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How to be more productive without forcing yourself

278 points by vitabenes 6y ago

0wis 6y ago
Great article. It helped me go back to work. I feel like the world would be a much better place with less procrastination. It feels like a premise for great work. However, I feel much of actual content of the subject feel like scam or bullshit. Beside this site and waitbutwhy.com, what are the other legit initiatives on the subject ?
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Thank you for the comment! There are some good books like The Now Habit by Neil Fiore or The Procrastinator's Digest by Tim Pychil, and good articles like the one on waitbutwhy, but information on procrastination is mostly scattered about. There aren't many projects focusing solely on it.
  - 0wis 6y ago
    Thank you for the reply ! And if you are behind this project, thanks for it. I will surely dig into this gem site this weekend and maybe try your program one day ! And I add these two books on top of my ever too long reading list.
violetgarden 6y ago
I moved my television out of the living room and into a spare room. I felt like I was binging too much and wanted a jolt to my routine. Since doing so, I’ve read a backlog of books and even stated practicing tech skills I wanted to develop after work. I can vouch for it not seeming as difficult to do after toning down my stimulation. In fact, I can’t wait to get off work to start doing my stuff. Losing tv felt really weird at first. I ate in front of it. I’d turn on one quick show (that always turned in to several episodes!) after work to relax. I’ll probably go watch some shows I’m looking forward to once they’re out, but it’ll be more of a decision than a default. Tv isn’t the devil. I just needed more balance in my life, and the results are making me feel a lot more fulfilled than I was.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Environment changes are powerful. Same goes for apps like Twitter. I used to have it both on my phone and tablet, and that lead to me checking it hundreds of times a day. Now I only access it in the browser, and in restricted time windows. Much better. Another "environment setup" example would be buying an analog alarm clock instead of using your phone (and doom scrolling for 30 minutes every morning. Simple changes, profound effects.
  - bonniemuffin 6y ago
    How do you restrict the time windows in which you access twitter? Through technological solutions, or just through self-control?
    - vitabenes 6y ago
      By using the deprocrastination extension on our site. The Focus Zones feature is essential for me.
emsign 6y ago
I found the "get bored" astonishing. I used to lie down on bed when I was younger and just think and do nothing. That always motivated me to keep doing stuff throughout the day. I really got excited after a couple of minutes to continue or start a new task. Unfortunately that trick doesn't work anymore, now I'd just fall asleep. On the other hand I don't suffer from insomnia anymore.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  When I had to prep for the GRE, for a month I would go in the early morning to my dad's office (he only uses it for a few hours) and study there. And there was nothing in the office. No other books, no tv, and the internet wasn't as much fun then. So I had only two options: study or sleep. Obviously I slept a lot, but there's only so much you can sleep! So I ended up studying very well and getting really good scores (not that it mattered a rats ass in the end).
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    I think sleeping a lot helped with getting those scores.
Zealotux 6y ago
Good summary of what procrastination essentially is: an emotional problem, rarely about "laziness" or time management. Readjusting your dopamine sensitivity will most likely solve most of it, trading my expensive gaming PC for a Macbook Pro probably was the biggest game-changing (pun not intended) event of my life so far, and greatly improved my relation to work and life in general.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  I would consider selling my expensive gaming PC if whatever I replaced it with had a reasonable similar CPU. Not sure if I can get that from any type of laptop though at least not without paying more than I paid for my PC. Also I kinda need PCIe lanes.
  - Zealotux 6y ago
    Amusingly, I had just built myself a pretty expensive gaming PC right before selling it all, and then got myself a second-hand 2015 MBP. I'd say the newest M1 MBP are worth the money, my metric shifted from raw performance/$ to experience/$. And honestly, I will gladly sacrifice some CPU power just to keep myself away from gaming.
    - lupire 6y ago
      I don't understand this. People who are addicted to games won't play any non-intensive games, like League of Legends (or Which is the lower spec one) or speed chess ?
      - sylens 6y ago
        For me, a big draw of gaming is being part of the zeitgeist. New game comes out, I want to try it, talk about it online, etc. Sometimes my friends get into a game extensively (like COD Warzone) and I don't want to be left behind. If I just had a laptop, it wouldn't be possible to run those games on it. And because I don't have any friends playing League of Legends or participate in online communities talking about, it's not really appealing to me.
PaulKeeble 6y ago
New years resolutions and other big changes tend not to work very well because they are big changes and we are very bad at big changes. Probably the most important piece of information I needed to make lasting changes to how I spent my day was the combined knowledge and idea: 1) I ran on habits for most of my day 2) I could change about 1% of my day every month Doing small changes continuously results in a big change within a few years and most of your day is completely different. You can learn to do uninteresting, uninspiring chores if you just put small progressions towards it.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  Earning 1% every month on your investments would yield a ridiculous amount, like the wealth of the entire world in 3 years or something. So even if it sounds like a small goal, getting better by any amount could suffice.
  - lupire 6y ago
    No , 1%/month is 43% in 3 years.
    - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
      You are right, I must be misremembering something, let me think about it..
      - fnomnom 6y ago
        you are probably thinking of doubling? like in the chess & rice story? see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissa_(mythical_brahmin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissa_(mythical_brahmin) which leads to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Unfortunately “a few years is” the upper end of my bound and I have a number of big things I need to tackle within that bound.
tclancy 6y ago
In sum, have a job that lets you define what you do on a daily basis, don’t be depressed and make sure you’re not addicted to anything.
