11–20 of 378 posts
Then, when I see the small task, I feel motivated to do it just so I can have the pleasure of checking it off my list. By that time, I'm usually on a pretty good roll and keep working.
Anyone tried using a chain calendar? I used an app that tracked how many days in a row I meditated and that's the first time in my life I was able to do a good habit consistently for 15 days straight. I didn't want to break the chain! Later I used the same idea for studying every day, started with a few minutes and worked it up slowly. Eventually, I was able to concentrate for long periods of time. That sense of mome…
>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…
> Plan to throw one away. You will anyway.
>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…
Has anyone here come across good research-based methods of dealing with procrastination?
* Just get started.
* Don't give in to "feel good".
* Use implementation intentions to put the trigger for action in the environment.
* Procrastination is an existential issue. One who is procrastinating is not getting on with their life.
* Approach goals are better than avoidance goals.
>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…
This idea is captured nicely in the book "Art and Fear" with the following anecdote: "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroo…
>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…
This idea is captured nicely in the book "Art and Fear" with the following anecdote: "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroo…
Make sure the thing you have to do is something you want to do. While you can procrastinate on the things you're truly interested in, ultimately you're more likely to follow through with the things that interest you than the other random tasks that require doing.
Writing that design doc, report, or review at work? Meh. I drag my feet until I'm the last person in the office and I have to finish.
That obscure side project that really interests me? Hell yeah. It's called hyper-focus, and those with ADHD know what it's like.
Check out my Github streak. I think I've got the world's fastest faster-than-realtime CPU-only neural TTS and Voice Conversion (VC) systems with multi-speaker embeddings outside of Google. And I wrote an entire data ingestion, cleanup, and curation engine to build massive data sets for training. A year ago I didn't even know what any of this stuff was, and now I can't pull myself away from it. Building is magnetic and addictive, but it's not the thing I need to do.
Sometimes you can pivot the energy you have from a desirable task into an undesirable one. I tell myself I can't work on the fun thing until I get the mundane one done. It's a hack that doesn't always work.
I want to structure my life around things I want to do to the exclusion of all else. I think I'm starting to get there. I've trimmed a lot of unnecessary things from my life.
My dream is to get rich enough doing desirable side hustles that I can pay people to take care of all the undesirable tasks. Delegation to achieve efficiency.
I can work like there is no tomorrow on random side projects. I just wish I could redirect all that focus and energy at will into the areas that need them.
I can't. So I have to become what interests me.
>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…
This idea is captured nicely in the book "Art and Fear" with the following anecdote: "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroo…