Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
deprocrastination.co
Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
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Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#2Spot on argument.
Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#3Spot on argument. Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot. Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
I agree wholeheartedly. I've been stuck in a rut of procrastination for the last several years, during which I hardly ever started side projects or experiments due to tired old excuses such as "I simply don't have enough time", "This would at least need x hours per day", etc.
When I eventually tried to start something, it would inevitably be delayed by other daily things to carry out (work, family, other life related stuff), so not taking notes would always result in "" have no idea what I was aiming for last time".
Add to that a fairly (un)healthy dose of perfectionism coming from working in the same field, and you have a recipe for years wasted on complete inactivity.
Another fiend of this kind, friendly to procrastination, is the inability to decide what to actually work on, especially when you have a lot of interests. Then the question becomes "I have hours available to work on something, but I cannot pull the trigger on any of those things that interest me", so back again to square 1 with year wasted on indecisiveness with nothing to show for it.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#4I like to think about discipline in terms of habits, either built in a perfect environment or real and messy, as described in the article. The perfect ones are what we aim to achieve, but they are flimsy because once we are in a different environment, the habits disappear. The latter are much more prone to changes but harder to initialize.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#5I also suggest to add a physical signal on your typical life accessories like phone or watch.
E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into "day-dreaming".
Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let's keep it for its mnemonic value).
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#6This site is bizarre.
If you look at their stuff on addiction, they have no grounding in current theory. And by current theory, that's from science to religious ideas like prayer, nothing they talk about matches anything in the world from hard numbers to mysticism. They also have no explanation why they break with all the current theories or where their theories come from.
By now they are a HN institution, but I'd be very wary following their advice if you medically depend on it working.
deprocrastination.co is like a surreal movie, I think I like it, but I'm glad sites like these are not everywhere, like Scientology, fun because it's different. OP you should also create a new religion and run a site, you'd be good I think. That's not facetious-ism, but you'd have to be morally ok with it.
[edit] As an example of what I'm saying related to this article - "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" has no real meaning. It's simplified to "action > nothing"
What would be meaningful is "wrong action > perfect nothing" or "action > planning"
But as you can see HN eats up stuff like "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" It's good writing.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#7There is also the idea that the common thing is more important than the extraordinary. Common everyday tasks should be higher priority than the extraordinary tasks.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#8I like to think about discipline in terms of habits, either built in a perfect environment or real and messy, as described in the article. The perfect ones are what we aim to achieve, but they are flimsy because once we are in a different environment, the habits disappear. The latter are much more prone to changes but harder to initialize.
This is the conclusion that I've come to as well after trying for way too long to find inspiration to those things that I either want to do (on some level) or need to do.
Habits are things you do that don't have a big hurdle. For years I've been able to run without feeling that there's a great resistance in doing it (I don't normally identify as a runner). But picking up some work that I want to do but don't feel it's the right moment to do has been a lot harder. Lately I've had some progress with at just doing tasks because it's become a habit when I have some time over.
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#9I also suggest to add a physical signal on your typical life accessories like phone or watch. E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into "day-dreaming". Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let's keep it for its mnemonic value).
I have a little silicone thumb ring I use for this. No idea why I bought a handful of them in the first place but they're useful for this sort of thing!
If I'm wearing it, there's still work stuff on my todo list that needs doing today.
Brings me back to the PC rather than coming in from a walk and doing a bunch of housework I notice on the way in haha. Hard to miss being on my hand, almost anything I could do while procrastinating will make me see it :)
Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess
#10Spot on argument. Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot. Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
Honestly, I really don't relate to this.
I don't have tasks I can do in 25 or 30 minutes, except for the exact kind of "marking messages read" tasks that leave me feeling empty at the end of the day.
> Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
For me, these notes would mostly be "spent 25 minutes rebuilding context, got pulled away" over and over again.
I think there are some good techniques in this article. Taking notes is good.
But I don't think embracing the chaos is the way to go, I think being a lot more proactive and firm about giving yourself the time you need to focus and do high quality work is the better approach.
If every day is becoming a mess, start by figuring out how to fix that.