16 ms·

A receipt printer cured my procrastination

• tines 1y ago
  This is a topic that's really interesting to me, and I've thought a lot about it. The approach that this guy is taking to break out of the addicting loop of gaming/scrolling/whatever is to try to take the principles that make those things appealing and port them to the things that we know we should be doing. Video games have these short feedback loops and quick rewards, so his idea is to make real life more like a video game, in some small way. I was surprised to see that even this website has little achievements in the bottom right corner, when you scroll or see a section for the first time you'll get a little popup congratulating you. There's nothing evil or wrong about this on the surface, of course. But I wonder if it's not making the situation worse by ingraining a need for quick feedback and frequent external affirmation into wider and wider areas of our lives. In one of my favorite books of all time, Amusing ourselves to Death, Neil Postman talks about the "entertainmentification" of education. The book makes the brilliant and alarming insight that over the centuries, all of humanity's efforts have gone into dealing with the problem of lacking information (and, I would add, entertainment). But now we have the opposite problem: we are so flooded with information, and entertainment, we don't know how to handle it, and society is totally unprepared. If memory serves, Postman warns that we are becoming a people who can't do anything that isn't entertaining. And this was published in 1985, long before Tiktok and its ilk. Another approach, which admittedly does require some mental strength, is to allow oneself to get bored. Boredom is the mother of invention. I have a theory that our brain has a preferred level of stimulation; if external stimulation is high, internal stimulation will diminish to achieve the desired total; and if external stimulation is low, internal stimulation will increase. The most productive and satisfying times I've ever had in my life have been when I cut myself off from cheap entertainment. When I do that, suddenly I enjoy the hard things again. I have another theory, that great things are accomplished by people with nothing else to do. If we allow ourselves to swim in an environment of endless entertainment, we're effectively kneecapping our ability to do great things. --- Also, isn't handling a lot of receipt paper bad for you or something?
  • mavilia 1y ago
    > Also, isn't handling a lot of receipt paper bad for you or something? Yes if you are worried about microplastics. Dr. Rhonda Patrick has an episode where she talks about receipts specifically (at the 1hr 2m mark) [0]. To paraphrase: thermal paper receipts are loaded with BPA which gets absorbed through your skin. The chemicals are worse too since the plastics for receipts aren't scrutinized like they would be for a food storage item. They use BPA is used as a color developer in thermal printing. It gets way worse if you've used hand sanitizer, lotion, or sunscreen recently since those increase skin permeability. Studies show dramatically higher absorption rates when your skin barrier is compromised. Although I can't find a link for that right now. Definitely something to think about if you're a cashier or work somewhere handling receipts all day. I've started just declining receipts unless I actually need them for returns/expense reports. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw
  • __turbobrew__ 1y ago
    I have similar ideas from my own experience. I believe that humans have a “set point” for dopamine hits, if you are constantly receiving quick cheap dopamine hits your set point goes higher and you are constantly craving more. Similarly, if you back off the hits it will initially become uncomfortable but your set point will lower and you will not have those cravings. This may be controversial, but I believe a part of the prevalence of ADHD in younger people is that their set point is unnaturally high from childhood as they never learned how to be bored. This is my mental model as I personally have observed my set point change throughout my life. I think it makes sense logically as well as these small dopamine hits can become addictive like anything else, just to a lesser extent than something like heroin.
    • kaashif 1y ago
      I was never bored as a kid because I was almost always reading books. I don't think it has had negative effects on me. Books are not particularly optimized for addiction or dopamine, but social media is. Very intentionally and expertly so.
    • dghlsakjg 1y ago
• laurieherault 1y ago
  Author here. It’s my first article. I’m a bit nervous but excited to get your feedback. If you deal with procrastination too, I hope this method helps you like it helped me.
  • lipowitz 1y ago
    It's a very interesting solution. I've been thinking more about filling my online time sheet system in advance but I suspect its too impractical to stick to times or keep readjusting with interruptions, so maybe I will try post-its. I notice a bit of a link in behaviors between people I know who have ADHD and/or OCD. I'm not really sure what someone who "gives-in" to OCD impulses would feel as side effects, etc.. But I'm kind of curious if you see a downside to having followed loops for their reinforcing effects over days of work, etc?
    • laurieherault 1y ago
      Thanks for your feedback! Yes, the system needs to have as little friction as possible, otherwise it becomes very difficult to maintain. That’s why the ticket printer is interesting. I don’t really suffer from OCD so it’s hard to say, but it’s a very interesting question. I hope someone will be able to answer it someday.
  • ayhanfuat 1y ago
    I loved it. I think it perfectly captures the itch that causes procrastination: you had a working solution but it was not good enough for you. You've perfected it but you still have issues with it. You still managed to live with the imperfect version while working on improving it, though. I think that's the part most of us procrastinators fail.
    • laurieherault 1y ago
      Yes, that’s exactly it! If the system doesn’t work 100% or feels like a hassle, we just abandon it. You’ve summed it up perfectly!
  • 1y ago
• pbronez 1y ago
  Pretty cool. It’s interesting to see how the receipt printer evolved from your post-it system. One suggestion- mention the printer earlier in the post. It took so long to get around to it that I started wondering if the link was wrong.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to read and give me feedback! I wrote 12 different versions to try to be shorter, but I was losing way too much information that I thought was important to understand why this method works.
• unstyledcontent 1y ago
  This is a great, simple breakdown of how to improve motivation. I would love to have this at home!
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Try the method using just post-it notes and see if it works for you :)
• whalee 1y ago
  Cool idea! I would note there are some known health hazards in handling thermal-paper receipts(BPA/BPS)[1] with your bare hands if you do so often. I don't know much beyond this, I would look into it. [1] https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-thermal-paper https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-...
  • jw1224 1y ago
    You can buy phenol-free thermal paper, it’s about 20% more expensive where I live but much safer for you, and the quality is just as good.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, very true. It's paper with bisphenol. These papers are now banned in Europe, but not in the USA.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • entrepy123 1y ago
    Yes, safety of thermal paper is the first issue that comes to mind. Secondly, IME thermal print can fade to nothing after 1-10 years. So these are specifically for short-ish-term use. Not for labeling something that is supposed to last a long time.
  • kiliankoe 1y ago
    It's come up every time something related to thermal printing has been mentioned on HN lately, but this is honestly great stuff if you're in Germany: https://www.oekobon.de/ https://www.oekobon.de/ These non-poisonous blue receipts have the added benefit of being able to be marked with a fingernail, which is nifty if you're using them to print your shopping list, crossing things off is very satisfying.
• voidUpdate 1y ago
  I'm going to try and see if this works better for me. The daily printout of "things that need to happen today" is a fun idea, especially if I could keep it by my bed and have it print off when my alarm goes off. Are there any receipt-style printers that can directly print some kind of sticky note? I feel like that would be even more useful since you don't have to keep pins around, though I can see the running cost getting a lot higher
  • uxamanda 1y ago
    Yes, you can get one that prints shipping labels
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    As uxamanda said, you can use shipping label printers. Personally, with receipt-style tickets, I print them and make a small stack. I usually go through them in the same order. But I can also use a small clip.
    • voidUpdate 1y ago
      I would be worried that shipping labels might be a bit too sticky haha. I'll shop around and see what my options are
      • laurieherault 1y ago
        Oh yeah, I don’t think you’ll be able to remove them. If you’re referring to the photo I included in the article, it’s actually just not a good idea. I only stuck the tickets on a vertical surface to get a good photo.
      • TimedToasts 1y ago
        sticking the shipping label to a sticky note might be the quickest solution
  • encom 1y ago
    >directly print some kind of sticky note It must exist. I noticed at McDonalds (in Denmark), that each item on the tray has a printed label attached that peels off easily, almost like a sticky note.
• jw1224 1y ago
  Great first article, and very interesting to see someone else using a receipt printer for bite-sized task management! I have a variety of automations running which print actionable tasks to my receipt printer via a Raspberry Pi. It’s nice having a real-life ticket I can take hold of. One thing to be aware of if you’re handling receipts frequently: make sure to buy phenol-free thermal paper. Phenol is toxic and some types of it are banned in certain countries.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, I think having a tangible task is really important! Since I’m in Europe, we don’t really have paper with bisphenol anymore, but that’s not the case everywhere.
    • hgomersall 1y ago
      AFAICT, BPS is still widely used in Europe.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    • cocothem 1y ago
      What about the ink? What's the keyword to search for nom toxic printer ink/cartridge
      • rozab 1y ago
        Receipt printers don't use ink, instead they use thermal paper which darkens when heated. You can test this by scratching it with your nail, the heat is enough to leave a mark
        • gaudystead 1y ago
          I agree with you on the first part, but are you sure that the heat from the fingernail is what's leaving that mark? I can take a cold object and run it on the receipt paper to get the same effect, so I think that's a different mechanism at play but I'm open to being proven wrong.
• orphea 1y ago
  I found this tool helpful with breaking things down to as small steps as you need: https://goblin.tools/ https://goblin.tools/
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, I know that tool, but the user experience really isn’t great. That’s why I made my own. But thanks for the suggestion :)
    • orphea 1y ago
      Oh, I should have read your article further enough!
      • laurieherault 1y ago
        Oh, did you procrastinate finishing the article? :)
        • orphea 1y ago
          Yeah, I bookmarked it to read it later! jk :P Seriously though, I'm going to try your idea with the receipt printer (I didn't need an excuse to buy it, no-no, that's not it, haha) and I'll see if it can help me. Sadly, even games cannot interest me for long enough; the longest I could play a game, recently, is a week, then I abandon it.
• graboid 1y ago
  I like it! For me, I can confirm that the smaller the task, the less likely it is for me to procrastinate on it. I also didn't know that receipt printers don't need ink, that's cool. On a similar note: me and my partner recently also started using an app that divides up the household chores into small tasks and schedules them for us (e.g. "today you have to vacuum the living room"). For us, this prevents conflicts and also frees the mind of having to keep track of those things.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thanks for your comment! I have the same question as hyperific — which app are you using?
    • graboid 1y ago
      https://sweepy.com/ https://sweepy.com/ There is also one that is called "tody" that we didn't try out. Both require a small subscription fee though, which I really dislike. I wish I had found a nice open source alternative. Besides the subscription fee (which was like 18€/year for us both), I have no complaints yet about the app.
