81–90 of 179 posts
If only you didn't waste your time playing games! You'd be able to afford a Ferrari by now! So do you play games? Of course not. So, where's your Ferrari?
Allowing oneself to be bored, or at least idle, without self-judgement, can be extremely valuable. You're likely processing things in the background (often without realizing it), which will make your active decisions and activities easier.
I do this when I get bored. Reddit gets in the way of being bored.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I was diagnosed with ADHD this year and this read like a very clear summary of my symptoms, how I feel about those symptoms and various strategies I've tried. The point about the "new todo-app effect" is very real, and so I have now accepted that no productivity system will work long term and instead try to enjoy switching to new systems every few months
Asking as an adult that increasingly suspects he may be undiagnosed ADHD: Did the diagnosis result in being prescribed a treatment? If so, what, and has it helped? I'm conscious that each case must be handled individually, and whatever happened with your diagnosis/treatment would not be the same with me, but I'm interested to hear nonetheless from anyone that's willing to share.
Before then I spent my life being unable to put any time or energy into something for more than a few hours, and then I got bored and could never focus on that thing again. I couldn't do homework, I couldn't study for tests, I couldn't do much at all unless it was something hyper interesting that I could focus on it for a few hours before it became boring again. Even if I locked myself in a room with only that thing I couldn't focus on it.
Then a decade out of high school and after struggling with finishing the last bits of college so I could graduate I got diagnosed. The pills they gave me meant that suddenly I could sit down and focus and finish tasks. Suddenly everything that was impossible before was now possible. I could sit down and do all the homework no problems. I could sit and learn programming on my own no problem. I could perform at the software engineering job I got thanks to that self study no problem.
If I stop taking the pills I stop being able to do all of those things, even if I go months without, so there is nothing addictive about it at least for me, I just can't perform a job without them. I just take them because I want to get things done, I've never felt a need to take them to have fun or so, if I don't work I don't take them.
The Hook with sites like Reddit, HN, etc is that they ARE addictive. Actually addictive in the sense of gambling. In gambling addiction the gamblers aren't addicted to winning, they are addicted to losing, or "almost winning". Now if they never ever won the addiction wouldn't form. If they ALWAYS won the addiction also wouldn't form. The old thing was email that people were addicted to checking because you MIGHT get…
Hacker News nurtures an addiction like nothing I've ever seen before. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok don't even come close. I wonder if we give "algorithms" too much credit, considering HN does such a good job of capturing my attention without them.
> I’d end up bikeshedding my vim config instead of doing real work on my side project. i chuckled realizing nobody but programmers understands this and funny & recognizable at the same time!
This reminds me of something I did last week. In our team we share a Keepass file on a Windows share to exchange important passwords. If I am WFH I have to connect to the VPN, login to said share, copy the file and paste it to my linux laptop. This takes less than 5min but it always feels like a waste of time. So then I had a genius idea that I could automate this process, to save time you know. Well, after 1,5 hours…
Facing a very similar issue and trying similar things unsuccessfully, I've found out lately with my coach that a more promising way to break out of the cycle of "wasting time" and beating myself up over it might be very counter-intuitive: Self-acceptance. I've found that acknowledging my need for relaxation and satisfying my curiosity was a solid first step in helping cure my addiction on a more fundamental level. Ch…
I sporadically ask myself, what would be the most fun to do for me?
And then just do it. After a short period of time, I'm usually exhausted or bored by it and come back to more meaningful stuff.
I got this advice from the now habit by Neil Fire. I haven't read the whole book, just skipped forward to the solution but it helps.