16 ms·

How to do hard things

456 points by tacon 4y ago

eimrine 4y ago
Reminders - using apps, timers, or other means to remind us of the new behavior Records - keeping track of our behavior throughout the day Rewards - giving ourselves positive reinforcement for engaging in a behavior Routines - building the new behavior around an existing daily habit Relationships - finding a friend to do the new behavior with, or who you can talk to about the progress you’re making Reflecting - taking time to reflect on the progress you’re making through journaling, discussion with a friend, or in your mind Restructuring - making changes to the environment to make it easier to do the new behavior – i.e., throwing out unhealthy food or preparing at night for a morning run
badpun 4y ago
I dunno, I just do things because doing them is clearly a good deal for me. E.g. the amount of money the job will pay me at the end of the month is worth the amount of misery it causes. My "secret" is to have a very low cost of living, so basically every a monthly salary covers a year's worth of living expenses. And, every year at work is basically a decade shaved off of the total employment time (and a decade closer to early retirement). With math like this, it's not that hard to motivate oneself. Which makes me think, if people are having a hard time motivating themselves do to things they ostensibly want to do, maybe doing them is not in their best interest (e.g. too risky, reward to far away, reward to small compared to equired effort, reward only monetary while other areas of live are badly neglected etc.). The friction in doing the thing may be your subconscious yelling at you: "wtf are you doing, stop, this isn't good for us".
civilized 4y ago
ACT helped me turn around my life at a low point in my mid 20s. The problem it helped me with was essentially the same as what it helped this author with - how to do hard things. The short answer is, if you accept that it's going to be hard, you can focus on the problem rather than how stuck and frustrated you are, and that helps you to not make it harder than it needs to be. Of course, a person who needs help needs more than the short answer; in particular, we often need a lot of unlearning of bad mental habits, and we need to hear exactly what ACT is saying and, sometimes more importantly, what it is not saying... because we tend to hear what we expect to hear, not what is actually being said. Here's the self-study book I used: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259 https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259 Highly recommend.
haswell 4y ago
I was not previously aware of ACT, but as someone who went down a rabbit hole of mindfulness meditation with a side of (secular) Buddhist philosophy, it struck me how similar some aspects of this are. In particular, the focus on aversion and the realization that aversion is usually worse than whatever pain is involved in the thing we’re avoiding. Going down this particular path has been life changing as someone who grew up in an environment that essentially conditioned me to default to aversion/avoidance, a default that culminated in a pretty big burnout. Realizing that aversion/avoidance was almost always much worse than the thing I was avoiding was a major aha moment, and realizing that this could be corrected is when my life started changing. Whether it’s ACT or some form of mindfulness+related philosophy, I can’t recommend this kind of internal exploration enough. The associated mental shifts are like freeing up numerous processor cores that were previously consumed by unhelpful thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness meditation was the tool that made this go from something that I knew intellectually, to something I could observe directly within myself. Once you can see these things clearly, changing them becomes far easier.
- wintermutestwin 4y ago
  I agree with the similarity. ACT has the advantage of being science-based rather than inspiring so many to LARP enlightenment.
  - sfink 4y ago
    There are a lot of traditional paths to life cultivation that have a greater weight of evidence behind them than anything tested by 20th or 21st century science. Sure, it hard to know what of that evidence is real, but please let me know when modern-day science has solved that problem. Scientific processes today are far worse than one might realize. Yes, I'm somewhat defending my own particular branch (which I doubt is innately superior to many others, fwiw). But it was the LARPing enlightenment comment that caught my eye: it is absolutely a thing, and it shows up plenty in both traditional and "science-based" methods. But my personal experience is that once you get far enough into something to start to understand what enlightenment would actually require, it becomes a lot less appealing of a target. I'm sure it would be great, but boy howdy it requires a lot of uncomfortable work. I just want to live better and feel better, dammit. You can often sort out the posers from the real life cultivators by enthusiastically bringing up enlightenment. The real people will be the ones who (figuratively) roll their eyes. If they're further along, it will be done in a very polite, understanding, and non-judgemental sort of way. "I was once like you, grasshopper. And I still am."
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