      • laurieherault 1y ago
        Thanks for your answer!
  • hyperific 1y ago
    What app are you using?
    • graboid 1y ago
      See my answer on the sibling comment.
• Waterluvian 1y ago
  This is immediately one of my favourite articles of all-time. It's well-written, visually appealing, and the subject matter is absolutely down my alley. I might actually just buy one and try this out. I absolutely love how you show and tell, by having an article with an EXP system. But when do I get skill unlocks? I'm really hoping to be able to enjoy your next article with upgrades.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thank you for your comment, it really means a lot to me! I put so much time (and heart) into making it that a comment like yours is the best reward I could ask for. Haha, I’m planning to make a real mini-game for an upcoming article!
• pryelluw 1y ago
  Congrats. Finding your flow is quite the journey for some people. Glad it worked out for you. My flow is the right kind of coffee. It energizes and allocates. The lavazza espresso 100% arabica is the current that works. Try it out!
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I reply to your comment with coffee in hand :)
  • orphea 1y ago
    Oh, thank you for the reminder, a kind stranger! I should go and treat myself with some coffee.
• igtztorrero 1y ago
  I need it NOW for me and for me company
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I'm working on it! :)
• fidotron 1y ago
  It's increasingly strange how psychologically different something is when it's physically in front of you vs a representation of that exact same thing on a particular sort of display, especially given apparently some representations of activities on the display are addictive, while others become repulsive. As I mentioned yesterday I'm hearing more from people that attempt to avoid screens as much as possible, and this seems like yet another manifestation of that tendency. If our UIs were more skeumorphic would that help with all this and remove the need for the physical printer?
  • tomrod 1y ago
    I doubt it. Skeuomorphs make me think of ipods, Shadowrun and Papers Please.
  • PaulHoule 1y ago
    It's not the skeumorphism but this: I might have 5 virtual desktops and 3 different web browsers and each of those has 4 windows open and each window has 20 tabs. Never mind the terminal windows which themselves participate. Conventional thinking is that if you can't find things you need to download and install some new program, maybe one that splits your tabs into "subtabs" or maybe one that organizes your virtual desktops into "virtual superdesktops", etc. Trouble is now you have another thing to find with all your desktops, windows, and tabs! You just can't win that way even though people insist that you can. Paper, however, is privileged because it lives off the desktop. It doesn't disappear when you switch tabs, it doesn't disappear when you switch windows, it doesn't disappear when you switch virtual desktops. You can tape it here or there and it stays there even through reboots.
    • fidotron 1y ago
      Do not Mac sticky notes do all that, except they don't live in the physical domain? Isn't it just reflective of the fact that you are more disciplined about tidying up your physical world than the virtual one? (And this might be the basis for why the hack works).
      • 1y ago
• tajd 1y ago
  I love this! definitely inspired, I'm quite good at using a journal but there's a lot I lose track of
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, same here. I also struggle to stay consistent with a journal.
    • tajd 1y ago
      love the receipt printer idea I'm looking into it now
• netaustin 1y ago
  Having not thought about it at this level, the feedback loop explains why my Bullet Journal works well for me. I can write down any task and break it down to any level of detail without worrying about software, which is nice, and I get a nice little reward when I cross off a bullet. I have used post-its in this way in the past and found that it's more effective than the bullet journal if I need a real kick in the pants. Also I move around a lot between home, office, and work trips. While post-its don't travel well, the phone apps just don't work for me. When I need to coax my kids (7 and 10) into completing a tedious list of chores, like cleaning their room and playroom, practicing their instruments, and doing their homework, I also reach for the post-its. They each get their own color and we talk through the best way to break things down, arrange them in a backlog on the wall, set a timer, and agree to meet when the timer goes off to review our progress.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I also had good results with bullet journaling, but I had consistency issues. The advantage of the ticket printer is that it is much quicker to print. But I also have the advantage of working from home, so I do not need two separate systems. Thank you for your very interesting message!
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• lionpixel 1y ago
  This idea really resonates. Like others have mentioned, there's a unique power to a physical artifact that a digital to-do list just can't replicate. I went down this exact rabbit hole a while back, trying to bridge the gap between my digital planning and physical, actionable "tickets." The setup part can be a bit of a pain, especially getting a printer reliably online and talking to it from different apps and services. This is the exact problem I built Printercow¹ to solve (author here!). It's a small service that lets you turn any thermal printer into a networked API endpoint with a one-line install command on a Raspberry Pi. The idea is to handle all the backend plumbing so you can focus on the fun part—triggering prints from Zapier, a script, or your own app to create a system just like the author's. Happy to answer any questions about the setup! (¹) https://printercow.com https://printercow.com
  • swah 1y ago
    See also https://github.com/NaitLee/Cat-Printer https://github.com/NaitLee/Cat-Printer
  • fivestones 1y ago
    This looks great! But it says it’s FOSS and that I can host it myself, but the link to GitHub in the docs doesn’t show any repos. Is it somewhere else?
    • akouri 1y ago
      +1 - anybody happen to have a fork?
• n3storm 1y ago
  Does anybody else feel like he has invented pomodoros and todo.txt
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am the author, and thank you for your comment! What I am talking about is really very different from the Pomodoro method. That method uses 25-minute sessions, while I am talking about micro-tasks of 2 to 5 minutes printed on receipt tickets. As for todo.txt, I mentioned in the article that this kind of tool with a hierarchy does not work for me at all, given the massive number of tasks I have. And I proposed a more interesting and truly innovative solution in response to that :)
    • netsharc 1y ago
      Hi Laurie, reading your article, I'm wondering to myself, maybe I should copy this, and add a Duolingo aspect to it, the first feature I can think of is a button (near the printer, or a virtual one on the app) that is basically "Give me a random task". Duolingo also has lessons (where the learner has to complete several questions), and maybe a "lesson" can be a big task, that encompasses its subtasks.
    • karmakaze 1y ago
      I accidentally found an effective speedup tracking tasks to be done. Normally we make Github issues and Pull-requests to fix them with long descriptions in both. Instead made a single issue with a table and each row having an emoji, item title, and when complete link to the fix. As new items were identified I added a row with emoji for 'not started'. Had emoji's were 'under construction', 'already done above', 'not needed', etc. This snowballed with me completing one item per day over 30 days until it was all done. I'm called it EDD Emoji-Driven-Development.
    • n3storm 1y ago
      Taskwarrior maybe? In Sleek (todo.txt for linux) I can have multiple txt with multiple context inside. On the other hand, I don't think pomodoros are strictly 25 minute sessions. I can setup any structure in my pomodoro app of choice Solanum and chain sessions.
• melvinmelih 1y ago
  > Modern games provide much stronger feedback. Now, when you hit an enemy, you might see: > the crosshair briefly changes to confirm the hit, damage numbers pop up above the enemy, sound effects, enemy death animations, a progress bar filling up, a new skill unlocked, random reward and more... I wonder if we can gamify todo apps in the same way, most are too boring and too corporate. It should implement all gaming bells and whistles for ensuring you complete your tasks.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    It is coming along more and more. But I think the core is being able to handle a lot more tasks, and therefore being able to easily break them down into smaller ones. That is really the heart of the game loop. I am working on an app!
  • ramses0 1y ago
    Habitica. "Destructomatic" paper tracker: https://davidseah.com/2005/11/task-progress-destruct-o-matic-edition/ https://davidseah.com/2005/11/task-progress-destruct-o-matic...
• jameshart 1y ago
  I feel like you could increase the visceral satisfaction of task completion by getting one of those old desk spikes to spear each task receipt onto when you’re done with it.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, I thought about it, but I was afraid I might hurt myself stupidly one day :p
    • jameshart 1y ago
      They are terrifying.
    • komali2 1y ago
      I can practically guarantee you this'll never happen. They look really scary but never in my life have I heard of an injury on one of those things, and people tend to make all sorts of fantastical injuries in the restaurant industry. It just doesn't happen.
• jvanderbot 1y ago
  > Why can I focus for hours on a game but procrastinate when writing an email? OK I got a bit triggered by this sentence. Not at TFA, but sharing my own experience: Games are fun. And I don't mean Type 1 vs Type 2 fun and the email is somehow type 2 fun. I mean that the stimulation / "hit" from a game is just higher than 90-99%% of work tasks (writing a new CLI or optimizer excluded!!). We pile on much stimulation to the work to get it to hit harder: Working by others (social/peer), snacks (biological rewards), free caffeine, money (sometimes lots), etc. And physical trinkets. We have studied this to death in other parts of our own biology, like food. Unhealthy food/drink is fun. It's a pleasurable reward sometimes, but if it forms the basis for your diet you are going to have a lot of trouble enjoying healthy stuff. You can't outrun a bad diet. You can't add a kale salad after a bowl of ice cream and expect your insulin levels to go down. You have to treat the underlying problem: A hugely stimulating / rewarding thing is displacing the healthy stuff. Almost every piece of sane health advice after 1900 has focused on removing unhealthy factors first. Work/hobby is no different. When I'm obsessed with factorio (it happened a lot once or twice), I find it harder to focus on work. When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong technical term, but it nails the practical effects well. I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. We all have our vices.
  • mfro 1y ago
    This is the point I think many people fail to understand about consumption. Yes, it is usually perfectly sustainable to spend most of your free time scrolling tiktok or playing high-reward video games, yes you can live without regular exercise or a strict diet, but there are hard to quantify effects on an entire range of other things in your life. I think it is very important for the modern person to pay close attention to their mental state with and without the things they turn to the most, especially if experiencing problems with focus or motivation.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • al_borland 1y ago
    > I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. This is one of my big objections do 2FA. My work has been pushing it hard, and from a security perspective, I get it. However, it’s all via an Authenticator app on the phone. We can no longer set down our phones and simply work. To start working, and periodically throughout the day, we are now forced to pickup our phones to authenticate. This invites the chance to see other notifications, check and app quickly, or more generally, break flow as we have to switch to another device and back again. All of this seems like a suboptimal solution.
• mstridder1 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    New fear unlocked: vegan ADHDs
• HelloNurse 1y ago
  > The rule is simple: the more you procrastinate on a task, the more you should break it down into micro-tasks, even ones that take just 2 to 5 minutes in extreme cases. This breakup alone could allow someone who can procrastinate on something big but doesn't like to be burdened by many tasks the shortcut, without further gamification, of performing some micro-tasks either to reduce the queue or to "procrastinate" on the rest.
