haha, nice point. It's designed so that other people can challenge the structure and the resources in it. So when you come back to it it will always be better.
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Lots of JS nowadays will have continuous and ongoing activity, keeping the CPU spinning even on tabs that are not in the foreground and actively being used.
You are right, at a first glance it's just a list of resources. It's designed to break down 'how to minimize procrastination' into a subset of jobs, and then matching them with the best resources to solve them. Users can challenge the subset of jobs, and resources to achieve them. This way it will become easier to tackle procrastination over time.
i procrastinate so much, i read the first section then clicked the "save to pocket" icon from the chrome toolbar. i'll get to reading it. eventually...
I do wonder if bookmarking apps are one of the underlying causes of 'link hunting' i.e. the journey you go on every time you click a HN link.
You bookmark a page cause you don't want to lose it, but then you want to read more pages to bookmark those because you're worried that if you don't bookmark them you'll never find them again.
I'm going to bin my pinboard add-on for a week and see if that helps.
This is me. What's the reason behind this? Is this because it gives me the "I'm doing something productive" feeling while simultaneously doing nothing productive?
The Pomodoro Technique, which is mentioned on the page, has been helpful to me when I need to concentrate on solo work privately. I'd recommend it. It's an effective technique, and the only one I've discovered that's been significantly helpful.
To summarize: When you start on a task, set a timer for 25 minutes. Work exclusively on that task for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break and repeat. That unit is "a pomodoro". If any interruption occurs during the task, either an internal interruption like you find yourself reading email instead, or an external interruption like someone comes to your office, then you cancel that task and reset the 25 minute timer. Keep a record on paper of each pomodoro completed successfully, and each that's interrupted.
One of the primary values of the Pomodoro Technique is that it helps you be realistic about how much useful, productive time you can commit towards your tasks. Upon trying the Pomodoro Technique, a number of colleagues and I have discovered that one's reserve of fully focused time is typically around 2-4 hours per day when first starting to use it. (The remaining time per productive day is typically lighter work, like communication and coordination, and interruptions of various sorts. It's still work, but it's not fully focused work applied to the task you've chosen.) Over time you can adjust your schedule and manage your commitments to squeeze out more solo focused time, if that's what you desire. Some types of responsibilities naturally involve interruption and are not well-suited to this kind of solo focused work; however, whether that's the case or not, Pomodoro can help you be conscious about how much time you actually have available.
The Pomodoro Technique does not fight distraction directly. It's not like you're supposed to slap yourself when you cancel a pomodoro. Rather, you just keep track of it. This conscious awareness of your productivity engages a new part of the mind that helps rein in the short-term-rewards part. When you waste a day by doing work off and on while mostly procrastinating, it's sometimes easy to miss how much productive time you haven't spent. When you measure your productive time as "completed pomodoros", you can be realistic with yourself about your output, and make changes accordingly. It engages something new in your mind and enables metacognition that notices when you get distracted; when you are supposed to be completely focused on your task, and that notification pops up saying you have new messages, this metacognition will help remind you that you need to ignore it and turn it off, or else cancel the pomodoro. The long-term-rewards part of you that's powering the metacognition wants to complete the pomodoro. The act of recognizing those distractions will fight them. I suppose you could call it the Copenhagen Theory of Time Management. :-)
I found the Pomodoro technique as a life saver as well. The ability to focus also improved immensely with practicing daily meditation for 15 minutes. Both are now daily habits.
What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very nature stops you from taking steps to beat it? Is it possible to quit procrastination cold turkey? If I want to stop smoking one way is to just stop and deal with it. If I want to stop procrastination do I have to be doing something productive 24/7? How do I attain the discipline for that?
I don't know if there is a way to be transformed overnight. But I have definitely achieved incremental improvement after reading a good book like The Procrastination Equation. You just keep iterating, like any skill.
External pressures help. I've been trying to learn more about data science through MOOCs but starting a Masters degree is what really forces me to spend my time engaging with it rather than procrastinating. It's an extreme case but you can create external pressure for most things. For example if you're trying to stop procrastinating on a side project, set up a demo with someone in 2 weeks' time and you'll suddenly find it easier to focus.
They can but not always. I've used this tactic often, placing myself in difficult situations sometimes forces me to act when nothing else will.
One time I was out of work, all I had to do was make a few phone calls but I didn't. I kept putting it off until tomorrow; then tomorrow turned into next week, next month and so on...
To cut a long story short I stopped paying the rent thinking hassle from my landlord would force me into action. As luck turned out he had his own problems and collecting the rent wasn't a priority for him.
2 years later I was in a very embarrassing situation, as was he. It worked out OK that time but it shouldn't have.
If you suffer from procrastination FFS just accept you're acting out of fear and confront it. The longer you leave things the worse they get.
Fair enough, my advice and experience relate to things that aren't of such consequence as what not paying rent could cause.
