to Death, Neil
| Postman talks about the "entertainmentification" of education.
| The book makes the brilliant and alarming insight that over the
| centuries, all of humanity's efforts have gone into dealing with
| the problem of lacking information (and, I would add,
| entertainment). But now we have the opposite problem: we are so
| flooded with information, and entertainment, we don't know how to
| handle it, and society is totally unprepared. If memory serves,
| Postman warns that we are becoming a people who can't do anything
| that isn't entertaining. And this was published in 1985, long
| before Tiktok and its ilk.
|
| Another approach, which admittedly does require some mental
| strength, is to allow oneself to get bored. Boredom is the mother
| of invention. I have a theory that our brain has a preferred
| level of stimulation; if external stimulation is high, internal
| stimulation will diminish to achieve the desired total; and if
| external stimulation is low, internal stimulation will increase.
| The most productive and satisfying times I've ever had in my life
| have been when I cut myself off from cheap entertainment. When I
| do that, suddenly I enjoy the hard things again.
|
| I have another theory, that great things are accomplished by
| people with nothing else to do. If we allow ourselves to swim in
| an environment of endless entertainment, we're effectively
| kneecapping our ability to do great things.
|
| ---
|
| Also, isn't handling a lot of receipt paper bad for you or
| something?
| mavilia wrote:
| > Also, isn't handling a lot of receipt paper bad for you or
| something?
|
| Yes if you are worried about microplastics. Dr. Rhonda Patrick
| has an episode where she talks about receipts specifically (at
| the 1hr 2m mark) [0].
|
| To paraphrase: thermal paper receipts are loaded with BPA which
| gets absorbed through your skin. The chemicals are worse too
| since the plastics for receipts aren't scrutinized like they
| would be for a food storage item. They use BPA is used as a
| color developer in thermal printing.
|
| It gets way worse if you've used hand sanitizer, lotion, or
| sunscreen recently since those increase skin permeability.
| Studies show dramatically higher absorption rates when your
| skin barrier is compromised. Although I can't find a link for
| that right now.
|
| Definitely something to think about if you're a cashier or work
| somewhere handling receipts all day. I've started just
| declining receipts unless I actually need them for
| returns/expense reports.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| I have similar ideas from my own experience. I believe that
| humans have a "set point" for dopamine hits, if you are
| constantly receiving quick cheap dopamine hits your set point
| goes higher and you are constantly craving more. Similarly, if
| you back off the hits it will initially become uncomfortable
| but your set point will lower and you will not have those
| cravings.
|
| This may be controversial, but I believe a part of the
| prevalence of ADHD in younger people is that their set point is
| unnaturally high from childhood as they never learned how to be
| bored.
|
| This is my mental model as I personally have observed my set
| point change throughout my life. I think it makes sense
| logically as well as these small dopamine hits can become
| addictive like anything else, just to a lesser extent than
| something like heroin.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I agree with everything you wrote. But for many people, giving
| up what entertains them is just not possible. That is why I
| think my method can really help those people. Thank you for
| this very interesting comment.
|
| As for the paper, you need to choose one that is bisphenol-
| free, otherwise it is obviously problematic.
| tines wrote:
| Appreciate the thought-provoking article and your comments,
| thank you!
| gatane wrote:
| To add on top of this, it is interesting when you link it to
| ADHD and related conditions. Where do you draw the line between
| "low" executive function (core adhd symptom) and "normal"?
|
| One may argue that if society were simpler or different than
| today, many of such cases would not be a problem as it is
| nowadays, kinda like people wearing glasses: you dont ask if
| they cant see or if they need help, because they have the
| proper tools (glasses) and environment (our own perception)
| that fully accomodate them when needed.
|
| This could also apply to other things, but I am mind-wandering.
| Maybe somebody could draw more links to stuff like this.
| TimByte wrote:
| The boredom thing resonates a lot. My most creative or focused
| streaks usually start after a few days of digital detox
| bradley13 wrote:
| Interesting system. There is also a simpler idea, that works well
| for some people: at the end of each day, leave something simple
| and easy undone. Use it as a starting point for your work the
| next day. Doing that simple task gives you the initial momentum
| to start work the next day.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Very good tip
| vidarh wrote:
| > The rule is simple: the more you procrastinate on a task, the
| more you should break it down into micro-tasks, even ones that
| take just 2 to 5 minutes in extreme cases.
|
| This.
|
| When I catch myself procrastinating, it often helps immensely to
| push myself to _at least_ subdivide a task on my todo list
| further. Then try to push myself to do one of them, and if I
| still resist, try to subdivide tasks further.
|
| I then move the task to a Done list by pressing a keyboard combo.
|
| The _only_ purpose of my Done list is exactly providing feedback
| the way the article recommends.
|
| I never look back over past days "Done" entries. My Done list
| exists only there so that when I marka task done on my TODO list,
| the Done file that's open on the same virtual desktop gets the
| entry added to the top, under today's date, so I get the
| satisfaction of seeing the list grow. I used to just strike them
| out in my TODO list, by I found I like it better to see the TODO
| list actually empty out.
|
| I could probably just wipe it every morning, but it feels
| satisfying knowing I have the timestamped records even though I
| never look at them.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, the feeling of having made progress is so important. That
| little thing can sometimes be enough to lift our spirits on a
| day when we are not feeling our best.
| yello_downunder wrote:
| I've wanted a receipt printer for years just for giggles, after
| doing some custom integrations with them in medical labs. It
| turns out F**book marketplace in my area has some for movie night
| prices, just in case someone else is thinking along the same
| lines..
| laurieherault wrote:
| Good tip
| bnxts21 wrote:
| I haven't finished reading this yet, but the rewards bar at the
| bottom of the site is a really cool touch.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Thank you :)
| tekkk wrote:
| Great article! Many ideas that I have also noticed put together,
| nicely done. Although I'm kinda curious how long you have used
| this system to truly "know" it's bullet-proof.
|
| In my experience, all systems fail without outside pressure
| and/or right nutrition and exercise. If I eat a lot of carbs and
| in general, gain fat and dont exercise I get nothing done. Eating
| ketoish and exercising every 2/3 days and I get a lot done.
|
| Thinking about work as loops is the right idea, I do agree. Human
| brains slowly accomodate new thought-patterns and one must
| continously keep at them to make them appear easy. Any time I
| come back after vacation I feel immediate exhaustion and
| repulsion towards programming even though it's easy to me. You
| just lose the familiarity.
|
| Anyway, I write tasks down as well although my system is just a
| webapp I built for myself. It's interesting I built it as hacky
| prototype but I've never come around finishing it even though
| I've been using it somewhat regularly for 5 years or so. Or I
| write down things on paper.