• PaulHoule 1y ago
  I had a time when my condition was acting up and I was struggling to deal with JIRA and got the idea of making paper tickets with a receipt printer. I bought a few receipt printers on Ebay and learned how to use them but never really wound up coupling them to JIRA because handwritten tickets were good enough and my condition got better. Wound up printing a lot of Pokémon characters do, as reference art for Pokémon is intended for low-quality small screens and does great on thermal printers. You can get a range of different thermal printer types, one discovery I made was that if you went looking for thermal printers in North America and looked for a width in millimeters you'd get cheap Chinese printers that were often adequate, if you looked for a width in inches you'd get name brand printers that were more expensive. Most thermal printers these days connect to USB but you can get one that connects to Ethernet which I think is ideal if you want something to be controlled by a server.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    That gives me an idea. We could have some kind of random character that comes out with each task from the printer, with different rarity levels. It is an idea that might hook some people and help them stay consistent. Yes, I have a printer with both RJ45 and USB. I spent a bit more to get that, so I can stay flexible depending on what I want to do with it.
    • kortex 1y ago
      "I got a shiny task!" Absolutely brilliant. It's so stupid (in that it's kind of silly how easy it is to game our mammal brain) but I can absolutely see this giving an extra kick of motivation. Have you heard of the INCUP model for ADHD? Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion. The more factors an activity has, the more drive the ADHD mind has. Rarity system adds novelty and a bit of passion. Also if you have looked into operant conditioning at all, you know that variable interval reward schedules are the strongest behavior-forming systems (hence, slot machines and every game that act like them).
      • laurieherault 1y ago
• dukoid 1y ago
  One "trick" that helped me some times: If you don't make progress with a task, count breaking it down into subtasks as an accomplishment
  • Viliam1234 1y ago
    In computer systems, this could be added by default as the first subtask when you create a task: "either do the entire thing, or split it into smaller parts".
• regularfry 1y ago
  > It's harder to procrastinate on something physically in front of you. Oh you sweet summer child.
• dackle 1y ago
  This reminds me somewhat of a system by David MacIver: https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/using-a-list-to-manage-executive https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/using-a-list-to-manage-exec... He builds his list from scratch every morning. The list is flat, so as you go about your day and subtasks occur to you, they are added to the list without explicit links to the main task. I thought it might be risky to start with a blank list, because something important might be forgotten. But it turns out that a blank list is a great filter for what is truly important and motivating. If it is important, you will remember it at some point during the day. This system is also excellent for shorter periods of time. If I come home and want to get started on dinner, want to tidy up a bit and have a few other demands on my attention, I put my laptop in a central location, open up Notepad, and just start typing in everything I see around me that I need to do. Usually I start with maybe 5 items, but as I start doing things I quickly add tasks to the list, and it might grow to 15 or 20 items. But then at some point the list starts to shrink again as these small, granular tasks are completed. It is strangely satisfying to see the list initially grow and then shrink to nothing. It also leaves me with a feeling of having thoroughly attended to everything that was bothering me when I first walked in the door.
  • kamaal 1y ago
    It would do people a whole lot of good, if they start looking at a great day as executing well tested 'checklist' rather than a 'todo list' built from scratch every day. No wonder some of the most productive people like Knuth, or people like presidents many times have fixed schedules, clothes they wear, food they eat etc etc. If something is working, do it more often, you want to do more of what works, at some point things that don't work wont be on your check list.
    • turtlebits 1y ago
      You can't generalize. Everyone has things that work for them. Taking a few minutes to recreate that todo list for the day from a blank slate helps my brain get ready for the day and makes me more productive. (akin to stretching before exercise). I don't need a checklist for eating, cleaning, etc, but maybe some do.
• OutOfHere 1y ago
  That BPA/analog ink is going to do your health no good. Estrogen-mimickers are not exactly your friend.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I do not use tickets with bisphenol (it is banned in Europe).
  • voidUpdate 1y ago
    Will estrogen-mimickers help with my MtF transition?
    • OutOfHere 1y ago
      Not a good idea. Use real estrogenic agents. Mimickers don't even function like estrogen. Mimickers block function.
• hliyan 1y ago
  Not bad. I have a stack of unused index cards. I just tried writing down some recurring household chores, one per card, with some instructions below the title. I'm now thinking of hanging two boxes -- todo, and done -- in the hallway, so that I can just pick up a task, complete it and then move the card from "todo" to "done". I suspect the wife will have no trouble moving the full stack from "done" to "todo" at the end of each week.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Ah, the idea of the two boxes is super interesting! Your wife will have the easiest and most satisfying task :p
• uxamanda 1y ago
  Appreciate the quest indicator on the article :-)
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Haha thanks!
  • gavmor 1y ago
    Ah! Thanks for pointing it out.
• noworriesnate 1y ago
  Oh this sounds amazing! This reminds me of a todo list app some indie dev has been running for years which has a ton of configuration parameters based on various psychological models for productivity. There were options for gamification, Getting Things Done, task breakdown. It was kind of expensive. Does anybody remember the name of this software? I’ve been trying to remember for a while.
  • rolisz 1y ago
    Amazing Marvin maybe? https://amazingmarvin.com/ https://amazingmarvin.com/
    • noworriesnate 1y ago
      I think this is it, thank you!!
• firesteelrain 1y ago
  I am not a mental health professional. But author may be suffering from mild depression and burnout. Vacation from electronics, online life and doing some of their hobbies would help a lot
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I appreciate you caring :)
• orangebread 1y ago
  I truly appreciate how well thought out this post is. However, it's one of those things where if you didn't have motivation in the first place, it's not going to work. I've tried atomic habits. I've tried different ideas from social media of grouping rooms and things into piles to sort. Sure, I'll get it done... eventually. But no amount of gamification will motivate me to put this much effort into habitual cleaning. I hope the author's strategy helps someone, but it assumes you have the motivation but not the methodology.
  • Void_ 1y ago
    What helps me is to set up "morning routine" with tasks such as: - get up with alarm - make the bed - shave - take vitamins - read 5 pages Checking off 10 small tasks right in the morning sets me for a productive mood.
  • dgb23 1y ago
    If you can, actively examine your thoughts/emotions and dissect them from a distance so to speak, when you feel stuck and have trouble to reach for motivation. There's a power in simply accepting that it's just a feeling, whether you're tired, motivated, hungry... The feeling that you want instead, is a sort of disassociation. The stronger the feeling, the harder it will be. And then you just do the thing you need to do despite lacking motivation or being tired or whatever. There's something liberating about it that is a bit difficult to put into words. Like "fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway". Sounds a bit stupid, but it's not entirely wrong. However it's not a magic trick, but rather a kind of thought muscle you can try to train so to speak. It works for me increasingly, despite being quite terrible at this kind of thing. Or rather two muscles: One is creating a distance/objectivity to your feeling or state of mind, the other is to start the action. Sometimes the second part is almost automatic once you do the first part well from my experience.
    • amendegree 1y ago
      Yup, and conversely, we’ve all trained the opposite “muscle” that basically says “I don’t wanna so I won’t”. Being aware of your feelings and emotions is the first step to being in control. Most people fail to adequately understand themselves and thus fail to ever overcome their lizard brain behaviors.
• m3kw9 1y ago
  I think most competent games innately flashes you your progress constantly(levels, maps, story progress, upgrades) and also how easy you can start making progress after you started playing. This system is exactly doing that with the see through jar of finished micro sub tasks. In theory you can create your own “easy progress” flasher system that is tailored to you and would achieve this. Get on it lol
• 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
  That’s really clever. I have never thought of a thermal printer before to spam out tasks.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thank you :)
• m3kw9 1y ago
  For creative tasks this won’t work, the issue is with the many branching direction and dependencies each new idea creates that affects the system. I’m having great difficulty with this
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am a developer and I actually struggle with this myself. That is why I use the app I showed in the video in the article. When I get stuck on a task, I break it down into smaller tasks. But at first, I only write basic logical steps. I do not try to plan my whole day in advance because that usually leads to failure. And if something is really hard to plan ahead, like doing research, I can create 5 minute tickets.
    • m3kw9 1y ago
      Yeah I do the time “ticket” concept for this, I create a timer. But I do have hard time jumping to create these tasks. To me I sometimes see past these patches for my problem, which is a pain threshold that I need to resist running away from when facing a complicated problem, and why is there pain at all? It all becomes a math equation where you have a better thing to do vs the one you are doing and how to rework your mind to calculate it differently
• souvlakee 1y ago
  > A simple solution is breaking tasks into smaller parts. Let's take an example everyone can relate to: cleaning the house. Cleaning the house is fundamentally boring. It doesn't matter how many parts you split it into lexically — it's just inherently boring.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Cleaning the entire house is first and foremost a gigantic task that many people tend to procrastinate. Cleaning your desk, on the other hand, is quick to do and much less likely to be put off.
  • SoftTalker 1y ago
    I try to frame it as meditative. I can think about other stuff while I wash dishes. It can be a nice break from work, while actually being less boring than a normal break because you still have something to do.
  • warmjets222 1y ago
    I made a strict rule years ago that I only listen to my favourite podcast while cleaning. This works for me surprisingly well.
• gaws 1y ago
  Great article, Laurie. Can you provide more technical details on the software you used to send tasks to print?
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thank you :) It is a piece of software I developed myself using Tauri. The only major difficulty is that you need to send a specific format to these printers. But there are plenty of libraries that make it fairly easy to do.
• losthobbies 1y ago
  Great read. I'm sure I have some undiagnosed ADHD and I suffer from getting stuck into to work or executive dysfunction...the tactile effect of pulling the receipt paper down and chucking it in the bin must feel very satisfying. Kinda like those chefs working the plating section. Order up!
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    That is exactly the case! It gives me the feeling that my "digital" work becomes "real".
• ofjcihen 1y ago
  Great article and great system. A little out of scope since the article wasn’t about the finer points of ADHD but I’ve always wondered if we’re being disingenuously hard on ourselves by labeling it a disorder. So many people show the symptoms and they’ve only gotten worse as the world has become more complicated that it seems less like a problem with the individual and more like an natural effect of putting what are essentially still caveman brains in a world of flashing lights, vibrating phones and notification noises.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Your remark is very interesting. I was recently thinking that ADHD is kind of like an allergy to the modern world.
