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Here's one from Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder): "If you don't want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it. After five

by nreece 4y ago

Here's one from Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder): "If you don't want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it. After five minutes, you'll end up doing the whole thing." https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-5-minute-hack-instagram-founder-kevin-systrom-uses-to-beat-procrastination.html https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/the-5-minute-hack-insta...

alpaca128 4y ago
That can work but unfortunately it's not very reliable. Sometimes it just takes a lot of motivation to keep going, especially if the task is cumbersome from the start.
kayodelycaon 4y ago
Narrowing the scope of what you need to accomplish is extremely effective. The best advice I've ever gotten for dealing with depression is to just do one thing at a time. For example, if I'm sitting in a chair and I need to do something, I only need to try standing up. I can always sit back down if I don't have the energy to start walking. Most of the time, I keep going. The times I don't, well, I know I tried. If you can define what trying looks like, then you know when you've tried your hardest and failed through no fault of your own. (For most people, it's a lot more than just five minutes!) Accepting failure makes moving forward in another direction a lot easier. Guilt isn't a good emotion to dwell on. The important thing with this advice is to remember you probably don't know your limit. Most people keep more energy in reserve than they realize and they can afford to spend that occasionally. This means the advice to push beyond your limit is really good advice for most people. But for many people dealing with chronic health issues, we already tend to push beyond our limits and hurt ourselves. Thus we need the opposite advice. :) Edit: I should clarify, by "dealing with depression", I mean trying to be productive when you are depressed.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  I know you mean well by posting this, but this isn't going to help anyone with depression "deal with it."
  - a_c_s 4y ago
    This is one of the techniques I use for my depression and it does help me "deal with it". In my case "deal with it" doesn't mean "make me not depressed": I'm still depressed but it does help me turn some some of my bad, hard-to-do-anything days into ok or even occasionally productive ones. And having something useful come out of a day I thought I would be useless is also helpful in fighting depressive thought loops about being a useless/lazy/bad person generally speaking.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    If it helps them, why wouldn’t it help other people?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Well, I'd like to know what I missed or got wrong. I'm attempting to cover the common case I've seen and what's worked for those I've helped.
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      Well, to start, you're literally saying "to deal with this particular symptom of depression, just don't have that symptom." That's extremely invalidating and completely denies the nature of depression as a condition. It's not something you just "get over" or "stop having." If it was that easy, a depressed person wouldn't need this advice. Getting started is very often the whole problem. Sincerely, a depressed person
      - kayodelycaon 4y ago
        Ah, let me reframe what I'm saying. This is meant to apply to any task, including getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. The advice is to break the goal down into the smallest possible pieces and start there. For getting out of bed, I'd probably start with rolling onto my side. It's not a cure. It's not guaranteed to work. It's a strategy for expending as little energy as possible to get started. If you can focus on one small, actionable item, it can help reduce how overwhelming the entire task feels. If you don't have the capacity to do something, there is no advice that will make that thing possible and no one should be expecting you to do it.
- elefantastisch 4y ago
  I think this is somewhat similar to what I often do when I need to work on something and never seem to get started: Define the absolutely minimal next step very concretely. Procrastinating on filing taxes. Next step is to log in to tax preparation app. Procrastinating on cleaning office. Next step is to pick up a piece of paper off the desk and throw it away. Whatever it might be, once I get to something absolutely concrete and absolutely doable... I can usually get started and make some progress. It's much easier (for me) to procrastinate on "do your taxes" than "log in to tax prep app." Once it's that clear it's like... ok, why procrastinate on that?
bengy5959 4y ago
The problem is my procrastination brain knows this hack. It knows that once I do the 5 minutes I won't be able to stop and it doesn't want that. So it still doesn't let me start.
tdeck 4y ago
That works for many kinds of tasks, but not those that involve other people. For example, if you have to call someone it's not compelling to say "if I don't like talking to this person I'll just hang up after 5 minutes".
- etskinner 4y ago
  You could conceivably still make yourself an out for that. You could have an excuse for hanging up ready to go. Or, if you're talking in person, there are probably several apps that allow you to receive a fake phone call, and step away.
WaffleIronMaker 4y ago
This does not work if you have ADHD. I've tried this, and I'm like: "Ok. 5 minutes, and I'll do the very simple task" and then it will be an hour later and I'm like "Oh no! More than 5 minutes has passed!" I've tried setting timers too, and those help, but I also sometimes turn them off because I'm more focused on something else, and I don't understand what the timer is supposed to mean. I find a lot of this advice is well intentioned, but it does not solve mental illness.

