81–90 of 198 posts
Where will you be tomorrow?
Where will you be in a month?
Where will you be in a year?
Now as yourself where you will be if you made the choice to spend an hour a day on task X. Where will you be?
Repeat every time you decide to open a new browser tab. It is a very slippery slope every time you unconsciously go to youtube, forums, etc. The first step is to become conscious of the time sucking activities.
Take a step back and think about the environment you were in when you were the most productive. When your mind was the sharpest it has ever been and you were knocking shit out left and right. Maybe that was in high school or college, or during your first few years in your career. Ask yourself: What was different back then? What was your daily routine? What did you eat? Did you play sports or stay active? A lot of peo…
haha why did you mention that whole "no fapping" thing? All I can picture now is some 20 year old guy feeling guilty he jerked off 4 times in a day and feels like his life is out of control.
However, I am afraid this is not straight forward and something no one on the Internet can do for you.
Suggestions like exercise, a healthy diet and meditation are great advice but there is only so much these things can do for you.
I guess your issues are on a subconscious level as it seems that you haven't identified them yourself. It could be anything, really:
Regrets of the past, a lack of social life, low self-esteem, worries about the future that need to be addressed ...
I haven't cracked it myself but it is astonishing how powerful your own body's mechanisms are that keep you from solving your real problems. Stuff like never feeling you have enough information to get started or even physical pain that makes you believe you have to solve a health problem (that actually isn't really there in the first place) first before you can do anything else.
Take a step back and think about the environment you were in when you were the most productive. When your mind was the sharpest it has ever been and you were knocking shit out left and right. Maybe that was in high school or college, or during your first few years in your career. Ask yourself: What was different back then? What was your daily routine? What did you eat? Did you play sports or stay active? A lot of peo…
anecdote: in college I would work in any context, the hubris and desire was strong enough to make me forget about everything else. Nowadays I'm very much context sensitive. Being in a library is godsend. A dedicated work spot (could be anything) is also required.
Basically, don't parallelize, linearize, but in a focused manner.
There's a book written about the science behind motivation called The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel: http://www.amazon.com/The-Procrastination-Equation-Putting-G...
The following has a pretty good summary: https://alexvermeer.com/how-we-use-the-procrastination-equat...
One of the core forces of my World Of Warcraft habit was I could spend several hours "getting stuff done that showed results". Understanding that this was a huge motivator for me I went back to journaling progress against my goals and with that visibility got back on track. To this day I think it would be useful to have an AI 'assistant' that would essentially create a quest log for you as you went through your day talking to people.
IANAD, but sounds like a potential ADHD case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...
Just be aware that this might be your problem and if it is, medication might do wonders. I'm not saying to jump on that conclusion but make sure you explore it.
If it feels like you just can't get your brain in first gear to start the work, if it feels like you're an old steam locomotive slowly starting to get moving and it takes enormous effort to do it.
The worst part apparently is a mix of high IQ and ADHD which causes people to get a diagnostic at a late age. (early to late twenties or later).
I find I can get into this mode when I don't believe I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing. I know that sounds weird but a couple of times when I was in a job where the "goal" of the company or the group wasn't in line with what I was trying to do in my own life I would find all sorts of excuses to work on other things. My therapist said that I was self sabotaging my work because my subconscious wanted out but my…
Take a step back and think about the environment you were in when you were the most productive. When your mind was the sharpest it has ever been and you were knocking shit out left and right. Maybe that was in high school or college, or during your first few years in your career. Ask yourself: What was different back then? What was your daily routine? What did you eat? Did you play sports or stay active? A lot of peo…
These are correct. I would like to add that your life may be boring and unimportant. You're brain (my brain as well) is correctly calibrated on a evolutionary timescale and so most of life's tasks are just not important enough to care about. It's only when fear of serious consequences ramps past as certain threshold that we act. You probably have plenty of food and shelter. (If that's not the case stop reading and se…
You know how when you try acid you need to be in a good frame of mind? Choosing the discipline that involves being present for and tirelessly, mostly-unsuccessfully fighting against routine death is similar. I've learned to keep shop talk to a minimum with those in my family who drive ambulances despite their tales putting my complaints about work into perspective.
That's not a livelihood to approach lightly. Not trying to talk anybody out of it because I respect first responders immensely; just want it for the right reason, to help who you can, not to 'fix' yourself. (I can't see that working and people wash out of that work all the time.)