It's a good (long) read, and has some valuable insights. That said, I've been living these principles since I was 18 (long story, lots of tears, bring a hanky). I can tell you that anyone can benefit from this. But most simply, if there were one single trait that I think has been key for me; it's been self-discipline. It has paid off all over the place. Finishing stuff takes a great deal of what people like to call "grit." There's a ton of unpleasant, boring, hard-to-digest stuff, in delivering a finished product. In many cases, it can be more than half the project. In my experience, not giving up, and powering through the "boring bits,", when, what I wanted to do, was go into a fetal position under my desk, and sob into Mr. Floppy Ear Bunny, has done the trick. It also does wonders for self-image, and self-confidence (which, unfortunately, is often interpreted as "arrogance" -nothing is perfect). I've found that starting the day at 5AM, and with a 5Km walk (which I hate), is useful. Everything after that, is gravy. Real gym rats beat that handily. Many of my friends work out for a couple of hours before getting into work.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  I agree one hundred percent. Life has some good bits and most of the other bits are tedious, unpleasant and painful. But to reach the good bits you have to tread over the bad ones.
  - civilized 4y ago
    A big YMMV on what I'm about to say, but: in my experience, the biggest complainers at work are the most responsive and productive people. Because when a new request comes through, they're the ones who have already jumped in. They're mentally working through what it will take to get this done, wrestling with the difficulties and verbalizing them. Others are nodding and smiling but not really engaging with the problem yet.
    - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      I think there is something to it. The ones who complain but still trudge through are amazing. They highlight pain points and solve them at the same time.
nntwozz 4y ago
Great if it works, but also be aware of the criticism against ACT for being promoted as "the proverbial holy grail of psychological therapies". More on wikipedia: In 2012, ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT, with some meta-analyses showing small differences in favor of ACT and others not. For example, a meta-analysis published by Francisco Ruiz in 2012 looked at 16 studies comparing ACT to standard CBT.
- mataug 4y ago
  Most if not all claims of "silver bullet" or "holy grail" solutions should be taken with a massive grain of salt. No single thing applies to everyone and this criticism of being "holy grail" is valid for all types of therapies.
- DrewADesign 4y ago
  > ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT I'm no expert but I don't think it has be dramatically better to be very useful, does it? CBT is effective and if some people gel with ACT more than CBT, then great. It might even be useful at lesser efficacy if it's effective for people CBT wasn't effective for.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  Definitely worth pointing out, but I would imagine most people reading about this are deciding between ACT and nothing at all, as opposed to ACT vs another therapy, and that's a very different evaluation.
- wintermutestwin 4y ago
  I question efficacy as a valid measure for something that relies on the patient actually getting off their ass and doing something (as opposed to a pill, which is comparatively passive). I think the more useful measure is: what results does a patient achieve if they fully apply themselves to a particular methodology. Of course we can also look at: what % of people that are introduced to a particular methodology fully apply themselves, but this measure is inherently secondary to the prior measure.
eur0pa 4y ago
My brief 2¢, and also my own way of doing hard things: you're allowed to complain. I've been in strength training for 15+ years, and as fellow weightlifters know it never ever get easier (if it does, you're doing it wrong). Sometimes I really don't feel like it, even after all these years, and I complain about it. I complain all the way to the gym, complain through every set of heavy squats, huff and puff each set of sumos, complain all the way home, whine up the stairs, and finally complain in, under, and out of the shower.
- pnt12 4y ago
  What works for me: forcing myself to start a task, with permission to give up at any time. It often extends to my true goal once I start, but still allows me to exit early when I'm in a bad mood without feeling too bad. Going to the gym? 95% of the time I get a decent workout once I gey there. Once I was in a particularly bad mood, so I arrived, warmed up and left. It felt liberating! Going for a walk? It feels nice most of the time once I get in the rhythm. Sometimes it doesn't, so I come back after a few minutes. Reading? I wanna do it more. So the goal is to read at least a single page - often it leads to many more, sometimes it's just that page and that's it. The routine + acceptance of sometimes giving up really takes a lot of stress away from me!
- tomjen3 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be more productive to focus on how awesome your workout was? Especially if you have been doing it for years you probably do sets with weights that the average person could not do as a 1-rep max.
  - artificialLimbs 4y ago
