When I was at University I tried to finish smaller tasks first and then move to bigger ones. Why? The sense of completing something small gave me an impuls and motivation to focus on bigger things.
Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
31–40 of 178 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#32Well there is two likely possibilities. Either you're depressed. Or you've chosen the wrong field/subset of a field. (Or even both maybe) So try psychotherapy/seeing a psychiatrist. And try taking a course on another subject that might interest you. If you find out that what you're studying is not interesting you anymore there is no shame in changing, be careful about the sunken cost fallacy. But also make sure that…
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Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#33Gonna be unpopular answer, but drugs, specifically psychedelics. Shrooms has been a game changer for me, I do one medium trip pretty much every year as a "reset" - during the trip, the current life that I live becomes a superficial layer of patterns that I can clearly see, and I can go through thought journeys on doing things different and see how I feel about them. I don't know if they will help you, but generally i…
The positive effects of psychedelics are exaggerated and is similar to using a blowtorch to remove weeds from your front lawn. Additionally set and setting are important, you'll get the most out of them when you're in a position to not need them and are just exploring life. Having expectations about what they may do will make it easier to fall into a negative spiral.
The studied therapeutic use of psychedelics always requires a therapist to help someone in a positive way. Generally recommending to take drugs recklessly in the way you have is irresponsible. If it's someone's first time and they go in blind without without a guide, it's reckless.
Additionally, going to a therapist will also help you see things differently. Drugs aren't required.
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#34Start by doing positive things in small amounts each day - for me, making music and exercising. It adds up
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#35assuming you like your line of work, here are few things that have worked for me
1) hand off your current tasks to someone else and take theirs 2) help out with other things (depends on your employer). if you are a programmer try helping QA, write documentation, help marketing, etc. 3) try breaking up work into very small chunks. Do a chunk and reward yourself
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#36I'm probably in the same situation as you are. This (1) really helped me out. The title on r/videos (2) reads: 1 hour lecture by renowned Professor on Procrastination: He claims if you know how it works, you won't ever do it anymore. Thought this might be helpful considering how many people here suffer from procrastination
(1) https://youtu.be/mhFQA998WiA (2) https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/87s036/1_hour_lectu...
EDIT: Added link to the post which may have a few useful user comments
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#37I set 10-year goals.
When I'm working on day-to-day things, thinking about the next three month project, sometimes I feel "this is completely pointless" and "why are they paying me to do this?" That's when I look at my goal and, hopefully, understand what it does for my bigger picture. My current goal feels awkward and completely "not me." But there's no question in my mind I can pull it off, and if I do, I'll be proud of the accomplishment. It will have meant something to me. The fact that I had a plan will also make it a good story to tell; from idea to completion (or failure).
I'm sure you're already able to get comfort (if not motivation) in the day-to-day by looking at the three month level (a course). You may be looking at the annual level to understand the courses (a program or degree). The question is how this degree ties into your life, at decade level. Education is just a stepping stone to building or researching new things. So how does what you currently do fit into your picture of life? What does it enable you to do? Who will it allow you to meet? Where will it take you?
And then... Never tell anyone about this goal. Don't put that pressure on yourself. The goal is for you, and you alone. You can come up with variations or tangents to tell people, if you think you can't keep quiet. I often tell friends about my 2-5 year plans, and previous 10 year plans. Those plans don't really matter to me. But my current 10-year plan is mine.
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#38If you're looking for a list of concrete steps, this has worked pretty well for me:
1.) Identify an area of your life you want to improve. It can be anything, but it should be something you can see meaningful progress towards over the length of a year.
2.) Create or join a 'community' of people online who have insights into this area. For me, this means finding a stream of content though Youtube videos and podcasts, as well as a couple of subject-specific subreddits.
3.) Going forward, the majority of your passive content consumption should come from this 'community'. This will a.) give you enough of an overview on the subject to let you know if it's something you really want to pursue, b.) show you where to find step by step instructions on how to succeed in this area, and c.) provide meaningful involvement levels and time frames, so you have an understanding of how much effort and how long it will take to make progress.
4.) From there, set aside two to three months and start implementing whatever it is you think you need to do to see improvement. These two to three months aren't about making progress, but trying to find the unknown unknowns that get in your way.
5.) Then, create a long term goal, a series of sub goals (if you need to), and a list of daily activities or habits that will make meaningful progress. Implement these, and don't stop.
What you'll find is that improving your life in one area, such as fitness, will improve your life in a lot of other areas, including your academics.
If you want more information on self improvement, I strongly recommend Optimize.me, which has a lot of excellent content and is completely free.
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#39My take is this:
1. Have long term goals, so you always have something to do to reach them.
2. Embrace the rut. Understand that we people are not machines that can efficiently run our program 24/7 and reach a goal. Some times you get bored and demotivated. Accept it, don't be hard on yourself. Play a game, have a beer with a friend, pick up something new, lie in your bed and stare at the ceiling. It will pass sooner or later.
Re: Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?
#40Everyone's situation is a little different so you'll need to decide for yourself if this applies.
When I get into weird unproductive spirals I'm often sitting with the anxiety that I should be doing something else, the burn 6 hours doing nothing with that my anxiety over my shoulder. And do it again. And again.
My advice for that? Give yourself real time off. If you can, like a week with explicitly no goals. No plans. No anything.
If you can, avoid any reddit/twitter/yt doomscrolling if you're prone to that.
Because we're trying to get bored again.
Like super bored. Like sincerely board af. Not just tired or out of ideas what to do.
Get bored af like little kids do.
Hopefully you'll find old interests a little fresher and newer after that. Give yourself space to feel that spark of interest and excitement.