- fock 6y ago
  yeah, I was wondering about this as well: basically I have experienced times, where I could rightly sit there and watch the wall for hours. I guess this indicates depression and significantly hampers implementing these ideas...
cdiamand 6y ago
1. Have less exposure towards super fun things I cannot emphasize enough how powerful this is. If you're struggling to focus on your work/projects, try living a bland existence like a monk for a while. You won't be able to stop thinking about working.
- arkitaip 6y ago
  Corollary, it takes truly awful times to appreciate the bad times.
- minikites 6y ago
  In a similar way, hunger is the best spice.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  Having too long of a vacation (eg.: more than 5 days on the beach) makes has this effect on me. It is not about having or not having fun, but being removed from the usual “i could work but also choose not to” environment. On the beach I cannot work even if I wanted to, and it kind of make me want to work.
- polote 6y ago
  > Have less exposure towards super fun things If that is not "forcing yourself" I don't know what "forcing yourself" means
  - cdiamand 6y ago
    One of the tricks is to create an environment that doesn't require willpower to avoid distraction. There are plugins that block distractions on your browser. You could sell, or lend out, or put your X-box into storage, etc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- YinglingLight 6y ago
  "No Music" is tougher than No Carb, No Fap, No Pillow, No Surf. It's insane what waterfall of dopamine we regularly flood ourselves with.
peach45 6y ago
This seems like cheap advice that's trying to get me to buy into a lifestyle in order to sell me things. "Have less exposure towards super fun things". "Get bored". These describe the same general concept as dopamine fasting. The third bullet point can be reduced to "focus on what you have to do, until you can focus on it" which is circular. I'm not buying in. Maybe I'm getting old but "failure to start" is starting to sound like a meme to me perpetuated by vultures trying to exploit creative personalities, hackers included. I think what we need to do, is to step back and appreciate ourselves for the effort we continually expect from ourselves. As hackers in one way or another, we are constantly putting up our ego as collateral in order to take on challenges that threaten to knock us down a peg or two if we fail. For many of us, failure is a threat to the core of our identity, yet we dive on in anyway. Exhaustion from that sort of loop is to be expected. Most people don't live like this. Most people reduce the flux in their lives instead of seeking to increase it. Why? Because most people cherish their egos to the point where they cannot commit to a goal with an uncertain outcome. They would rather work a 9-5, which is fine, but it doesn't describe our community. We are addicted to risk if it means building something new and that we can call our own. So appreciate yourselves more. And get better sleep.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  I agree with your points on appreciating yourself and better sleep. As for this seeming like cheap advice, keep in mind that A) many people have not heard it yet, and B) sometimes a new twist on an older concept drives the point home. And you don't have to buy anything. Most of the stuff we create is free on our blog or Twitter. We're not "vultures," we're 2 guys helping people to stop scrolling and go do stuff, driven by our own past struggles. Fin. Thank you for the comment.
  - SyzygistSix 6y ago
    The article was what I needed to read, when I needed to read it, as it is something I am actively struggling with. And some of the advice, while I have heard it before, was framed differently enough that it allowed me to "get it" this time around. Thanks!
JebusAustralia 6y ago
Please donate ethereum to this address as I am being kept hostage by a psychopath called Satoshi Nakamoto. He has scattered all of my personal information and economical research all over youtube, cnbc, techcrunch, the local mainstream media in the netherlands. https://ibb.co/74qYknK https://ibb.co/74qYknK
culopatin 6y ago
Progress over perfection is what I keep telling myself all day. My brain automatically goes on to investigating something else when I’m faced with my projects. “Oh wait how do we get our terminal to look that cool?”. I’m working on my first project involving a DB and a CRUD Java program that will talk to a website, potentially. I am too concerned about “am I doing this the right way”? Things like how I’m setting up my db table, or “is one is enough or I should use more”, if people will look into it and say “wow this guy is dumb” or whatever. They all prevent me from just pushing forward and improving later. I’m too scared of someone telling me to fix shit even though I actually enjoy learning so much I’d probably like that. I wish I could just go in my brain and turn that off, I’d be living in the future.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  I've made this mistake in the past, but I don't any more. The difference is that rather than closing my feedback loop over the code/architecture itself (so the cycle of working is start feature => code => look at code => code, which obviously never leads to starting new features), I close the loop over the experience (becoming start feature => code => use/test the feature => start new feature). This way your focus is on the product and your working cycle involves incrementally adding features, not navel-gazing at your code. So basically, bring yourself out of the code and actually try the product whenever a feature is done; context-switch from coder to user.
username90 6y ago
How to lose weight without trying: Just stop eating everything you love, you wont overeat food you don't like. /s Sacrificing a huge part of what makes life meaningful isn't "without forcing yourself".
- zascrash 6y ago
  I believe that the point is that those things are relative. It would be more like, if you stop eating everthing you love now (sweets, fast foods etc) you might learn to love the alternative (fruits and vegetables).
pca006132 6y ago
Sometimes I just wonder, is the frequent burnt-out we see for programmers caused by not having a fast feedback loop. For me, I feel excited when doing performance tuning work, front-end stuff etc. However, I would quickly become bored after working on work that take more than 5 days or so, even if I love the subject. Although I'm not really into TDD, but I think sometimes using TDD could help you get some more feedback when you work on some abstract stuff. (Although writing the tests could be boring for the beginning...) I would argue that having no expectation on the first-draft may not be the best way to be more productive. Having some concrete goals or metrics could be beneficial if you can get the feedback-loop working. Under-defined, subjective goals could be bad as achieving the goal may seem never-ending if you want perfection. (at least for me)
