I'm gonna read that one, later.
Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
41–50 of 165 posts
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#42I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. I've shipped software for years now. What I've come to realise however is that the brain/body can only do so much work in a day. I can program for a few hours a day (on a good day) and then it becomes increasingly more effort to do more coding. Sometimes, depending on the task, I'll be able to switch to another task. Howev…
I used to think that eventually you should reach a flow with whatever you're doing and for this, taking a break after a pomodoro seems not effective ...
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#43Disable internet. It takes 2 clicks. You can always get it back, it doesn't go anywhere. Do this for your workstation.
Use a laptop to browse stackexchange. Set email to sync every hour, unless your job is to answer emails as they come. Checking once an hour is enough.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#44> On my iPhone I move every single application into a folder named “.”. I then move that onto the second screen. My phone dock has four apps: Phone, Headspace, Things and SMS: Yawn. When I read these minimalism tips I always wonder if people giving this advice ever had a real job or if their job is actually giving people minimalism advice. Good luck trying to justify being the only one without Skype/Slack/Gmail
It's moving the apps out of sight, not uninstalling them. I've done this, and found that if I just idly pick up my phone I have to consciously decide what I'm going to waste time on, and often that bit of friction is enough to make using the phone less rewarding.
I've also set the new tab page in my browsers to be blank and found that useful in the same way.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#45I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. I've shipped software for years now. What I've come to realise however is that the brain/body can only do so much work in a day. I can program for a few hours a day (on a good day) and then it becomes increasingly more effort to do more coding. Sometimes, depending on the task, I'll be able to switch to another task. Howev…
I don't really find mental fuel to be a thing[1]. In fact, I find the opposite. The more discipline I instill, the more discipline I have. Each block of discipline makes the next that much easier. That includes discipline over procrastination.
[1] Of course there is general fatigue, but this is different from only being able to focus on something for a couple of hours/day or not being able to start something at all.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#46I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. I've shipped software for years now. What I've come to realise however is that the brain/body can only do so much work in a day. I can program for a few hours a day (on a good day) and then it becomes increasingly more effort to do more coding. Sometimes, depending on the task, I'll be able to switch to another task. Howev…
> I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. Says one of the first commenters. Are you sure what you are doing here now is not procrastination?
I'm not EU/US based. Work finished 4 hours ago. I don't have social media. I don't watch TV. I've walked the dog, I made dinner and ate. I took literally 10 mins to see what was on HN and this was the first link. I'm going to jump into bed and read a book in about an hour.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#47I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. I've shipped software for years now. What I've come to realise however is that the brain/body can only do so much work in a day. I can program for a few hours a day (on a good day) and then it becomes increasingly more effort to do more coding. Sometimes, depending on the task, I'll be able to switch to another task. Howev…
I used to think that eventually you should reach a flow with whatever you're doing and for this, taking a break after a pomodoro seems not effective ...
The guy who first published the technique documented that it is effective (where effective means 'more productive'), and countless others have replicated his finding that they, too, found pomodoro to be effective. Don't let your own speculation overrule actual evidence. That's what start procrastination.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#48I think I've successfully managed to "beat" procrastination by adopting the pomodoro technique. I've shipped software for years now. What I've come to realise however is that the brain/body can only do so much work in a day. I can program for a few hours a day (on a good day) and then it becomes increasingly more effort to do more coding. Sometimes, depending on the task, I'll be able to switch to another task. Howev…
I used to think that eventually you should reach a flow with whatever you're doing and for this, taking a break after a pomodoro seems not effective ...
There is an alternative method called Flowtime: https://zapier.com/blog/flowtime-technique/ where you focus on a task until you feel you need a break (I think it is still crucial that you don't let yourself get distracted during this).
Another alternative is to treat the 25m as a minimum time in Pomodoro: if you are tired or have reached a natural break point for your task then stop. If you're in the flow continue.
You may want to enforce a maximum amount of time for health reasons (e.g. to get up from your chain every now and then).
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#49> On my iPhone I move every single application into a folder named “.”. I then move that onto the second screen. My phone dock has four apps: Phone, Headspace, Things and SMS: Yawn. When I read these minimalism tips I always wonder if people giving this advice ever had a real job or if their job is actually giving people minimalism advice. Good luck trying to justify being the only one without Skype/Slack/Gmail
Its like the advice "set your watch 10 mins behind" so you always reach on time. No shit I know its 10 mins behind every time I see the watch.
Sure, and yet... why is anyone ever late to anything? Let alone why are some people persistently late, in circumstances where that matters, and they know it's an issue?
Rationally that makes no sense so dismissing techniques for resolving it that also don't make rational sense on that basis seems wrong.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its like the advice "set your watch 10 mins behind" so you always reach on time. No shit I know its 10 mins behind every time I see the watch.
Sure, and yet... why is anyone ever late to anything? Let alone why are some people persistently late, in circumstances where that matters, and they know it's an issue? Rationally that makes no sense so dismissing techniques for resolving it that also don't make rational sense on that basis seems wrong.
Not sure what you are trying to say here. Do you mean "because we don't know why people are getting late so dismissing a solution which I know doesn't work seems wrong" ? But you do being the reply with "sure" so was that an agreement ?