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I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

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Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#141

Post by kls »

ponko wrote: post #138
kls wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on them for several years, had to go up in dose in the first 6 months but after that they have worked ever since. I take an obscure and old ADHD medicine called Desoxen and my dosage is 15 MG twice a day, it has been the same dose for over 4 years, Desoxen had less side effects for me than some of the other meds like Adderall. Also if you do have ADHD, that is exactly what it is like, turning normal on. I…

I also resisted getting diagnosed as I did not want to rely on "drugs" and I figured that I was just lazy or unmotivated. Eventually my coping methods like drinking tons of coffee just did not help at all and I took the plunge. It really is an issue of denial. I realized instantly the first time I took Adderall that I should not have waited so long. It is kind of frustrating to look back and realize how many of my is…

Funny enough those of us with ADD/ADHD don't have a high dependancy profile for stimulants we just don't get the euphoria that others describe from using them. Now I have never abused mine I am sure you can get there if you take enough. It just does not have the same effect on us as it does normal people who already have enough dopamine in their brain.

Funny story, I used to work for a nutritional supplement company and we would pull some all nighters, we where all young and liked what we did. We published a magazine and I was in charge of the web assets as well as the enterprise systems. Anyways, I was done one night and just could not go anymore and the CEO says here take this and I was like, what is it? and he says oh it's Ephedrine so I took it, and finished work at about 11-12 PM went home completely clear headed and started doing projects that I had been putting off for months. This lasted for 8 hours, I was like this is really weird, I have taken Ephedrine before and it never did that. I would get a little clarity but nothing like that. So anyways I go back into work the following Monday and I say to him, dude what did you give me that was not Ephedrine. So he rifles thru his desk and I hear an oh shit, I am so sorry dude. I was like sorry about what, and he said I accidentally grabbed my bottle of Fen-Phen and gave you one of those. Anyways the point of the story is I should have realized then and there that the medicines helps but I was still in denial. Mainly due to my ability to easily hyper-focus so I can be really productive at one thing.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#142

Post by naasking »

hackerbabz wrote: post #70
Nition wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great parody/insight into that feeling of "if I just get the conditions right, I can get started." Like all the great writers who just need six months in a forest cabin to write their great novel, but they never start it in the one hour of time they already have every evening.

I watched a really helpful video on what the creator called "The Toolbox Fallacy". I can't start a project until I have every tool I need in my toolbox...but it seems every time I buy a tool I discover another one I need. I think of that every time I put something off - "Am I making up a reason not to do this? Can I really just do it all now?"

Not to mention, sometimes doing without the tool let's you find a novel solution. At the very least, it's a great learning experience.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#143

Post by kls »

ponko wrote: post #140
kls wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mentioned the dishes, because that is one of those really simple tasks that I would ignore to focus on whatever I was focused on. Now I do the dishes to take a break, almost subconsciously. Any cleaning used to require it's own dedicated block of time (usually Saturday) on the meds cleaning is just something I do to take a break and regroup. For me and my ADHD without meds hyper-focus was easy (If I am inte…

> ... you have to drink lots of water That's a fact! One of the weird things about Adderall at least is that you no longer have any physical needs. You don't get thirsty and that's a good way to end the day with a killer dehydration headache. I suspect that some of the cardiovascular risk can be minimized by making sure you are not taking a dosage that is too high for you. Your heart should not be racing at all with…

I don't want to minimize it, but the cardiovascular risks are minimal if you don't have a serious underlining condition. They increase BP a little over what caffeine does and less than Nicotine does.

The lack of cravings is a weird side-effect. I love to eat but when I take my meds I could care less. Especially Desoxyn, it's like Adderall x 100 in the don't care if I eat department. Adderall did have one really weird side effect for me and was the reason I looked into other meds and that is it increased my sexual urges quite a bit. Really to an unhealthy level. I have read that it has that effect on certain people and that it comes from the levo-amphetamines and their targeting the PNS more than the CNS.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#144

Post by tomjen3 »

Nition wrote: post #50
dnh44 wrote: post #27

When I’ve done a great job of procrastinating, I normally have a lot anxious energy that I feel I need to get rid of so I go for a 30 minute walk or run. During this outing I repeat the Mentat Mantra from the Dune film to myself the entire time. "It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alo…

This is a great parody/insight into that feeling of "if I just get the conditions right, I can get started." Like all the great writers who just need six months in a forest cabin to write their great novel, but they never start it in the one hour of time they already have every evening.

It would be hyperbolic to say that the only way I ever get anything done is to set a ten minute timer and then commit to do The Thing for ten minutes[1], but it is massively helpful. Curiously, sometimes I then get mad at the timer because it beeped[0] and I was working on The Thing.