- Ottolay 6y ago
  Interesting. I love hunting and fixing significant bugs or issues. It could be because the immediate dopamine hit if successful. Harder to get motivated for things with less certain impact, even if successful.
- bonniemuffin 6y ago
  Some other fields (e.g. long-running academic research experiments) involve a feedback loop of months or years. I've done experiments where the experiment subjects (mice, human cells, etc) look exactly the same for weeks and weeks, and you have to work on them every day not knowing whether they'll turn into something useful in a month or two. Writing grants and papers has a turnaround time of months--you work so hard on it, lob it into the ether, and just wait 6 months to see if anything will come of it. Coming from a background like that, I find that the days/weeks feedback loop time in tech makes me positively giddy with joy. It's hard for me to imagine thinking of 5 days as a long time to work on a problem.
- LZ_Khan 6y ago
  Totally agree, at least anecdotally. Working in ML for a large company has really tested my liking for programming. The amount of plumbing/testing/code reviewing needed just to get a tiny feature usable for a ML model is absurd. Taking 6 months to push one model improvement is really draining. The pay's nice though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flower-giraffe 6y ago
I love the irony that this has reached the 2nd from top on HN in three hours. Presumably from all of us using HN to get a dog procrastination fix. >Edit to clarify fix in the junkie sense, not as in fixing the issue.
ccmcarey 6y ago
I can't believe what I'm reading. The first point is literally do less fun things so you get used to doing more boring things. I'm genuinely shocked this article is being received so well. What happened to, work to live, not live to work?
- blacktriangle 6y ago
  I think in this case "fun" is a bit of an overloaded word. In this context fun means low effort high dopamine rewards, things like gaming, TV, social media, porn, drugs and alcohol. What's weird is that these categories of activities when overused quickly become non-fun and just addictive. The overall idea is to recalibrate your idea of fun towards higher effort rewards, which will often result in better work, which will then allow you to financially reach a position where you can work to live, instead of always having to worry about work.
  - vitabenes 6y ago
    Well put, that was the intended meaning.
- 0wis 6y ago
  My viewpoint is that to enjoy the part of your life which is not work, you have to get your work done. Between workaholic and master procrastinator, there is a large gray area of healthy relationship to work. This line resonates with my experience : if I do a lot of hyper stimulating things, I struggle to get to work. Happy for you if procrastination is not a part of your life but it can be a struggle for a lot of people.
- calebm 6y ago
  I see this as similar to "stop eating high-sugar foods and you'll come to appreciate more varied and complex foods." Some of the most enjoyable things in life are more subtle.
raphyjake 6y ago
Honestly, "stop having fun" was the single best decision I have ever taken. I began studying a lot, I started to actually code my small personal projects, I began working on fiverr (I'm indeed still a student) and I'm much more confident in myself now. Ironically, when I was hiking 15 days without internet and coudn't sleep at night, I began scribbling down a similar essay: points 1 and 2 are the same, stop having fun and experience true boredom. I'm very glad someone got my same idea.
- LZ_Khan 6y ago
  I also came to similar conclusion after many days of pondering this.
kissgyorgy 6y ago
It might be the second life-changing article for me. The first was: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/ https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...
- 0wis 6y ago
  Why this kind of article always seem both borderline and true ? It is surprising as it opposes « reality » to « conventional wisdom ». And ads are annoying.
j_m_b 6y ago
Is there any science behind dopamine fasting? By science, I mean empirical evidence regarding dopamine fasting. When I last looked into it, there seemed to be scant evidence for it.
criddell 6y ago
I wonder what side of the stimulation standard line the author would put reading his article? Sometimes I think productivity porn like this article is a self-perpetuating problem.
roland35 6y ago
As far as having less super fun things, I found it takes me about 2 days to 1 week to "detox" from addictive distractions, my most recent distraction being the game "Hades" :) Luckily I was about to finally finish that game but I still had to consciously keep it away for a few days before I finally no longer have the temptation.
AussieWog93 6y ago
I think this article conflates productivity with diligence. The most effective way I've found to improve productivity is to shift focus onto tasks that bring in more money per unit time spent performing them. Since my daughter was born 7 months ago, I've really only been able to work about 2-3 "full" 8-hour days a week without crashing, and my wife might be able to spend 8-10 hours a week working on the business. However, because we've simply stopped doing tasks that are "work" but don't add greatly to the business's bottom line (for example, we no longer respond to dumb requests from customers, standardise products into a single SKU where possible and shifted our marketing towards eBay's promoted listings rather than building an organic following on social media), we've actually grown slightly. Diligence and drive are definitely important parts of what makes you productive, but it's not the be all and end all.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  I think you've highlighted the difference between efficiency and efficacy. Efficiency is doing the thing you're doing well, efficacy is doing the right thing. You can have efficiency without efficacy if you're optimally performing the wrong tasks.
softwaredoug 6y ago
I just try to accept I go through spurts of inspiration and low energy. Forcing myself to do work when I don’t want to us a recipe for burnout. It’s often unavoidable, when the situation forces it on me. But TBH I’m my own worst enemy: driving myself when I should be in a rest state.
neogodless 6y ago
