Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

deprocrastination.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 378 posts

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#211

Post by blaser-waffle »

lazyjones wrote: post #208
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…

Fitness routines and work are not the same thing. The former is IMHO pretty much a pointless waste of time (nothing bad will happen if you skip one day) and work usually just needs to be done eventually or there are serious consequences. The former thus needs self deception, while the latter just requires realization/visualization of its necessity and of the dire consequences.

> Fitness routines and work are not the same thing. The former is IMHO pretty much a pointless waste of time

> lazyjones

Ya'll gonna take fitness advice from the lazy guy?

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#212

Post by skinkestek »

InvisibleUp wrote: post #202

Procrastination is a tricky beast. I'm not going to discount advice like this, because it is helpful. But it is only one piece of the puzzle. There's a stark difference between "I don't quite feel like starting this yet, so I'll put it off for a little bit" and "I absolutely want nothing more than to start this but I can't force myself to", between laziness and a genuine inability to begin. Not to give medical advice…

Thanks for creating your web page and thanks posting both!

These are brilliant, both of them it seems !

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#213

Post by greendestiny_re »

I found that, if I have to meet a deadline, writing down the deadline on a post-it note and making it highly visible, i.e. taping it to the side of the screen, will increase the chances of me meeting the deadline. Also, explicitly promising to the client that I'll do it motivates me to not let down the client.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#214

Post by charlieflowers »

spodek wrote: post #155
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…

People ask me why I take cold showers regularly, post to my blog daily, and never miss my burpee-based twice-daily calisthenics over more than a decade (approaching 150,000 cumulative burpees). Among many reasons, developing the skill to do what I said I would is tremendously valuable. Without these habits, I lacked discipline and thought to avoid tricks, which I thought of as short-term cheats. The habits developed…

Interesting. Can you elaborate? What kind of tricks?

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#215

Post by swat535 »

In the context of programming, every time I don't feel like writing code, I just tell myself: I'm not gonna write code, I'll just run the test suite and then come back to it later.

That causes me to open my terminal, which then requires me to getting the updates from upstream before running the tests, and then I have to inspect the new changes which then requires me navigating to the project..

By then, I'm writing code. This works really well!

For other things such as exercising, I just tell myself, I'm not gonna exercise, I'll just put on my headphones to listen to my "exercise" playlist. This causes me to walk to my bedroom to grab my earphones (I have a wireless one for exercising and always keep them near my workout clothes), which causes me to open the drawers, and by then, I might as wear change and then I'm all set!

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#216

Post by MockObject »

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.

This is why I advise gym newbies to quit and go home while they're feeling pumped, and not to stay so long that they feel exhausted and cranky. It's more important to create the positive subconscious association with the gym.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#217

Post by bearer_token »

digitalsushi wrote: post #143
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 wish I had this written down somewhere, but I don't; perhaps it's well known enough that someone else can correct my mediocre paraphrasing: A Marine once told a civilian that everyone is programmed to believe their 80% remaining is their 0% remaining, and the courageous work of realizing that limitation is what unlocks the extreme feats that someone so well physically and mentally conditioned can undergo. I'm not m…

This is the Goggin's 40% rule https://www.google.com/search?q=goggins+40%25

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#218

Post by MadWombat »

digitalsushi wrote: post #143
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 wish I had this written down somewhere, but I don't; perhaps it's well known enough that someone else can correct my mediocre paraphrasing: A Marine once told a civilian that everyone is programmed to believe their 80% remaining is their 0% remaining, and the courageous work of realizing that limitation is what unlocks the extreme feats that someone so well physically and mentally conditioned can undergo. I'm not m…

> everyone is programmed to believe their 80% remaining is their 0% remaining

Of course. When I do my reps in the gym, I know I could do more if someone put a gun to my head. I stop because I don't want to hurt myself, not because I cannot do anymore. When I feel sleepy in the evening, I am fully aware that I could go 48 more hours without sleep if I really needed to. But would it be a good idea? No, it would not be.

And even if we ignore obvious health risk of pushing yourself to the limit, in general, I would rather be more comfortable than more productive. There are always things to be done, so why stress about doing a little bit more?

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#219

Post by allovernow »

The harder I try to trick myself, regardless of the technique, the harder my inner miscreant screams to procrastinate. It's like a resistance to being told what to do, even by myself.

Honestly the most reliable solution I've found is amphetamines. Less than ideal advice to depend on substances, but a therapeutic dose of Adderall can be the difference between surfing the internet and half-assing all day until finally starting work in earnest 5-7 hours later, if at all, and starting work within an hour of dosing. Coffee comes in a distant second.

Of course coming up against a tight deadline does wonders for motivation too...but in my experience if I set an arbitrary deadline I know I'm just lying to myself - there have to be real consequences.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#220

Post by MockObject »

slavapestov wrote: post #210

If you don’t feel like doing something it probably sucks and isn’t worth doing. Hustle culture is stupid. When you’re on your deathbed you’re not going to look back on your life and wish you had worked more or made mode money.

If my deathbed is under a sheet of filthy cardboard as I sleep on the street, believe me, I'll be looking back wishing I'd made more money.
Post reply on HN