"Just confront it" is something you have to figure out yourself as a procrastinator. You can read all the advice in the world, but you have to actually come to the realisation yourself that your only option is to "do things". Once you've done one thing you have a reference point to look back to.
I actually was at that stage a couple of years ago - I couldn't get anything done, which made me feel bad and depressed, which made me not get anything done. I couldn't even start doing something in a meaningful way.
It's such a bizarre thing to think back on that I can't even fully empathise with my former self..
This is what made me realise what was going on and rectify the situation, it all just "clicked". I had been doing this since early high school at the time.
The thing which really worked for me was realising that if I really work and try hard to work on something for even lie 10 minutes, I can get into a flow state and then it's easy. And from there it was just baby steps forward over a matter of a couple of months until I remember getting into a flow state all the time and thus my mind thinks of it as "easy" and it is.
This is exactly the same experience I had when I was younger and learning to feel confident talking to girls. It's really hard, but when I'd done it all the time for a while I have enough semi-recent memories of me doing the thing, that the thing seemed like an easy and normal thing to do.
> If I want to stop procrastination do I have to be doing something productive 24/7?
My instinct would be to do the opposite. Clear my schedule as much as possible and give myself only one, small thing that I need to accomplish for the day. From there, I'd build on each successful day and work up to the point where I'm taking on more satisfying expectations. If procrastination is my expectations of myself minus what I can get done, there's two ways to beat it...increasing action (your suggestion) or temporarily decreasing expectations.
To put another way, think about avoiding procrastination as a muscle, you can view becoming productive in the same way you'd view becoming strong. No one would suggest that a beginner go out and try to bench press 300lbs. Start with smaller weights and add weight as your strength increases.
There are many techniques that work. The one thing that does not work is relying on willpower. The two main ones that work for me are:
1) Make the path of least resistance the right one. Do a task together with others. Make it just a little bit harder to fall into procrastination. Split up the task into a five minute task and the rest, and do the five minute task. Once you get started it's often easy to continue.
2) Engage in conscious rational thinking. The main problem with procrastination is that you do it unconsciously. Try to form a mental habit where you evaluate what to do rationally. When you detect that you are going to procrastinate stop yourself and think on it for a minute. Is it really necessary to browse reddit, or can you bring yourself to do this five minute task and then browse reddit? Stop yourself and think that through and convince yourself, really convince yourself on an emotional level, that doing the 5 minute task first is what you want to do, not just what you feel you must do.
I don't have your Dilbert-fu, but there is another, I think more recent, comic in which Dilbert is triumphant about how his boss's poor leadership, which resulted in a project's requirements changing, and in the project's final cancellation, didn't affect him because he simply didn't work on the project.
I am surrounded by expert Dilbert-ers! That's not the one that I had in mind, but I agree that it is quite similar. Probably, like all serial cartoonists, Adams consciously or unconsciously winds up ringing changes on a few common themes.
If you procrastinate a lot, it usually means that you really want to do something different with your life. Go find out what it is, rather than submitting yourself to all sorts of masochist self-discipline schemes.
Of course, but there are things that can't be avoided like seeing your doctor about that pain you've been feeling/paying bills/finding a job/finishing that task your boss asked you to do/doing house work etc. Procrastinating can appear in various different areas of life, not just in those related to following your dreams and passions.
The way I solved my procrastination problems is that I do at least one thing per day towards my goal. More often than not, this puts me in a mental state that leads me to doing many things. I find that simply starting a task is the most difficult step.
Being on a mission minimizes procrastination. I'm on a mission to build my company Browserling to be a fantastic business. That leaves no time to procrastinate.
85 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 28.3 ms ] threadGoing to assume hn hugged it to death.
FIREBASE WARNING: Specified Firebase has reached its Peak Connections limit. If you are the Firebase owner, consider upgrading. (https://blazing-fire-4313.firebaseio.com)
http://i.imgur.com/aZ1zkNo.png
Oh. OK then.
I wasn't trying to discredit the original commentator.
I know right? The last time I had to use 20 watts for an extra 5 seconds nearly bankrupted me
Lots of JS nowadays will have continuous and ongoing activity, keeping the CPU spinning even on tabs that are not in the foreground and actively being used.
;)
You bookmark a page cause you don't want to lose it, but then you want to read more pages to bookmark those because you're worried that if you don't bookmark them you'll never find them again.
I'm going to bin my pinboard add-on for a week and see if that helps.
If you want a good intro to guided meditation, check out the app Headspace.
2. Find article on how to not procrastinate.
3. Ack.
1. Want to stop procrastinating and get stuff done
2. Spend hours reading "how to get stuff done" blog posts
To summarize: When you start on a task, set a timer for 25 minutes. Work exclusively on that task for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break and repeat. That unit is "a pomodoro". If any interruption occurs during the task, either an internal interruption like you find yourself reading email instead, or an external interruption like someone comes to your office, then you cancel that task and reset the 25 minute timer. Keep a record on paper of each pomodoro completed successfully, and each that's interrupted.