Right now, most of my day is killing time on the internet and playing computer games. And I'm OK with that (right now.) I've had really productive periods in my life. I really enjoy them, but they generally do not happen accidentally. What seems to work for me is to identify all the things I'm doing wrong, and replace them with doing the right things. (Surprising, right?) Part of what helps is the cumulative effect of replacing bad habits with good habits. Things like having a few drinks at night, staying up late, not exercising enough, and eating foods your body doesn't handle well all add up to a state of mental fogginess, lethargy, distraction-seeking, as well as the cycle of going back to those same bad habits to get over it. I've done things like the Whole30 diet, where I avoid any likely trigger foods for 30 days so I can experience a healthy digestion system, and (ideally) phase bad foods back into my diet so I can identify the worst offenders. I'll set a "this is my personal universal law" work out schedules that I prioritize above anything else. I've gone without drinking for months at a time. I'll cut out things like Facebook, Instagram, addicting computer games, binging of TV shows, etc. and replace them with educational books, programming tutorials, writing down ideas, making projects (woodworking, code, etc.) The cumulative effects cannot be overstated. I'll spend my days with a clear head, with the energy to keep doing the things that benefit me, the interest in the projects that I value and consider productive, often a repulsion to sugary foods, a much lower appetite for frequent snacking/grazing, a somewhat natural urge to go to bed when I'm tired and repeat the process the next day. So those periods are excellent, and I miss them when they are past. But I also eventually miss my bad habits as well, and inevitably let them trickle back in, reversing the cycle in the opposite direction. I have not found a perfect long-term solution, but I know that when I miss productivity enough or feel depressed enough about being so inactive, I'll probably be motivated enough to sit up and take action and get back into the upward cycle. I suspect the most successful people tend to avoid the trickle of bad habits, or just have a better handle on keeping it at a trickle while they stay in a more optimal state. (And otherwise have factors like luck and good connections on their side!) But I'm content (most of the time) with a life that is sometimes really productive, and sometimes much less so. And I come to accept letting go of those golden ages and embracing the less productive consumption ages as something I can enjoy without overshadowing them with guilt. Your values may vary!
zero_deg_kevin 6y ago
I made it about 200 words before the anticipation of a sales pitch or call to action drove me away. I don’t know if they’re selling something, but it feels like it, and I don’t want it.
- LZ_Khan 6y ago
  They are selling their extension and a de-procrastination guide. It's funny how I want to believe it but the sales pitch after makes me skeptical.
kowlo 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. What do you draw your doodles in?
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Sketches app on an iPad, then converted to SVG and touched up in Inkscape.
  - kowlo 6y ago
    Thanks I'll check it out(I see a Tayasui Sketches if it's that one). I'm not sure if you consider yourself to be good at drawing, but the drawings look good. They come together nicely :)
otikik 6y ago
> if you’re addicted to any of the high-dopamine, low-effort activity, please quit it Wow. Thanks, I guess.
smusamashah 6y ago
I work to have a life and fun, not the other way around. I won't be doing any job that won't allow me to have fun. These are horrible advices. EDIT: What worked for me was to divide my work day (that's when I work) in 15 minutes chunks on a paper. Luckily I have reMarkable with graph paper made of 36 cells vertically. This nicely makes each cell 15 minutes making upto 9 hours.
Terretta 6y ago
The idea to avoid fun things seems off the mark. Perhaps: 1. Avoid facile things. Things that aren’t facile involve difficulty which in turn can involve learning, challenge, mistakes, or other things your brain finds painful. To know more tomorrow than you knew yesterday, you may have to remember why it seemed fun to touch the stove. Have a hard look at what you do rather than work and whether each is genuinely fun. If it’s genuine fun, you likely don’t regret the time spent. More often, the things done instead of work, when looked back on, were not meaningfully rewarding. You’re not the better for having spent time on them. This also helps you decide among “fun” things. For instance, between these two guilty pleasures: binge Netflix, or binge an airport novel? The second one subconsciously reminds you that reading can be fun, and rehabilitates your ability to focus on reading at length, so primes you to be able to read and learn rapidly as needed to maintain mastery in your profession. Anecdata suggests that for coming back from burnout on activities, facility-based alternatives are better than abject avoidance.
Bakary 6y ago
This post echoes some of my own personal findings, but the biggest problem remains. It's difficult to live a narratively meaningful life, especially in a professional setting. There comes a point where you would love nothing more than to just contribute something useful to the world and not just learn interesting things for their own sake, or to have novel experiences and make decisions that matter as a free agent in a wide world. These possibilities are so fragile and hard to maintain. On a more positive note, the effectiveness of reducing addictive activities cannot be overstated. Essentially, you have to remind yourself that you can access a more pleasant neurological state if you first start by getting some of your daily activities under control.
hans-moleman 6y ago
I think this leans into the cookie cutter self help trends too much. Especially in the tech demographic, there seems to be this idea of a one way path to productivity. Things like meal prepping, a strict workout regimen and a generally strict structured routine are being pitched as the quick and simple remedy to being “unproductive”. To me, turning yourself into an efficiency robot is a recipe for disaster. I think instilling this need to always reach a higher level of output is going to have an opposite effect that makes people more stressed, especially with this idea that fun=bad. Also I don’t think people can work solely using external motivation as the author seems to suggest. “When something is boring, ask yourself: Why do I need to do this? Find and reinforce the why behind the work.” If you consistently don’t enjoy doing something, it might be a sign you should be doing something else.
justcame2say 6y ago
There's no such thing as procrastination, it's just a word that's very popular. It's a battle of what you're being programmed to do vs what you really want to do. Even science says that the subconscious is most of your brain power. Procrastination only exists in the conscious mind, so it just means you're relying on it too much and not giving credit to anything but your own ego. When there's no options there's no procrastination, you just do what you have to do. If there's options and you think you're procrastinating it just means your heart is not in the right place and to be frank you'd get a lot more done in life and find happiness if you "procrastinated" instead of trying not to. Just go with the flow and don't worry about meaningless definitions and words. Have a good day my friends and all the best to you.

