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Fooling myself to work

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Re: Fooling myself to work

#42

Post by will_lam »

Nice list of productivity lifehacks. I use a combination of Rescuetime Premium, LeechBlock for Firefox to prevent any slacking in case I'm tempted. In the meantime I use FocusBooster (Pomodoro technique) to keep the pressure on :)

Re: Fooling myself to work

#43

Post by pw »

Did anyone else realize that English must be the author's second language?

Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#44

Post by Terry_B »

I find writing out the instructions to be very helpful as a start as well. If I'm really struggling to get started on something I tend to divide myself into Thinking Me and Robot Me.

Thinking Me just starts writing out the dot points on how to do something, because thinking is easy right? Then Robot Me just starts following the instructions, because simply following instructions is also easy. Can even listen to your favourite music while doing it.

Then next thing you know, you're under way...

Re: Fooling myself to work

#46

Post by justlearning »

pw wrote: post #43

Did anyone else realize that English must be the author's second language? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers.

".. always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers."

could you elaborate?

Re: Fooling myself to work

#47

Post by csomar »

I tell myself that I will merely write down the steps needed to complete the task. Just a rough draft, at first, and that’s it. Maybe just 3 steps. I then add more steps, breaking the 3 steps into smaller sub-tasks. I then add some details, and thoughts, notes of things that I shouldn’t forget when doing this task. I just think the task through and write everything down. After a little while, I will be a proud author of “The Complete Guide To Finishing Task X for Dummies”.

I have exactly the same problem, but I don't think it's laziness. I think it's the fear of failure, or more precisely the fear and uncertainty of being able to do a task. Breaking the task down into smaller steps, make you able to overcome that fear but not procrastination.

Re: Fooling myself to work

#48

Post by biot »

justlearning wrote: post #46
pw wrote: post #43

Did anyone else realize that English must be the author's second language? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers.

".. always amazed by the little clues that are behind by otherwise proficient non-native speakers." could you elaborate?

One thing I've found particularly for German speakers is the use of phrases like "since 2 years". A native speaker would say "since 2 years ago", fixing the reference to a definite point in time rather than a duration alone.
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