|
| The least ceremony required for the process, to me, seems is the
| only long-term solution. But I appreciate this another take on
| it.
| laurieherault wrote:
| So approximately 6 months, considering that I usually give up
| on any somewhat complex system after about a week.
|
| But I agree with everything you said, especially the part about
| how we need to be minimalist when it comes to task management.
| TimByte wrote:
| Sometimes the best tool really is just the one that's easiest
| to keep using
| oleganza wrote:
| Get married, make a couple of children and a lot of life issues
| go away -- you'll always have something to actually get done ASAP
| instead of just staring at a todo list and wandering around.
| VGHN7XDuOXPAzol wrote:
| then you have more life issues ;-)
| meganlanziello wrote:
| I did my version of this way:
|
| 1) 3x5 cards printed on a printer dedicated to this task 2)
| Command line routine where I can: a) Enter tasks b) Be able to
| update card by putting in the card number assigned to the task
| (which also includes a date). c) Be able to reprint a card if
| needed d) Be able to view the card on the screen (obviously).
|
| Written in bash.
|
| This is not to be clear to do things that are procrastination but
| rather to be able to keep track various things that I want to get
| done the next day or other info that I want physically able to
| view on my physical desktop during the day.
|
| (I hate to handwrite and can type very well so...)
|
| The 3x5 card printout will contact a checkbox where you can just
| ink check any item.
|
| The routine makes sure that you only type in the correct number
| of characters per line so it doesn't wrap.
|
| I then modified this to be able to use larger index cards.
|
| Index cards lay flat on the desk (as opposed to a receipt
| printer).
|
| Important to have a dedicated printer for this taks otherwise to
| much friction changing paper.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I really like your system!
| entrepy123 wrote:
| What kind of printer prints 3x5" (or larger) index cards well?
|
| IME most printers struggle with printing thicker cardstock, or
| non-normal sizes, e.g. trouble with keeping that size paper
| straight or with bending/feeding.
|
| Is it just a normal-sized printer, or are there special index-
| card printers?
| meganlanziello wrote:
| Brother HL-6200DW (or similar variation). Before that I used
| another brother printer. When I researched (noting this was
| years ago) that was the only one that it would work with (may
| be others now). I had tried on various HP printers but they
| didn't work. Now you have to be careful how many cards you
| stack in the manual hopper also it works but not super
| robust.
| allenu wrote:
| I've also discovered that breaking down tasks into micro-tasks
| helps me get going on things. I've found that I get easily
| overwhelmed if I have a massive list of things to get done, and
| adding another task to it makes it even worse. However, just
| nesting tasks into parent tasks and finding the right "child" to
| place a new task in makes it feel more manageable, and I know
| that those nested tasks are typically small things that I can
| accomplish.
|
| I use this system for my projects but I don't rely on any
| software other than a text editor. I like the app demo shown at
| the end of the article, but I find custom software never feels
| fast enough for jotting down tasks in the right place within a
| hierarchy as compared with a text editor. I just use a markdown
| file with indented lines to indicate nesting level. Once I
| complete a task, I put an x within a little box, like "- [x] bug:
| page layout ..."
|
| It's very satisfying when you have a big task that's a little
| abstract and overwhelming at the start, but over time gets more
| and more subtasks as you dig into it, and then those subtasks get
| closed out one by one, leading you to finally close out the top-
| level task that started it all. The fact that the text of the
| subtasks remain also gives a quick indication just how big that
| task really was. (I don't delete completed tasks, but I do move
| them somewhere else in the file to keep it organized somewhat.)
| laurieherault wrote:
| I completely relate to what you are saying. I do not use
| Markdown, but I use Notion because I find it just a little more
| convenient. But with my software, I am actually trying to reach
| the same speed as Markdown for advanced users. I have coded
| dozens of keyboard shortcuts to handle all the actions.
| allenu wrote:
| The keyboard shortcuts should help a lot! If you can nail
| navigation from the keyboard, it'll go a long way to make the
| UX feel breezy.
|
| I made a corkboard/index cards app for Mac and iOS called
| Card Buddy and I spent a lot of time working on the keyboard
| navigation there and it made a huge difference on the feeling
| of fluidity. For instance, even while you're editing a card,
| you can navigate to a neighboring cell and start editing it
| just through the arrow keys. That makes it super fast to jot
| down lots of notes right away. I noticed a lot of other apps
| would require you to move the mouse and double-click to edit
| somewhere else and even that friction makes those apps feel
| sluggish.
| pengaru wrote:
| Thermal printer paper is known to be a source of BPAs making this
| a potentially harmful way to produce hard copies of your todo
| list entries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_printer#Health_concern...
| laurieherault wrote:
| Bisphenol-free paper does exist, you just need to make sure you
| are using the right kind.
| nkotov wrote:
| Is there a name for organizing things based on bite-size? I have
| something similar system for myself but literally use a text file
| with dashes. I tried workflowy and other tools but I keep coming
| down to using text files because of how fast it helps me to
| offload memory on a scratchpad.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Task chunking, task breakdown. I could not find any app for
| that, and that is exactly why I created my own software, which
| I hope to release soon.
| gdubs wrote:
| This reminded me a bit of a little Vision Pro demo someone made
| where you can pick up digital coins by vacuuming your house.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This gives me strong Scrum vibes.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I am going to create a certification! :P
| jopsen wrote:
| Hook the receipt printer up to an LLM and the takeover is
| complete.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I will do it ;)
| directevolve wrote:
| For me, the keys are:
|
| Break down tasks into micro-tasks. Doesn't have to be written
| down.
|
| Get my body involved. Take handwritten notes when reading.
|
| Create micro-deadlines. Have short meetings with colleagues to
| share progress.
|
| Inject mini-rewards. Do one 20-minute task. Then watch one music
| video on YouTube.
|
| I could see room for a productivity app that smoothed out this
| workflow.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, but it is very difficult because in the end we all have
| slightly different workflows. But I have a few interesting
| ideas that I hope people will like soon :)
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| My mom carries with her a physical notebook in which one full
| page is one day. The left side of the spread is for the task
| list, the right side contains notes/comments. When a task is done
| it gets crossed over. When the day is over, she manually copies
| important leftovers to the next day. The other (flip) side of the
| notebook is for longer running projects, similar approach.
| Naturally, she has to replace the notebook a few times a year.
| She says the secret sauce is the tedium of copying the leftovers,
| that's how she finds the balance between over- and under-
| planning.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I really like the way your mom does things.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| She's a smart one, I could share more :-)
| Tepix wrote:
| Has anyone tried using an LLM to tackle procrastination?