278 points by vitabenes 6y ago

0wis 6y ago

Great article. It helped me go back to work. I feel like the world would be a much better place with less procrastination. It feels like a premise for great work. However, I feel much of actual content of the subject feel like scam or bullshit. Beside this site and waitbutwhy.com, what are the other legit initiatives on the subject ?

vitabenes 6y ago
Thank you for the comment! There are some good books like The Now Habit by Neil Fiore or The Procrastinator's Digest by Tim Pychil, and good articles like the one on waitbutwhy, but information on procrastination is mostly scattered about. There aren't many projects focusing solely on it.
- 0wis 6y ago
  Thank you for the reply ! And if you are behind this project, thanks for it. I will surely dig into this gem site this weekend and maybe try your program one day ! And I add these two books on top of my ever too long reading list.

violetgarden 6y ago

I moved my television out of the living room and into a spare room. I felt like I was binging too much and wanted a jolt to my routine. Since doing so, I’ve read a backlog of books and even stated practicing tech skills I wanted to develop after work. I can vouch for it not seeming as difficult to do after toning down my stimulation. In fact, I can’t wait to get off work to start doing my stuff. Losing tv felt really weird at first. I ate in front of it. I’d turn on one quick show (that always turned in to several episodes!) after work to relax. I’ll probably go watch some shows I’m looking forward to once they’re out, but it’ll be more of a decision than a default. Tv isn’t the devil. I just needed more balance in my life, and the results are making me feel a lot more fulfilled than I was.

vitabenes 6y ago
Environment changes are powerful. Same goes for apps like Twitter. I used to have it both on my phone and tablet, and that lead to me checking it hundreds of times a day. Now I only access it in the browser, and in restricted time windows. Much better. Another "environment setup" example would be buying an analog alarm clock instead of using your phone (and doom scrolling for 30 minutes every morning. Simple changes, profound effects.
- bonniemuffin 6y ago
  How do you restrict the time windows in which you access twitter? Through technological solutions, or just through self-control?
  - vitabenes 6y ago
    By using the deprocrastination extension on our site. The Focus Zones feature is essential for me.

emsign 6y ago

I found the "get bored" astonishing. I used to lie down on bed when I was younger and just think and do nothing. That always motivated me to keep doing stuff throughout the day. I really got excited after a couple of minutes to continue or start a new task. Unfortunately that trick doesn't work anymore, now I'd just fall asleep. On the other hand I don't suffer from insomnia anymore.

ramraj07 6y ago
When I had to prep for the GRE, for a month I would go in the early morning to my dad's office (he only uses it for a few hours) and study there. And there was nothing in the office. No other books, no tv, and the internet wasn't as much fun then. So I had only two options: study or sleep. Obviously I slept a lot, but there's only so much you can sleep! So I ended up studying very well and getting really good scores (not that it mattered a rats ass in the end).
- yetihehe 6y ago
  I think sleeping a lot helped with getting those scores.

Zealotux 6y ago

Good summary of what procrastination essentially is: an emotional problem, rarely about "laziness" or time management. Readjusting your dopamine sensitivity will most likely solve most of it, trading my expensive gaming PC for a Macbook Pro probably was the biggest game-changing (pun not intended) event of my life so far, and greatly improved my relation to work and life in general.

the_only_law 6y ago
I would consider selling my expensive gaming PC if whatever I replaced it with had a reasonable similar CPU. Not sure if I can get that from any type of laptop though at least not without paying more than I paid for my PC. Also I kinda need PCIe lanes.
- Zealotux 6y ago
  Amusingly, I had just built myself a pretty expensive gaming PC right before selling it all, and then got myself a second-hand 2015 MBP. I'd say the newest M1 MBP are worth the money, my metric shifted from raw performance/$ to experience/$. And honestly, I will gladly sacrifice some CPU power just to keep myself away from gaming.
  - lupire 6y ago
    I don't understand this. People who are addicted to games won't play any non-intensive games, like League of Legends (or Which is the lower spec one) or speed chess ?
    - sylens 6y ago
      For me, a big draw of gaming is being part of the zeitgeist. New game comes out, I want to try it, talk about it online, etc. Sometimes my friends get into a game extensively (like COD Warzone) and I don't want to be left behind. If I just had a laptop, it wouldn't be possible to run those games on it. And because I don't have any friends playing League of Legends or participate in online communities talking about, it's not really appealing to me.

PaulKeeble 6y ago

New years resolutions and other big changes tend not to work very well because they are big changes and we are very bad at big changes. Probably the most important piece of information I needed to make lasting changes to how I spent my day was the combined knowledge and idea: 1) I ran on habits for most of my day 2) I could change about 1% of my day every month Doing small changes continuously results in a big change within a few years and most of your day is completely different. You can learn to do uninteresting, uninspiring chores if you just put small progressions towards it.

faeyanpiraat 6y ago
Earning 1% every month on your investments would yield a ridiculous amount, like the wealth of the entire world in 3 years or something. So even if it sounds like a small goal, getting better by any amount could suffice.
- lupire 6y ago
  No , 1%/month is 43% in 3 years.
  - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
    You are right, I must be misremembering something, let me think about it..
    - fnomnom 6y ago
      you are probably thinking of doubling? like in the chess & rice story? see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissa_(mythical_brahmin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissa_(mythical_brahmin) which leads to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem
the_only_law 6y ago
Unfortunately “a few years is” the upper end of my bound and I have a number of big things I need to tackle within that bound.

tclancy 6y ago

In sum, have a job that lets you define what you do on a daily basis, don’t be depressed and make sure you’re not addicted to anything.

fock 6y ago
yeah, I was wondering about this as well: basically I have experienced times, where I could rightly sit there and watch the wall for hours. I guess this indicates depression and significantly hampers implementing these ideas...

