Ask HN: I am a good developer but have a serious gaming addiction

The key of beating procrastination is keep your day eventful and focussed on tasks you have to do.

This really is an issue of self control. Just commit yourself to doing the work, then do it! If you really cannot do that then it might be helpful to see a counsellor, although I am certainly no expert in that.

I think it is common for people to have difficulty getting in to a long sitting of programming, but after a couple of hours things seem to get much easier and the next 8 go by without a blink. I sometimes find that having a coffee can help get me in the zone for a long programming session.

A few random thoughts;

- Try deliberately putting obstacles in the way of your game playing. Uninstall the games, delete your accounts. If you think you have a serious problem with playing video games, then you are unlikely to be able to maintain your play in moderation.

- Try setting up multiple environments (dual boot, or 2 physical environments). One for work, one for play. That way you it is harder to get distracted by the games and there is a larger mental distinction between play time and work time.

- You are not alone! The vast majority of people that will read your post here today will be procrastinating (myself included). It happens to (almost) all of us.

Best of luck with your ventures! Sam

I'm in a similar boat but just taking each day as it comes.

Maybe you also don't like your project or can't feel its importance. Let's face it, playing Diablo already feels like busy work, if you prefer that to doing real useful work, maybe it's not useful before all?

Mechanics like these are very sticky, but it's possible to exploit them to get yourself to quit playing a game. The key is to convince yourself to go one day without playing, and every time you think of it, say that you don't 'have' to play that game today. It's a break! You don't have to do your dailies for one day, and it's rather refreshing.

I know the feeling of switching off after 30 minutes of work. For me, it's Reddit / HN. But it always feels way cooler, on those rare occasions when I can push through and keep working.

Also, it seems like you're under a lot of stress and pressure to perform right now. The key is to recognize that. If you're worried about things, but keep telling yourself that everything's fine, it's worse than if you know that what you're trying to do might be out of your reach.

Sorry, I know none of this has much chance of being helpful at all. Hopefully someone in this thread will say the right thing to get you motivated.

Maybe development is not for you - you might have the talent for it, but not the discipline required to constantly deliver working code. Only the first is not sufficient to be called a "great" developer. In fact, I would say that in most cases discipline and dedication are more important than raw talent. I have worked from home for a couple years, and yes, the temptation is there to put aside work on some days and just watch TV or play a game. And sometimes I did. But having discipline meant I knew I would make for those hours - later in the day or on the weekend if I had to, since I made a conscious choice to do something else.

This book is a massive PITA to get your hands on (in some countries, perhaps it's back in print?), but a life-changer:

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Discipline-10-days-Thinking-Doing...

This game was incredible, compared to whatever had been available up to then, and on top of that it was incredibly addictive. And I fell in to that, hook, line & sinker. Days, weeks, probably months were wasted.

Finally, I realized, just like you did that it wasn't going anywhere, it was just changing bits on a drive. That was the key for me, all my spare time (and some time that probably wasn't spare) went into flipping a few bits.

So I did the right thing, I wiped the game and never played again. Now that's pretty drastic, but one thing that makes dealing with addiction easier is to no longer have access to your drug. So get rid of it, and don't replace it with another drug (or another game, for that matter).

Having an addictive personality is a double-edged sword, it can get you places when your addiction is working for you (for a long time I got a similar kick out of learning how to program and then later out of the actual programming). But it can also totally ruin your life, lack of self control is a real problem.

So help yourself to help yourself and remove the source of your addiction first, then you may have an easier time dealing with the root cause and getting your addictive personality under control.

Best of luck.

Try and find someone who you can talk to about this, ask them to hold back on their instinct to provide advice, ask them just to be there to talk to. Then tell them every week or two how it's going.

