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Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

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Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#21

Post by partisan »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #5

Just do it. shrugs The biggest thing would be to shift from future mentality to now mentality. Be interested in the process, not the results. When you visualize or anticipate the results, it robs required energy from the present to perform the action that leads to those results... Basically you've got to rewire yourself to derive satisfaction from doing , not resting in anticipation of a future outlook. A future whic…

To add to the "Just do it" bandwagon.

Someone told me once that she is able to accomplish so much because she does things when she thinks of them. It's a technique that she applies and when she is feeling really productive, she might loosen up on it and prioritize or delay things. She explained to me that when you think of things and say, "I'll do it later", they literally exit your mind as if you have done them.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#22

Post by laurentl »

I don't know if I'm a "real" procrastinator but I am definitely a "P" on the MBTI scale. This means I usually do things at the last minute. I can rarely manage to get interested in a task (especially a boring one) until just before the deadline. Also, I can't seem to do any productive work if I don't have a huge workload. (As an example, after putting off stuff all week long I'm now hauling ass to get everything done by the WE - despite posting on HN at the same time - and I'm fairly confident I'll get most of it done)

The flip side for me is that I'm very driven by deadlines: I hate to be late (or more specifically, too late). So, to overcome my ingrained habits, I split up tasks and set intermediate deadlines for each subtask, not too far in the future. If I have a real, hard deadline I'll impose myself an arbitrary deadline the day before; this way I may slip my own deadline by a few hours, but I'll definitely make the real deadline. I may also sit on tasks for a few days (or weeks), until the accumulated feeling of urgency from all those chores to be done is enough to get me moving.

It's more coping than overcoming, but I find it useful in practice, at least for my natural inclination. Taking an MBTI course really helped as well, it helped me understand why I behaved in certain ways and identify my coping mechanisms for what they are - I've behaved this way for a long time, but I always felt kind of guilty for having to use tactics to get anything done.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#23

Post by digler999 »

Mz wrote: post #8

I have health issues. Getting them under control is the crux of getting my time management issues under control.I suspect this is far more common than is recognized. I was called "lazy" my whole life. Then I got the right diagnosis in my mid thirties and began getting my act together. I wasn't lazy. I just didn't have the energy to do the things I needed to do. I still am not as productive as I would like to be, but…

sounds like you were a terrible mother, from what you've told us about your son

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#25

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

FLGMwt wrote: post #2

I was a terrible student in K-12 and then I college before I dropped out. Starting probably in middle school, I didn't do homework at home. I would do it in a panic the class before. Then in high school, I'd barely do it at all. I did well on tests so I suppose that's how I got by at all. In college, I got a part time job which I started taking more shifts at and stopped going to classes altogether because I was anxi…

Just want you to know that your post inspired me to setup kanbanflow and to try the pomodoro technique. Thanks! Even if it doesn't work for me, at least it got me trying something.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#26

Post by afarrell »

neverminder wrote: post #20
dyukqu wrote: post #6

I was a (I'd call it hard-core ) procrastinator. I still am a procrastinator, but I've come (relatively) quite a long way. I have never been a lazy person in terms of physical activity. I like all kinds of sportive activities - hiking, biking, football (soccer), swimming, working out, etc. But over years I had become very lazy for mental gym, a master of procrastination , developing a massive fear of intellectual act…

I agree mostly and I am in a similar position. What I don't entirely agree with is that "procrastination is a massive fear of mental activity". For instance, even though I'm not a big gamer, when I procrastinate I can spend hours playing one of my favorite strategy games and strategy games require quite a bit of mental activity. I think procrastination is a fear of boring mental activity, something that doesn't provi…

I suspect the problem is less boredom and more ambiguity. Goal pursuit is easy to figure out with a health bar, mana bar, and purse with two few gold pieces.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#27

Post by webmaven »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #5

Just do it. shrugs The biggest thing would be to shift from future mentality to now mentality. Be interested in the process, not the results. When you visualize or anticipate the results, it robs required energy from the present to perform the action that leads to those results... Basically you've got to rewire yourself to derive satisfaction from doing , not resting in anticipation of a future outlook. A future whic…

> Just do it.

Were you ever a procrastinator? Because that is something I mostly hear from folks who weren't. Sometimes people who think they are procrastinators are actually just being lazy, which is completely different.

I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. Here is the difference, in a sitation here a task becomes larger the longer you wait: A lazy person will usually think "If I do it now it will be less work than if I wait until later", whereas a procrastinator will almost always think "if I do it later, it will only be a little bit of extra work".

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#28

Post by danieltillett »

I became a really bad procrastinator after being a university professor (I am slowly getting over his). What caused this was being given tasks that changed 3 or 4 times before the deadline and/or were not missed if they weren't done.

Administration would give me tasks to do, then change them multiple times, and finally do nothing if I didn't do them 95% of the time. I got to the point where I could not complete any paperwork unless someone from admin was standing beside me saying this had to be completed that minute or else the university was shutting down.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#29

Post by mezod »

I am not sure I can say I have overcome it but I can say that my productivity has improved ever since I started doing little apps to help me be more productive, like custom todolists, custom kanban boards, etc. I've just finished an app to help me form habits ( https://everydaycheck.com )

I've realized that if I do something every day at some point I don't see it as a task anymore but as something I do without thinking, like brushing my teeth, so I have more time of the day allocated to useful/productive stuff and procrastinate much less.

Re: Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

#30

Post by namechecksout »

Put yourself in a position where you would have to publicly admit it on a constant basis and it would make you uncomfortable. I started spending more time with my significant other and hating to admit that I spent all day doing nothing, I just started doing stuff to avoid the shame. As a side note, I also became good at giving (increased) value to what I do, or at least presenting it as something important. Also, if I need to do something, I will sometimes go to a cafe or a coworking, because when I come there I think to myself "Well I didn't get here to do nothing, so I will be working". If you have people who support you a lot to the point where you could do something just for them - just keep a reminder of it somewhere on your eyes level.
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