| laurieherault wrote:
| My problem is that when I use an LLM to break a task into
| smaller steps, it is often not exactly how I would have done
| it. But maybe that is because in my line of work, it is
| difficult to feed all the right parameters into the system for
| an effective breakdown.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| 100% lost me at "typing warmup and shortcut practice". Thx for
| validating the old "if you know one person with ___, you know one
| person with ___."
| cucubeleza wrote:
| something that I did some time ago, if the printer is able to
| print images, you can generate an HTML page, screenshot it and
| than print it. The print will be much better and you can play
| with a lot more things
| laurieherault wrote:
| Yes, it is possible, but if you print directly from the
| browser, you cannot tell the printer when to cut.
|
| In my case, I generate multiple images and tell the printer
| when to cut. I also have another version without images. The
| difference between the two is that the version without images
| is two to three times faster to print.
| CoopaTroopa wrote:
| What does it say about me that I stopped reading the article to
| play with the progress bar down at the bottom right?... And now
| I'm writing this comment before finishing the article.
| laurieherault wrote:
| That says a lot about you, unfortunately :P But hey, who cares,
| you killed a dragon!
| CoopaTroopa wrote:
| Easiest achievement hunting I've ever done!
| djmips wrote:
| Yeah but why do we all have a huge unplayed Steam backlog? ;)
| laurieherault wrote:
| Because we are all hooked on a few games that have a better
| gameplay loop and tons of feedback, with a touch of random and
| intermittent rewards :)
| jamesponddotco wrote:
| Any recommendation for a good thermal printer that works with
| macOS? This thread gave me a few ideas that I might hyper fixate
| on and then forget about in the span of a day or two.
| laurieherault wrote:
| Epson TM-T20III is the entry-level model from Epson
| jamesponddotco wrote:
| I'll see if I can find it here (Brazil). Thanks!
| sudosteph wrote:
| Procrastination never really gets cured. It just gets put off til
| later.
| litoE wrote:
| Procrastination is a good thing. Never put it off until
| tomorrow.
| babuloseo wrote:
| I am going to try this, usually Emacs and org mode helps me get
| things done.
| laurieherault wrote:
| I have been procrastinating for a very long time about trying
| Emacs :P
| b0a04gl wrote:
| got hit hard by that jar thing. just plain receipts piling up. no
| fancy tracking, no filters, it's not even a todo list, it's a
| physical backlog you can't mute. stack grows, pressure builds.
| brain stops negotiating. most tools hide your mess with tabs and
| swipes. this one prints your laziness and puts it in a jar.
| that's brutal. that's honest.
| laurieherault wrote:
| And it works :) Thank you for your comment
| d--b wrote:
| Okay why not...
|
| One part that is not addressed is procrastination because of
| tasks that are scary.
|
| I think I have fairly low levels of anxiety in general, but there
| are things I know I need to do but I'd just rather ignore them
| because they somehow terrify me.
|
| Things like "call someone to negotiate a price", or "find a
| holiday place to rent when I know it's already too late", or
| "reverse-engineer what this giant pile of untested legacy code
| does, rebuild it in something else, and make sure everything
| works like before".
|
| I am 100% sure I'd rather let the receipt printer take a day off
| than tackling any of these.
| amenhotep wrote:
| Seriously. I'm so jealous of people who only need to do things
| that are so tractable that splitting them creates a series of
| microtasks that are all easy, rather than a series of
| distracting trivialities that mean nothing without actually
| accomplishing the one thing that I really don't want to do.
| thomascountz wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody mentioned that these paper tickets have
| BPAs: Beat Procrastination Abilities.
|
| On a serious note, the article so cool and well written. I
| appreciate demonstrating the gamification effect right on the
| page. When I finally get a receipt printer for tasks, I hope to
| implement timed reminders that print throughout the day.
|
| And to be clear, I don't mean yet-another-source-of-notification-
| overload, I mean things like "Go eat lunch." Maybe some can
| relate to how helpful and delightful that might be :D
| wordpad wrote:
| > If later in the day you notice you're starting to
| procrastinate, immediately return to the system.
|
| This is by far the most insightful advice backed by actual
| research.
|
| Recognizing a deviation in your desired behavior and having a
| prepared fallback plan for how to get back on track.
|
| Could be as simple as - if I catch myself scrolling on the phone
| I will put the phone down and standup.
| mrgoatman wrote:
| happen to have a receipt printer sitting right next to me. gonna
| try this
| honzabe wrote:
| Thermal paper used for receipts is coated with endocrine
| disruptors. Touching them every day multiple times can decrease
| your testosterone levels. At least Rhonda Patrick says so:
| https://m.youtube.com/shorts/isteK4uQhQA
| NewJazz wrote:
| There was a study in Korea that showed it transfers into the
| body for folks like cashiers who handle them all day (gloves
| help prevent transfer). Besides lowering testosterone in men,
| these endocrine disruptors can have lots of other negative side
| effects.
|
| https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/society/20180524/the...
|
| There are receipt paper options that don't have these
| compounds, but they are uncommon.
| xp84 wrote:
| The "tasks on slips" remind me of the Cast Deployment System that
| was used at Walt Disney World 20 years ago (not sure when it
| started or how it evolved, but it was in use then).
|
| All cast members in every park and other location were dispatched
| by PCs with receipt printers. To begin a shift or return from a
| break, you typed in your number to a CDS PC (located basically
| behind any convenient backstage door). The PC would just print a
| slip of paper and log your out. The slip would be one of:
|
| 1. Relieve John Doe at <Position> in <Location>. John Doe: return
| to PC (I think it also had a multi-stage bump possibility, where
| you replace John and John is sent directly to bump Bob.)
|
| 1b. Relieve John Doe. John's break time Start: 9:05 End 9:35
|
| 2. Do <TASK> until 9:08 (e.g. Straighten plush in <STORE NAME> or
| Stock candy in <STORE NAME>)
|
| 3. You're released to go home
|
| It was a wildly efficient system, which basically allowed their
| operations software, which presumably knew about attendance, ride
| wait times, store sales, etc. to put each person to the most
| useful position at any moment, and also to give people specific
| useful things to do during slow periods (or indeed to release
| them early if they didn't have anything actually important for
| them to do).
| djtriptych wrote:
| that's pretty amazing and not at all how I thought the park
| would run. Thanks for sharing.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Reading the description of this system, I wonder if Marshall
| Brain knew of it when he wrote Manna, which sounds like a
| fancier version with an AI gloss:
| https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
| xp84 wrote:
| Yes, I thought of that when I read Manna like 15 years ago!!
| Also, I get the impression that he was one of the most
| prescient minds of a generation. I can only hope his "good"
| ending is in the cards for us.
| standardUser wrote:
| Maybe someone can relate to me on this...
|
| > With this new system, I haven't missed tracking my habits even
| once.