Good luck

I'd stop playing 100% if I were in you until I have delivered the project. I would try to drop every bridge that tied me to any game that could distract me (uninstall/delete everything/throw away my subscriptions/accesses/etc). Then make sure I get a good rest. To get a good rest, you need to do some physical exercise, go out move get physically tired. Going for a slow-paced run or a walk helps me think, become mentally more focused on my goals, understand that really matters in my life and what doesn't. The time I wouldn't spend working, I would spend outside even alone wandering, taking long walks. I'll try to keep a very strict schedule, work the same amount of hours every day, eat at the same time, take a walk and get tired at the same time to adjust body, to an optimal circadian cycle (but mind you, I work/assimilate way better in morning hours, might be different for others).

Think of it like going to the marine corps for a couple of weeks until you finish what you're suppose to be doing. THEN and only THEN try to fight this issue using more rational scheme: e.g. play games 3 hours per day. Not more, except for weekends, etc. There's no magic bullet you need to find your own.

I was a huge procrastinator too. I'm not anymore, not in things that matter, but I'm not as strict as I would want to with my schedule either yet. What I see from myself is that failing to prepare is preparing to fail (Benjamin Franklin said the quote IIRC). That's my biggest advice, prepare your environment your body your mind for a fight. Also I like motivational speeches, maybe you should try yourself. I find this one to be extremely good[1], hits the nails on many issues I'd like to overcome, give it a go, might help you too.

Good luck with everything, be strong!

[1] http://www.briantracy.com/catalog/the-miracle-of-selfdiscipl...

For me it was my brain's way of telling me that what I were doing to myself was bad.

I ended up running from the bad business relationship I was in and then I used two years to find my way in life.

Whenever i procastinate I belive it is my brain trying to tell me that what I am doing is not something that is "me". Sometimes I have to do it anyway (paying the bills, going to the dentist) but often it is something where I actually need to do things a little different to find hapiness in what I am doing.

Do I make sense?

Why is gaming more fun than programming? In my opinion, it’s because of 3 reasons:

1. The action-effect feedback cycle is almost instantaneous

2. Your long-term goals are well defined and easy to hold in your active memory(gear, skill spec, kill this boss etc)

3. The connection between those goals and your immediate actions is very clear. If you need 200k DPS to farm act whatever and you are at 180k then you need to find such and such item with such and such specs and the optimal farming route for your level is this one so let’s get this shit done!

A well designed computer game is like a Waterfall project manager’s wet dream. End outcome is very clear(farm level X in Y minutes), the process of getting there is well described(guides, almost all game variables are numerical and their interactions are simple to model), and the acceptance test is obvious(I am farming level X in Y minutes, or I am too slow or I am plain dying and/or not doing enough damage).

I think you need to bring your development process and gaming closer together.

In terms of the feedback loop use tests and todos. If your tests are failing you know you’re not done, if your todos are falling behind, you know you’re not done. Have some automated performance/acceptance tests, I find seeing simulated user behavior being successful as much more satisfying than internal unit stuff. This is likely what you do anyway, so the problem is probably at the long-term level:

Do you have a clear outcome in mind? Do you have a clear path to that outcome? Is what you are doing at a given moment helping you achieve that outcome? Do you have a connection in your mind between delivering your project and achieving your life goals? Is working for yourself really what you want? Will you be happier in 30 days for having written the bit of code you are writing right now?

Try and answer those questions based on what you feel about the question not on whether saying you prefer gaming to programming means you are a good or bad person.

Plan more! Connect your day-to-day coding to your project’s big picture. Make a list of features/tasks that are left to do before a project is ‘done’ and go over it every day before and after you start the day. What did you cross off that day? Where has progress been made? How much work is left over? Does the overall plan need to be adjusted?

Finally, reprogram your view of gaming. Every time you accomplish something in a game write down this: ‘Today I managed to get a 12 win in Hearthstone with a Mage deck. I earned 300 gold, a card pack with a Leroy and some junk in it, and $0. I predict that this will contribute to me earning $0 going forward.’ Money isn’t everything, but it’s not nothing either.

Do the same for programming tasks. Make a note every time you do git commits, for instance. Every little task will STILL be worth $0 immediately, but the end will be different: ‘I wrote the authentication module for my new project, fixing a security issue with token-based auth. I improved the speed at which users get past the login process by 30%(.65 seconds) and it’ll be easy to move the module to a mobile back-end API later on. I predict that this will contribute to me earning $nice_chunk_of_money going forward.’

