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Someone with a strong predisposition to procrastinate who managed to eventually beat it here. As a teenager, I heard someone say "never let a piece of paper cr
by hliyan 11y ago
Someone with a strong predisposition to procrastinate who managed to eventually beat it here.
As a teenager, I heard someone say "never let a piece of paper cross your desk twice" and took it to heart. Took a while to make it a habit, but now I can apply it to most meetings and emails -- I read, action then archive right there. So I hardly maintain a todo list of any sort. I make a list in the morning and finish/scratch off its items by the evening. Doing that daily, my mind is always refreshed about recurring or long term tasks. It seems to work for me.
The other thing I found useful is that procrastination, or the getting-started-barrier is proportional to size/complexity of task. I keep breaking the task down to smaller units until I get to something that doesn't fill me with loathing when I think of it. And then I do it. That effectively starts the task.
- amelius 11y ago> I read, action then archive right there. The problem with responding to an e-mail immediately, is that often you will get an e-mail back immediately, making this habit ineffective. (I just wish there was an option in my e-mail reader to send an email with a delay.)
- nsrivast 11y agohttp://www.boomeranggmail.com/ http://www.boomeranggmail.com/
- amelius 11y agoThanks for the link, but $5 a month for adding a simple delay to my e-mail? I find that a bit too expensive. Instead, I just answer my e-mails in the morning and ignore any new incoming e-mails the rest of the day.