|
| When I'm in a productive era like that it mostly feels amazing.
| But it also comes with this looming threat that it can't go on
| like that forever. The feeling that maintaining such a high
| standard will only lead to a big fall once something inevitably
| disrupts the system. It also creates a sense of burden because by
| being so 'active' in the world, people come to expect you to
| remain active. And many of the tasks you've completed lead to
| more tasks that wouldn't exist if you had just stayed lazy.
|
| This, combined with the realization that I can get away with
| doing almost nothing productive as long as I have a job, has made
| it hard for me to even _want_ to be productive.
| andai wrote:
| You've put into words beautifully one of my main argument
| against getting a job.
|
| I have a better one though: a job leaves almost no time or
| energy for actual work.
| nemomarx wrote:
| What's your alternative solution for paying rent / getting
| food?
|
| Not having a job feels like a good option if you can select
| into it but the barrier is high for me
| standardUser wrote:
| For me, a stable job is key. The structure and accountability
| makes it hard to fail, and my (relative) lack of ambition
| ensures I don't over-commit or stress too much over work.
| It's everything else that I get lazy about! I have plenty of
| time, but it's too easy to do fun but unproductive
| activities.
|
| If something doesn't trigger my "oh no, this will lead to
| more responsibility" alarms, I can be very productive. For
| example, I love to plan a trip, because it has a discrete
| start and end and is entirely within my control.
| antihero wrote:
| I find any system I create works really well because it's
| exciting and interesting, and then I get bored of the system,
| and it becomes ineffective.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Are you happy?
|
| If so, don't change anything.
|
| Otherwise, if the lack of doing anything productive is
| bothering you, search for work that
|
| 1. seems meaningful to you, 2. has enjoyable aspects to it (no
| job will be fun all the time), 3. renumerates you sufficiently
| to meet your current standard of living or at least a standard
| of living you can accept.
|
| THEN you will have the sufficient motivation to be productive
| where looking for a system that helps you be productive could
| be useful.
|
| Alternatively, there's always entrepreneurship, depending on
| your appetite for risk and stress.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Won't comment on the procrastination aspect (if it works for her,
| that's great), but handling thermal receipt paper a lot is
| unhealthy according to some. I would want to use a plain-paper
| impact printer despite the noise that they make.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| I've always been a list maker. It feels good to put a check mark
| next to a finished item. I once read an article declaring that
| list making can turn into a form of bondage. I thought this might
| have value, so I quit making lists. This was a mistake, because
| without the list I had problems prioritizing tasks. (And I'm a
| little forgetful.) Things get done when I list.
| marcrosoft wrote:
| The problem with methods like this is that there is no priority
| and rewards you for doing tasks that don't actually matter. It's
| better to do one really important thing per day than 10
| meaningless tasks.
| kmacdough wrote:
| Perhaps for some, but the entire point of the article was about
| building momentum. She didn't talk much about the bigger tasks,
| but frequently alluded to getting more "real work" done. If you
| find yourself never getting thoae bigger tasks with this
| method, then yeah you've got to keep thinking, but that doesn't
| make it a "problem".
| masto wrote:
| First some feedback (I see the author is interested), and then a
| personal take on how I deal with this stuff.
|
| As someone who has spent decades procrastinating, reading about
| systems to get things done, trying many of them, working with
| coaches and mentors, and teaching project management, I like to
| think have a cultivated interest in the topic. I'm very happy
| that the author found something that works for them. I'm not a
| gamer, so I didn't find the comparison particularly relatable.
| What I did find relatable was the point about getting the
| dopamine hit (I know that's debated, but let's use it as a
| metaphor) off crumpling up the paper and throwing it away. That's
| something I always found gratifying about a physical board full
| of sticky notes, and it's just not as rewarding to mark a ticket
| done in Jira.
|
| In my personal experience of ADD, novelty is a major motivator. A
| system like this has the appeal of all sorts of new sources of
| stimulation - physical objects, a new electronic toy, software to
| write, etc. The problem is that once that wears off, if I'm only
| doing it for the novelty, I won't stick with it. I need to engage
| some of the other sources of motivation (interest, challenge,
| urgency).
|
| Also, I would love to see someone write an article like this
| where they keep it entirely in the first person. In other words,
| focus on "my experience" and "I do this" and "this works for me".
| I experience a sort of automatic pushback when I read things like
| "this will help you" or "you need to". It may be linked to demand
| avoidance, or just my belief that there is not a single
| productivity system or hack that works for everyone. "You need
| to" try things out, reflect on your own personal struggles, and
| tailor the solutions to fit. Also, I'm not sure if I would ever
| call it a cure.
|
| Something I've found very helpful is an app called Llama Life. It
| is not free, so stop reading if that's a deal breaker. I think of
| it as kind of a pomodoro timer that someone cleverly fixed for
| me. I find pomodoros appealing, but they never worked for me.
| With Llama Life, I stack up what I plan to do for the day along
| with a guess at how long each task will take. The first benefit
| this has is that I know what I'm meant to be working on. And when
| the timer goes off, if I'm not done, I can snooze or extend it,
| or cut my losses and move on. The other thing I like is that it
| shows me the total amount of time I've allocated, and when each
| item ends. This helps me to avoid overcommitting: when I look at
| the end time and see 9:30 at night, I'm forced to reevaluate and
| cut some things. Anyway, I'm a happy customer.
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| A colleague shared her productivity tool: Sticky Notes. She has
| them on her screen with the more immediate items listed on a
| sticky on the top right side of her screen. The one on its left
| has higher level / bigger items, and so on (a decimal system?).
| Her focus is on clearing out the top right one, and disassembling
| the higher level ones towards the right.
|
| Postscript: Installing it on my laptop needed going through some
| IT bureaucracy. And my #1 procrastination creator is filling out
| forms. Guess they'll just keep paying me the same for less work.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| You just need to switch of job, if you don't feel rewarded when
| doing it then it's just not the right fit for you. And even then,
| something fun can become boring later on.
|
| I know electricians for instance who love doing their stuff, so
| they have no issue in being motivated, while they were a mess in
| their previous work field.
|
| And vice versa.
|
| It's not always possible of course, but the solution is not to
| 'gameify' your life, it will only work for a little while before
| getting bored of it.
|
| And for the << home >> task, I believe it's more of a routine. If
| you know every Saturday morning will be to clean the whole house,
| you just do it without thinking much.
| widforss wrote:
| I think it's great that you don't have executive dysfunction.
| That's not the case for me, and obviously not for the author.
|
| If you've never had your dream job yet still wasn't able to do
| shit, you don't have to crack down on other people's attempts
| to become functioning members of society.
| taberiand wrote:
| This is like telling a depressed person to just be happy
| quantadev wrote:
| People are intimidated by large tasks because they're thinking
| about the entire task all at once. This blog post points out the
| key element which is that you have to think about small easy
| tasks instead. Once you move your focus to small easy sub-tasks,
| it becomes much easier to start doing them because it's not hard.
|
| The truth of the matter (especially with ADHD or HFA people) is
| that once you even start doing a small sub-task, you then quickly
| become addicted to or motivated to getting more and more of it
| done, and before you know it, you've gotten many sub-tasks done
| or even accomplished a large task you'd been procrastinating
| about.
| nico wrote:
| > The only way I could get things done was by relying on stress,
| coming from clients or financial pressure. That worked for a
| while, but it cost me my health (I burned out)
|
| I've seen this called something like "using your adrenaline as
| adderall"
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/1ifdwwn/youve_be...