At the most fundamental level there is one difference between casual gaming and programming: human beings value one of those activities enough to transfer some of their resources to you in exchange for having you help them. The other one makes it obvious when you level up.

Source: this is how I got through college and got myself to actually improve and use my programming skills. Good luck.

Eventually I found that the only solution for me was quitting entirely and only playing games that have a low level of commitment (like Angry Birds or 2048). The quitting itself is quite hard (I ended up deleting my accounts to prevent me from being able to go back). But now I feel really good about it.

As a bonus, without the fast-paced rewards system of games to distort my perception, programming is just as fun as videogames were... Oh, and I get money for programming, so that's pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhd#Signs_and_symptoms

Your story sounds remarkably like my own. I read a thread about ADHD on HN, and realised it was describing me. I found a sympathetic medic who prescribed Provigil, and the change was astonishing. I can now concentrate and produce.

Provigil is very gentle in its effect, not like Ritalin which is the normal prescription for ADHD.

What you need is to somehow get that same level of external "force" on you in this new running-your-own-business environment, where otherwise it is so easy just to slack off.

Let's try a framing technique.

When you think about stopping work to play a game, I want you to very clearly visualise coming to your client empty handed and them firing you. I want you to visualise having no money and not being able to afford all those things you like spending it on. I want you to visualise - again, super clearly - losing the respect of your peers, your family, even strangers you have met on the internet, all because you couldn't just get on with it and do the work and make your business succeed. And why couldn't you? Because you couldn't resist playing a stupid game designed to make someone else money at the expense of your productivity.

Got that horrible and depressing scenario clearly, vividly, and richly painted in your mind?

Now, just as vividly, picture yourself sitting up straight with amazing posture, coding like a damn JEDI, master of your domain, submitter of outstanding work, ahead of deadlines, everyone loves you, this is what you're good at and by god you're owning at it. You're virtuous and awesome, an actual fucking adult, a creator, producer, and earner of real stuff with real value.

You get the idea. Your imagination is a powerful tool which can do a complete hatchet job on the person you deep down don't want to be but seems appealing in the short term, and it can be PR god to the version you aspire to be but somehow don't have the bravery and force of will to become. When you do that, and get these images in your head with enough detail that they seem real, it bleeds into reality and pushes you to becoming one over the other.

Other than that, I got nothing.

The only thing that kind-of works for me is a complete change of setting - when I'm at home I never plan to do any work. All work has to be done in a designated place.

I started this in my colleage years, where I had a serious issue with distractions (like spending 3 months playing DeusEx from 7AM to 2AM) when I should be studying. I solved this by going to the Library and studying there. Sure its a hassle, moving to a secondary location, sure you need to figure out what you need to work there, but it was worth it. You just need to make sure that if you get an urge to game/surf the net/etc.. you get out of there. Sooner or later you'll get trained to automatically start working at the locaiton.

I have a similar setup with my current job - all work needs to be done in the office and the only work I do at home is the stuff that really needs to be done (I'm a cofounder, so it's easier :)). If I were to start all over again, then the first order of business would be to get myself a desk or an office - without that, regardless of how badly I want to do something, I'd be lost.

PS: An additional improvement in an environment is to condition yourself to work with music on your headphones. I started listening to music on my in-ear headphones due to the open-floor nature of the office and it really boosted my productivity (less distractions).

As a side-effect now headphones invoke a Pavlov-reflex, whenever I put them in my ears (sometimes even without anything playing) I start working harder and with more focus. It's also a curse - last time I needed to hack something (with maximum concentration) and found myself franticly searching for my headphones. Before finding them at last, I actually contemplated buying a new set right away.

BTW: We do have a team of people working in our offices and we did outsource quite a lot of stuff out. We found it that it's very common for people to get distracted when working from home and the tasks (even when properly planned) don't get executed. Now we actually prefer to have the outsourcers work in our offices if possible or we demand very hard penalties for missing deadlines (and they still do it!).

Don't feel bad - what you're experiencing is the norm.

