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The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

jamesclear.com

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Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#41

Post by tc7 »

mroll wrote: post #14
beat wrote: post #10

Useful things for those in the struggle... Deep Work , by Cal Newport. An excellent book on how to work on really big ideas/projects effectively, without losing your humanity in the process. This is a must-read for anyone serious about work. Pomodoro Technique. This is well-documented with lots of apps and tools online, but it's pretty simple. Set a 25 minute timer. Work, without interruption, for 25 minutes. When th…

Any programmers here use pomodoro? I expect 25 minute interruptions would do more harm than good for my focus when writing code, especially the continuous expectation that I will be interrupted. I don’t have a pressing interest in finding productivity tips, just curious to hear about programmers who have tried this technique

:raises hand: I use it!

If you have no problem with focus, perhaps you don't need it.

I've found it useful at my work (consulting/team lead) where I'm expected to be somewhat responsive to email/slack. Rather than leaving Slack/email open (rookie move, I know), I use Pomodoro (currently at 45/5) just to remind me to open them, check for new stuff, and then close them again for my next chunk of work.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#42

Post by jcbrand »

Loic wrote: post #24
beat wrote: post #10

Useful things for those in the struggle... Deep Work , by Cal Newport. An excellent book on how to work on really big ideas/projects effectively, without losing your humanity in the process. This is a must-read for anyone serious about work. Pomodoro Technique. This is well-documented with lots of apps and tools online, but it's pretty simple. Set a 25 minute timer. Work, without interruption, for 25 minutes. When th…

Deep Work is maybe the first book I wanted to through out of the window in a long time. The complete book can be resumed in a sentence: "Secure big chunks of time to reach and be in the flow state". But of course you cannot write a full book out of one sentence, so it repeats itself until it achieves to contradict itself by telling you that if you are a writer/journalist you can achieve the state of flow in chunks of…

I'm glad to have read your comment. I almost thought of buying the book.

I read "So good they can't ignore you" from the same author and was really underwhelmed by it. It came across as repetitive and formulaic (i.e. have some basic principle, then interview interesting people who employ this principle somehow).

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#43

Post by nbeleski »

amorphous wrote: post #27
beat wrote: post #10

Useful things for those in the struggle... Deep Work , by Cal Newport. An excellent book on how to work on really big ideas/projects effectively, without losing your humanity in the process. This is a must-read for anyone serious about work. Pomodoro Technique. This is well-documented with lots of apps and tools online, but it's pretty simple. Set a 25 minute timer. Work, without interruption, for 25 minutes. When th…

My biggest problem I have with deep work is not that it makes undoubtedly sense and leads to interesting results but to find what to work on. I can't find my deep work. Finding a niche and sticking to it is much harder than performing deep work.

Choosing somethind to dedicate time and effort is consistently one of the hardest decisions one can take. Choosing something (or sometimes someone) can mean you are giving up on an (almost) infinite number of other options.

I encouter this pretty frequently between people getting into serious cientific research.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#44

Post by ckosidows »

bernardino wrote: post #23

What helped me get down to deep work was doing away with the nonessentials, i.e. a lot of physical material things, all forms of entertainment, the internet especially, inner clutter like comparing myself to others, etc. Seneca once noted in his Moral letters to Lucilius , “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but…

I feel that when I eliminate forms of entertainment from my life or impose limits I can often go too far and then swing back in the other direction.

Your comment seems to indicate you manage your vices similarly. Do you also recede back into them or has this not been a problem for you?

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#45

Post by cbau »

bernardino wrote: post #23

What helped me get down to deep work was doing away with the nonessentials, i.e. a lot of physical material things, all forms of entertainment, the internet especially, inner clutter like comparing myself to others, etc. Seneca once noted in his Moral letters to Lucilius , “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but…

Did you actually stop paying for internet? It's something I've been thinking about. Were any parts surprising difficult?

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#46

Post by alexdrans »

mroll wrote: post #14
beat wrote: post #10

Useful things for those in the struggle... Deep Work , by Cal Newport. An excellent book on how to work on really big ideas/projects effectively, without losing your humanity in the process. This is a must-read for anyone serious about work. Pomodoro Technique. This is well-documented with lots of apps and tools online, but it's pretty simple. Set a 25 minute timer. Work, without interruption, for 25 minutes. When th…

Any programmers here use pomodoro? I expect 25 minute interruptions would do more harm than good for my focus when writing code, especially the continuous expectation that I will be interrupted. I don’t have a pressing interest in finding productivity tips, just curious to hear about programmers who have tried this technique

I personally use 50/10/50/25 on off on off.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#47

Post by comboy »

amorphous wrote: post #27
beat wrote: post #10

Useful things for those in the struggle... Deep Work , by Cal Newport. An excellent book on how to work on really big ideas/projects effectively, without losing your humanity in the process. This is a must-read for anyone serious about work. Pomodoro Technique. This is well-documented with lots of apps and tools online, but it's pretty simple. Set a 25 minute timer. Work, without interruption, for 25 minutes. When th…

My biggest problem I have with deep work is not that it makes undoubtedly sense and leads to interesting results but to find what to work on. I can't find my deep work. Finding a niche and sticking to it is much harder than performing deep work.

That's your deep work then (if you are striving for one) - finding it. Focus on that.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#48

Post by m3mpp »

We procrastinate because most of the jobs we do are completely mindless, repetitive and boring, and we have to spend so much time doing them. Good luck finding a method to fight that... Unless you're rich and the owner of your own time, in this case you don't need any "motivational" tool.

Edit: lobotomy is another solution of course, using pills or any kind of drugs that massively reduce the amount of neurons in the brain.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#49

Post by undreren »

rhacker wrote: post #38
mroll wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any programmers here use pomodoro? I expect 25 minute interruptions would do more harm than good for my focus when writing code, especially the continuous expectation that I will be interrupted. I don’t have a pressing interest in finding productivity tips, just curious to hear about programmers who have tried this technique

I did pomodoro for about a month once. It was actually helping a lot. I think I got lazy after a while and stopped doing the entire stop-watch thing, thinking I would continue doing it by just looking at the clock. I think I will try pomodoro again today and see if I can get back that juicy tomato timer goodness.

I have more or less the same experience.

I used tomato-timer.com. It’s really good.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#50

Post by solipsism »

padobson wrote: post #29

Akrasia and Enkrateia remind me of the dual nature of humans that St. Paul describes in Romans: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know th…

It's easy (or at least easier) to be open and honest about our faults and failures when no one is telling us we'll burn in eternal damnation for them.
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