cdiamand 6y ago

1. Have less exposure towards super fun things I cannot emphasize enough how powerful this is. If you're struggling to focus on your work/projects, try living a bland existence like a monk for a while. You won't be able to stop thinking about working.

arkitaip 6y ago
Corollary, it takes truly awful times to appreciate the bad times.
minikites 6y ago
In a similar way, hunger is the best spice.
faeyanpiraat 6y ago
Having too long of a vacation (eg.: more than 5 days on the beach) makes has this effect on me. It is not about having or not having fun, but being removed from the usual “i could work but also choose not to” environment. On the beach I cannot work even if I wanted to, and it kind of make me want to work.
polote 6y ago
> Have less exposure towards super fun things If that is not "forcing yourself" I don't know what "forcing yourself" means
- cdiamand 6y ago
  One of the tricks is to create an environment that doesn't require willpower to avoid distraction. There are plugins that block distractions on your browser. You could sell, or lend out, or put your X-box into storage, etc.
deleted 6y ago
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YinglingLight 6y ago
"No Music" is tougher than No Carb, No Fap, No Pillow, No Surf. It's insane what waterfall of dopamine we regularly flood ourselves with.

peach45 6y ago

This seems like cheap advice that's trying to get me to buy into a lifestyle in order to sell me things. "Have less exposure towards super fun things". "Get bored". These describe the same general concept as dopamine fasting. The third bullet point can be reduced to "focus on what you have to do, until you can focus on it" which is circular. I'm not buying in. Maybe I'm getting old but "failure to start" is starting to sound like a meme to me perpetuated by vultures trying to exploit creative personalities, hackers included. I think what we need to do, is to step back and appreciate ourselves for the effort we continually expect from ourselves. As hackers in one way or another, we are constantly putting up our ego as collateral in order to take on challenges that threaten to knock us down a peg or two if we fail. For many of us, failure is a threat to the core of our identity, yet we dive on in anyway. Exhaustion from that sort of loop is to be expected. Most people don't live like this. Most people reduce the flux in their lives instead of seeking to increase it. Why? Because most people cherish their egos to the point where they cannot commit to a goal with an uncertain outcome. They would rather work a 9-5, which is fine, but it doesn't describe our community. We are addicted to risk if it means building something new and that we can call our own. So appreciate yourselves more. And get better sleep.

vitabenes 6y ago
I agree with your points on appreciating yourself and better sleep. As for this seeming like cheap advice, keep in mind that A) many people have not heard it yet, and B) sometimes a new twist on an older concept drives the point home. And you don't have to buy anything. Most of the stuff we create is free on our blog or Twitter. We're not "vultures," we're 2 guys helping people to stop scrolling and go do stuff, driven by our own past struggles. Fin. Thank you for the comment.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  The article was what I needed to read, when I needed to read it, as it is something I am actively struggling with. And some of the advice, while I have heard it before, was framed differently enough that it allowed me to "get it" this time around. Thanks!

JebusAustralia 6y ago

Please donate ethereum to this address as I am being kept hostage by a psychopath called Satoshi Nakamoto. He has scattered all of my personal information and economical research all over youtube, cnbc, techcrunch, the local mainstream media in the netherlands. https://ibb.co/74qYknK https://ibb.co/74qYknK

culopatin 6y ago

Progress over perfection is what I keep telling myself all day. My brain automatically goes on to investigating something else when I’m faced with my projects. “Oh wait how do we get our terminal to look that cool?”. I’m working on my first project involving a DB and a CRUD Java program that will talk to a website, potentially. I am too concerned about “am I doing this the right way”? Things like how I’m setting up my db table, or “is one is enough or I should use more”, if people will look into it and say “wow this guy is dumb” or whatever. They all prevent me from just pushing forward and improving later. I’m too scared of someone telling me to fix shit even though I actually enjoy learning so much I’d probably like that. I wish I could just go in my brain and turn that off, I’d be living in the future.

beaconstudios 6y ago
I've made this mistake in the past, but I don't any more. The difference is that rather than closing my feedback loop over the code/architecture itself (so the cycle of working is start feature => code => look at code => code, which obviously never leads to starting new features), I close the loop over the experience (becoming start feature => code => use/test the feature => start new feature). This way your focus is on the product and your working cycle involves incrementally adding features, not navel-gazing at your code. So basically, bring yourself out of the code and actually try the product whenever a feature is done; context-switch from coder to user.

username90 6y ago

How to lose weight without trying: Just stop eating everything you love, you wont overeat food you don't like. /s Sacrificing a huge part of what makes life meaningful isn't "without forcing yourself".

zascrash 6y ago
I believe that the point is that those things are relative. It would be more like, if you stop eating everthing you love now (sweets, fast foods etc) you might learn to love the alternative (fruits and vegetables).

pca006132 6y ago

Sometimes I just wonder, is the frequent burnt-out we see for programmers caused by not having a fast feedback loop. For me, I feel excited when doing performance tuning work, front-end stuff etc. However, I would quickly become bored after working on work that take more than 5 days or so, even if I love the subject. Although I'm not really into TDD, but I think sometimes using TDD could help you get some more feedback when you work on some abstract stuff. (Although writing the tests could be boring for the beginning...) I would argue that having no expectation on the first-draft may not be the best way to be more productive. Having some concrete goals or metrics could be beneficial if you can get the feedback-loop working. Under-defined, subjective goals could be bad as achieving the goal may seem never-ending if you want perfection. (at least for me)

Ottolay 6y ago
Interesting. I love hunting and fixing significant bugs or issues. It could be because the immediate dopamine hit if successful. Harder to get motivated for things with less certain impact, even if successful.
bonniemuffin 6y ago
Some other fields (e.g. long-running academic research experiments) involve a feedback loop of months or years. I've done experiments where the experiment subjects (mice, human cells, etc) look exactly the same for weeks and weeks, and you have to work on them every day not knowing whether they'll turn into something useful in a month or two. Writing grants and papers has a turnaround time of months--you work so hard on it, lob it into the ether, and just wait 6 months to see if anything will come of it. Coming from a background like that, I find that the days/weeks feedback loop time in tech makes me positively giddy with joy. It's hard for me to imagine thinking of 5 days as a long time to work on a problem.
LZ_Khan 6y ago
Totally agree, at least anecdotally. Working in ML for a large company has really tested my liking for programming. The amount of plumbing/testing/code reviewing needed just to get a tiny feature usable for a ML model is absurd. Taking 6 months to push one model improvement is really draining. The pay's nice though.

deleted 6y ago

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flower-giraffe 6y ago

I love the irony that this has reached the 2nd from top on HN in three hours. Presumably from all of us using HN to get a dog procrastination fix. >Edit to clarify fix in the junkie sense, not as in fixing the issue.

ccmcarey 6y ago

I can't believe what I'm reading. The first point is literally do less fun things so you get used to doing more boring things. I'm genuinely shocked this article is being received so well. What happened to, work to live, not live to work?

blacktriangle 6y ago
I think in this case "fun" is a bit of an overloaded word. In this context fun means low effort high dopamine rewards, things like gaming, TV, social media, porn, drugs and alcohol. What's weird is that these categories of activities when overused quickly become non-fun and just addictive. The overall idea is to recalibrate your idea of fun towards higher effort rewards, which will often result in better work, which will then allow you to financially reach a position where you can work to live, instead of always having to worry about work.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Well put, that was the intended meaning.
0wis 6y ago
My viewpoint is that to enjoy the part of your life which is not work, you have to get your work done. Between workaholic and master procrastinator, there is a large gray area of healthy relationship to work. This line resonates with my experience : if I do a lot of hyper stimulating things, I struggle to get to work. Happy for you if procrastination is not a part of your life but it can be a struggle for a lot of people.
calebm 6y ago
I see this as similar to "stop eating high-sugar foods and you'll come to appreciate more varied and complex foods." Some of the most enjoyable things in life are more subtle.

raphyjake 6y ago

Honestly, "stop having fun" was the single best decision I have ever taken. I began studying a lot, I started to actually code my small personal projects, I began working on fiverr (I'm indeed still a student) and I'm much more confident in myself now. Ironically, when I was hiking 15 days without internet and coudn't sleep at night, I began scribbling down a similar essay: points 1 and 2 are the same, stop having fun and experience true boredom. I'm very glad someone got my same idea.

LZ_Khan 6y ago
I also came to similar conclusion after many days of pondering this.

kissgyorgy 6y ago

It might be the second life-changing article for me. The first was: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/ https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

0wis 6y ago
Why this kind of article always seem both borderline and true ? It is surprising as it opposes « reality » to « conventional wisdom ». And ads are annoying.

j_m_b 6y ago

Is there any science behind dopamine fasting? By science, I mean empirical evidence regarding dopamine fasting. When I last looked into it, there seemed to be scant evidence for it.

criddell 6y ago

I wonder what side of the stimulation standard line the author would put reading his article? Sometimes I think productivity porn like this article is a self-perpetuating problem.

roland35 6y ago

As far as having less super fun things, I found it takes me about 2 days to 1 week to "detox" from addictive distractions, my most recent distraction being the game "Hades" :) Luckily I was about to finally finish that game but I still had to consciously keep it away for a few days before I finally no longer have the temptation.

AussieWog93 6y ago

I think this article conflates productivity with diligence. The most effective way I've found to improve productivity is to shift focus onto tasks that bring in more money per unit time spent performing them. Since my daughter was born 7 months ago, I've really only been able to work about 2-3 "full" 8-hour days a week without crashing, and my wife might be able to spend 8-10 hours a week working on the business. However, because we've simply stopped doing tasks that are "work" but don't add greatly to the business's bottom line (for example, we no longer respond to dumb requests from customers, standardise products into a single SKU where possible and shifted our marketing towards eBay's promoted listings rather than building an organic following on social media), we've actually grown slightly. Diligence and drive are definitely important parts of what makes you productive, but it's not the be all and end all.

beaconstudios 6y ago
I think you've highlighted the difference between efficiency and efficacy. Efficiency is doing the thing you're doing well, efficacy is doing the right thing. You can have efficiency without efficacy if you're optimally performing the wrong tasks.

softwaredoug 6y ago

I just try to accept I go through spurts of inspiration and low energy. Forcing myself to do work when I don’t want to us a recipe for burnout. It’s often unavoidable, when the situation forces it on me. But TBH I’m my own worst enemy: driving myself when I should be in a rest state.