    Replacing a mindset of complaint with gratitude will bring about an entirely different world view and free up energy that is otherwise burned up in the 'complaining circuitry'. It can be difficult but is certainly worth the effort. You will absolutely become more productive.
    - sfink 4y ago
Madmallard 4y ago
I don't really think there's any shortcuts one can do to adopt self-discipline. I think it is born out of serious changes in ones life if it wasn't already taught and adopted at a younger age.
- haswell 4y ago
  I think you're correct in the sense that one does need to adopt changes, but I'd offer a slightly alternate framing of the process of change itself. I've spent quite a bit of time struggling to implement serious changes, because that's how I thought about them: serious changes. When framed this way, it sounds difficult. If you happen to be depressed, it sounds impossible. The good news is that there are approaches that can help bring about serious change without requiring an outflow of willpower - willpower you don't have because you don't have the self-discipline. Starting with small core habit changes makes all of this more possible. At some point, I was able to convince myself that if I'm willing to spend <n> hours on distraction each day, I can commit to 10 minutes of mindfulness each morning. That 10 minute commitment became a snowball of positive change. The end result was a lot of change, yes, but it does not require a herculean effort or some impossible transformation. It's more like laying bricks. Each brick is manageable. The resulting wall is much greater than the sum of the individual bricks. I wouldn't call this a shortcut, but it was certainly a lot easier than trying to just "fix" everyone through sheer force of will.
  - Madmallard 4y ago
    the small changes that form habits don't come out of willpower and thin air that's a myth. the person was already in the mindset for positive change and motivated
    - haswell 4y ago
      One still has to have enough motivation to make small changes, yes. I'm not claiming that there's a magical path that requires no effort at all. The point is that small changes are often achievable in situations where large changes are not. It's a classic case of breaking a large problem into small enough chunks to make it possible to tackle. This is a drastically different undertaking and is far more likely to succeed than any kind of "big bang" approach.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Genuine question: are ADHD people inherently disabled in developing self-discipline due to their brain wiring? [I mean disabled in the sense of "they need external assistance or must put way more effort", in the same way someone with a muscular disorder might need a cane or put way more effort into walking.]
- throwaway743950 4y ago
  Yes, they are inherently disabled. Medication can help, but even with strategies, tactics, and therapy, there is still brain chemistry at play. Medication can help, but has its trade-offs and isn't a silver bullet. Self-discipline is also more costly. You can brute-force your way through tasks with ADHD, but it is more taxing on your overall energy. Those with ADHD typically experience impulses often and it's harder for them to ignore. Forcing yourself to ignore them requires extra energy. It's not sustainable to do all the time. It's hard for those without ADHD to truly understand what that's like. In addition to impulsivity, executive dysfunction affecting starting tasks or work is also a big challenge.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    > there is still brain chemistry at play. This is sort of non-descriptive. Every time you are happy, sad, angry, afraid, bored, tired; that's brain chemistry at play. Brains are electrochemical computers.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Read it as "hardware bug that cannot be fully compensated for in microcode".
  - nabnob 4y ago
    I don't think this is true about brain chemistry or that ADD is a life-long disability. Just speaking from experience here, I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult in my mid-20s and then started using IFS therapy (parts work) a couple years later for childhood trauma. After two years of IFS therapy my ADD is pretty much non-existent and my executive functioning is better than most people I know. My hunch is that for a lot of people, ADD is a result of growing up in a home that felt unstable so they never gained a basic internal sense of stability that you need for things like task switching or staying focused.
quijoteuniv 4y ago
Looks interesting, the pitfall (as with most frameworks) is ending trying to put yourself out of the swamp by pulling yourself from the hair.
bityard 4y ago
I think military folks sum all of this up as "embrace the suck." :) > A mentor of mine likes to talk about experiential avoidance as a sort of "reverse compass." When we notice the desire to avoid something, it may actually be telling us what we need to move toward. I rarely get life-changing advice from a podcast, but something I heard one time really stuck with me. This super-successful guy was talking about all the businesses he owned or something and the host asked him what his morning routine looked like. Paraphrasing, his answer was: "After I've gone through my normal morning activities, I sit down and make a list of the things I need to do that day. I always look through the list and find the thing I want to do least, and I do that one first. Because I have found the things I don't want to do are almost always the most important."
