8 ms·
Imagine yourself starting, not finishing
- cpplinuxdude 10y agoYet another article to beat procrastination. I like the idea of rewiring the limbic system though.
- Numberwang 10y agoI've saved up a long list of them into a big project that I will definitely tackle one day. Definitely. I just need to sort out the definitions and overlapping boundaries with habits, tasks and projects and what I should be documenting and not documenting, and how I should keep a record in terms of time-stamps and how to structure my information. One day I will definitely do something.
- xyzzy4 10y agoI completely agree with this. I find the best way to fight procrastination is to put all my willpower into just doing one task, no matter how small, towards the goal. That often puts me into a state of mind of doing many more tasks without needing willpower.
- scarlac 10y agoGreat to-the-point article. To add from personal experience, a similar method can be applied for daunting tasks. To give an example: If your todo-list seems overwhelming you may end up procrastinating or stressing out. The solution can be a variant of what's described in the article: Write a new list with only 3-5/fewer items and focus on those.
- tedsuo 10y agoGood tip, though I always feel a pang of irony when I learn something like this while procrastinating.
- xiaoma 10y agoA good marketer puts the message where those who it can benefit will find it.
- rdlecler1 10y agoI've read that you should break up large tasks into their most atomic parts which are psychologically less overwhelming. So rather than write article, you might have, research subject (2 hours), brains storm bullet points of questions, write outline, ... At our company I constantly worry about us being over ambitious because when we are we don't get things done. Better to start with a small milestone where everyone can be on the same page, see and enjoy the result, and move on to the next thing when it's complete.
- colmvp 10y agoThat's one of the reasons why I like the pomodoro technique. You can always narrow even the most complex issues into smaller pieces that can be accomplished in a short sprint.
- bufordsharkley 10y agoAgreed. The pomodoro technique asks that no task is more than 7 pomodoros (sets of 25 minutes of focused work). With this constraint, what once looked like an overwhelming and nebulous task now seems manageable and concrete.
- MaulingMonkey 10y agoA pattern I'm recently noticing for myself is that even if a task doesn't feel "overwhelming" or "nebulous" per se, it seems to be easier to motivate myself to knock out a small task than a large one. Rinse a dish. Open a letter. Rename a variable. Root cause a bug. Rough out the skeleton for a feature. Write a unit test. Download an installer. Make a commit. Email someone. I'm noting there's a difference between small tasks and a small task. Big TODO lists may not be nebulous - I find them quite handy for ensuring a complete and thorough job is done, and for project progress tracking - but they're still big, potentially overwhelming huge things. And if not overwhelming, something that I'm not going to finish today anyways - it won't hurt to wait until tomorrow... Instead of more TODO lists, I should invest in having a TODO item.
- Hoasi 10y ago> to beat procrastination, a simple trick is to imagine starting the task as opposed to finishing it You could also just start the task, basically accomplishing the same thing. Skip the imagining part if it is a distraction.
- a_small_island 10y agoAkin to telling a depressed person to "stop being depressed."
- Hoasi 10y agoNot quite. Granted, the act of starting to work on a task requires some effort. But assuming a procrastinator's task is within reach, it is in the realm his or her capabilities. The point is that if starting is the hardest part, you might as well start right away since you'll have to anyway. The earlier you start the less you'll suffer later. Starting right away could save yourself from having regrets. Like rushing a job, missing a deadline, doing a poorer job etc. Whereas you might not be able to control depression on your own with a single action or decision.
- brudgers 10y agoA great tip. Yet I'm keeping in mind that it isn't doesn't guaranteed to work for me. Everyone is wired different. I'm fallible and perfectly capable of misidentifying something as procrastination. I'm uncomfortable with "procrastination"s connotation of moral failing. One person's procrastination is another's Just in Time execution.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoWith that title and URL I though it was going to be a thinly veiled attempt at the Shia LaBeouf equivelant of a Rickroll. The message turned out to be pretty much the same.
- dang 10y agoIt's actually not that bad as far as baity self-help posts go. We changed the title to the weird trick, uh, mind hack. I think that helps a fair bit.
- lj3 10y agoI prefer the 'dark playground'[0] explanation. It's more useful at understanding and coming up with different ways of dealing with it when those listed in the shyal article fail. [0]: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastin...
- reustle 10y agoTLDR: Imagine yourself starting, not finishing.
- darawk 10y agoI use this trick all the time and it works great for me. Another one that I like to use is to think about my retrospective feeling about the thing after having done it. So, in the case of going to the gym, I think about the fact that after having gone to the gym, i've never regretted going. I've never come back from the gym and thought "man I wish I didn't just do that".
- drawkbox 10y agoSimilar to the 15 minutes starting trick. If you don't feel like doing it, just do 15 minutes of it and you can stop. Typically you keep on going and it starts it up. Another trick is leave a simple tasks or error (syntax error) in the last place you were working the previous day/night. You'll jump right back in and get up and in production mode the next day, easy task to knock out and get coding. Sometimes having another fun project that you can work on while procrastinating or thinking about your main project is helpful to keep in production mode. Procrastination sometimes is a battle of how to implement something and you should switch to a prototype mode and try them rather than overthinking the possible solutions. Sometimes all those fail and you need something like Rescuetime but that also makes the blocked sites more desirable.
- Gracana 10y ago> Another trick is leave a simple tasks or error (syntax error) in the last place you were working the previous day/night. You'll jump right back in and get up and in production mode the next day, easy task to knock out and get coding. That's a great idea. I tend to get projects finished by the end of the day, which means I have to figure out what to do in the morning, which is always a little hard. I think I'll give that a shot.
