How to Stop Procrastinating on Your Goals by Using the “Seinfeld Strategy”

How to Stop Procrastinating on Your Goals by Using the “Seinfeld Strategy”
jamesclear.com

Same thing for analysis paralysis while coding: just write something. Anything. I can refactor it or even throw it out later.

The first couple of days it was novel, so it was easy to get motivated. By the 3rd or 4th day I began to feel like "I've explored everything that can be done with these changes; this is pointless." yet I pressed on.

Turned out that almost always I came up with something that surprises me.

I now focus on just doing it, regardless of how 'inspired' or motivated I feel.

He will generally tend to give you bell-curve advice based on stabilizing a routine.

Seinfeld likes Cheerios and Superman and the old stand-bys and so on. This is a bell-curve person who sees that curve, socially and behaviorally speaking, as finding sanity.

(IMO he is also likely terrified of displaying what he sees as a latent insanity. But that's just my opinion, for fun, etc.)

To me--I can't get sustainable results that way. What's stable for me is irrational for Seinfeld, or for someone who finds this kind of technique sustainable.

For example, one of my favorite ways to not procrastinate a thing you are trying to do is to teach it. Guess what, class starts tomorrow and you don't know jack. Or to start at the end, connect with experts, and learn it backwards, eventually ending up at first principles.

This is not rational or bell curvy unless you redefine rational and bell curve based on a new context.

IMO if you aren't a routine-based person to begin with, these kinds of routine-based hacks, using chain metaphors and such, can be risky to your sense of well-being. First, they sound rational & make sense. And second, when they don't work--for whatever reason--they make you feel _special_ in the wrong way. Maybe more like "different" in that you feel really hopeless or dumb.

God, I broke the damn chain again! Sometimes it's enough to make you want to start googling up "chain-breaking ADHD" or something.

One of the most interesting questions I've found to determine the difference in subjects/suitable people for this kind of work is: "Do you sometimes feel like you are meant to live like a cat, passing days, weeks, maybe even months without making meaningful progress, then BOOM one day the big plan starts as if by itself, and you do something amazing?" If yes, then probably focusing on a don't-break-the-chain model is looking in the wrong place. But not to worry, there are gobs of ways to get where you need to go!

(Another crazy opinion of mine is that if you are an autodidact, depending on how autodidactic you are, you should probably not be learning by rote or routine-focused means.)

Still, I love that this particular model comes with a well-known personality attached to it, and for a variety of reasons I wish more productivity models were like that.