- simonswords82 4y ago
  My chairman calls it "eating the pain"
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    Similarly, "eat the frog". https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog
- sam1r 4y ago
  A military friend once told me something similar! “What’s going to suck less, later? Handling it now… or later?”
- montenegrohugo 4y ago
  Sounds like Naval Ravikant - it's a method that has struck a chord with me too.
- wruza 4y ago
  It’s similar to how therapists address procrastination. You split your task into 5-7 substeps, find two that suck most and just do them first. Often turns out that the whole deal was blocked by something that didn’t even suck that much.
Buttons840 4y ago
This got me thinking about side-projects, things I consider my life's work, but yet I make little progress on. It feels like my programming job clutters my mind with concerns about work. Then, when I try to program for myself, on my side-projects, I find everything is already cluttered with worries about work, and I end up making little progress. Or, it may simply be that work makes me tired, and when I'm tired I don't want to work on side-projects? Has anyone moved away from programming as a job and found it helps them focus on their side-projects better? I can (1) find a different type of day job (non-programming), and/or (2) work fewer hours at my day job, and/or (3) find a day job that I personally find meaningful. Of these, which is most important and realistic?
- captainbland 4y ago
  Sorry I can't help but I can also confirm that work is an energy parasite. But hey my landlord won't pay themselves.
- Camisa 4y ago
  Try working on your personal projects in the morning or just don't work so close to exhaustion on your day job. Working on hard problems with high intensity could lead you to burn out and that would be terrible for your employee and your own health.
- enos_feedler 4y ago
  As someone who has moved in and out of full time SWE employment to work on side projects and explore new things, I can say this does not work for me. After doing this several times it is very clear that my day job was not the thing that prevented me from making progress on a side project. It was everything described in this post.
cracrecry 4y ago
I do very hard things and while I do most of the things the author does at some degree(embracing the suck), in my experience it is not the best personal strategy for dealing with this. For me the secret is like the famous Article says: "Attention is all you need". I distract my attention on how much "boring", or "painful" or "humiliating" some work that I believe is important is. I just do the work until the work is finished, but I should not feel bored, pain or humiliated while doing it. If you feel it,It depends on the difficulty of your job, if the difficulty is not that much you can deal with it without problems but if it is hard you will eventually collapse, break down and burn out. I use instrumental music for that and also habits. I also reward myself for the good work done.
- charlieflowers 4y ago
  > For me the secret is like the famous Article says: "Attention is all you need". I distract my attention on how much "boring", or "painful" or "humiliating" some work that I believe is important is. I don't follow ... can you elaborate a bit? Are you saying that, when you feel the work is "boring", for example, you somehow distract your attention from how boring it is? And if so, how?
ge96 4y ago
When I got my first w2 web dev job I had to ride a bike 3 hrs everyday, not as a cyclist either, had a pos bike. I did it because I had to. I still have hard things to overcome.
jerrygoyal 4y ago
> In my coaching practice in the present, I try to cultivate these qualities in how I show up with a client. When I notice my mind getting overly analytical or wanting to say something clever, I try to come back to the intention to be loving and playful. I don't agree with this mindset. being "loving and playful" doesn't solve client's problems.
mklepaczewski 4y ago
If any method depends on me initiating some action, it won't work for me. My brain will not only say "No", but it'll also often just shut up, not give any feedback and proceed to procrastinate. For me, procrastination has some similarities to addiction. If I'm on a streak, I can maintain it. If I fail once, it's really hard to get back to it. I may be productive for a week, but sooner or later, something is going to happen that will allow me to procrastinate. When this happens, I'm like an addict, I'm not satisfied with a small dosage, and all limits are off. I know I should be working instead of watching Youtube. I don't want to do it, and I know I will regret it. All this happens while I'm typing "youtube.com" into my browser's address bar. Various methods work on various people. Experiment and try different methods. Don't confuse it with trying multiple implementations of one method - if you tried two to-do list apps and it didn't work for you, skip the to-do lists and move to something else. My method is body doubling, but YMMV. Once you find a method that works for you, revisit previous productivity methods - they may supplement your productivity
- Scarlxd 4y ago
  I can relate to that.
hoseja 4y ago
Yeah sorry, couldn't get through the sub-header. What an awful sequence of words.
phemartin 3y ago
Read with me: https://youtu.be/3tJjHCzy8Sg https://youtu.be/3tJjHCzy8Sg
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