[0]: it beeped because the time was up. [1]: if you can't do The Thing for ten minutes because of physical limits, this trick does not apply. Also, it is totally fine to stop when the ten minutes are up, the goal is not to trick yourself into doing more work, but to get over the issue of getting started.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#145

Post by tomjen3 »

badpun wrote: post #111
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a thing from Stephen King (IIRC) that poo-poohed the writer's block / "right circumstances" thing, he approached it more as a job, you sit down and write. Overpower the "I don't know what to write" thing, don't wait for creativity to come, etc. Maybe one day I'll unlazy myself and look it up again. But the most common advice I've seen against procrastination is to just force yourself to do five minutes of your…

This approach probably works for non-creative tasks, but most of King's novels are just mediocre, which I guess reflects his factory-like attitude to writing.

I haven't read most of his work, but you can take the advice and use that as your draft. I can't imagine many writers not having to refactor their writings, possibly multiple times.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#146

Post by seph-reed »

robotresearcher wrote: post #51
seph-reed wrote: post #31

I don't understand the obsession with "fighting procrastination". It's like you have to be doing something always or else you've wasted time. There's no finish line here. You can't win. http://subgenius.com/ Go ahead and procrastinate, then don't feel guilty. Do nothing "useful" and enjoy it. Whoever/whatever it is that's making you feel like you have to do more, it's probably just abusive manipulation of labor force…

> Whoever/whatever it is that's making you feel like you have to do more, it's probably just abusive manipulation of labor forces. That's not procrastination. Procrastination is having a final exam tomorrow, knowing you need to study, being perfectly able to study, have nothing else at all you need to do, wanting above all things to study, and yet somehow despite everything being aligned towards studying, not studyin…

Maybe it's not the part of your life where you should be studying. If you don't really want to, it seems like your mind isn't going to make the positive associations with learning that information that it kind of needs to have in order to develop an actual vested interest and move the subject forward.

This world is full of people who market knowing stuff they don't care about and it might actually not be that great.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#147

Post by robotresearcher »

seph-reed wrote: post #146
robotresearcher wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever/whatever it is that's making you feel like you have to do more, it's probably just abusive manipulation of labor forces. That's not procrastination. Procrastination is having a final exam tomorrow, knowing you need to study, being perfectly able to study, have nothing else at all you need to do, wanting above all things to study, and yet somehow despite everything being aligned towards studying, not studyin…

Maybe it's not the part of your life where you should be studying. If you don't really want to, it seems like your mind isn't going to make the positive associations with learning that information that it kind of needs to have in order to develop an actual vested interest and move the subject forward. This world is full of people who market knowing stuff they don't care about and it might actually not be that great.

But you do really want to. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't a terrible, painful conflict between what you want to do and what you do.

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#148

Post by Ductapemaster »

maximente wrote: post #73
non-entity wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I'm good at making "unbreakable" rules, but I'm much better at breaking them.

integrity issue IMO. you're OK with making commitments and not delivering on them. controversial, perhaps, but fixing your integrity issues can go a long way. part of that means making commitments that matter, not role-playing about them. most try to fix their integrity issues overnight by doing things like dieting, planning to go from 0 to insane exercise, or whatever else. that's tough, and probably won't work unle…

This is an excellent observation, thank you for the perspective. I realized that this is likely what I struggle with, and procrastination is rather a symptom of the issue. I find it very hard to make commitments to myself (and sometimes others) that I will follow through on. Once I am in a groove, I will continue, but starting is painful.

Have you dealt with rebuilding this in yourself?

Re: I trick my well-developed procrastination skills

#149

Post by ponko »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #135
kls wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mentioned the dishes, because that is one of those really simple tasks that I would ignore to focus on whatever I was focused on. Now I do the dishes to take a break, almost subconsciously. Any cleaning used to require it's own dedicated block of time (usually Saturday) on the meds cleaning is just something I do to take a break and regroup. For me and my ADHD without meds hyper-focus was easy (If I am inte…

> breaking out of that hyper-focus was like killing my dog That's such good way to describe it for those who just don't experience it. It's like if you had just reached the decision logically to turn off life support for someone you love. It's not like you just straight away walk over and switch it off. There's this awful reluctance that you have to go through first. Medication sounds like quite a mixed bag, but I'm…

Something that helped me -even if you get diagnosed and get a RX, you have no obligation to take those meds and can stop at any time. At first I was so wary that I was only taking one dose a week. Might be worth a shot, as the improvement to quality of life can be dramatic.
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