    • dogman144 1y ago
      Agree with both. I’m undiagnosed and slowly wondering if I have it the more I see exact language matchups to what feels to be a very hard to describe experience. Puts me in a tricky spot as I experience similar descriptions of the problems, and I deeply resonated with deliberately seeking out stress as a fix, which I realized worked over time. I have specifically done this. That said, that’s an unhealthy approach via playing with fire (missed deadliness, etc) and the over time negative impacts of stress. That said, I am firmly in the camp that some or a lot of modern ADHD is caveperson brain finally DDoS’ing itself via too much info throughput. We hit a max ingest limit sometime in 2013, and it never got better. Some folks loose their mind very publicly online, others live and die in tech jobs via if they can manage tabs and attention properly. Not a bad outcome vs worst case, if the latter is my case. So where does that leave me - I go on modern era drugs with what seems to be life-long requirement bc of modern era tech decisions I never agreed to? This seems wrong in 10 different directions. To start if I can barely maintain control over what goes into my mind and attention for reasons I didn’t agree to but must adapt to, at least I can control if I put new problems, fixing other problems, into my body. So… needless to say receipts sound like a cool method to test. At least it was nice to see others discuss the exact buzzwords I think to myself - I can pay attention there, but god f’ing dang it why can’t I do it over here?
• annie_muss 1y ago
  My worry about any new system, todolist, app etc is that when the initial busy of energy wears off I'll be back to square one. The novelty and energy that I have at the start is impossible to maintain, but I need novelty to engage with tasks
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I wrote this article precisely because, for once, I found a system that actually sticks. I have been using it every day for six months, whereas other systems would last a week at most.
• ddmf 1y ago
  Literal tickets.
• trainyperson 1y ago
  I like how the author mentioned typing speed tests as a “warm up” to the day. I frequently find myself going to do a typing speed test when I’m at my desk but unable to work, and have often wondered why I do that and if anyone else does that.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am glad to see that I am not the only one doing this :)
    • footy 1y ago
      I do this too. I can tell from my MonkeyType graph which work periods I felt more demoralized or distracted during.
      • laurieherault 1y ago
        I had never thought of that, but you are right, it is a solid source of information.
      • kaashif 1y ago
        I sometimes procrastinate by firing up a jupyter notebook and making some visualizations of my MonkeyType data.
• datameta 1y ago
  I've found that having tasks last 10 minutes is an activation energy economizer (with option to extend 2x10 or 3x10 if in flow). It also simplifies the overhead of deciding how long something should take. I think the key takeaway from it all is that one would benefit most from iterating on their system of choice, keeping what works and carrying it forward, instead of doing impassioned rip-ups or switching to entirely new systems frequently
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I totally agree with you!
• ajuc 1y ago
  I like this simple model. There's 2 variables: - pleasure - achievements Both reset daily. Both can be changed by each activity. Well-being is calulated sth like this: def wellBeing(pleasureNow, pleasureSoFar, achievements): return pleasureNow/(pleasureSoFar+pleasureNow) + len(achievements) It's weird, but it's how it works. If you did 100 small things it feels like you achieved much more than if you did one big thing. And pleasure experienced is scaled by the pleasure experienced that day so far. Which means if you do 3 things that provided 1, 10, 100 pleasure - you'll experience ~2.8 pleasure, but if you do the same things in reversed order 100, 10, 1 - you'll experience ~1.09. So ordering the pleasures and splitting the achievements matters A LOT for your well-being.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I completely agree with that perspective
• zoom_enh4nce 1y ago
  I've implemented something similar (but digital-only) which has been working for me lately. I have a script running continuously that monitors my Obsidian files for new due tasks, and whenever it detects one due today, it sends it to my notifications server. Now I have a notification for each thing I need to do today, which I keep up on my device(s) until I've completed the task, and then I clear it. I am a compulsive notification-clearer so this mostly works for me. But I also have a receipt printer and have thought about doing something like this before, so I appreciated the ideas in the article! Maybe I'll rip up some scrap paper and try it that way (or just send the tasks to my printer instead of my notifications server, haha).
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am glad I was able to inspire you. A paper task is even harder to forget than a notification :P
    • zoom_enh4nce 1y ago
      Unless I stuff the note in my pocket and promptly forget it, but my phone/computer is always nearby :) Maybe the notifications are best for things I have to do out in the real world and the paper is better for sitting and doing things in one place.
• jbverschoor 1y ago
  “actional tasks” but the printer is kind of fun. You need a “manager” / planner / architect in order to create those tasks though. Clarity is key
• kazinator 1y ago
  Social media, YouTube and television before them shows us that people don't need feedback in order to stay glued. You can drop the back and just give them a feed.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Every image is feedback. Scrolling Instagram or Facebook gives you constant feedback.
    • kazinator 1y ago
      Feedback is a response to an input. Okay, sure, clicking the remote to turn on a TV and selecting a channel is input. So, by a stretch, we can call the four hour binge a kind of feedback generated by two button clicks. Sometimes people get glued by a screen that they did not turn on; is that still feedback? E.g. kids watching a screen in some waiting room at a children's dentist.
      • laurieherault 1y ago
        I think we can talk about feedback without input, yes. The reality of feedback is actually very broad. If we just look at the world of video games, and consider all the different types that exist, there is a wide variety of feedback, some more or less tied to input. In some cases, like narrative games, the feedback is much less connected to the input than in a fast-paced FPS, for example.
        • kazinator 1y ago
          I think that the consumption of streams is not entirely passive; there is an internal feedback. The stream itself is not part of the feedback loop. E.g. suppose the subject is watching a game show. They get internally involved, within their mind, by trying to guess an answer before the contestant does and then fist pump when they get it. When watching a crime story, they try to guess whodunit. That sort of thing. There can definitely be a sense of working toward a reward.
• chazeon 1y ago
  If it is just chores, gamifying it with a receipt printer would be just fine. But these are just such minor stuff compared to the real challenges of life.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    The idea is precisely to use our daily tasks to build momentum for the more difficult ones.
• reverendsteveii 1y ago
  my receipt printer is a whiteboard in the gym. I went from "I do some scattered, random assortment of lifts when I feel like it" to "I have 3 routines I cycle through every day" and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last time. Checking off my daily workout is my pulling a ticket down off the chore kanban. Every once in a while, as I get stronger, I get to "take a number off the board" meaning I've surpassed that amount of weight in my routine (eg: after a few weeks of doing 25 pound lateral shoulder raises I'm able to bump my routine up to 30. if no other exercises use 25 pound dumbbells I can erase the 25 off the board). That's my "dumping out the jar". It's worked for 2 years, I've gone from being at best a dilettante in this space to losing 50 pounds, gaining the ability to bench press my weight and, and this is the important part, I feel good about my body for the first time in my forty years. I think the difference is that it's several gameplay loops at once. The short loop is "do today's workout, get today's dopamine pop", the medium term loop is "let me see if I can work out more days this month than last month" and the long term loop is "let me see if I can get strong enough that 30 pounds is trivial for me". With those multiple, simultaneous loops there's a variety in the (ephemeral, immaterial, entirely made up and internal) reward that stops it from becoming meaningless. I think OP's system has a parallel structure: the two reward loops are completing a ticket and emptying the jar.
  • hk1337 1y ago
    > and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last time. I think there's a huge connection to physically writing it as opposed to typing and printing. I never did anything with the weight lifting logs, I thought I might, but the most I ever did with anything in the past was looking at the progression from the last few days or weeks.
    • reverendsteveii 1y ago
      I really do think that there's something reifying about the physical act of writing it down. I think that because in one of my many stutterstepping starts into the world of weightlifting I tried keeping a log on my phone and it did all the same things that keeping a log on the wall does (arguably more, the whiteboard doesn't track historical data and can't automatically generate charts for me) but it just felt like shouting numbers into the void every day. There was no sense of job-well-done satisfaction when I hit a personal best, there was no little ceremony of removing a number from the board to make room for a new, higher number. There was just a bunch of individual workouts and I either did them or I didn't and no one cared either way, including me.
• bengale 1y ago
  I don't want to be a downer on this because it sounds like a cool system, but it might be worth checking whats in the receipt paper as a lot of it is pretty bad for you: https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-toxic-chemicals-in-80-of-receipt-paper-tested-down-from-93-in-2017/ https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-toxic...
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, the main problem is the paper with bisphenol, which has been banned in Europe.
    • akavel 1y ago
      Even though bisphenol-A is banned in EU, I believe bisphenol-B is still allowed. I suspect - though I don't know how to research whether it's true or false - that everyone just switched to bisphenol-B, which is said to be either similarly, or more toxic than BPA... :( Even assuming that "BPA-free" paper I'd buy is really so, and not just BPA-covered one imported from China and said/labeled to be "BPA-free" by someone somewhere in the pipeline...
      • imtringued 1y ago
        You need to go out of your way to buy phenol-free paper. It's a thing but unfortunately it's a niche rather than the default.
        • jabroni_salad 1y ago
          If the labeling can be trusted it isnt hard to find phenol-free receipt paper on amazon. However, none of them say what their actual 'active ingredient' is and I am curious if these are necessarily known to be better. Most of them describe themselves as 'plastic coated'.
  • tharakam 1y ago
    Yes. A short video I watched mentioned that even touching these thermal papers with normal gloves is unsafe.
• _7acn 1y ago
  THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING THAT COULD WORK. Does anyone have an idea or know of a 100% digital alternative? I work in different locations, so using a printer isn't an option
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am working on my app to break tasks down into smaller tasks (you can see it in the video at the end of the article). I think I will release it in the next few weeks :)
• dclowd9901 1y ago
  One trick I learned a while back to just sort of get my mind right first thing in the morning was to make my bed. I got it from a TV show, The Bridge, I think. It's such a small and seemingly insignificant act, but the routine is comforting and it feels good to have done something that will also bring me comfort when I go to lay down that night. It's nice coming to lay down in a nicely made bed. I'd love to learn more of these sorts of little actions that bring calm and joy to my brain.
  • davio 1y ago
    The "Make Your Bed" speech by US Navy Admiral William McRaven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NudLfyl2cXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NudLfyl2cXc I picked it up from Tim Ferriss, "The goal is visual tidiness, not Four Seasons."
• MMK16 1y ago
  How is this printer system any different than keeping a simple do to list??
