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Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

deprocrastination.co

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Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#171

Post by wastedhours »

amonroe805 wrote: post #158

I'd like to submit an another interesting motivational tactic along these lines: The Christian/Catholic practice of Lent. I've observed many friends who practice Lent make major life changes that are hard to make at any one time (going vegan, quitting smoking, etc.) because of how major they are. Lent helps because the change is "only for Lent", but I observe that many people carry those changes on indefinitely. Lent…

Agree with this, I gave up sugary soft drinks as a teenager after doing it for lent. "I might as well go for another month" lasted nearly 2 1/2 years (until I went to uni and wanted a mixer for rum...)

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#174

Post by Mirioron »

keiferski wrote: post #154
Mirioron wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're thinking of is delayed gratification. An eagle doesn't have to force itself to go hunt, because physiological processes tell it that it needs to hunt. It's the same reason you don't have to psych yourself up to go have lunch - your body desires lunch. Humans have evolved to sometimes delay their gratification. That is, we don't hunt and eat our catch immediately, but instead we hunt and preserve the food…

I'm talking about something much deeper, more fundamental, than delayed gratification. For example: > Delayed gratification tends to lead to better outcomes in the long term These outcomes are mostly considered better because they are made in the context of the system we live in. Often they are only better in the sense that they solve a problem which the system caused in the first place. E.g. if you can delay the gra…

The thing is that this delayed gratification is what allowed modern society to appear in the first place. Without delayed gratification you can't have farming or housing. Both of which are vitally important for human survival in most places in the world.

Humans, and probably all life, have a high time preference. We even have sayings about this in the form of "a bird in hand is better than two in the bush." My guess is that this has to do with the future being difficult to predict. It's essentially a balance between how many resources you should use right now vs how much you should invest into the future.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#175

Post by wastedhours »

tw1010 wrote: post #51

Pet peeve: when people take phrases intended for one thing and uses them for a slightly modified purpose. I take Branson's "screw it, let's do it" mantra as something entreprenurial, a call to break the rules (and stuff like that). Using it in this purpose feels more like "screw it, let's work even though I'd rather stay in bed", which is different emotionally, and kind of saturates the sayings power. (Maybe nikes "J…

Especially as the root of that phrase is in really wanting to do something, in the face of overwhelming external pressure to not do it (I think he coined it when launching Virgin Atlantic and noone thought the business plan looked solid).

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#176

Post by Tyr42 »

ycosynot wrote: post #131

"If you're not planning, you're planning to fail." Benjamin Franklin This is what got me from a slump to a very productive, accomplished man. I plan every 15min of my mornings (Elon Musk plans every 5min!), then freestyle afternoon because that suffices me. You should write your tasks as Daily on Google Calendar then you can Sync with Samsung Galaxy Watch (because yes, it is so amazing that it is time to grab a smart…

I always heard it as "if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail", which has a nice ring to it.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#177

Post by kamaal »

e19293001 wrote: post #29

I'd like to share this post[0]: The last two weeks I made it a goal to run 5km every morning. A few times, particularly today, I felt lazy and run down, but I got out of bed anyway and told myself that I'll at least walk. The next thing I know I'm running and feeling amazing and on to set one of my better times. The point: When you tell yourself "just one more game" or "just one more post", or "just one more video" a…

Looks like most of use discover this rule one way or the other. I had a simple rule, where I would try not to give up for the smallest period of time I could hold on to a thing.

Often that is like the next 5 minutes. Like I just tell myself, we are not trying to do this the whole year or even years. Just the next 1 hour, and then tomorrow we will try again.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#178

Post by kortex »

pritovido wrote: post #152
sandos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently started mountainbiking, and I often excert myself way too much to the point of having to get off the bike and just resting. After watching the tedx talk "How "normal people" can train like the worlds best endurance athletes" I made it a thing to go out on the bike and _be slow_. Just go as slow as possible up the hills instead of almost collapsing. Now I feel like going out almost all the time instead of t…

Yeah, people forget that we are animals too. We get as conditioned as Pavlov dogs. If every time you get out mountainbiking you suffer, you create an anchor mountainbiking = suffering. if you do it a lot, it gets reinforced a lot, and your body subcounciously will oppose it.

Learned helplessness is a particularly insidious form of this. What's fascinating is that in the studies, some animals never get it, they just keep fighting it. I wonder if that trait can be tapped in to, I doubt it' an all-or-nothing parameter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#179

Post by kamaal »

itchynosedev wrote: post #94
e19293001 wrote: post #29

I'd like to share this post[0]: The last two weeks I made it a goal to run 5km every morning. A few times, particularly today, I felt lazy and run down, but I got out of bed anyway and told myself that I'll at least walk. The next thing I know I'm running and feeling amazing and on to set one of my better times. The point: When you tell yourself "just one more game" or "just one more post", or "just one more video" a…

I damaged my shin bones because I was running too much too soon and currently taking 2 months break. Side note, I used to run 20k every week, then stopped. Be careful of the problem on the opposite side of the spectrum: your body might not be able to keep up with your motivation.

Not even giving up for the next X intervals isn't the same as continue even if it hurts.

You should always consider starting again tomorrow, if it hurts.

You don't have to conquer the world in a day. This is a long fight. One needs to rest, recover and try again.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#180

Post by kortex »

Ma8ee wrote: post #54
ramblerman wrote: post #37

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.

It's also tinted by the fact that learning a skill is usually logarithmic. If you are a student with no pot-making skills, those first few pots are gonna give a lot of XP. I think it'd be a different outcome if done with more experienced potters.
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