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Don't these thermal paper give you cancer?
| zouhair wrote:
| You lost me at preparing the notes the night before. Yeah, that
| will definitely happen.
| hippari2 wrote:
| I thought receipt paper is pretty bad due to BPA ?
| kaashif wrote:
| > Imagine an FPS where you only meet an enemy every 30 minutes.
| That wouldn't be engaging. The loop must repeat quickly to keep
| you interested.
|
| False! Plenty of horror games have basically nothing happen most
| of the time but are very engaging (perhaps even too much so).
| Alien games are my go to example.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Yeah but how many times you repeat horror games compared to
| multiplayer esports game where you can play it for years????
|
| most horror game fans I know is treat it as a "one time
| experience"
|
| that's why most horror games have a shorter game
| time/playthrough
| yoko888 wrote:
| I actually have pretty bad procrastination myself. For example, I
| can easily spend half an hour watching short videos without
| losing focus, but when it comes to cleaning my apartment, I just
| can't get started. Usually I only start cleaning when the mess
| gets too overwhelming to ignore. I guess the receipt printer
| works kind of like a constant physical reminder that something is
| still unfinished. Digital task lists feel too abstract and easy
| to postpone, but small interventions in the physical world can
| sometimes be surprisingly effective.
| Leo-thorne wrote:
| I used to sit in front of my task list and just stare at it. Then
| I tried the author's approach and broke everything down into tiny
| game-like tasks. I printed each one on a little receipt printer.
| Every time I finished one, it felt like taking down a small boss,
| tear it off, and toss it. Suddenly the task list felt way less
| intimidating and much more efficient. Surprisingly, the ritual
| worked. I was able to stick to it and even started to get a small
| sense of accomplishment every day. Definitely more productive
| than my old habit of tackling huge chunks at once.
| FajitaNachos wrote:
| I've never understood why people have "work procrastination"
| problems. I've never had to play games to get myself to do work.
| You're paid to do a job, so do the job. Is this a generational
| thing and is it really that big of a problem?
|
| I've worked remotely since 2016-ish and still can't comprehend
| why this is an issue.
| abraae wrote:
| Not everyone's wired the same. A close family member was
| diagnosed with ADHD and he describes his battles with
| procrastination as if there was a glass wall stopping him from
| doing whatever he was meant to be doing. So easy for someone
| else to say "what's the big deal? Just do it!".
| FajitaNachos wrote:
| I understand ADHD and mental illness can make this extremely
| difficult, if not possible. You make a good point.
|
| The type of procrastination I was referring to wasn't related
| to that. It was related to the idea of work being more
| optional than required and seems much more prevalent that\n
| the % of the population that struggles with the above.
| johann8384 wrote:
| I opened this is another tab and will now procrastinate to read
| it for a few weeks.
| tempestn wrote:
| I do something like this, but use notes in Evernote. Making them
| physical objects wouldn't add anything for me personally. (My
| wife loves writing down and crossing out to-dos on paper though.
| To each their own.)
| neoden wrote:
| I had a similar experience when I decided to use a pencil and
| paper, along with a few simple rules, to manage my to-do lists.
| This method worked so well for me that I started thinking about
| the reason for its success. These are my conclusions:
|
| - It was MY method
|
| - It was simple enough to fit entirely within one piece of
| thought
|
| - It provided a clean feedback loop when I could strikeout the
| completed task
|
| - I like handwriting
|
| So it relied on things that my brain finds pleasurable
| dominicrose wrote:
| An A5 squared spiral notebook and a 4-colour pen was perfect
| for me. Spirals help as a lefty. They also allow to cleanly
| detach a page.
|
| There's a lot of freedom with this. It can serve a much more
| than just writing boring task names.
| Elaris wrote:
| Thank you for sharing, this is a very useful article. I believe I
| have procrastination; many times I prefer to put things off and
| don't want to do them until it's absolutely necessary. After
| reading this article, I think I should try to change this.
| caro_kann wrote:
| I've been thinking gamification of my daily chores too and this
| article pops up! Amid health concerns of receipts, I think I'm
| gonna try this with just sticky notes and a jar. But how about
| making this a platform on its own, that just runs on a secondary
| monitor (I think everyone has one of those nowadays anyway). The
| idea is to just make this a GAME. For example, various stats of a
| player can be shown, history of every achievement, goals,
| chapters etc. Great article by the way!
| Noelia- wrote:
| A while ago, I tried writing tasks on sticky notes at home and
| crumpling them up to toss in the trash once they were done. It
| felt pretty satisfying at first, but writing each note took too
| much time, and I eventually gave up.
|
| Now that I've seen the idea of using a thermal printer to print
| out little task tickets, it instantly feels like a much easier
| system. I'm planning to get one next week and see if it actually
| helps me get started more easily than writing things by hand.
| causal wrote:
| The biggest killer for any task tracker I find is an
| accumulating backlog of items that seem too important to quit
| but too intractable to make progress on. Often it's those
| exploding-in-complexity type things that you thought would
| taken an hour and it's constantly requiring refactoring into
| more tasks.
|
| Accumulate enough of those and you start finding yourself
| writing more notes than you are crumpling them and can get
| demoralized pretty quickly every time you look at the board.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > but writing each note took too much time
|
| Your tasks must be _too_ granular, if writing it down is a
| noticeable part of the effort you expend in a day.
|
| Maybe use somewhat larger tasks so you don't notice the
| overhead of writing it down so much?
| RobTonino wrote:
| I like the overall idea and glad it helped. OP, how do you feel
| about the waste produced by this? I would personally feel guilty
| to a good extent--curious to know how that goes for you.
| ahaferburg wrote:
| Same here. Going through dozens of post-its feels super
| wasteful. Even more so the dozens of thermal printers that will
| be ordered as a result of this post, and might end up gathering
| dust on someone's attic in two weeks.