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    It makes the task tangible. You will have a much harder time ignoring your tasks if they are physically on your desk. Tearing up the ticket and putting it in a transparent jar adds an extra layer of satisfaction.
• MMK16 1y ago
  How is this printer idea any different than a simple to do list? To break down tasks one can simply indent a list. A to do list gives feedback every time you cross an item of the list. Sticky notes and printers seem like exaggerated form of a todo list.
  • darccio 1y ago
    As far as I understood, the point is the physical feedback from crumbling the paper.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I already replied to part of this in another message, which I am reposting here: It makes the task tangible. You will have a much harder time ignoring your tasks if they are physically on your desk. Tearing up the ticket and putting it in a transparent jar adds an extra layer of satisfaction. You are right, crossing off an item on your to-do list is a form of feedback. But having it on paper and throwing the paper into a transparent jar makes the feedback even stronger. If you look at the first part of my article, modern video games strengthen feedback loops much more than they used to. As for list indentation, it may work well for many people, but not for me. I deal with very large and complex lists, with many levels. If I use one single indented list, I end up with a task list that is too long to be pleasant or practical to use.
• cout 1y ago
  I learned how to gamify work tasks from my mom. She worked as a librarian in the seventies. Tasks like restacking books was not fun, so she turned it into a game. Her coworkers, on the other hand, drew out the boring tasks as long as possible. When it came time to pick someone for advancement, they chose my mom, because she was more productive at the menial tasks. I also use post-it notes, but if I used them for everything, I don't think it would work for me. The reward is in pulling down the note and setting the wall cleaner. But if I were to add notes every day, I have a feeling the effect would be disheartening. Similarly, I love getting the living are clean, but when kids/family make a mess again within hours, I'm less incentivized.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    That is why I use a ticket printer, to make sure I can start fresh every day without having to spend dozens of minutes creating my post-its by hand.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• akavel 1y ago
  There's also a kind of super-cheap Bluetooth "Chinese" thermal receipt printers, also known as "kitty printer" or "cat printer". There's plenty of reverse-engineered software for printing to them in a number of languages; one I use is: https://print.unseen-site.fun/ https://print.unseen-site.fun/ The disadvantage is they don't cut automatically, and their "cutter teeth" are super crappy. But cheap!
  • shayway 1y ago
    I have a version without cutter teeth at all, what I did was take a piece of the cutter thing from an aluminum foil roll and attach it to the printer. Works perfectly. Looks a little menacing though.
• psadri 1y ago
  Back at Polyvore we used real post-it notes on a board to track progress. We had a weekly cadence but the tasks were granular enough to be completed in a day or two. Each week we’d peel off and crumble the completed tasks into a bin. It was a really satisfying experience in a way that digital facsimiles can’t quite match.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Totally agree, the tangible aspect cannot be imitated by anything digital.
• androng 1y ago
  this sticky notes method likely works well when it comes to breaking down tasks into small pieces. I struggle on that sometimes but I think I struggle more when the task is inherently boring like exercise with long (boring) rest periods or the outcome is uncertain, like working on software with no users. In this case I think I would procrastinate on making the sticky notes too
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Let me give you a concrete example. I have one ticket per exercise I need to do. A 20 minute workout session equals about 4 to 6 tickets. It is easier to get started when the task is very small. But I also used to procrastinate a lot with post-its. That is why the ticket printer is the perfect solution for me.
• bradley13 1y ago
  Interesting system. There is also a simpler idea, that works well for some people: at the end of each day, leave something simple and easy undone. Use it as a starting point for your work the next day. Doing that simple task gives you the initial momentum to start work the next day.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Very good tip
• vidarh 1y ago
  > The rule is simple: the more you procrastinate on a task, the more you should break it down into micro-tasks, even ones that take just 2 to 5 minutes in extreme cases. This. When I catch myself procrastinating, it often helps immensely to push myself to at least subdivide a task on my todo list further. Then try to push myself to do one of them, and if I still resist, try to subdivide tasks further. I then move the task to a Done list by pressing a keyboard combo. The only purpose of my Done list is exactly providing feedback the way the article recommends. I never look back over past days "Done" entries. My Done list exists only there so that when I marka task done on my TODO list, the Done file that's open on the same virtual desktop gets the entry added to the top, under today's date, so I get the satisfaction of seeing the list grow. I used to just strike them out in my TODO list, by I found I like it better to see the TODO list actually empty out. I could probably just wipe it every morning, but it feels satisfying knowing I have the timestamped records even though I never look at them.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, the feeling of having made progress is so important. That little thing can sometimes be enough to lift our spirits on a day when we are not feeling our best.
• yello_downunder 1y ago
  I've wanted a receipt printer for years just for giggles, after doing some custom integrations with them in medical labs. It turns out F**book marketplace in my area has some for movie night prices, just in case someone else is thinking along the same lines..
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Good tip
• bnxts21 1y ago
  I haven’t finished reading this yet, but the rewards bar at the bottom of the site is a really cool touch.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Thank you :)
• tekkk 1y ago
  Great article! Many ideas that I have also noticed put together, nicely done. Although I'm kinda curious how long you have used this system to truly "know" it's bullet-proof. In my experience, all systems fail without outside pressure and/or right nutrition and exercise. If I eat a lot of carbs and in general, gain fat and dont exercise I get nothing done. Eating ketoish and exercising every 2/3 days and I get a lot done. Thinking about work as loops is the right idea, I do agree. Human brains slowly accomodate new thought-patterns and one must continously keep at them to make them appear easy. Any time I come back after vacation I feel immediate exhaustion and repulsion towards programming even though it's easy to me. You just lose the familiarity. Anyway, I write tasks down as well although my system is just a webapp I built for myself. It's interesting I built it as hacky prototype but I've never come around finishing it even though I've been using it somewhat regularly for 5 years or so. Or I write down things on paper. The least ceremony required for the process, to me, seems is the only long-term solution. But I appreciate this another take on it.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    So approximately 6 months, considering that I usually give up on any somewhat complex system after about a week. But I agree with everything you said, especially the part about how we need to be minimalist when it comes to task management.
  • TimByte 1y ago
    Sometimes the best tool really is just the one that's easiest to keep using
• oleganza 1y ago
  Get married, make a couple of children and a lot of life issues go away — you'll always have something to actually get done ASAP instead of just staring at a todo list and wandering around.
  • VGHN7XDuOXPAzol 1y ago
    then you have more life issues ;-)
• meganlanziello 1y ago
  I did my version of this way: 1) 3x5 cards printed on a printer dedicated to this task 2) Command line routine where I can: a) Enter tasks b) Be able to update card by putting in the card number assigned to the task (which also includes a date). c) Be able to reprint a card if needed d) Be able to view the card on the screen (obviously). Written in bash. This is not to be clear to do things that are procrastination but rather to be able to keep track various things that I want to get done the next day or other info that I want physically able to view on my physical desktop during the day. (I hate to handwrite and can type very well so...) The 3x5 card printout will contact a checkbox where you can just ink check any item. The routine makes sure that you only type in the correct number of characters per line so it doesn't wrap. I then modified this to be able to use larger index cards. Index cards lay flat on the desk (as opposed to a receipt printer). Important to have a dedicated printer for this taks otherwise to much friction changing paper.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I really like your system!
  • entrepy123 1y ago
    What kind of printer prints 3x5" (or larger) index cards well? IME most printers struggle with printing thicker cardstock, or non-normal sizes, e.g. trouble with keeping that size paper straight or with bending/feeding. Is it just a normal-sized printer, or are there special index-card printers?
    • meganlanziello 1y ago
      Brother HL-6200DW (or similar variation). Before that I used another brother printer. When I researched (noting this was years ago) that was the only one that it would work with (may be others now). I had tried on various HP printers but they didn't work. Now you have to be careful how many cards you stack in the manual hopper also it works but not super robust.
• allenu 1y ago
  I've also discovered that breaking down tasks into micro-tasks helps me get going on things. I've found that I get easily overwhelmed if I have a massive list of things to get done, and adding another task to it makes it even worse. However, just nesting tasks into parent tasks and finding the right "child" to place a new task in makes it feel more manageable, and I know that those nested tasks are typically small things that I can accomplish. I use this system for my projects but I don't rely on any software other than a text editor. I like the app demo shown at the end of the article, but I find custom software never feels fast enough for jotting down tasks in the right place within a hierarchy as compared with a text editor. I just use a markdown file with indented lines to indicate nesting level. Once I complete a task, I put an x within a little box, like "- [x] bug: page layout ..." It's very satisfying when you have a big task that's a little abstract and overwhelming at the start, but over time gets more and more subtasks as you dig into it, and then those subtasks get closed out one by one, leading you to finally close out the top-level task that started it all. The fact that the text of the subtasks remain also gives a quick indication just how big that task really was. (I don't delete completed tasks, but I do move them somewhere else in the file to keep it organized somewhat.)
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I completely relate to what you are saying. I do not use Markdown, but I use Notion because I find it just a little more convenient. But with my software, I am actually trying to reach the same speed as Markdown for advanced users. I have coded dozens of keyboard shortcuts to handle all the actions.
    • allenu 1y ago
      The keyboard shortcuts should help a lot! If you can nail navigation from the keyboard, it'll go a long way to make the UX feel breezy. I made a corkboard/index cards app for Mac and iOS called Card Buddy and I spent a lot of time working on the keyboard navigation there and it made a huge difference on the feeling of fluidity. For instance, even while you're editing a card, you can navigate to a neighboring cell and start editing it just through the arrow keys. That makes it super fast to jot down lots of notes right away. I noticed a lot of other apps would require you to move the mouse and double-click to edit somewhere else and even that friction makes those apps feel sluggish.
• pengaru 1y ago
  Thermal printer paper is known to be a source of BPAs making this a potentially harmful way to produce hard copies of your todo list entries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_printer#Health_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_printer#Health_concern...
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Bisphenol-free paper does exist, you just need to make sure you are using the right kind.
• bainganbharta 1y ago
  [dead]
• nkotov 1y ago
  Is there a name for organizing things based on bite-size? I have something similar system for myself but literally use a text file with dashes. I tried workflowy and other tools but I keep coming down to using text files because of how fast it helps me to offload memory on a scratchpad.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Task chunking, task breakdown. I could not find any app for that, and that is exactly why I created my own software, which I hope to release soon.
