Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
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Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#2I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.
I'm desperate for something that works. I'll pay any amount of money for something that will make me sit down and do things. I've sat down and listened to literally every single Huberman Labs content I could find. I'm trying out brain.fm's free playlists on youtube. I downloaded EndeavorOTC just recently and it's wildly expensive but at this point nothing else is working. I know the problem is I'm just lazy and I don't want to make lifestyle changes. Great. Now with that agreed upon, what the hell do I do? I saw a doctor when I was young and he said I definitely don't have ADHD. Should I be seeking a Vyvanse prescription anyways?
I've read all of the books I could find looking for the one that will fix me. Will this one work? Do people find any of these actually helpful?
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#3My top recommendations for understanding and improving how you learn are the Coursera course Learning how to Learn and the accompanying book, A Mind for Numbers. Absolute game changers for me, and many years later I continue to practice and leverage what I learned from them.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Mind_for_Numbers.html...
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#4I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
How about you just go to a professional, get your (presumed) ADHD diagnosed, and get on a known effective treatment for it? You don't need to do it all on your own - there are people who devoted their lives to treating situations like your own.
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#5I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
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Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#6I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
Same issue. Build timy habits I guess. It’s actually a really hard problem to solve.
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#7I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
> I'll pay any amount of money that will make me sit down and do things.
That's almost exactly what I said to myself that prompted me to realize I needed to go to a doctor. Not because I planned on actually spending any amount of money, but because that level of sheer desperation is what finally convinced me I had something wrong with me.
Turns out I had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD the whole time. I'd seek a second opinion because I have no idea why your doctor would say you "definitely don't have ADHD" unless he is one of those doctors that just doesn't believe in ADHD, which is unfortunately common. If you weren't rigorously tested then that doctor's opinion doesn't mean anything, so try again.
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#8I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
I'm just a random person, but for me motivation has always beaten the living snot out of any big ideas. I haven't found a magic technique. As long as I've feared an outcome and still been able to react to fear with effort, I've been fine even when it seemed hopeless. Negative emotions are vital in this way.
I also found that too many layers of abstraction (aka "overthinking") can work against discipline. It's too easy to want to defer to a system. That's where we may be comfortable, but it's important to remember it might as well be a board of bureaucrats in your head you appointed whether by hook or crook. Give up and just work. It's highly unlikely anything you're facing is new to you or that exacting precision and order is required.
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#9I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
Nothing can 'make' you do anything. Moral Purpose overcomes itself. Don't make lifestyle changes because of something external. Find your inner energy. Seek nothing outside yourself.
Re: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy
#10I have a tangential question: How can I know which of these self help things are helpful and which are just snake oil? I can't get disciplined and I'm desperate. It's hurting my job, it's hurting my home life. When I decide to take a shower on the weekend it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to actually get up and walk to the bathroom. Then it might be another 30 minutes of scrolling before I actually hop in the shower.…
I've found that there is nothing in these books. I've read enough of them that I now have zero curiosity about what they have to say.
What works for me is to choose to suffer. You can replace all those books and all their pages with just those three words. There's no mindhack or some new scientific (or spiritual) method to no longer suffer when working. Just choose to suffer and get good at suffering.