456 points by tacon 4y ago

Reminders - using apps, timers, or other means to remind us of the new behavior Records - keeping track of our behavior throughout the day Rewards - giving ourselves positive reinforcement for engaging in a behavior Routines - building the new behavior around an existing daily habit Relationships - finding a friend to do the new behavior with, or who you can talk to about the progress you’re making Reflecting - taking time to reflect on the progress you’re making through journaling, discussion with a friend, or in your mind Restructuring - making changes to the environment to make it easier to do the new behavior – i.e., throwing out unhealthy food or preparing at night for a morning run

badpun 4y ago

I dunno, I just do things because doing them is clearly a good deal for me. E.g. the amount of money the job will pay me at the end of the month is worth the amount of misery it causes. My "secret" is to have a very low cost of living, so basically every a monthly salary covers a year's worth of living expenses. And, every year at work is basically a decade shaved off of the total employment time (and a decade closer to early retirement). With math like this, it's not that hard to motivate oneself. Which makes me think, if people are having a hard time motivating themselves do to things they ostensibly want to do, maybe doing them is not in their best interest (e.g. too risky, reward to far away, reward to small compared to equired effort, reward only monetary while other areas of live are badly neglected etc.). The friction in doing the thing may be your subconscious yelling at you: "wtf are you doing, stop, this isn't good for us".

civilized 4y ago

ACT helped me turn around my life at a low point in my mid 20s. The problem it helped me with was essentially the same as what it helped this author with - how to do hard things. The short answer is, if you accept that it's going to be hard, you can focus on the problem rather than how stuck and frustrated you are, and that helps you to not make it harder than it needs to be. Of course, a person who needs help needs more than the short answer; in particular, we often need a lot of unlearning of bad mental habits, and we need to hear exactly what ACT is saying and, sometimes more importantly, what it is not saying... because we tend to hear what we expect to hear, not what is actually being said. Here's the self-study book I used: https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259 https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259 Highly recommend.

haswell 4y ago

I was not previously aware of ACT, but as someone who went down a rabbit hole of mindfulness meditation with a side of (secular) Buddhist philosophy, it struck me how similar some aspects of this are. In particular, the focus on aversion and the realization that aversion is usually worse than whatever pain is involved in the thing we’re avoiding. Going down this particular path has been life changing as someone who grew up in an environment that essentially conditioned me to default to aversion/avoidance, a default that culminated in a pretty big burnout. Realizing that aversion/avoidance was almost always much worse than the thing I was avoiding was a major aha moment, and realizing that this could be corrected is when my life started changing. Whether it’s ACT or some form of mindfulness+related philosophy, I can’t recommend this kind of internal exploration enough. The associated mental shifts are like freeing up numerous processor cores that were previously consumed by unhelpful thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness meditation was the tool that made this go from something that I knew intellectually, to something I could observe directly within myself. Once you can see these things clearly, changing them becomes far easier.

wintermutestwin 4y ago
I agree with the similarity. ACT has the advantage of being science-based rather than inspiring so many to LARP enlightenment.
- sfink 4y ago
  There are a lot of traditional paths to life cultivation that have a greater weight of evidence behind them than anything tested by 20th or 21st century science. Sure, it hard to know what of that evidence is real, but please let me know when modern-day science has solved that problem. Scientific processes today are far worse than one might realize. Yes, I'm somewhat defending my own particular branch (which I doubt is innately superior to many others, fwiw). But it was the LARPing enlightenment comment that caught my eye: it is absolutely a thing, and it shows up plenty in both traditional and "science-based" methods. But my personal experience is that once you get far enough into something to start to understand what enlightenment would actually require, it becomes a lot less appealing of a target. I'm sure it would be great, but boy howdy it requires a lot of uncomfortable work. I just want to live better and feel better, dammit. You can often sort out the posers from the real life cultivators by enthusiastically bringing up enlightenment. The real people will be the ones who (figuratively) roll their eyes. If they're further along, it will be done in a very polite, understanding, and non-judgemental sort of way. "I was once like you, grasshopper. And I still am."