• gdubs 1y ago
  This reminded me a bit of a little Vision Pro demo someone made where you can pick up digital coins by vacuuming your house.
• dehrmann 1y ago
  This gives me strong Scrum vibes.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I am going to create a certification! :P
• jopsen 1y ago
  Hook the receipt printer up to an LLM and the takeover is complete.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I will do it ;)
• directevolve 1y ago
  For me, the keys are: Break down tasks into micro-tasks. Doesn’t have to be written down. Get my body involved. Take handwritten notes when reading. Create micro-deadlines. Have short meetings with colleagues to share progress. Inject mini-rewards. Do one 20-minute task. Then watch one music video on YouTube. I could see room for a productivity app that smoothed out this workflow.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, but it is very difficult because in the end we all have slightly different workflows. But I have a few interesting ideas that I hope people will like soon :)
• mike_ivanov 1y ago
  My mom carries with her a physical notebook in which one full page is one day. The left side of the spread is for the task list, the right side contains notes/comments. When a task is done it gets crossed over. When the day is over, she manually copies important leftovers to the next day. The other (flip) side of the notebook is for longer running projects, similar approach. Naturally, she has to replace the notebook a few times a year. She says the secret sauce is the tedium of copying the leftovers, that's how she finds the balance between over- and under-planning.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I really like the way your mom does things.
    • mike_ivanov 1y ago
      She's a smart one, I could share more :-)
• Tepix 1y ago
  Has anyone tried using an LLM to tackle procrastination?
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    My problem is that when I use an LLM to break a task into smaller steps, it is often not exactly how I would have done it. But maybe that is because in my line of work, it is difficult to feed all the right parameters into the system for an effective breakdown.
• Kaibeezy 1y ago
  100% lost me at “typing warmup and shortcut practice”. Thx for validating the old “if you know one person with ___, you know one person with ___.”
• cucubeleza 1y ago
  something that I did some time ago, if the printer is able to print images, you can generate an HTML page, screenshot it and than print it. The print will be much better and you can play with a lot more things
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Yes, it is possible, but if you print directly from the browser, you cannot tell the printer when to cut. In my case, I generate multiple images and tell the printer when to cut. I also have another version without images. The difference between the two is that the version without images is two to three times faster to print.
• CoopaTroopa 1y ago
  What does it say about me that I stopped reading the article to play with the progress bar down at the bottom right?... And now I'm writing this comment before finishing the article.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    That says a lot about you, unfortunately :P But hey, who cares, you killed a dragon!
    • CoopaTroopa 1y ago
      Easiest achievement hunting I've ever done!
• djmips 1y ago
  Yeah but why do we all have a huge unplayed Steam backlog? ;)
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Because we are all hooked on a few games that have a better gameplay loop and tons of feedback, with a touch of random and intermittent rewards :)
• jamesponddotco 1y ago
  Any recommendation for a good thermal printer that works with macOS? This thread gave me a few ideas that I might hyper fixate on and then forget about in the span of a day or two.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    Epson TM-T20III is the entry-level model from Epson
    • jamesponddotco 1y ago
      I’ll see if I can find it here (Brazil). Thanks!
• sudosteph 1y ago
  Procrastination never really gets cured. It just gets put off til later.
  • litoE 1y ago
    Procrastination is a good thing. Never put it off until tomorrow.
• appleaday1 1y ago
  I am going to try this, usually Emacs and org mode helps me get things done.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    I have been procrastinating for a very long time about trying Emacs :P
• b0a04gl 1y ago
  got hit hard by that jar thing. just plain receipts piling up. no fancy tracking, no filters, it's not even a todo list, it's a physical backlog you can't mute. stack grows, pressure builds. brain stops negotiating. most tools hide your mess with tabs and swipes. this one prints your laziness and puts it in a jar. that's brutal. that's honest.
  • laurieherault 1y ago
    And it works :) Thank you for your comment
• d--b 1y ago
  Okay why not… One part that is not addressed is procrastination because of tasks that are scary. I think I have fairly low levels of anxiety in general, but there are things I know I need to do but I’d just rather ignore them because they somehow terrify me. Things like “call someone to negotiate a price”, or “find a holiday place to rent when I know it’s already too late”, or “reverse-engineer what this giant pile of untested legacy code does, rebuild it in something else, and make sure everything works like before”. I am 100% sure I’d rather let the receipt printer take a day off than tackling any of these.
  • amenhotep 1y ago
    Seriously. I'm so jealous of people who only need to do things that are so tractable that splitting them creates a series of microtasks that are all easy, rather than a series of distracting trivialities that mean nothing without actually accomplishing the one thing that I really don't want to do.
• thomascountz 1y ago
  I'm surprised nobody mentioned that these paper tickets have BPAs: Beat Procrastination Abilities. On a serious note, the article so cool and well written. I appreciate demonstrating the gamification effect right on the page. When I finally get a receipt printer for tasks, I hope to implement timed reminders that print throughout the day. And to be clear, I don't mean yet-another-source-of-notification-overload, I mean things like "Go eat lunch." Maybe some can relate to how helpful and delightful that might be :D
• wordpad 1y ago
  > If later in the day you notice you're starting to procrastinate, immediately return to the system. This is by far the most insightful advice backed by actual research. Recognizing a deviation in your desired behavior and having a prepared fallback plan for how to get back on track. Could be as simple as - if I catch myself scrolling on the phone I will put the phone down and standup.
• mrgoatman 1y ago
  happen to have a receipt printer sitting right next to me. gonna try this
• honzabe 1y ago
  Thermal paper used for receipts is coated with endocrine disruptors. Touching them every day multiple times can decrease your testosterone levels. At least Rhonda Patrick says so: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/isteK4uQhQA https://m.youtube.com/shorts/isteK4uQhQA
  • NewJazz 1y ago
    There was a study in Korea that showed it transfers into the body for folks like cashiers who handle them all day (gloves help prevent transfer). Besides lowering testosterone in men, these endocrine disruptors can have lots of other negative side effects. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/society/20180524/thermal-paper-receipts-toxic-report-shows https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/society/20180524/the... There are receipt paper options that don't have these compounds, but they are uncommon.
• xp84 1y ago
  The "tasks on slips" remind me of the Cast Deployment System that was used at Walt Disney World 20 years ago (not sure when it started or how it evolved, but it was in use then). All cast members in every park and other location were dispatched by PCs with receipt printers. To begin a shift or return from a break, you typed in your number to a CDS PC (located basically behind any convenient backstage door). The PC would just print a slip of paper and log your out. The slip would be one of: 1. Relieve John Doe at <Position> in <Location>. John Doe: return to PC (I think it also had a multi-stage bump possibility, where you replace John and John is sent directly to bump Bob.) 1b. Relieve John Doe. John's break time Start: 9:05 End 9:35 2. Do <TASK> until 9:08 (e.g. Straighten plush in <STORE NAME> or Stock candy in <STORE NAME>) 3. You're released to go home It was a wildly efficient system, which basically allowed their operations software, which presumably knew about attendance, ride wait times, store sales, etc. to put each person to the most useful position at any moment, and also to give people specific useful things to do during slow periods (or indeed to release them early if they didn't have anything actually important for them to do).
  • djtriptych 1y ago
    that's pretty amazing and not at all how I thought the park would run. Thanks for sharing.
  • sbierwagen 1y ago
    Reading the description of this system, I wonder if Marshall Brain knew of it when he wrote Manna, which sounds like a fancier version with an AI gloss: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
    • xp84 1y ago
      Yes, I thought of that when I read Manna like 15 years ago!! Also, I get the impression that he was one of the most prescient minds of a generation. I can only hope his "good" ending is in the cards for us.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• standardUser 1y ago
  Maybe someone can relate to me on this... > With this new system, I haven't missed tracking my habits even once. When I'm in a productive era like that it mostly feels amazing. But it also comes with this looming threat that it can't go on like that forever. The feeling that maintaining such a high standard will only lead to a big fall once something inevitably disrupts the system. It also creates a sense of burden because by being so 'active' in the world, people come to expect you to remain active. And many of the tasks you've completed lead to more tasks that wouldn't exist if you had just stayed lazy. This, combined with the realization that I can get away with doing almost nothing productive as long as I have a job, has made it hard for me to even want to be productive.
  • andai 1y ago
    You've put into words beautifully one of my main argument against getting a job. I have a better one though: a job leaves almost no time or energy for actual work.
    • nemomarx 1y ago
      What's your alternative solution for paying rent / getting food? Not having a job feels like a good option if you can select into it but the barrier is high for me
    • standardUser 1y ago
      For me, a stable job is key. The structure and accountability makes it hard to fail, and my (relative) lack of ambition ensures I don't over-commit or stress too much over work. It's everything else that I get lazy about! I have plenty of time, but it's too easy to do fun but unproductive activities. If something doesn't trigger my "oh no, this will lead to more responsibility" alarms, I can be very productive. For example, I love to plan a trip, because it has a discrete start and end and is entirely within my control.
      • bloqs 1y ago
        >"oh no, this will lead to more responsibility" alarms these are the bane of my life, but as an anxious and unconcientious person, I just don't know how to solve them without doing literally nothing!
• throwaway81523 1y ago
  Won't comment on the procrastination aspect (if it works for her, that's great), but handling thermal receipt paper a lot is unhealthy according to some. I would want to use a plain-paper impact printer despite the noise that they make.
• bloomingeek 1y ago
  I've always been a list maker. It feels good to put a check mark next to a finished item. I once read an article declaring that list making can turn into a form of bondage. I thought this might have value, so I quit making lists. This was a mistake, because without the list I had problems prioritizing tasks. (And I'm a little forgetful.) Things get done when I list.
• marcrosoft 1y ago
  The problem with methods like this is that there is no priority and rewards you for doing tasks that don’t actually matter. It’s better to do one really important thing per day than 10 meaningless tasks.
  • kmacdough 1y ago
    Perhaps for some, but the entire point of the article was about building momentum. She didn't talk much about the bigger tasks, but frequently alluded to getting more "real work" done. If you find yourself never getting thoae bigger tasks with this method, then yeah you've got to keep thinking, but that doesn't make it a "problem".