- kartickv 10y agoA better idea to stop when you encounter a bug that you know or expect will be easy to fix. That way, you start with a sense of achievement first thing in the morning, which is exactly what you're looking for. Fixing a syntax error doesn't give me that sense of satisfaction, especially one I deliberately introduced.
- losteric 10y agoI'm partial to TDD because it's great for that "simple task"/error-fixing mentality. About 30 minutes before leaving, I make sure I have a couple failing tests and leave them that way when I leave. Whenever I get back to work, I can just jump in... any kind of work interruption benefits the same way.
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- jyriand 10y agoOnce you know this trick it's pretty easy trick yourself out of this trick. What has helped me is just preparing for the task, for example, getting up from the couch and cleaning up my desk, arranging my paper and pencil for notes etc.
- codezero 10y agoI say this on most threads about procrastination, but it's important to remember that chronic procrastination can be an indication of anxiety, not just a temporary state of mind. If you suffer from this kind of anxiety and not just a moment of distraction, you should see a professional, they really can help fix things long term and improve your quality of life.
- bytefactory 10y agoInteresting idea, would you be able to expand or point to any interesting reading about this?
- codezero 10y agoMy specific point is that you should see a doctor/therapist to adopt a plan for addressing the anxiety and other effects caused by it.
- codezero 10y agoTo be a bit more concrete, this site has some nice bits of advice for things like time management and avoiding perfectionism: http://ub-counseling.buffalo.edu/stressprocrast.php http://ub-counseling.buffalo.edu/stressprocrast.php Most universities have exceptional resources available, even one on one counseling with qualified professionals, for free. More people should take advantage of these resources, but I assume people associate a stigma with mental health care.
- ralfd 10y agoI have to do laundry this weekend, and it is a very easy task: I just have to gather my cloth, go into the basement, put them in the machine and after two hours hang them up to dry. I don't fear the task. It is not giving me anxiety. I still read reddit and hacker news instead of doing it.
- codezero 10y agoA lot of people are unable to recognize anxiety when they have it, even chronically. I'm not saying you do, everyone is different, but it takes a professional to give such a diagnosis, so if you find yourself procrastinating very often it probably wouldn't hurt to get a professional opinion.
- freekh 10y agoI seriously caught myself thinking: ok, sure... will try this... tomorrow! :)
- nu2ycombinator 10y ago"tldr: to beat procrastination, a simple trick is to imagine starting the task as opposed to finishing it" - Isn't mean not to plan ahead of what do, which means not able to finish the task effectively. Of course it is better than postponing the task.
- nu2ycombinator 10y agoOn similar topic, following video is very informational and entertaining. Especially last part the life calendar. Sometimes this life calendar motivates me procrastinate the procrastination :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU&feature=youtu.be.
- redmaverick 10y agoMindfulness (for 45 mins to 1 hr) helps a lot in combating procrastination. The catch is that if you are a procrastinator, you will procrastinate on trying to meditate also.
- fabled_giraffe 10y agoBeyond procrastination, for those of us that have trouble focusing, this sort of thing is no joke. In 30 seconds, we can go from fully intending to do something that we should do to better ourselves to reading HN submissions and commenting on them.
- agumonkey 10y agoInternet is the greatest library that you will never read. Internet should be read-only.
- elcapitan 10y agoI actually use HN frequently as a tool to concentrate better during work. I often juggle quite different tasks that I have to solve at work. To flush my mind and go from one finished thing to some completely unrelated next task, I jump to HN, read some things, then jump back to what I'm supposed to do. The important part is to have things actionable and with a definition of when they are 'done', so that you can close them and do the next task.
- onion2k 10y agoIt is impossible to procrastinate if you practice mindfulness meditation for 45 mins to 1 hr. There's plenty of good research in to the benefits of mindfulness meditation, but I've never seen anything go quite that far.
- redmaverick 10y agoEdited it. Basically, for me at least, meditation creates a bias towards action. I feel procrastination relates to biochemistry (serotonin, dopamine etc) and somehow meditation kind of "fixes" the issue temporarily. If I stop meditating, I quickly revert back to the old me.
- elcapitan 10y agoI liked the comparison with walking the solid board over high ground. This is something I actually use quite literally to fight my (light) vertigo. The other trick (maybe more important in that situation) is to avoid switching back and forth between looking at what's close and what's far away, because that's the part that irritates my sense of balance and then creates the vertigo effect. Not mixing up close and far away makes actually even more sense than the 'first step' metaphor in what the article is trying to say.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kartickv 10y agoA trick is to set yourself multiple tasks that are not exciting, so that you do at least one. If I tell myself, "I will edit all the photos I have been taking for almost a decade", I may not get around to it. So, I tell myself, "I will either edit photos, vacuum the house or read the iOS Human Interface Guidelines." Then I may bounce from task to task, but I will finish at least one. After a while, the irritation of leaving a task half-done drives me to complete the other tasks as well.
- mhomde 10y agoAnyone have the problem that instead of procrastination you start adding new features because that's more interesting/challenging than the drudge work that remains. So you're constantly doing a little drudge work and a little adding features and you get stuck in a Zeno's paradox of never finishing? :)
- salemh 10y agoThat's like myself and fiction writing. Easier to transcribe written notes, or re-read and edit, vs just plowing into new chapters and necessary dialogue builds, etc. Definitely a different sort of procrastination.
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