|
| Ultimately there's going to be a lot of repetition. Many of
| these tasks are going to be the same. I'm wondering if there's
| a variant of this system that involves reusable kanban tickets.
| frhack wrote:
| If games work, why not gamify your idea? The printer and paper
| approach doesn't work well for people on the move. We need a pure
| online version that's accessible from everywhere: home, office,
| customer sites, vacation spots, and during commutes. Even better:
| add a voice interface too.
|
| "Hey assistant, what do I have to do?"
|
| "1. Send email to Bob"
|
| "2. Clean your desktop"
|
| "3. Read paper XYZ"
|
| "...and more"
|
| "OK assistant, set 1 as done"
|
| "Congratulations, great job! You achieved the bronze badge this
| week by completing 70% of your tasks!"
| LeonM wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD at 38, and never expected to hear that
| diagnosis. Main reason was my misunderstanding of what ADHD is.
| Like most people, I just naively associated ADHD with hyperactive
| kids, and thought I was just lazy and having procrastination
| issues.
|
| Now that I understand it so much better, I start to recognise it
| everywhere. After reading first paragraph of the article, I
| immediately though: Laurie must have ADHD!
|
| For ADHD the things that often help are: breaking tasks up into
| smaller tasks and having a way of tracking progress. You don't
| want to do that on a screen, your phone is a distraction device!
|
| I write my to-do lists on a paper notebook so I can tick them
| off. But the label printer idea is also a smart one! Though maybe
| a bit over-engineered, but I guess that was just a way for Laurie
| to procrastinate on the solution ;-)
| namaria wrote:
| Same story for me. What has really helped is trying to make
| initiating useful and desirable tasks easier and seeking
| distractions harder. Bit by bit, cultivating that mindset
| changes things for the better over time.
|
| The trap is usually "I've figured it out and this new system
| will solve my life" only to be burned out days or weeks later
| because this only addresses the symptoms and not that cause.
|
| Cultivating a more friendly environment has been a great help
| for me. That and taking notes.
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| I rmemember what truly worked for me, as a chronic case, was
| a 1 day workweek. Granted I did work normal days, but I only
| mean things that cost motivation like side projects. On other
| days I even stopped myself when I started to kid myself about
| 'doing it'. It made me feel gross but that gross feeling
| helped when the scheduled day comes.
|
| I stopped doing it for some reason. But I remember it worked.
| For what it is.
| TimByte wrote:
| Every digital to-do app I've tried turns into another
| notification to ignore, or I end up doomscrolling instead of
| checking tasks off. The receipt/label printer idea is a little
| extra, but I get the appeal of making the process more tactile
| and even a bit fun. If it works, it works!
| afro88 wrote:
| Genuine question: isn't this everyone? Don't we all find large
| tasks hard to start and so we procrastinate? Isn't it common
| general advice for all people to break things down into smaller
| steps so you can get going
| ubercore wrote:
| I think with many things in psychiatry, yes this is a common
| experience, but part of a diagnosis is actually about it
| becoming a real problem in your life. We all have aspects of
| a lot of different things that become disorders depending on
| the impact they have in your life. Not a psychologist, but
| this is how I understand the distinction, and why the
| diagnostic criteria are set up the way they are.
| Panoramix wrote:
| It is everyone.
| dazzawazza wrote:
| There is a long running conversation within the medical
| profession about the usefulness of marginal diagnosis. When
| everyone has ADHD how do doctors help the people who really
| NEED help with ADHD. Who 'really' needs help is of course
| subjective.
|
| I think we can all agree that we are in a period of over
| medicalisation and we've combined that with a misconception
| that doctors/drugs/science can cure, and even should cure,
| everything.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| With mental illnesses there is no clear limit between normal
| and sick. However there is a point when it's really hurting
| the person afflicted.
|
| For example procrastination: everyone procrastinate more or
| less, but in people with ADHD, procrastination happens even
| when they actively don't want to procrastinate, and even when
| it hurts them right now to procrastinate.
|
| Another example : depression. It's not easy from an external
| point of view to see where is the limit between sadness and
| depression, however at one point the sadness has no objective
| reason, and is so overwhelming the brain that the person
| cannot function normally or is able to mentally fight it
| pchangr wrote:
| I don't think you understand depression. There's a big
| difference between depression and sadness ... like the
| difference between purple and green. They are just not
| comparable. This is not shades of a different color. My
| personal experience is: "I'm sad" and that can mean... "I
| want to cry" But If im depressed can be like "I'm happy..,
| and yet.. I don't see the point of living."
| staticman2 wrote:
| I doubt the distinction between depressed and not
| depressed is all that clear.
|
| I know scales like BDI 2 assign a number and use terms
| like:
|
| - BDI-II scoring:
|
| 0-13 is considered none or minimal range depression;
|
| 14-19 mild depression;
|
| 20-28 moderate depression;
|
| 29-63 severe depression.
|
| https://strokengine.ca/en/assessments/beck-depression-
| invent...
|
| There is no objective cutoff point is what I'm saying.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| > I don't think you understand depression
|
| I think I understand very well
| pchangr wrote:
| Then maybe it was just a choice of words. My main point
| was that being depressed is not the same as being sad
| like being happy is not the same as being manic.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| > procrastination happens even when they actively don't
| want to procrastinate, and even when it hurts them right
| now to procrastinate.
|
| That applies to just about everyone. It's why there are
| countless books and articles on defeating procrastination.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I get that this is partly HN devils advocacy and partly a
| very human bias towards thinking all brains are your
| brain, but it's like saying that everyone has creaky
| joints so people with arthritis are just complaining too
| much.
|
| Inattentive type ADHD makes you physically incapable of
| concentration. Procrastination is a symptom of the
| underlying problem, which is that the attention mechanism
| in your brain is chemically broken. People with this
| disorder are forced to 'manually' drive executive
| functions in a way that people with fully functioning
| norepinephrine synthesis systems can't really understand.
|
| It is surmountable, but it's very hard and it's an
| 'invisible' condition. The sad thing is that most people
| with this (actual, real, chemically identifiable)
| condition spend most of their lives internalizing that
| they are lazy and worthless and desperately wishing they
| knew how to not be that. I have vivid memories of
| thinking those things when I was in elementary school. I
| am relatively high functioning now because I understand
| that my mind needs external control loops to keep me
| halfway productive but it comes with a whole lot of
| constant anxiety and shame that I can't do anything
| about.
|
| It's a real thing.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| No, it does not applies for everyone
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| No, most people have never found themselves staring at a
| pile of unpaid bills and collection notices, while
| knowing there's work they should be doing that would pay
| those bills...and feeling physically and mentally
| incapable of starting that work. Not "I don't wanna" or
| "I'd rather play games right now," but "I know I should
| do that, I know it would make my life better and I want
| that so bad...but I just can't."