• masto 1y ago
  First some feedback (I see the author is interested), and then a personal take on how I deal with this stuff. As someone who has spent decades procrastinating, reading about systems to get things done, trying many of them, working with coaches and mentors, and teaching project management, I like to think have a cultivated interest in the topic. I’m very happy that the author found something that works for them. I’m not a gamer, so I didn’t find the comparison particularly relatable. What I did find relatable was the point about getting the dopamine hit (I know that’s debated, but let’s use it as a metaphor) off crumpling up the paper and throwing it away. That’s something I always found gratifying about a physical board full of sticky notes, and it’s just not as rewarding to mark a ticket done in Jira. In my personal experience of ADD, novelty is a major motivator. A system like this has the appeal of all sorts of new sources of stimulation - physical objects, a new electronic toy, software to write, etc. The problem is that once that wears off, if I’m only doing it for the novelty, I won’t stick with it. I need to engage some of the other sources of motivation (interest, challenge, urgency). Also, I would love to see someone write an article like this where they keep it entirely in the first person. In other words, focus on “my experience” and “I do this” and “this works for me”. I experience a sort of automatic pushback when I read things like “this will help you” or “you need to”. It may be linked to demand avoidance, or just my belief that there is not a single productivity system or hack that works for everyone. “You need to” try things out, reflect on your own personal struggles, and tailor the solutions to fit. Also, I’m not sure if I would ever call it a cure. Something I’ve found very helpful is an app called Llama Life. It is not free, so stop reading if that’s a deal breaker. I think of it as kind of a pomodoro timer that someone cleverly fixed for me. I find pomodoros appealing, but they never worked for me. With Llama Life, I stack up what I plan to do for the day along with a guess at how long each task will take. The first benefit this has is that I know what I’m meant to be working on. And when the timer goes off, if I’m not done, I can snooze or extend it, or cut my losses and move on. The other thing I like is that it shows me the total amount of time I’ve allocated, and when each item ends. This helps me to avoid overcommitting: when I look at the end time and see 9:30 at night, I’m forced to reevaluate and cut some things. Anyway, I’m a happy customer.
• CommenterPerson 1y ago
  A colleague shared her productivity tool: Sticky Notes. She has them on her screen with the more immediate items listed on a sticky on the top right side of her screen. The one on its left has higher level / bigger items, and so on (a decimal system?). Her focus is on clearing out the top right one, and disassembling the higher level ones towards the right. Postscript: Installing it on my laptop needed going through some IT bureaucracy. And my #1 procrastination creator is filling out forms. Guess they'll just keep paying me the same for less work.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• aucisson_masque 1y ago
  You just need to switch of job, if you don’t feel rewarded when doing it then it’s just not the right fit for you. And even then, something fun can become boring later on. I know electricians for instance who love doing their stuff, so they have no issue in being motivated, while they were a mess in their previous work field. And vice versa. It’s not always possible of course, but the solution is not to ‘gameify’ your life, it will only work for a little while before getting bored of it. And for the « home » task, I believe it’s more of a routine. If you know every Saturday morning will be to clean the whole house, you just do it without thinking much.
  • widforss 1y ago
    I think it's great that you don't have executive dysfunction. That's not the case for me, and obviously not for the author. If you've never had your dream job yet still wasn't able to do shit, you don't have to crack down on other people's attempts to become functioning members of society.
    • aucisson_masque 1y ago
      I do have issue tho, that’s the reason I’m saying that. I can’t concentrate at all on something that isn’t interesting to me to the point where I needed 4 hours to learn basic trigonometric algorithms when I was a kid. Call it adhd or something else, my point is that doing something interesting is 99% of the solution. It’s like poker, when you got a bad hand you deal with it. Play on your qualities, not on your flaws.
  • taberiand 1y ago
    This is like telling a depressed person to just be happy
    • aucisson_masque 1y ago
      I believe it would be closer to saying to find what he likes to do and change his life so that he replaces what he doesn’t like with what he likes. That’s problem solving.
• quantadev 1y ago
  People are intimidated by large tasks because they're thinking about the entire task all at once. This blog post points out the key element which is that you have to think about small easy tasks instead. Once you move your focus to small easy sub-tasks, it becomes much easier to start doing them because it's not hard. The truth of the matter (especially with ADHD or HFA people) is that once you even start doing a small sub-task, you then quickly become addicted to or motivated to getting more and more of it done, and before you know it, you've gotten many sub-tasks done or even accomplished a large task you'd been procrastinating about.
• nico 1y ago
  > The only way I could get things done was by relying on stress, coming from clients or financial pressure. That worked for a while, but it cost me my health (I burned out) I’ve seen this called something like “using your adrenaline as adderall” https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/1ifdwwn/youve_been_using_your_adrenal_glands_as_adderall/ https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/1ifdwwn/youve_be...
• sexy_seedbox 1y ago
  Don't these thermal paper give you cancer?
• zouhair 1y ago
  You lost me at preparing the notes the night before. Yeah, that will definitely happen.
• hippari2 1y ago
  I thought receipt paper is pretty bad due to BPA ?
• kaashif 1y ago
  > Imagine an FPS where you only meet an enemy every 30 minutes. That wouldn't be engaging. The loop must repeat quickly to keep you interested. False! Plenty of horror games have basically nothing happen most of the time but are very engaging (perhaps even too much so). Alien games are my go to example.
  • tonyhart7 1y ago
    Yeah but how many times you repeat horror games compared to multiplayer esports game where you can play it for years???? most horror game fans I know is treat it as a "one time experience" that's why most horror games have a shorter game time/playthrough
    • kaashif 1y ago
      If you're comparing multiplayer esports shooters, why not compare to multiplayer horror games like Lethal Company or REPO? I love those games and have played them for hours and hours. And these are games where you meet enemies infrequently. The pre-canned single player horror games like Amnesia or whatever are what you're talking about.
      • tonyhart7 1y ago
        nah bro, lethal company and Repo is game where you meet enemy pretty often lol how can you say that, also like most horror games this games would feel "dated" after few runs because "horror" aspect is not something you can replicate over and over again
        • kaashif 1y ago
          In REPO it can be 10 minutes until you see an enemy, then if you kill it, the respawn timer is like 10 minutes. Towards the end of levels things get much more frantic, but if you're fast you genuinely can do multiple levels without even seeing enemies. Anyway I agree horror can't be replicated, it's not like I'm scared after I know all of the enemies, what they do, and what affects respawn times.
• yoko888 1y ago
  [dead]
• Leo-thorne 1y ago
  I used to sit in front of my task list and just stare at it. Then I tried the author’s approach and broke everything down into tiny game-like tasks. I printed each one on a little receipt printer. Every time I finished one, it felt like taking down a small boss, tear it off, and toss it. Suddenly the task list felt way less intimidating and much more efficient. Surprisingly, the ritual worked. I was able to stick to it and even started to get a small sense of accomplishment every day. Definitely more productive than my old habit of tackling huge chunks at once.
• FajitaNachos 1y ago
  I've never understood why people have "work procrastination" problems. I've never had to play games to get myself to do work. You're paid to do a job, so do the job. Is this a generational thing and is it really that big of a problem? I've worked remotely since 2016-ish and still can't comprehend why this is an issue.
  • beachy 1y ago
    Not everyone's wired the same. A close family member was diagnosed with ADHD and he describes his battles with procrastination as if there was a glass wall stopping him from doing whatever he was meant to be doing. So easy for someone else to say "what's the big deal? Just do it!".
    • FajitaNachos 1y ago
      I understand ADHD and mental illness can make this extremely difficult, if not possible. You make a good point. The type of procrastination I was referring to wasn't related to that. It was related to the idea of work being more optional than required and seems much more prevalent that\n the % of the population that struggles with the above.
• johann8384 1y ago
  I opened this is another tab and will now procrastinate to read it for a few weeks.
• tempestn 1y ago
  I do something like this, but use notes in Evernote. Making them physical objects wouldn't add anything for me personally. (My wife loves writing down and crossing out to-dos on paper though. To each their own.)
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• neoden 1y ago
  I had a similar experience when I decided to use a pencil and paper, along with a few simple rules, to manage my to-do lists. This method worked so well for me that I started thinking about the reason for its success. These are my conclusions: - It was MY method - It was simple enough to fit entirely within one piece of thought - It provided a clean feedback loop when I could strikeout the completed task - I like handwriting So it relied on things that my brain finds pleasurable
  • dominicrose 1y ago
    An A5 squared spiral notebook and a 4-colour pen was perfect for me. Spirals help as a lefty. They also allow to cleanly detach a page. There's a lot of freedom with this. It can serve a much more than just writing boring task names.
• Elaris 1y ago
  Thank you for sharing, this is a very useful article. I believe I have procrastination; many times I prefer to put things off and don't want to do them until it's absolutely necessary. After reading this article, I think I should try to change this.
• caro_kann 1y ago
  I've been thinking gamification of my daily chores too and this article pops up! Amid health concerns of receipts, I think I'm gonna try this with just sticky notes and a jar. But how about making this a platform on its own, that just runs on a secondary monitor (I think everyone has one of those nowadays anyway). The idea is to just make this a GAME. For example, various stats of a player can be shown, history of every achievement, goals, chapters etc. Great article by the way!
• Noelia- 1y ago
  A while ago, I tried writing tasks on sticky notes at home and crumpling them up to toss in the trash once they were done. It felt pretty satisfying at first, but writing each note took too much time, and I eventually gave up. Now that I’ve seen the idea of using a thermal printer to print out little task tickets, it instantly feels like a much easier system. I’m planning to get one next week and see if it actually helps me get started more easily than writing things by hand.
  • causal 1y ago
    The biggest killer for any task tracker I find is an accumulating backlog of items that seem too important to quit but too intractable to make progress on. Often it's those exploding-in-complexity type things that you thought would taken an hour and it's constantly requiring refactoring into more tasks. Accumulate enough of those and you start finding yourself writing more notes than you are crumpling them and can get demoralized pretty quickly every time you look at the board.
  • jimbokun 1y ago
    > but writing each note took too much time Your tasks must be too granular, if writing it down is a noticeable part of the effort you expend in a day. Maybe use somewhat larger tasks so you don't notice the overhead of writing it down so much?
• RobTonino 1y ago
  I like the overall idea and glad it helped. OP, how do you feel about the waste produced by this? I would personally feel guilty to a good extent—curious to know how that goes for you.
