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Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

davidthorpe.dev

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Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#121

Post by Dave_TRS »

Is anyone aware a way to identify this window of potential high productivity using a Fitbit/Apple Watch or other device that measure physical body characteristics like heart rate, temperature, etc?

I find that on some days my productivity window comes and goes and is wasted during times I have a meeting, or need to deal with something urgent but simple and then my brain is fried when I need to tackle a complex creative task. Knowing with some certainty that the window has arrived might help more actively block out other things.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#122

Post by laurieg »

I'm glad that the article acknowledges procrastination as an emotional issue, not an organisational one. Reading Getting Things Done or using a new Todo list app does not do anything for procrastination. The slight bump is just down to novelty.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#123

Post by PragmaticPulp »

HighlandSpring wrote: post #78
dageshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

What about afternoon/evening people? I seem to have a pathological inability to get much done before midday/afternoon/evening/night (depending on severity) I wonder if this is a belief I'm self-reinforcing by identifying as an "evening coder". I mean, I doubt there's a physiological reason for this. It's probably a matter of this being a habit of a lifetime that I've never fought back against hard enough.

> It's probably a matter of this being a habit of a lifetime that I've never fought back against hard enough.

You could try what worked for me:

Make a list of 2-5 healthy habits or routines that don't naturally fit into your current rhythms. Things like being an early riser, going to the gym in the morning, finishing all of your work before 5PM, and so on.

Then, pick 2-week periods to try them out, one at a time. For example, I always thought I was a night owl and and had delayed sleep phase syndrome until I made a deliberate effort to go to bed at 9PM every night for 2 weeks straight. The first few days were painful, but it's easy to push through when you're only looking at 2 weeks maximum. After those 2 weeks, I realized I'm a much happier, healthier, and more productive person if I go to bed at 9PM and wake up at 5AM, but it doesn't happen naturally.

Alternatively, you may discover that a routine doesn't work for you, but you're not losing much by trying it out for 2 weeks.

On average, you have about 4000-4500 weeks in a life time. It's worth taking some of those weeks to run easy experiments that could pay dividends for years to come.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#124

Post by ScottFree »

dageshi wrote: post #82
HighlandSpring wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about afternoon/evening people? I seem to have a pathological inability to get much done before midday/afternoon/evening/night (depending on severity) I wonder if this is a belief I'm self-reinforcing by identifying as an "evening coder". I mean, I doubt there's a physiological reason for this. It's probably a matter of this being a habit of a lifetime that I've never fought back against hard enough.

There were certainly artists in that book who could only work in the evening or at night, it's just the most common pattern seemed to be the one I described which also happens to work for me. That being said there were times in my life where I would only get productive at 11pm till 2-4 in the morning.

I wonder if there's an age component. I read that same book and I remember (maybe erroneously) that the artists who worked best in the morning were older, whereas the artists who worked better at night were younger and oftentimes addicted to stimulants.

That more or less describes my working patterns over time, too, including the addicted to stimulants part. When I was young, my most productive time of day was after everybody fell asleep. Now, it's before everybody wakes up.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#125

Post by hammock »

JeanMarcS wrote: post #73
dageshi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think each one have to find where those 2-4hours lies. For me they start between 5pm and 6pm. I can spend the day in front of my screen doing (almost) nothing or admin stuff. And then it kicks on and I’m (a lot more) productive. The problem is that it’s around the time I have to take care of the kids when my wife can’t...

>I think each one have to find where those 2-4 hours lies.

True, and I don't think it has anything to do with a personal biologicaltime of day connection. The time of day that works for you is probably related to the contexts of what happen before and after in your day. The events which lead you into one mindset or another. So you could change your day to change what time of day it is, as well. You aren't "stuck."

