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Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
11–20 of 64 posts
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#12Take an Adderall pill one time every day for two days. Heh. You'll work like a machine from that point forward.
No. No drugs, please. My problem are my habits. I do not have a disease.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#131 word...routine. If you go into your day without a battle plan you'll get distracted by every little thing. Create a schedule and stick to it
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#14Take an Adderall pill one time every day for two days. Heh. You'll work like a machine from that point forward.
No. No drugs, please. My problem are my habits. I do not have a disease.
Oh. Eh, well, I wrote a small blog post a while back about little things that help me stay on-track:
http://whitepaperclip.com/blog/post/2-Avoiding-Procrastinati...
Everyone is different, though.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#15When you have to work, disconnect your Ethernet cable.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#16I'd say that your issue doesn't need a organizational solution, it's a deeper question. I go by "when why gets bigger, how gets easier". I would suggest sitting down and writing out 100 (or however many) reasons for what you are trying to accomplish. As you have those done, your motivation will grow and get you past the little distractions. The more reasons you have for accomplishing your goals, the easier it will be…
That's also been my experience. There is a really good book that can help you get a handle on why precisely you procrastinate: "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It" by Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen. It was published in 1983, but I still haven't seen a better one on the psychology of why people procrastinate.
EDIT: The problem is big and complex enough to need a book to cover it. Blog posts and magazine articles usually only cover a specific, narrow aspect of the problem. This book as well as covering the field is readable enough that it doesn't take too long to read through.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#17Suck it up. Stop reading blogs, stop reading HN, stop making excuses. Start working. There are no tips that will break you out of it - just self discipline. I was you once. GTD by David Allen helped. Going to the gym daily with my brother (who is a gym rat) helped, but I finally realized that I had everything in the world that people are dieing to get and I was squandering that gift by wasting my time. Procrastinatin…
I just wanted to say that when I voted you up, I clicked really hard.
I often struggle with time management procrastination and a high level of distractibility. It really comes down to just being honest with yourself and understanding the choices you're making. The gym is a huge help too, it's good for you, it gives you energy and it helps you focus.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#18Well, you said you already had some ideas, but maybe these help as well.
Things that work for me:
- Tasks you really don't like doing are harder to start with. But, are the tasks you have to do really important? What happens if you don't do them? Eliminate as much as possible.
- Start working on a task as late as possible. The pressure, it helps. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law)
- Break it up in small steps. Working on a task "Build the next google" is not going to get you started. Split it up in smaller steps, and associate little milestones or 'victories' to completing a small step.
- Another reason for procrastination is feeling overwhelmed (decision paralysis, action paralysis). If you have so much to do that no matter what you finish, it still feels like you have a lot left, it's impossible to start. Again, try to eliminate or make a feasible schedule for yourself, such that you are able to finish your list for the day.
- Stop feeling bad about procrastination. Actually, plan in some procrastination time. Forcing yourself to work all the time and feel bad about not doing it will cause you to procrastinate more. Plan in some time for 'slacking', or even better: exercise, do some sports and get back to work afterwards.
- If you would give yourself 1 hour/day for procrastination; what would you rather do? Read digg about lolcats or sit outside in the sun, and talk with some friends? If you go at it like this, you'll notice how valuable your limited time actually is, and you'll stop reading those websites.
- Again, more sports! Clear mind == more productive.
- If you allow yourself the time to 'procrastinate' (i.e. reading websites, RSS, email, etc.), it will also make it easier to read news/mail in batches. Limit it to max. 3 times per day or so.
- If you want help to get into some new (productivity) habits, start a "Seinfeld calendar" (Google it if you haven't heard of it before)
- Do NOT, _EVER_, start your day with reading news/mail/etc (or keep it to offline news -- yes, news papers ;).
- Unplug. Information overload == bad.
- Start the day with an easy task. It's not hard to start with and it will get you in the "getting-s*-done mood". Once you start ticking of tasks - no matter how little it was - it feels like getting done more!
Hope this helps!
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#19Instead of aiming to do 1 thing and failing to do it, aim to do 20 things and accept that 5 of them will slip. Do that and basically shift to whatever you feel like doing at the time (with the only caveat that it should be relatively productive stuff - ie. not "play WoW", more like "write a blog post" or "design a new homepage"). You probably will still get stuff done just before the deadline when it has a hard deadl…
Funny, that's exactly the opposite of what I would suggest: Work on only the most important thing and nothing else. It's helped me maintain focus no matter how crazy things get.
pg says it much better here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
"What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?"
Just goes to show you: Ask 2 hackers a question and get 3 answers. You'll just have to figure out what works best for you.
Re: Ask Entrepreneurs: Productivity tips for a chronic procrastinator?
#20Suck it up. Stop reading blogs, stop reading HN, stop making excuses. Start working. There are no tips that will break you out of it - just self discipline. I was you once. GTD by David Allen helped. Going to the gym daily with my brother (who is a gym rat) helped, but I finally realized that I had everything in the world that people are dieing to get and I was squandering that gift by wasting my time. Procrastinatin…
I just wanted to say that when I voted you up, I clicked really hard. I often struggle with time management procrastination and a high level of distractibility. It really comes down to just being honest with yourself and understanding the choices you're making. The gym is a huge help too, it's good for you, it gives you energy and it helps you focus.
From now on I will put more thought into how hard I click.