  • ahaferburg 1y ago
    Same here. Going through dozens of post-its feels super wasteful. Even more so the dozens of thermal printers that will be ordered as a result of this post, and might end up gathering dust on someone's attic in two weeks. Ultimately there's going to be a lot of repetition. Many of these tasks are going to be the same. I'm wondering if there's a variant of this system that involves reusable kanban tickets.
• frhack 1y ago
  If games work, why not gamify your idea? The printer and paper approach doesn't work well for people on the move. We need a pure online version that's accessible from everywhere: home, office, customer sites, vacation spots, and during commutes. Even better: add a voice interface too. "Hey assistant, what do I have to do?" "1. Send email to Bob" "2. Clean your desktop" "3. Read paper XYZ" "...and more" "OK assistant, set 1 as done" "Congratulations, great job! You achieved the bronze badge this week by completing 70% of your tasks!"
• LeonM 1y ago
  I was diagnosed with ADHD at 38, and never expected to hear that diagnosis. Main reason was my misunderstanding of what ADHD is. Like most people, I just naively associated ADHD with hyperactive kids, and thought I was just lazy and having procrastination issues. Now that I understand it so much better, I start to recognise it everywhere. After reading first paragraph of the article, I immediately though: Laurie must have ADHD! For ADHD the things that often help are: breaking tasks up into smaller tasks and having a way of tracking progress. You don't want to do that on a screen, your phone is a distraction device! I write my to-do lists on a paper notebook so I can tick them off. But the label printer idea is also a smart one! Though maybe a bit over-engineered, but I guess that was just a way for Laurie to procrastinate on the solution ;-)
  • namaria 1y ago
    Same story for me. What has really helped is trying to make initiating useful and desirable tasks easier and seeking distractions harder. Bit by bit, cultivating that mindset changes things for the better over time. The trap is usually "I've figured it out and this new system will solve my life" only to be burned out days or weeks later because this only addresses the symptoms and not that cause. Cultivating a more friendly environment has been a great help for me. That and taking notes.
    • justanotherjoe 1y ago
      I rmemember what truly worked for me, as a chronic case, was a 1 day workweek. Granted I did work normal days, but I only mean things that cost motivation like side projects. On other days I even stopped myself when I started to kid myself about 'doing it'. It made me feel gross but that gross feeling helped when the scheduled day comes. I stopped doing it for some reason. But I remember it worked. For what it is.
  • TimByte 1y ago
    Every digital to-do app I've tried turns into another notification to ignore, or I end up doomscrolling instead of checking tasks off. The receipt/label printer idea is a little extra, but I get the appeal of making the process more tactile and even a bit fun. If it works, it works!
• TimByte 1y ago
  The analogy to video games and the need for fast, tangible feedback really lands for me. But I do wonder how sustainable is the receipt printer setup? The novelty and fun factor are real, but do you think you’d still get the same motivation after six months, or will it just become another background habit? (Not that "good habits" are bad, of course)
• hasbot 1y ago
  My problem is not only procrastination but motivation. Why should I be doing all these tasks? I appreciate having a clean house but having one isn't fulfilling or enjoyable. Am I just a work machine? I want to soar with the eagles not toll with the ants.
  • bloqs 1y ago
    the best answer i found was order is nice because it makes me feel more in control and less stressed
• Horffupolde 1y ago
  So she turned herself into an automaton.
• rkwasny 1y ago
  I just re-implemented your interface for managing tasks: https://rafalkwasny.com/tasks https://rafalkwasny.com/tasks Prints on A4 page as I like it better
• gregorymichael 1y ago
  I have ADHD, and my daughter was recently diagnosed as well. Been reflecting on this post as it's been soaking up the front page for the last 24 hours. I want to commend you for shipping maybe the perfect HN post: - Personal Journey - Old school hardware - DIY software - Productivity hack - Great title - Quantified results (2-3x productivity) over non-trivial duration (few months) - A low-effort offline solution that delivers real value for the 98% who will never build the thing - Great polish on the reading experience with lots of little details - Effective call to action (subscribe to get the software in a few weeks) You inspired me to get my organization back on track. After researching receipt printers for 30 minutes, I realized what I actually need is to dust off the system that has worked for me in the past. But I'm picking up some post-its today and my daughter and I are going to try implementing your system for her over the weekend. Thank you for putting the time into this!
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• nicolas_gu 1y ago
  Super cool idea !! Todo list tend to be kinda overwelming, because cross out an item leave it on the list. I tried to do a todolist (on a text editor) and just delete the element when it's done, but it's far less satysfing than juste throwing it in a glass
• mock-possum 1y ago
  The progress bar along the bottom of the page (in mobile at least) is fun
• fencepost 1y ago
  Coming to this a day late, but what immediately jumped to mind was David Seah's "Task Order Up" https://davidseah.com/node/the-task-order-up/ https://davidseah.com/node/the-task-order-up/ system. My biggest concern (besides "following through with this? hollow laugh") is when you're not always working in the same place - either hybrid or going to customer sites.
• abhaynayar 1y ago
  I have been TickTick for daily-habit tracking for years now. It has a monthly GitHub-like graph widget for phones which is amazing for feedback. I also use TickTick for misc. task-tracking like "laundry", "buy apple", etc. Then for non-recurring areas like job-tasks, I use a separate tool with a simple Kanban board. Prior to Kanban, I used to just track time, and write a list of things I did for the day, but I realized there was no feedback and it was just a passive "I did this stuff". So coming from that, a Kanban board has been god-sent. Because otherwise Parkinson's Law was a common occurrence for me. Each task in the board is somewhat tied to a project/outcome through a tag. So there is a feedback/working-backwards/active concept to it. I have just started using it, but the more I use it, the more I automatically learn how to set better tasks, because otherwise they do not go from TODO -> DOING -> DONE.
• taurusnoises 1y ago
  Nice piece. You and I (and I know many others) have come to the same conclusion: (an old video of mine on breaking down tasks into tiny bites https://youtu.be/b3blsuTqN9s?si=W373y92JzDfHIDvS https://youtu.be/b3blsuTqN9s?si=W373y92JzDfHIDvS). No doubt informed by our good friend David Allen. Ps, I linked to your article in my newsletter this week. Hope it sends some visits!
• matt_kantor 1y ago
  > Write each task on a sticky note. When you finish the task, crumple the note into a ball and throw it into a clear jar. I independently stumbled upon this same system. It sounds like the author takes it further than me (I don't create notes for routine/repeating tasks, and don't break them down so much—in a typical day I only complete around 2-3 notes). I've used sticky notes for years, but ~6 months ago added the jar (prior to that I just recycled them). It helps to have a visual reminder that I'm making progress over the long term, even if it doesn't feel like it some days. My current jar is just about full and I've been debating what to do with it. Save it as desk art? Find a bigger jar and transfer the notes? Burn them in a cathartic ritual? I'm open to suggestions.
  • damascus 1y ago
    My gf and I are the stereotypical software nerd meets astrology girlie (but doesn't take it too far). She likes to do rituals every so often and I've found that it does create a moment of reflection that you can use however you like. The last time we were camping she told me she wanted to do one so I bought some of that fire color changing powder (mostly just fine metal shavings of various types) and then glued a bit of that on some paper and made sort of a paper packet and then I had the whole group write on a packet something they wanted to let go of and then we all tossed them into the fire at the same time and the fire changed colors. It was pretty magical and I scored a lot of brownie points! So you could sprinkle some of that into your jar and just toss a handleful into the fire and watch the magic of your productivity ascend to the heavens. Or, you know, just watch physics at work.
• nopmat 1y ago
  I write individual tasks (or steps of larger tasks) on index cards. When a task is done, I stick the index card on a receipt spike.I limit WIP myself to 3 index cards at a time.
• sjducb 1y ago
  I just tried bite sized task post it notes. It’s incredible. The gamification is like the notice boards in the Witcher 3.
  • threecheese 1y ago
    It’s such a great idea. I have a giant metal whiteboard I’ve been using for post-it’s for a few years, I am always having to move them around because they are at “project” granularity, and things get recaregorized or reprioritized, to the point that it’s mostly useless. Going to try this!
• abalone 1y ago
  That's really cool. I will just add that in my experience, with a bit of conditioning it is possible to get this satisfaction from crossing things off digital lists. The benefits are manifold: - It saves paper - It's easier and faster to reprioritize tasks - It's always with you in your pocket Personally I use Apple Notes which has checklists, as opposed to a task management system or even Reminders. The flexibility of just writing things into a freeform note and hitting a button to turn them into todos is the right balance of low friction and just enough structure. Hitting that circle to check it off when done is actually quite satisfying. Bonus: I added a keyboard shortcut for strikethru which adds some extra satisfaction of crossing off the task (or portions of a task that i've written out).
• dejj 1y ago
  Your blog reminded me of “Linear RPG”: you run along a line to collect XP. It’s a flash game. https://sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/ https://sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/
• TheClassic 1y ago
  OMG its so long. I'll read it later
• 94d44027 1y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I struggle with my procrastination all the time. I use software like OmniFocus to breakdown my tasks and merge them into the projects, yet it never occurred to me to use the receipt printer for that. And your idea of using the jar for completed tasks is really nice. Have you ever thought of assigning priorities to your tasks (like Eisenhower matrix or Franklin-Covey)?
• swyx 1y ago
  > I plan to release my software publicly in the coming weeks. You can subscribe to my newsletter to get notified when it's available. i think a fun challenge for any new vibecode tool youve heard of but havent tried is to just make this. it cant be that hard... (famous last words)
• magzz 1y ago
  This is my first comment. I felt compelled to write. As a person with ADHD your article is too long. But thanks for motivating me to get on hacker news
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• peiskos 1y ago
  Very interesting writeup OP!! This sounds like something definitely worth giving a try.
• peiskos 1y ago
  Very interesting writeup OP!! This sounds like something definitely worth trying!!
• garfieldnate 1y ago
  Having a to-do app that really pushes you to break down tasks into tiny pieces actually sounds really nice. I think that's the biggest takeaway for me here. The receipt print might seem a bit extra, but there's also something nice about having a physical motion to finish tasks while also not having to write everything out by hand. I dunno, writing doesn't actually take a long time. The post-its do feel a bit wasteful though, because they're so expensive.
• bloqs 1y ago
  does anyone know how i get a bluetooth reciept printer (STAR TSP100iiiBI) to register as a default print device in android (12)? presumably i have to install something that bridges the ip address request in default printer settings with transmitting to the bluetooth device...