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#126

Post by kugelblitz »

cfontes wrote: post #57
kugelblitz wrote: post #53

I use #2 (blocking distractions by editing the /etc/hosts) and it does work. Mostly because it's already a reflex strategy to go on these websites. Stuck on a problem? Check Hacker News or Reddit for a short-term dopamine trigger. But just adding the 127.0.0.1 to the 3-5 most frequented websites is enough to stop me from reading them. It's like now I have to consciously decide: "Do you REALLY want to check this websi…

"Stuck on a problem? Check Hacker News or Reddit for a short-term dopamine trigger" This sucks and it is absolutely true, but to me it's more about boredom, you know that monkey job you absolutely need to do but is terribly boring to the sleep inducing level? That immediately makes me search for some other thing to focys, fighting it is very hard, I don't smoke but I think this is the closest that comes to my mind wh…

Yep, boredom is definitely one reason.

Also, when I was assigned to a new project where I get to work on a modern tech stack and create a proof of concept, I was able to got 6-10 hours of high productivity (sort of like a honeymoon phase with new tech) for several days.

But then I got re-assigned to a project with a tech stack that I really don't like e.g. a "hot reload" would take 5-10 seconds and it would trigger every time I save a file + the project structure doesn't make sense - but people who worked on it have since left the project + I'm not learning anything useful. I've tried focusing on the tech challenges, but my tasks are mostly to fix bugs. Refactoring is not wanted, since the idea is to ship a less buggy version as soon as possible.

Fortunately I'm a contract freelancer, once this project ends in 2 months, I won't extend and will look for a new company.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#127

Post by eitland »

dageshi wrote: post #63
maheart wrote: post #19

I 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.

This used to be me until 4 years or so ago when I started skipping breakfast.

I love breakfast, but not because I feel hungry in the morning so once I discovered this I started skipping breakfast.

I'm fully convinced however that a good number of people would become more productive if they did eat breakfast.

FTR: I often wake up extremely early (often before 04 for days in a row) and can hardly get anything except extremely simple work done after 2100 (even back when I used to sleep more normal hours.)

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#128

Post by shireboy »

I may try this, but a couple thoughts I'd love feedback/ideas on:

1) I routinely get into these "browser time loops" while waiting for a build. App's got 30s build time? Ah, I'll check reddit. 30 minutes later ... I have found that autosave has helped, and hot module reload in Webpack, but for server code that requires build (.NET), still looking for a way to reduce that. Similar for publishing code. It takes a few minutes to publish to web host, let's go read the news... I feel like a really good CI would help with this.

2) I value being informed. I use Feedly to monitor news, especially industry news. So part of me doesn't want to block sites on principal. I keep saying "I value staying up to date on these topics. I'll just avoid when I should be working" but never do. A way to time access would probably be worthwhile.

3) I question too much focus on "productivity" as defined by spending time looking at an IDE. I don't have 24x7 cranking out code as a goal. I'd much rather focus on extending time "in the zone" where I'm focused and writing quality code. Pomodoro breaks that for me. Music helps sometimes, but can also distract. Caffeine helps, but requires more and more.

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#129

Post by [deleted] »

justaguyhere wrote: post #60
maheart wrote: post #19

I 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…

do you use any tools for pomodoro? Or just the stopwatch on your phone?

[deleted]

Re: Kick the Shit Out of Procrastination

#130

Post by superpermutat0r »

ignoramous wrote: post #39
superpermutat0r wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pomodoro also works for me, I've had weeks of doing almost nothing, after I started simple 25 min bits with pauses, for some reason it can go on forever.

Any mobile or desktop app you use specifically for this that you'd recommend?

I use https://github.com/michaelvillar/timer-app and TextEdit to write my pomodoros for every day. Take 5 minute breaks, and a big 15-30 minute break, pomodoros of size 25-30 minutes (25 mins get prolonged a little if I need to stop in a wrong moment, usually just write a note what I was doing and force myself to take a pause). I end up doing ~12 pomodoros a day.

I don't like long stretches of work, it might be just me but I end up obsessing over unnecessary details the longer I concentrate on some problems, if I take a forced pause and then continue, I seem to use less time for the same amount of work.

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