One of the primary values of the Pomodoro Technique is that it helps you be realistic about how much useful, productive time you can commit towards your tasks. Upon trying the Pomodoro Technique, a number of colleagues and I have discovered that one's reserve of fully focused time is typically around 2-4 hours per day when first starting to use it. (The remaining time per productive day is typically lighter work, like communication and coordination, and interruptions of various sorts. It's still work, but it's not fully focused work applied to the task you've chosen.) Over time you can adjust your schedule and manage your commitments to squeeze out more solo focused time, if that's what you desire. Some types of responsibilities naturally involve interruption and are not well-suited to this kind of solo focused work; however, whether that's the case or not, Pomodoro can help you be conscious about how much time you actually have available.
The Pomodoro Technique does not fight distraction directly. It's not like you're supposed to slap yourself when you cancel a pomodoro. Rather, you just keep track of it. This conscious awareness of your productivity engages a new part of the mind that helps rein in the short-term-rewards part. When you waste a day by doing work off and on while mostly procrastinating, it's sometimes easy to miss how much productive time you haven't spent. When you measure your productive time as "completed pomodoros", you can be realistic with yourself about your output, and make changes accordingly. It engages something new in your mind and enables metacognition that notices when you get distracted; when you are supposed to be completely focused on your task, and that notification pops up saying you have new messages, this metacognition will help remind you that you need to ignore it and turn it off, or else cancel the pomodoro. The long-term-rewards part of you that's powering the metacognition wants to complete the pomodoro. The act of recognizing those distractions will fight them. I suppose you could call it the Copenhagen Theory of Time Management. :-)
[1]: http://pom.ianchanning.com
YMMV of course, but it works for me!
They can but not always. I've used this tactic often, placing myself in difficult situations sometimes forces me to act when nothing else will.
One time I was out of work, all I had to do was make a few phone calls but I didn't. I kept putting it off until tomorrow; then tomorrow turned into next week, next month and so on...
To cut a long story short I stopped paying the rent thinking hassle from my landlord would force me into action. As luck turned out he had his own problems and collecting the rent wasn't a priority for him.
2 years later I was in a very embarrassing situation, as was he. It worked out OK that time but it shouldn't have.
If you suffer from procrastination FFS just accept you're acting out of fear and confront it. The longer you leave things the worse they get.
"Just confront it" is something you have to figure out yourself as a procrastinator. You can read all the advice in the world, but you have to actually come to the realisation yourself that your only option is to "do things". Once you've done one thing you have a reference point to look back to.
It just resonated with me that I have previously adopted an extreme version of this tactic and thought other people may do the same?
[1]: http://zenhabits.net/discipline/
It's such a bizarre thing to think back on that I can't even fully empathise with my former self..
This is what made me realise what was going on and rectify the situation, it all just "clicked". I had been doing this since early high school at the time.
Why: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastin...
How to beat it: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.ht...
The thing which really worked for me was realising that if I really work and try hard to work on something for even lie 10 minutes, I can get into a flow state and then it's easy. And from there it was just baby steps forward over a matter of a couple of months until I remember getting into a flow state all the time and thus my mind thinks of it as "easy" and it is.
This is exactly the same experience I had when I was younger and learning to feel confident talking to girls. It's really hard, but when I'd done it all the time for a while I have enough semi-recent memories of me doing the thing, that the thing seemed like an easy and normal thing to do.
My instinct would be to do the opposite. Clear my schedule as much as possible and give myself only one, small thing that I need to accomplish for the day. From there, I'd build on each successful day and work up to the point where I'm taking on more satisfying expectations. If procrastination is my expectations of myself minus what I can get done, there's two ways to beat it...increasing action (your suggestion) or temporarily decreasing expectations.
To put another way, think about avoiding procrastination as a muscle, you can view becoming productive in the same way you'd view becoming strong. No one would suggest that a beginner go out and try to bench press 300lbs. Start with smaller weights and add weight as your strength increases.
1) Make the path of least resistance the right one. Do a task together with others. Make it just a little bit harder to fall into procrastination. Split up the task into a five minute task and the rest, and do the five minute task. Once you get started it's often easy to continue.
2) Engage in conscious rational thinking. The main problem with procrastination is that you do it unconsciously. Try to form a mental habit where you evaluate what to do rationally. When you detect that you are going to procrastinate stop yourself and think on it for a minute. Is it really necessary to browse reddit, or can you bring yourself to do this five minute task and then browse reddit? Stop yourself and think that through and convince yourself, really convince yourself on an emotional level, that doing the 5 minute task first is what you want to do, not just what you feel you must do.
http://markmanson.net/procrastination
I'd like the self discipline to manage to earn 10 an hour.