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Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

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Re: Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

#3

Post by sujayk_33 »

Unfortunately not, at least for not me.

It feels nice to read it or watch it but unless we decide to change, it's not going to happen and decision fatigue is the main cause of this. Making fewer decisions will help.

I like to call it "The Curse of Decision Making" which is upon us.

Length of watch/read laters ∝ Magnitude of Procrastination.

Re: Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

#5

Post by luzojeda »

They help for a week or two and then I'm back to where I started. I'm starting therapy next week with one of the main goals try to solve this because it's been too many years already. It's getting worse and it is starting to generate a lot of distress. I would recommend trying that, there is a point where one can only do and control so much, if you tried many approaches it's time to look for external help.

Re: Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

#8

Post by throwaway_48573 »

I think this is a common experience. For me it isn't depression but sub-conscious anxiety (which lead to depression, there is feedback). Everything conspires together to create a cycle of procrastination fear, anxiety, depression, boredom, any vague feeling of discomfort, any distraction.

My route to getting going is to pick the smallest easiest thing I'm procrastinating and just do it. Then use the kick of success to do a harder one.

Re: Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

#9

Post by aerojoe23 »

Hm, very little to go off here. If you can see problem with your behavior, and it sounds like you can't fix it, you should seek out real help.

A post on hacker news doesn't seem the place for it. There are probably better support groups/forums to ask in.

There are probably many questions to answer that would help you determine what it is. A few that come to mind:

  * Is this new or have you always struggled with procrastination? 
  * Do you have (or have you had) other symptoms of ADHD? 
  * How was/is school? 
  * Do you have some subjects you thrive in and some you fail at, and nothing between? 
  * Have you started a new job or role at work?
  * Do you like it? 
  * Any other major life events? Fired, kid on the way, death in the family, my friend on discord stopped talking to me. 
  * Does the procrastination apply to almost everything? 
  * Are you doing something really hard, succeeding at that and can't make yourself do other hard things? 
  * Are you saturating your brain scrolling on the internet and it doesn't have room for anything else?

Re: Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

#10

Post by __rito__ »

There are precisely two realizations that helped me beat procrastination, but I know that these won't be helpful in every situation:

- Totally keep motivation out of the equation. Depend fully on routine. Give yourself time to think before you commit to something. Totally reject it if you don't deem it worthy of doing. Once you make the decision, carve out slots in your calendar/text file for that task only. If it's something long term, make a habit of it, and do it even if you don't want to.

- Reading two chapters of a book is better than reading no chapters of a book. You are two chapters' knowledge worth wiser than yourself when you didn't start the book. Implementing two features in the your side project app leaves you more competent than when you didn't start at all. Realize this. Don't think about finishing, end results at all. Just start.

These don't guarantee you finish something. But these ensures that you start. Not finishing things is another problem, but that's not what the OP has asked.

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