This is a really simple way to keep yourself honest. Even if it's partitioned OSes on the same machine it would help.

- Don't work at home, it just doesn't work! (for most of us)

- Don't work alone in a room! (so, probably a co-working space for you)

- Do some workout(gym, jogging, biking) after work, min. 2-3 times a week! It will make you feel good and tired, so you won't have much energy left to play any games afterwards. This is also hard if you are doing it alone, you HAVE to find a workout-buddy so you can motivate each other, also it's way harder to cheat on your buddy than to cheat on yourself. Also a great motivation for me: Take a picture of yourself befor or after each workout and track your transformation.

- Define your schedule: e.g. 9-5 is work and after that+weekends is off.

- Don't install any distractions/games on your work-computer. (Get a work-computer if you don't have one)

- Get at least one weekly 'event'(non-work related) you can look forward to. (This can be some TV-Show, meeting a friend, but it should be something that's fun for you other than playing games)

I cannot promise this will help you the same, but it helped me and I'm sure there are lots of other things you can do. What I've learned from talking to others is that solutions to stuff like this are VERY idividual, so be ready to try out a lot of stuff, some might work, many might not, and imho I don't think it matters if the advice is given by some overpaid shrink or some fellow geek. Just: if you try something, give it at least 4 weeks to see if it works.

Start off by recalling that your expectations have to be tuned around what actually happens when you work at home vs. what happens when you have butt-in-chair office hours. You're only going to have a very few "productive" hours each day, where you write code and tests and make visible changes, and they come in unpredictable lumps. Coming into this realization can make you feel extremely guilty at first and make the problem worse if you don't accept it and give yourself realistic schedules to compensate.

You'll get pulled along a lot more with people relationships - clients, teammates, etc. can all motivate you through the boring bottlenecks. And having friends, of course; if you aren't socializing, you can fall apart pretty fast. Let your client know that you underestimated your productivity; you can probably fix things up if you make a schedule that is implicitly planned around what you want out of your life.

Some quick notes about what I have understood:

* I am depressed. I have EVERY symptom of chronic depression listed here: http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/chronic-depression-dys...

However, I don't know whether I procrastinate because I am depressed, or whether I am depressed because I procrastinate.

* Procrastination is a way of avoiding pain - the effort required in "work".

* Procrastination itself is addictive: it gives instant pleasure instead of the pain of "honest work". And the person procrastinating intellectually knows that it is bad for them, but once they are truly addicted to it, they are unable to stop.

* Procrastination is a habit, and habits can be changed.

* Habits are just patterns of behavior that we have memorized in our sub-conscious minds, so that we don't have to think about performing a certain action, or taking a particular decision, over and over again. It is a labor-saving device for the mind. If we had to think anew about every action we do / every decision we take, we would quickly get tired. But once an action or decision become a habit, we don't have to think about it; it just happens automatically. That's a great energy saver, if the actions / decisions are "good" for us, but can be life-destroying if the actions / decisions are "bad" for us.

* Habits can be changed. First, mentally review what you will do the next time you are in a "moment of choice" - such as sitting in front of your computer. Resolve to do your client work instead of playing a game. Actually visualize doing that: ignoring the urge to play a game, calming yourself until the urge subsides, and then calmly doing the "right thing (TM)" - opening up your IDE and coding.

Next, when you really are in the moment of choice, really do the above. To elaborate: You will feel the urge to fire up a game. At that moment, tell yourself that you have been down that road before, and you know where it leads. Tell yourself that it is ruining your life, and you won't accept it any more. That you will do the "right thing" (TM) no matter what. At this moment, you may have to stop everything and just breathe slowly and deeply until the "urge" to play the game subsides and you are calm again. Once you are calm, it is easy to take the right decision.

The first few times you do this, you may find it difficult, or almost impossible. But trust me, it can be done. And the more often you do thins (calm yourself until you can do the Right Thing), the easier it will become. You see, this will slowly become your new habit, and the old habit will fade away because you will no longer be reinforcing it.

All the best! Write to me: tech.rohit@gmail.com