Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

I successfully used the pomodoro method during my PhD. I just couldn't bring myself to do the really boring stuff like the nth iteration of corrections on a section of writing. I developed some features for emacs so I could have my pomodoro timer right there at all times. It also means I have logs of exactly what I worked on and for how long.

But by far my most productive times are when the problem is clear and I feel compelled to solve it. I've always thought that I'd be overall a much more useful person if I could hack my brain to be compelled to do what needs to be done rather than whatever random thing has taken my interest.

I see lot of people focusing on some kind of lifehacks and tips to beat procrastination. The truth is(in my opinion) that it doesn't really matter how ergonomic your workflow is, or how distraction free your office/desktop/phone becomes. In the back of your mind you still know about these things. You know you can open youtube any time you want and browse for videos aimlessly.

For me, it's all about stress. Procrastination is a good sign when I feel too much pressure and there's too much weight on my shoulders. Procrastination becomes a way of self-medication, shutting your mind off and forgetting about all the issues you might be facing in daily life. For some people, the only time they have the luxury to be alone and not disturbed, is when they are at work, sitting behind their computer, headphones on -- and that's the best time to procrastinate.

Yawn. When I read such low-effort comments, I wonder if the people writing them ever read the article or if their job is just to spout off uninformed opinions.

The way I look at it, you can push past your ordinary daily soft limit in this area, but there will be a cost, and the more you disrupt your routine in pursuit of your goals, the higher that cost will be-- past a certain point (likely different for everyone), you will get diminishing returns & risk of a breakdown goes up.

The balance to strike here, I think, is to give your mind & body a chance to recuperate before you get too close to that breaking point. Or phrased another way, look at 'pushing yourself into a second wind' as a critical tool for certain situations, but one to be used sparingly (preferably when you have some open calendar spots ahead).

I agree that developing "lifehacks", when taken too far, can be a form of procrastination itself. ...and that the underlying cause is emotional.

Nevertheless - we still need to do them.

I think the answer is both simpler and more difficult than most people are characterizing here.

1. Discipline takes training (preferably from a young age). If you practice overcoming those mental blocks, you will be more accustomed to doing them and recognizing and avoiding those escape behaviors that we call procrastination.

2. Visualizing and regularly reinforcing the Goal - that final benefit that puts all the work in between in context.

3. Planning/chunking the work. It's a form of gamification - but don't let it itself become a form of procrastination. 99% of people _already_ _know_ what needs to be done, right now.

Personally, I have a simple system. Three Google Docs. 1. Is a short, somewhat vague list of goals I revisit every year at tax time. 2. Is a list of projects in a rough order of priority (actually it's a folder of Docs with one doc for each project). ...and most importantly, 3. The daily journal, where I add to the top each day the date and a rough list of things I'm working on.

People get lost in making sure their prioritizing is perfect, or adding too many things to their daily TODOs. In fact, in the context of doing what's important, I find that one of the key skills is being militant about things you're NOT going to do - and ignoring requests from others that don't fall in line with your own goals.