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

It's a good (long) read, and has some valuable insights. That said, I've been living these principles since I was 18 (long story, lots of tears, bring a hanky). I can tell you that anyone can benefit from this. But most simply, if there were one single trait that I think has been key for me; it's been self-discipline. It has paid off all over the place. Finishing stuff takes a great deal of what people like to call "grit." There's a ton of unpleasant, boring, hard-to-digest stuff, in delivering a finished product. In many cases, it can be more than half the project. In my experience, not giving up, and powering through the "boring bits,", when, what I wanted to do, was go into a fetal position under my desk, and sob into Mr. Floppy Ear Bunny, has done the trick. It also does wonders for self-image, and self-confidence (which, unfortunately, is often interpreted as "arrogance" -nothing is perfect). I've found that starting the day at 5AM, and with a 5Km walk (which I hate), is useful. Everything after that, is gravy. Real gym rats beat that handily. Many of my friends work out for a couple of hours before getting into work.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
I agree one hundred percent. Life has some good bits and most of the other bits are tedious, unpleasant and painful. But to reach the good bits you have to tread over the bad ones.
- civilized 4y ago
  A big YMMV on what I'm about to say, but: in my experience, the biggest complainers at work are the most responsive and productive people. Because when a new request comes through, they're the ones who have already jumped in. They're mentally working through what it will take to get this done, wrestling with the difficulties and verbalizing them. Others are nodding and smiling but not really engaging with the problem yet.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    I think there is something to it. The ones who complain but still trudge through are amazing. They highlight pain points and solve them at the same time.

nntwozz 4y ago

Great if it works, but also be aware of the criticism against ACT for being promoted as "the proverbial holy grail of psychological therapies". More on wikipedia: In 2012, ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT, with some meta-analyses showing small differences in favor of ACT and others not. For example, a meta-analysis published by Francisco Ruiz in 2012 looked at 16 studies comparing ACT to standard CBT.

mataug 4y ago
Most if not all claims of "silver bullet" or "holy grail" solutions should be taken with a massive grain of salt. No single thing applies to everyone and this criticism of being "holy grail" is valid for all types of therapies.
DrewADesign 4y ago
> ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT I'm no expert but I don't think it has be dramatically better to be very useful, does it? CBT is effective and if some people gel with ACT more than CBT, then great. It might even be useful at lesser efficacy if it's effective for people CBT wasn't effective for.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
Definitely worth pointing out, but I would imagine most people reading about this are deciding between ACT and nothing at all, as opposed to ACT vs another therapy, and that's a very different evaluation.
wintermutestwin 4y ago
I question efficacy as a valid measure for something that relies on the patient actually getting off their ass and doing something (as opposed to a pill, which is comparatively passive). I think the more useful measure is: what results does a patient achieve if they fully apply themselves to a particular methodology. Of course we can also look at: what % of people that are introduced to a particular methodology fully apply themselves, but this measure is inherently secondary to the prior measure.

eur0pa 4y ago

My brief 2¢, and also my own way of doing hard things: you're allowed to complain. I've been in strength training for 15+ years, and as fellow weightlifters know it never ever get easier (if it does, you're doing it wrong). Sometimes I really don't feel like it, even after all these years, and I complain about it. I complain all the way to the gym, complain through every set of heavy squats, huff and puff each set of sumos, complain all the way home, whine up the stairs, and finally complain in, under, and out of the shower.

pnt12 4y ago
What works for me: forcing myself to start a task, with permission to give up at any time. It often extends to my true goal once I start, but still allows me to exit early when I'm in a bad mood without feeling too bad. Going to the gym? 95% of the time I get a decent workout once I gey there. Once I was in a particularly bad mood, so I arrived, warmed up and left. It felt liberating! Going for a walk? It feels nice most of the time once I get in the rhythm. Sometimes it doesn't, so I come back after a few minutes. Reading? I wanna do it more. So the goal is to read at least a single page - often it leads to many more, sometimes it's just that page and that's it. The routine + acceptance of sometimes giving up really takes a lot of stress away from me!
tomjen3 4y ago
Wouldn't it be more productive to focus on how awesome your workout was? Especially if you have been doing it for years you probably do sets with weights that the average person could not do as a 1-rep max.
- artificialLimbs 4y ago
  Replacing a mindset of complaint with gratitude will bring about an entirely different world view and free up energy that is otherwise burned up in the 'complaining circuitry'. It can be difficult but is certainly worth the effort. You will absolutely become more productive.
  - sfink 4y ago

