31–40 of 104 posts
It goes over strategies and psychology of habits and how to change bad ones and form good ones. I literally just finished this book before opening HN to see this, and I loved it.
Can I hijack and ask, how do I become a "determined" person with grit? Is it learnable? If something becomes too hard, I just convince myself the success is not worth it or not attainable. I might actually be right. Success might not be worth it. It seems winners are usually more motivated by hatred and fear of losing / failure than the joy of winning. You see this with sports stars all the time (MJ).
Sometimes the schedule slips or I sleep in and let a bunch of tasks slide; this is an expected failure mode and I build it into how I use the calendar. I do not think about strategies to be productive anymore - my maximum capacity per day is acknowledged by setting those start and end times, and if I want to produce a lot then I aim for consistency.
After years of trying to learn Japanese through osmosis by living here, this year I managed to get myself to seriously study again despite not going to school anymore. It's a combination of a study app called Nihongo and a reminder/streak app called Commit. Now after studying about 30 mins daily for 6 months I've started to really enjoy my study sessions, and the joy of seeing the characters I've learned in my daily…
Take the Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken. Bookstores sell material to study for it. It's great having a study milestone.
Start reading, if you haven't already. Books, magazines, anything. A kanji you see "out in the field' for three times becomes yours.
To improve listening skills, I recommend watching lots of jdrama. If you don't understand a dialog, listen again.
And most importantly, interact as much as you can with Japanese people. This is harder than it sounds, because... Japan.
When I really have to work I use a chess clock. Old fashioned, mechanical, large and an ugly reminder of my time 'off the clock' because then the other clock starts to tick. The ratio between those two is the thing to maximize and it's extremely easy to use. Stop working just push one button, start working press again on the opposite side. Very useful little trick and way easier to use than anything online or in an '…
my favorite:
ALAN DEUTSCHMAN :Change or Die (2005)
It's a little rough around the edges at the moment, and there are no executable builds, but it tracks completion so that you get a big picture view. For example it tells me I have exercised 9 days this month, 100% of the days I've set out for this month, and am on a streak of 100+ days.
Aside from that, meditation and removing distracting things from my environment have been most important (for example blocking timesink websites on my work computer). And the work of James Clear has been very influential on all of this: http://jamesclear.com/
None of this is a way to 'solve' procrastination. The best way to overcome it is to do something. Anything. 5 minutes on 'the task' is better than 5 minutes wasted on something unrelated. Find a method to get yourself to do something. Even 60 seconds is enough because it is more than nothing. As you do that regularly you will overcome your procrastination.
As other posters have mentioned though you do sooner or later need to find the root cause. It could be one of many things, but only finding that will help you to make real progress.
Wish you all the best.