Here's what worked for me in lockdown (I had issues working at home) : aim to do minimum 6 pomodoros a day, where each pomodoro is 55 minutes long. When measuring time I try to focus on a single task that's not related to admin work (answering emails etc.) I figured that 6 hours of productive work is not far off from what most people probably get done in an office environment anyway.
Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
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Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#62I 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 ...
Sometimes I have to make sure I am not switching tasks during breaks, even to something like reading the news. Get up, step away from computer, refill cup of water, bathroom break, etc, but not switching to something that would actually redirect your brain elsewhere and break the flow. Ideally it makes it more sustainable.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#63I 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…
Listened to "Daily Ritual: How artists work" recently and the most common pattern seemed to be, work intensely for 2-4 hours in the morning, most people being finished by 1-2 in the afternoon, then go out for a long walk before doing light admin stuff in the mid-late afternoon.
It's also been my observation that this is how I actually want to work. I feel ready and able to tackle anything first thing in the morning, but past 1 o clock nothing I produce will be that much good and my productivity will be a shadow of what it was in the morning.
I work freelance so that's how I work nowadays, it feels like it comes naturally in a way that no other method I've ever tried does including pomodoro.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#64> One of the biggest things that can get you drawn into procrastinating is to go into a crazy website checking loop where you loop through Twitter, Hackernews, Reddit, BBC, etc in the hope for a new bit of information that probably has no real relevance to your life.
As someone personally familiar with this phenomenon (for example, I remember smiling at https://xkcd.com/477/ when it was posted in 2008, nearly 12 years ago), and as someone too familiar with procrastination in general, here's one insight I had recently, and an old insight:
1. Firstly, “epiphany addiction” — I encountered it on the blog of Aaron Swartz (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/anders):
> The irony, of course, is that the books are totally useless unless you take their advice. If you just keep reading them, thinking “that’s so insightful! that changes everything,” but never actually doing anything different, then pretty quickly the feeling will wear off and you’ll start searching for another book to fill the void. Chris Macleod calls this “epiphany addiction”: “Each time they feel like they’ve stumbled on some life changing discovery, feel energized for a bit without going on to achieve any real world changes, and then return to their default […]. They always end up back at the drawing board of trying to think their way out of their problem, and it’s not long before they come up with the latest pseudo earth shattering insight.”
2. Beware of searching for one true method by which you will finally “defeat” procrastination. I remember this excitement when some trick used to work, and the urge to write a post like this (BTW, congrats on writing and finishing this post — I never got around to writing something so “finished”), having found “the answer”. But eventually some trick that used to make you productive may stop helping so much. (Because there are other unaddressed root issues, which seem to find a “workaround”: this is the "procrastination as wily adversary" metaphor, as in War of Art etc.) Ultimately, it seems we need a complementary set of approaches, both external (like Steps 1 to 3 in this blog post: changing your habits), and internal (being more aware of your feelings and drives, etc). Procrastination (for many) seems to be discomfort-avoidance, where the discomfort can be some combination of fear, anxiety, distaste, dread, uncertainty, ambiguity, conflict with (some of) one's values, etc. It helps to become more aware about the nature of your discomfort, and get to the root of it. But ultimately you can't think your way out of the procrastination problem. Things like mindfulness, talking to a therapist, good exercise,… all help; just don't pin your hopes too strongly on one of them, to the exclusion of other approaches. (I had given up blocking websites as it had stopped working for me, but after reading this post I just added a major time-waster to my /etc/hosts file, thank you.)
The goal is to get to a state where you don't feel out of control of your own mind, where you can decide to do something and just do it — but it can be a process to get there. Good luck to you, me, and all of us. “You can't think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.”
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#65Here's what worked for me in lockdown (I had issues working at home) : aim to do minimum 6 pomodoros a day, where each pomodoro is 55 minutes long. When measuring time I try to focus on a single task that's not related to admin work (answering emails etc.) I figured that 6 hours of productive work is not far off from what most people probably get done in an office environment anyway.
How long of a break in between?
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm happy that it works for you, but If I started to lock my phone in a safe and throw away the key, next thing I'd learn to pick the safe every five minnutes.
At which point you'd have learned a new skill, and you're otherwise no worse off than when youu started.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm happy that it works for you, but If I started to lock my phone in a safe and throw away the key, next thing I'd learn to pick the safe every five minnutes.
Yeah it’s interesting because usually these sorts of things (like editing my hosts file) don’t work for me because I get annoyed by the restriction when I legitimately need to access something and undo it.
I guess in this case it’s a small amount of friction not a complete block that works for me.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#68I 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…
> but also recognise that your brain/body only has so much "fuel" each day ...
My experience is similar to yours, and I would also add that that "fuel" grows if you maintain the effort throughout the days/weeks. But some of the days you'll have more fuel, others less, just to the best you can (I struggle a lot to keep that balance, not easy at all..)
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#69I 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.
Of course everyone is different, but there are at least some studies the does lend credence to the "willpower as a finite resource" theme.
Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination
#70I 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…
Listened to "Daily Ritual: How artists work" recently and the most common pattern seemed to be, work intensely for 2-4 hours in the morning, most people being finished by 1-2 in the afternoon, then go out for a long walk before doing light admin stuff in the mid-late afternoon. It's also been my observation that this is how I actually want to work. I feel ready and able to tackle anything first thing in the morning,…
I feel the same, just with the times flipped around. For me the morning is great for small random/admin type tasks. Even reading a research paper or spending some time learning about something I need to do/use.
In the afternoon is when I can concentrate for 2-4 hours and do some intense work. Take a break after that, and iron out anything small before calling it a day.