neogodless 6y ago

Right now, most of my day is killing time on the internet and playing computer games. And I'm OK with that (right now.) I've had really productive periods in my life. I really enjoy them, but they generally do not happen accidentally. What seems to work for me is to identify all the things I'm doing wrong, and replace them with doing the right things. (Surprising, right?) Part of what helps is the cumulative effect of replacing bad habits with good habits. Things like having a few drinks at night, staying up late, not exercising enough, and eating foods your body doesn't handle well all add up to a state of mental fogginess, lethargy, distraction-seeking, as well as the cycle of going back to those same bad habits to get over it. I've done things like the Whole30 diet, where I avoid any likely trigger foods for 30 days so I can experience a healthy digestion system, and (ideally) phase bad foods back into my diet so I can identify the worst offenders. I'll set a "this is my personal universal law" work out schedules that I prioritize above anything else. I've gone without drinking for months at a time. I'll cut out things like Facebook, Instagram, addicting computer games, binging of TV shows, etc. and replace them with educational books, programming tutorials, writing down ideas, making projects (woodworking, code, etc.) The cumulative effects cannot be overstated. I'll spend my days with a clear head, with the energy to keep doing the things that benefit me, the interest in the projects that I value and consider productive, often a repulsion to sugary foods, a much lower appetite for frequent snacking/grazing, a somewhat natural urge to go to bed when I'm tired and repeat the process the next day. So those periods are excellent, and I miss them when they are past. But I also eventually miss my bad habits as well, and inevitably let them trickle back in, reversing the cycle in the opposite direction. I have not found a perfect long-term solution, but I know that when I miss productivity enough or feel depressed enough about being so inactive, I'll probably be motivated enough to sit up and take action and get back into the upward cycle. I suspect the most successful people tend to avoid the trickle of bad habits, or just have a better handle on keeping it at a trickle while they stay in a more optimal state. (And otherwise have factors like luck and good connections on their side!) But I'm content (most of the time) with a life that is sometimes really productive, and sometimes much less so. And I come to accept letting go of those golden ages and embracing the less productive consumption ages as something I can enjoy without overshadowing them with guilt. Your values may vary!

zero_deg_kevin 6y ago

I made it about 200 words before the anticipation of a sales pitch or call to action drove me away. I don’t know if they’re selling something, but it feels like it, and I don’t want it.

LZ_Khan 6y ago
They are selling their extension and a de-procrastination guide. It's funny how I want to believe it but the sales pitch after makes me skeptical.

kowlo 6y ago

Thanks for sharing. What do you draw your doodles in?

vitabenes 6y ago
Sketches app on an iPad, then converted to SVG and touched up in Inkscape.
- kowlo 6y ago
  Thanks I'll check it out(I see a Tayasui Sketches if it's that one). I'm not sure if you consider yourself to be good at drawing, but the drawings look good. They come together nicely :)

otikik 6y ago

> if you’re addicted to any of the high-dopamine, low-effort activity, please quit it Wow. Thanks, I guess.

smusamashah 6y ago

I work to have a life and fun, not the other way around. I won't be doing any job that won't allow me to have fun. These are horrible advices. EDIT: What worked for me was to divide my work day (that's when I work) in 15 minutes chunks on a paper. Luckily I have reMarkable with graph paper made of 36 cells vertically. This nicely makes each cell 15 minutes making upto 9 hours.

Terretta 6y ago

The idea to avoid fun things seems off the mark. Perhaps: 1. Avoid facile things. Things that aren’t facile involve difficulty which in turn can involve learning, challenge, mistakes, or other things your brain finds painful. To know more tomorrow than you knew yesterday, you may have to remember why it seemed fun to touch the stove. Have a hard look at what you do rather than work and whether each is genuinely fun. If it’s genuine fun, you likely don’t regret the time spent. More often, the things done instead of work, when looked back on, were not meaningfully rewarding. You’re not the better for having spent time on them. This also helps you decide among “fun” things. For instance, between these two guilty pleasures: binge Netflix, or binge an airport novel? The second one subconsciously reminds you that reading can be fun, and rehabilitates your ability to focus on reading at length, so primes you to be able to read and learn rapidly as needed to maintain mastery in your profession. Anecdata suggests that for coming back from burnout on activities, facility-based alternatives are better than abject avoidance.

Bakary 6y ago

This post echoes some of my own personal findings, but the biggest problem remains. It's difficult to live a narratively meaningful life, especially in a professional setting. There comes a point where you would love nothing more than to just contribute something useful to the world and not just learn interesting things for their own sake, or to have novel experiences and make decisions that matter as a free agent in a wide world. These possibilities are so fragile and hard to maintain. On a more positive note, the effectiveness of reducing addictive activities cannot be overstated. Essentially, you have to remind yourself that you can access a more pleasant neurological state if you first start by getting some of your daily activities under control.

hans-moleman 6y ago

I think this leans into the cookie cutter self help trends too much. Especially in the tech demographic, there seems to be this idea of a one way path to productivity. Things like meal prepping, a strict workout regimen and a generally strict structured routine are being pitched as the quick and simple remedy to being “unproductive”. To me, turning yourself into an efficiency robot is a recipe for disaster. I think instilling this need to always reach a higher level of output is going to have an opposite effect that makes people more stressed, especially with this idea that fun=bad. Also I don’t think people can work solely using external motivation as the author seems to suggest. “When something is boring, ask yourself: Why do I need to do this? Find and reinforce the why behind the work.” If you consistently don’t enjoy doing something, it might be a sign you should be doing something else.

justcame2say 6y ago

There's no such thing as procrastination, it's just a word that's very popular. It's a battle of what you're being programmed to do vs what you really want to do. Even science says that the subconscious is most of your brain power. Procrastination only exists in the conscious mind, so it just means you're relying on it too much and not giving credit to anything but your own ego. When there's no options there's no procrastination, you just do what you have to do. If there's options and you think you're procrastinating it just means your heart is not in the right place and to be frank you'd get a lot more done in life and find happiness if you "procrastinated" instead of trying not to. Just go with the flow and don't worry about meaningless definitions and words. Have a good day my friends and all the best to you.