71–80 of 378 posts
[0]https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti... [1]https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.h...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When my brain is running idle, my hands autonomously type "Hacker News" in the address bar of my browser.
More like cmd+l (address bar), n (autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com), enter. At least I'm getting efficient at bad habits ;-)
I tend to do it with complete lack of thought.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Maybe this works for potters but I don't think it'd work for developers. If a compSci lecturer suggested one group would get an A for writing a perfect, bug free app and the other group would get an A for writing 50,000 lines of code, I wouldn't expect the group writing as much code as they could to make the best app.
One thing that really has helped me with e.g. writing an email that I dread writing is to just write a draft that I don't plan to do anything else with than use as a starting point when I write the real email that I won't write until tomorrow. Often the draft is good enough to send after only small edits. Or the writing of the draft have helped me to clarify my thoughts enough, combined with a night of processing, th…
If I add them first, I worry that I'll click send by mistake halfway through my draft (and a secondary worry is that the draft will be full of inappropriate stuff and curse words, which I never add even to drafts, so it's not a rational thought). If I add the recipients first, it also feels like they sit there looking at me expectantly as I write, which makes it harder.
An email not addressed to anyone, but of course with the recipients in mind to adapt the content, makes it easier for me to treat the first version as a draft.
Sleeping on non-urgent emails sounds like an excellent idea, because your view of the issue may change.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be sceptical that the concept of overtraining was a thing, but it definitely is. Just saying that running every day consistently might not necessarily be good for you in the long run. Listen to your body.
A 5km run is probably between 30-45min activity. If you run at a medium pace, I don't think that would be an issue. If run as fast as you can, I agree that you should take breaks.
>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…
I agree a lot with this. A blank page is the worst - I find it hard to get started. But if I just put something (probably something bad) it is much easier to just continue improving it.
Or I decide to "refactor" a piece of code, and then spend days thinking about how I'll "refactor" it, rather than just doing it or not doing it in the first place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are missing the forest for the trees. The point is to get over that mental hurdle of achieving perfection, which blocks a lot of people from getting started.
I understand the point they are trying to make, but I still think the anecdote is harmful. It gives the impression that it is more important to put in the work than any real effort. The only thing you’ll be good at after producing 1000 crappy pots is producing crappy pots.
I use the small wins trick a lot. I start with the smallest win, which is writing down a small win on my todo list. 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.
Same. I do it when the dishes have piled up. Tell myself I'll just quickly do the easy ones, and then next thing I carry on and decide to do the biggest remaining dishes so the bench looks cleaner, and from there it's downhill and easy.
It all starts with the lazy "I'll just throw the easy stuff into the dishwasher", but momentum takes over. Listening to interesting podcasts help!
Start writing concrete things that need to be reinforced, that are easy to answer and can be connected together. Things like the goal of the software, core modules, what you're working on now, etc. Expand to things like what new features would be nice, how to implement them, etc.
This works better than vague solutions like "do one thing" because where do you start? Writing a line of code somewhere for the sake of it is pointless. Especially if it's bad code, that just makes me feel worse knowing I'll probably have to undo it later because that's usually what ends up happening based on past examples.
Detaching yourself from the work frees you from all the things tying you down that clouds your mind. Taking a moment to reorganize gives you a new thing to focus on, and arms you with purpose which makes it easier to work.