Madmallard 4y ago

I don't really think there's any shortcuts one can do to adopt self-discipline. I think it is born out of serious changes in ones life if it wasn't already taught and adopted at a younger age.

haswell 4y ago
I think you're correct in the sense that one does need to adopt changes, but I'd offer a slightly alternate framing of the process of change itself. I've spent quite a bit of time struggling to implement serious changes, because that's how I thought about them: serious changes. When framed this way, it sounds difficult. If you happen to be depressed, it sounds impossible. The good news is that there are approaches that can help bring about serious change without requiring an outflow of willpower - willpower you don't have because you don't have the self-discipline. Starting with small core habit changes makes all of this more possible. At some point, I was able to convince myself that if I'm willing to spend <n> hours on distraction each day, I can commit to 10 minutes of mindfulness each morning. That 10 minute commitment became a snowball of positive change. The end result was a lot of change, yes, but it does not require a herculean effort or some impossible transformation. It's more like laying bricks. Each brick is manageable. The resulting wall is much greater than the sum of the individual bricks. I wouldn't call this a shortcut, but it was certainly a lot easier than trying to just "fix" everyone through sheer force of will.
- Madmallard 4y ago
  the small changes that form habits don't come out of willpower and thin air that's a myth. the person was already in the mindset for positive change and motivated
  - haswell 4y ago
    One still has to have enough motivation to make small changes, yes. I'm not claiming that there's a magical path that requires no effort at all. The point is that small changes are often achievable in situations where large changes are not. It's a classic case of breaking a large problem into small enough chunks to make it possible to tackle. This is a drastically different undertaking and is far more likely to succeed than any kind of "big bang" approach.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

Genuine question: are ADHD people inherently disabled in developing self-discipline due to their brain wiring? [I mean disabled in the sense of "they need external assistance or must put way more effort", in the same way someone with a muscular disorder might need a cane or put way more effort into walking.]

throwaway743950 4y ago
Yes, they are inherently disabled. Medication can help, but even with strategies, tactics, and therapy, there is still brain chemistry at play. Medication can help, but has its trade-offs and isn't a silver bullet. Self-discipline is also more costly. You can brute-force your way through tasks with ADHD, but it is more taxing on your overall energy. Those with ADHD typically experience impulses often and it's harder for them to ignore. Forcing yourself to ignore them requires extra energy. It's not sustainable to do all the time. It's hard for those without ADHD to truly understand what that's like. In addition to impulsivity, executive dysfunction affecting starting tasks or work is also a big challenge.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  > there is still brain chemistry at play. This is sort of non-descriptive. Every time you are happy, sad, angry, afraid, bored, tired; that's brain chemistry at play. Brains are electrochemical computers.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Read it as "hardware bug that cannot be fully compensated for in microcode".
- nabnob 4y ago
  I don't think this is true about brain chemistry or that ADD is a life-long disability. Just speaking from experience here, I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult in my mid-20s and then started using IFS therapy (parts work) a couple years later for childhood trauma. After two years of IFS therapy my ADD is pretty much non-existent and my executive functioning is better than most people I know. My hunch is that for a lot of people, ADD is a result of growing up in a home that felt unstable so they never gained a basic internal sense of stability that you need for things like task switching or staying focused.

quijoteuniv 4y ago

Looks interesting, the pitfall (as with most frameworks) is ending trying to put yourself out of the swamp by pulling yourself from the hair.

bityard 4y ago

I think military folks sum all of this up as "embrace the suck." :) > A mentor of mine likes to talk about experiential avoidance as a sort of "reverse compass." When we notice the desire to avoid something, it may actually be telling us what we need to move toward. I rarely get life-changing advice from a podcast, but something I heard one time really stuck with me. This super-successful guy was talking about all the businesses he owned or something and the host asked him what his morning routine looked like. Paraphrasing, his answer was: "After I've gone through my normal morning activities, I sit down and make a list of the things I need to do that day. I always look through the list and find the thing I want to do least, and I do that one first. Because I have found the things I don't want to do are almost always the most important."

simonswords82 4y ago
My chairman calls it "eating the pain"
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Similarly, "eat the frog". https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog
sam1r 4y ago
A military friend once told me something similar! “What’s going to suck less, later? Handling it now… or later?”
montenegrohugo 4y ago
Sounds like Naval Ravikant - it's a method that has struck a chord with me too.
wruza 4y ago
It’s similar to how therapists address procrastination. You split your task into 5-7 substeps, find two that suck most and just do them first. Often turns out that the whole deal was blocked by something that didn’t even suck that much.