|
| It's horrible, and definitely not something that applies
| to just about everyone.
| derektank wrote:
| I do need to push back because I think what you're
| describing here is an emotional dysfunction, not an
| executive dysfunction, and I think the former really is a
| nearly universal experience to some degree or another.
| Maybe not all the time but certainly some of the time.
|
| I had never experienced this exact scenario before my
| thirties but I ran into an exceptionally busy period in
| my life where I found myself overwhelmed with tasks and
| accidentally ignored my credit cards for a couple months.
| I eventually realized this, but I put it off for at least
| another month, even though every other day I was thinking
| about it and I wanted to solve the problem, knowing it
| was an easy problem to fix and that I had the time to
| solve it despite being busy. The reason I didn't was
| because of fear, the dread of the unknown (how bad were
| the overage charges going to be?) but also a fear of
| being faced with such an obvious failure, even though
| objectively I knew the loss would be trivial.
|
| I think this drives most forms of procrastination,
| certainly everyone I've talked to about it (parents,
| friends, coworkers) describe it in similar words,
| comparing it to the anticipation of touching a hot stove,
| etc.
| 0xAFFFF wrote:
| Most symptoms of ADHD are things almost everybody experiences
| from time to time, some even regularly. What _makes_ ADHD is
| combination of many symptoms cranked to 11.
|
| ADHD is the difference between having difficulties starting
| some tasks and being absolutely unable to start a mundane
| task until you curl yourself into a corner and cry.
|
| That being said, things that help people coping with ADHD can
| totally help people not having ADHD but suffering similar
| issues (case in point: planning and handling tasks)
| adhdsucks wrote:
| (throwaway account for anonymity)
|
| > ADHD is the difference between having difficulties
| starting some tasks and being absolutely unable to start a
| mundane task until you curl yourself into a corner and cry.
|
| Can't agree with this enough.
|
| I'm currently suffering from absolutely crippling
| procrastination.
|
| I'm a successful respected principal engineer with 25+
| years industry experience but in the last couple of years
| my procrastination has got so so much worse. I've just got
| through my third PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) in the
| last 18 months. Thankfully my employer believes in me and
| continues to give me a chance, but they're not a charity
| and they've made it clear that I need to continue to
| perform or I'm gone.
|
| For example, the last PIP I knew exactly what I had to do,
| it was agreed in advance and completely fair. I should have
| had no problem completing everything without having to work
| silly hours. I just needed to grind my way through it and
| apply my experience and expertise as and when needed (when
| to escalate, etc). Instead I sat on things for weeks and
| weeks until the fear and panic of not being able to provide
| for my family (I'm the sole earner in the house) started to
| really hit and give me the necessary motivation. It was an
| immensely stressful position I put myself in. (To be clear,
| the company is awesome, they're very supportive and they
| really want me to succeed.)
|
| Taking any significant time off isn't an option. It's not
| burnout (been there, done that). I can't afford not to be
| working. We're stretched very thin already due to other
| medical problems amongst my immediate family but we can get
| by if I'm working. Changing companies isn't going to solve
| anything either; my current employer is not the problem. I
| am. Anywhere else would probably be far worse.
|
| It is utterly crippling at times; and the majority of the
| time. I can sit at my desk for days and do 30 minutes of
| "work" each day. Then the deadlines hove into view and I'm
| doing a days worth of work in 30 minutes.
|
| I'm awaiting an official ADHD diagnosis and expect to be
| diagnosed with Inattentive type. Hopefully medication will
| make things easier for me.
|
| I should have gone down the diagnosis route many years ago
| but, guess what, procrastination.
| FrankyHollywood wrote:
| Well people differ. Look around at your colleagues, some have
| dry eyes and lower back pain from working hours without
| interruption on a boring task.
|
| Others, like myself, are easily distracted, quickly bored and
| only work hard with a specific goal in mind. Working on
| smaller tasks makes it easier to not be distracted. I feel
| this is more important for people with ADHD.
|
| But you are right, in the end it is useful strategy for
| everyone :)
| karpierz wrote:
| Here's an analogy that might make it clearer:
|
| Alice is in a wheelchair.
|
| Bob has a broken leg.
|
| Charlie is unfit, but otherwise a healthy adult.
|
| Alice, Bob, and Charlie would all say "I find getting up the
| hills of San Francisco difficult". But "doesn't everyone find
| that hard" conflates the causes and severity of the
| difficulty for the three of them in a way that isn't useful
| for making their complaints feel heard, or addressing the
| complaints such that they don't have that issue.
|
| For example:
|
| Alice could get an electric wheelchair.
|
| Bob could take public transit / Ubers up, or get rides from
| their friends.
|
| Charlie could take up running with friends.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| Right. But then when someone says "I see the symptom of
| broken legs everywhere now. When the blog author said they
| had trouble getting up the hills of San Francisco, I just
| knew they must have an undiagnosed broken leg", it's fair
| to be more than a little skeptical.
| imzadi wrote:
| It seems silly because a broken leg is obvious and easy
| to diagnose. So the idea that someone has an undiagnosed
| broken leg is absurd.
|
| A lot of illnesses are not as easy to spot. Even
| illnesses that have clear diagnostic factors might be
| undiagnosed if no one has done the right tests. For
| instance, gallbladder disease. Easy to test and diagnose,
| but only if someone has gone to the doctor and the doctor
| has done the right tests. If you've experienced
| gallbladder disease, you know the symptoms. So you might
| start noticing them in other people who just think its
| indigestion or a pulled muscle or whatever.
| staticman2 wrote:
| That analogy ignores what was actually confusing about this
| topic. A better analogy would be:
|
| Alice has a medical problem related to hill walking so she
| walks up the hill wearing sneakers, Bob also had a medical
| problem related to hill walking so he uses a handkerchief
| to wipe off his sweat while walking up the hill, and
| Charlie, the out of shape adult, also uses sneakers and a
| handkerchief but not in a medical way even though his feet
| hurt without sneakers and he does sweat.
| afro88 wrote:
| ADHD-I has a range of symptoms where the person needs 5 or
| more that are significantly disruptive to their life for at
| least 6 months.
|
| So when someone reads the first paragraph and immediately
| thinks the author has to be ADHD because they talk about 1
| of these symptoms that in isolation the majority of the
| world has, I ask "but aren't we all like this?"
| pchangr wrote:
| Advice for ADHD people helps everyone in the same way that
| any accessibility improvement commonly helps everyone.
| hashmal wrote:
| Everyone experiences some symptoms of ADHD, ASD, etc. A
| genuine diagnostic is given when these symptoms become a big
| problem for daily life, work, social stuff, etc.