by nreece 4y ago

alpaca128 4y ago

That can work but unfortunately it's not very reliable. Sometimes it just takes a lot of motivation to keep going, especially if the task is cumbersome from the start.

kayodelycaon 4y ago

Narrowing the scope of what you need to accomplish is extremely effective. The best advice I've ever gotten for dealing with depression is to just do one thing at a time. For example, if I'm sitting in a chair and I need to do something, I only need to try standing up. I can always sit back down if I don't have the energy to start walking. Most of the time, I keep going. The times I don't, well, I know I tried. If you can define what trying looks like, then you know when you've tried your hardest and failed through no fault of your own. (For most people, it's a lot more than just five minutes!) Accepting failure makes moving forward in another direction a lot easier. Guilt isn't a good emotion to dwell on. The important thing with this advice is to remember you probably don't know your limit. Most people keep more energy in reserve than they realize and they can afford to spend that occasionally. This means the advice to push beyond your limit is really good advice for most people. But for many people dealing with chronic health issues, we already tend to push beyond our limits and hurt ourselves. Thus we need the opposite advice. :) Edit: I should clarify, by "dealing with depression", I mean trying to be productive when you are depressed.

actually_a_dog 4y ago
I know you mean well by posting this, but this isn't going to help anyone with depression "deal with it."
- a_c_s 4y ago
  This is one of the techniques I use for my depression and it does help me "deal with it". In my case "deal with it" doesn't mean "make me not depressed": I'm still depressed but it does help me turn some some of my bad, hard-to-do-anything days into ok or even occasionally productive ones. And having something useful come out of a day I thought I would be useless is also helpful in fighting depressive thought loops about being a useless/lazy/bad person generally speaking.
- drdeca 4y ago
  If it helps them, why wouldn’t it help other people?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Well, I'd like to know what I missed or got wrong. I'm attempting to cover the common case I've seen and what's worked for those I've helped.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Well, to start, you're literally saying "to deal with this particular symptom of depression, just don't have that symptom." That's extremely invalidating and completely denies the nature of depression as a condition. It's not something you just "get over" or "stop having." If it was that easy, a depressed person wouldn't need this advice. Getting started is very often the whole problem. Sincerely, a depressed person
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      Ah, let me reframe what I'm saying. This is meant to apply to any task, including getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. The advice is to break the goal down into the smallest possible pieces and start there. For getting out of bed, I'd probably start with rolling onto my side. It's not a cure. It's not guaranteed to work. It's a strategy for expending as little energy as possible to get started. If you can focus on one small, actionable item, it can help reduce how overwhelming the entire task feels. If you don't have the capacity to do something, there is no advice that will make that thing possible and no one should be expecting you to do it.
elefantastisch 4y ago
I think this is somewhat similar to what I often do when I need to work on something and never seem to get started: Define the absolutely minimal next step very concretely. Procrastinating on filing taxes. Next step is to log in to tax preparation app. Procrastinating on cleaning office. Next step is to pick up a piece of paper off the desk and throw it away. Whatever it might be, once I get to something absolutely concrete and absolutely doable... I can usually get started and make some progress. It's much easier (for me) to procrastinate on "do your taxes" than "log in to tax prep app." Once it's that clear it's like... ok, why procrastinate on that?

bengy5959 4y ago

The problem is my procrastination brain knows this hack. It knows that once I do the 5 minutes I won't be able to stop and it doesn't want that. So it still doesn't let me start.

tdeck 4y ago

That works for many kinds of tasks, but not those that involve other people. For example, if you have to call someone it's not compelling to say "if I don't like talking to this person I'll just hang up after 5 minutes".

etskinner 4y ago
You could conceivably still make yourself an out for that. You could have an excuse for hanging up ready to go. Or, if you're talking in person, there are probably several apps that allow you to receive a fake phone call, and step away.

WaffleIronMaker 4y ago

This does not work if you have ADHD. I've tried this, and I'm like: "Ok. 5 minutes, and I'll do the very simple task" and then it will be an hour later and I'm like "Oh no! More than 5 minutes has passed!" I've tried setting timers too, and those help, but I also sometimes turn them off because I'm more focused on something else, and I don't understand what the timer is supposed to mean. I find a lot of this advice is well intentioned, but it does not solve mental illness.