Buttons840 4y ago

This got me thinking about side-projects, things I consider my life's work, but yet I make little progress on. It feels like my programming job clutters my mind with concerns about work. Then, when I try to program for myself, on my side-projects, I find everything is already cluttered with worries about work, and I end up making little progress. Or, it may simply be that work makes me tired, and when I'm tired I don't want to work on side-projects? Has anyone moved away from programming as a job and found it helps them focus on their side-projects better? I can (1) find a different type of day job (non-programming), and/or (2) work fewer hours at my day job, and/or (3) find a day job that I personally find meaningful. Of these, which is most important and realistic?

captainbland 4y ago
Sorry I can't help but I can also confirm that work is an energy parasite. But hey my landlord won't pay themselves.
Camisa 4y ago
Try working on your personal projects in the morning or just don't work so close to exhaustion on your day job. Working on hard problems with high intensity could lead you to burn out and that would be terrible for your employee and your own health.
enos_feedler 4y ago
As someone who has moved in and out of full time SWE employment to work on side projects and explore new things, I can say this does not work for me. After doing this several times it is very clear that my day job was not the thing that prevented me from making progress on a side project. It was everything described in this post.

cracrecry 4y ago

I do very hard things and while I do most of the things the author does at some degree(embracing the suck), in my experience it is not the best personal strategy for dealing with this. For me the secret is like the famous Article says: "Attention is all you need". I distract my attention on how much "boring", or "painful" or "humiliating" some work that I believe is important is. I just do the work until the work is finished, but I should not feel bored, pain or humiliated while doing it. If you feel it,It depends on the difficulty of your job, if the difficulty is not that much you can deal with it without problems but if it is hard you will eventually collapse, break down and burn out. I use instrumental music for that and also habits. I also reward myself for the good work done.

charlieflowers 4y ago
> For me the secret is like the famous Article says: "Attention is all you need". I distract my attention on how much "boring", or "painful" or "humiliating" some work that I believe is important is. I don't follow ... can you elaborate a bit? Are you saying that, when you feel the work is "boring", for example, you somehow distract your attention from how boring it is? And if so, how?

ge96 4y ago

When I got my first w2 web dev job I had to ride a bike 3 hrs everyday, not as a cyclist either, had a pos bike. I did it because I had to. I still have hard things to overcome.

jerrygoyal 4y ago

> In my coaching practice in the present, I try to cultivate these qualities in how I show up with a client. When I notice my mind getting overly analytical or wanting to say something clever, I try to come back to the intention to be loving and playful. I don't agree with this mindset. being "loving and playful" doesn't solve client's problems.

mklepaczewski 4y ago

If any method depends on me initiating some action, it won't work for me. My brain will not only say "No", but it'll also often just shut up, not give any feedback and proceed to procrastinate. For me, procrastination has some similarities to addiction. If I'm on a streak, I can maintain it. If I fail once, it's really hard to get back to it. I may be productive for a week, but sooner or later, something is going to happen that will allow me to procrastinate. When this happens, I'm like an addict, I'm not satisfied with a small dosage, and all limits are off. I know I should be working instead of watching Youtube. I don't want to do it, and I know I will regret it. All this happens while I'm typing "youtube.com" into my browser's address bar. Various methods work on various people. Experiment and try different methods. Don't confuse it with trying multiple implementations of one method - if you tried two to-do list apps and it didn't work for you, skip the to-do lists and move to something else. My method is body doubling, but YMMV. Once you find a method that works for you, revisit previous productivity methods - they may supplement your productivity

Scarlxd 4y ago
I can relate to that.

hoseja 4y ago

Yeah sorry, couldn't get through the sub-header. What an awful sequence of words.

phemartin 3y ago

Read with me: https://youtu.be/3tJjHCzy8Sg https://youtu.be/3tJjHCzy8Sg

deleted 3y ago
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