| TimByte wrote:
| The analogy to video games and the need for fast, tangible
| feedback really lands for me. But I do wonder how sustainable is
| the receipt printer setup? The novelty and fun factor are real,
| but do you think you'd still get the same motivation after six
| months, or will it just become another background habit? (Not
| that "good habits" are bad, of course)
| hasbot wrote:
| My problem is not only procrastination but motivation. _Why_
| should I be doing all these tasks? I appreciate having a clean
| house but having one isn 't fulfilling or enjoyable. Am I just a
| work machine? I want to soar with the eagles not toll with the
| ants.
| Horffupolde wrote:
| So she turned herself into an automaton.
| rkwasny wrote:
| I just re-implemented your interface for managing tasks:
|
| https://rafalkwasny.com/tasks
|
| Prints on A4 page as I like it better
| gregorymichael wrote:
| I have ADHD, and my daughter was recently diagnosed as well.
|
| Been reflecting on this post as it's been soaking up the front
| page for the last 24 hours.
|
| I want to commend you for shipping maybe the perfect HN post:
|
| - Personal Journey
|
| - Old school hardware
|
| - DIY software
|
| - Productivity hack
|
| - Great title
|
| - Quantified results (2-3x productivity) over non-trivial
| duration (few months)
|
| - A low-effort offline solution that delivers real value for the
| 98% who will never build the thing
|
| - Great polish on the reading experience with lots of little
| details
|
| - Effective call to action (subscribe to get the software in a
| few weeks)
|
| You inspired me to get my organization back on track. After
| researching receipt printers for 30 minutes, I realized what I
| actually need is to dust off the system that has worked for me in
| the past. But I'm picking up some post-its today and my daughter
| and I are going to try implementing your system for her over the
| weekend.
|
| Thank you for putting the time into this!
| nicolas_gu wrote:
| Super cool idea !! Todo list tend to be kinda overwelming,
| because cross out an item leave it on the list. I tried to do a
| todolist (on a text editor) and just delete the element when it's
| done, but it's far less satysfing than juste throwing it in a
| glass
| mock-possum wrote:
| The progress bar along the bottom of the page (in mobile at
| least) is fun
| fencepost wrote:
| Coming to this a day late, but what immediately jumped to mind
| was David Seah's "Task Order Up" https://davidseah.com/node/the-
| task-order-up/ system.
|
| My biggest concern (besides "following through with this? _hollow
| laugh_ ") is when you're not always working in the same place -
| either hybrid or going to customer sites.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| I have been TickTick for daily-habit tracking for years now. It
| has a monthly GitHub-like graph widget for phones which is
| amazing for feedback. I also use TickTick for misc. task-tracking
| like "laundry", "buy apple", etc.
|
| Then for non-recurring areas like job-tasks, I use a separate
| tool with a simple Kanban board. Prior to Kanban, I used to just
| track time, and write a list of things I did for the day, but I
| realized there was no feedback and it was just a passive "I did
| this stuff".
|
| So coming from that, a Kanban board has been god-sent. Because
| otherwise Parkinson's Law was a common occurrence for me. Each
| task in the board is somewhat tied to a project/outcome through a
| tag. So there is a feedback/working-backwards/active concept to
| it. I have just started using it, but the more I use it, the more
| I automatically learn how to set better tasks, because otherwise
| they do not go from TODO -> DOING -> DONE.
| taurusnoises wrote:
| Nice piece. You and I (and I know many others) have come to the
| same conclusion: (an old video of mine on breaking down tasks
| into tiny bites
| https://youtu.be/b3blsuTqN9s?si=W373y92JzDfHIDvS). No doubt
| informed by our good friend David Allen.
|
| Ps, I linked to your article in my newsletter this week. Hope it
| sends some visits!
| matt_kantor wrote:
| > Write each task on a sticky note. When you finish the task,
| crumple the note into a ball and throw it into a clear jar.
|
| I independently stumbled upon this same system. It sounds like
| the author takes it further than me (I don't create notes for
| routine/repeating tasks, and don't break them down so much--in a
| typical day I only complete around 2-3 notes).
|
| I've used sticky notes for years, but ~6 months ago added the jar
| (prior to that I just recycled them). It helps to have a visual
| reminder that I'm making progress over the long term, even if it
| doesn't feel like it some days.
|
| My current jar is just about full and I've been debating what to
| do with it. Save it as desk art? Find a bigger jar and transfer
| the notes? Burn them in a cathartic ritual? I'm open to
| suggestions.
| damascus wrote:
| My gf and I are the stereotypical software nerd meets astrology
| girlie (but doesn't take it too far). She likes to do rituals
| every so often and I've found that it does create a moment of
| reflection that you can use however you like. The last time we
| were camping she told me she wanted to do one so I bought some
| of that fire color changing powder (mostly just fine metal
| shavings of various types) and then glued a bit of that on some
| paper and made sort of a paper packet and then I had the whole
| group write on a packet something they wanted to let go of and
| then we all tossed them into the fire at the same time and the
| fire changed colors. It was pretty magical and I scored a lot
| of brownie points! So you could sprinkle some of that into your
| jar and just toss a handleful into the fire and watch the magic
| of your productivity ascend to the heavens. Or, you know, just
| watch physics at work.
| nopmat wrote:
| I write individual tasks (or steps of larger tasks) on index
| cards. When a task is done, I stick the index card on a receipt
| spike.I limit WIP myself to 3 index cards at a time.
| sjducb wrote:
| I just tried bite sized task post it notes. It's incredible. The
| gamification is like the notice boards in the Witcher 3.
| threecheese wrote:
| It's such a great idea. I have a giant metal whiteboard I've
| been using for post-it's for a few years, I am always having to
| move them around because they are at "project" granularity, and
| things get recaregorized or reprioritized, to the point that
| it's mostly useless. Going to try this!
| abalone wrote:
| That's really cool. I will just add that in my experience, with a
| bit of conditioning it is possible to get this satisfaction from
| crossing things off digital lists. The benefits are manifold:
|
| - It saves paper
|
| - It's easier and faster to reprioritize tasks
|
| - It's always with you in your pocket
|
| Personally I use Apple Notes which has checklists, as opposed to
| a task management system or even Reminders. The flexibility of
| just writing things into a freeform note and hitting a button to
| turn them into todos is the right balance of low friction and
| just enough structure. Hitting that circle to check it off when
| done is actually quite satisfying.
|
| Bonus: I added a keyboard shortcut for strikethru which adds some
| extra satisfaction of crossing off the task (or portions of a
| task that i've written out).
| dejj wrote:
| Your blog reminded me of "Linear RPG": you run along a line to
| collect XP. It's a flash game.
|
| https://sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/
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