121–130 of 308 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also helps me to look at this image: http://i.imgur.com/39U4k.png . Each box is one month of your life. There really aren't that many of them.
For the lazy and curious, there are 80 boxes. 24 by 40.
I try not to recommend pop-psych books, but The Power of Habit taught me some useful tricks: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400069289/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... . The upshot is that you can't stop this part of yourself. You can only redirect it. You have a rich set of impulse-reward cycles triggered by the thought of beginning something difficult. You can't help responding to the triggers, but you can change the routines…
> it's starting to really gnaw at me Good. One concrete suggestion: Develop the following habit. Whenever you are confronted with an unpleasant task X, there is a moment where your mind starts searching for other, more pleasant things to do. This is the moment where you have to implant the habit of asking - not yourself, but an imaginary judge: "If I defer task X, will it become easier later?". For some tasks, this m…
> > it's starting to really gnaw at me > Good. I'm not sure whether that is good at all. Of course, we're all different, but what worked for me was quite the opposite of this: I learned to accept myself the way I am. Like you, I've grown up being the smartest of the class. Other people had to sweat and I could just sit it all through. A result was decent grades and a complete lack of discipline. If I'd be me, but wit…
But a lack of self-discipline might hurt you in areas which are much more serious.
If you keep avoiding hard talks with your spouse, eventually you will have a problem.
If you do projects or activities with friends and always shy away from the unpleasant or dirty work, you're not being a friend they can trust to really go the extra mile with them. You will lose good friends over this. I personally have grieved a good friend over this.
If you never put any planning and execution effort into your family activities, there won't be any.
If you always keep away from doing mundane things like dentist visits, grocery shopping, regular house cleaning, your kids will suffer for your laziness.
And, maybe the worst: If your kids happen to not be overly gifted easy-achievers, and you do not teach your kids that most goods things have to worked hard for, then you have denied them a lesson their future life will depend on.
(Start with with the first few episodes to get a sense of what the show is about -- don't start with the current episodes because there's a lot of inside baseball that won't make sense or be interesting.)
> it's starting to really gnaw at me Good. One concrete suggestion: Develop the following habit. Whenever you are confronted with an unpleasant task X, there is a moment where your mind starts searching for other, more pleasant things to do. This is the moment where you have to implant the habit of asking - not yourself, but an imaginary judge: "If I defer task X, will it become easier later?". For some tasks, this m…
> > it's starting to really gnaw at me > Good. I'm not sure whether that is good at all. Of course, we're all different, but what worked for me was quite the opposite of this: I learned to accept myself the way I am. Like you, I've grown up being the smartest of the class. Other people had to sweat and I could just sit it all through. A result was decent grades and a complete lack of discipline. If I'd be me, but wit…
I would also suggest that we probably should make a distinction between mental "sprinters" and mental "marathon runners". Mental sprinters need to rest between sprints. I'm also the sprinter type. Unfortunately our society and some bosses don't understand sprinters. It's not the standard worker model, as for intraverts which are generally wiser than extraverts.
Unless the procastination is causing serious problems, like not paying the bills in time, bad hygiene and getting sick from it, I would also suggest to accept beeing a mental sprinter and stop complexing in front of marathon runners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also helps me to look at this image: http://i.imgur.com/39U4k.png . Each box is one month of your life. There really aren't that many of them.
Interesting image. I just made a quick tool for generating it here: http://lifeboxes.neocities.org/
Then it only gets worse. From 3 hours of real work a day to 3 days of real work a week, then to 1 week of real work a month. This single week is of course much more intensive and you work long hours then - either because something you're working on really excited you and you're having fun or because you've stretched so much all the deadlines and patience of other people that you know you simply have to. These on/off periods are not healthy neither to your self-feeling nor your finances nor the product or the team you're working with.
Fast forward ten years and I'm totally broke with overdue debts high over my head. I haven't slept well in five years and I feel like shit both physically and mentally. I know I need some help and I don't want you to end up in this place as well.
I still can be super productive and build great things, but the catch is I am able to do this only when I do things that excite me (what isn't that hard as I still have great passion for technology). Which is not always feasible at my current job, so the end result is that I'm having super productive month or two and then totally unproductive two-four months. My employer is not happy with that, but they learnt to accept this as I still can be very exceptional when I'm in my flow. The catch is I'm paid by the result so I don't earn well in my non-productive periods.
Part of the problem probably is that they often make me to work on totally boring stuff that should be done by totally different people and which could be done by people with 20% of my skills and 20% of my rates. This includes non-development and non-product related stuff, virtually everything: dev, bizdev, product, marketing, sales, management or simple administrative tasks - I can be good in everything I have vast experience in various areas and they use/abuse that. I sometimes think that they do that on purpose to don't spend too much on me and build my guilt up, as they know that throwing me into all that variety of tasks (which highly varies by area/contexts, complexity and required skill level) basically kills my motivation and ability to do stuff. I know that I need to break away from this toxic relationship. Well, that is still pending.
Anyway. I'm glad that you see your problem as a problem. I didn't see it that way and when I started, it was already too late. Please consider this as a warning on how you can screw up your life if you go down this path, as this path only goes down and down. Don't waste your gifts and your life.
Find something that excites you and is so much fun that you simply want to work on it. This will be different for different people. It may be a startup with super exciting product or it may be a freelancing career because it might turn out that you get bored easily and cannot enjoy a single project for long. If you feel you're burned out, just throw it away while you can. Make a break. Travel the world. Try a totally different career. Or simply change the job. I am just throwing guesses here and these are just things I think might work, but I haven't tried them (I'm in a hard position to try because of the overwhelming debts which I need to service, so I cannot switch to anything less paid).
Read every single post in this thread and try things that you think might work for you. But do something about it. I keep my fingers crossed.
For me, there is/was just one solution. Ina one-on-one I told my boss (who was already very happy with me btw) that this was only about 40-50% of me. I just asked for more responsibility, more work, and make sure I can no longer bullshit around. Added benefit, this received me sone awards, and very positive salary talks :).
"Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now" http://www.amazon.com/Procrastination-Why-You-What-About/dp/...
"The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play" http://www.amazon.com/The-Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastinati...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > it's starting to really gnaw at me > Good. I'm not sure whether that is good at all. Of course, we're all different, but what worked for me was quite the opposite of this: I learned to accept myself the way I am. Like you, I've grown up being the smartest of the class. Other people had to sweat and I could just sit it all through. A result was decent grades and a complete lack of discipline. If I'd be me, but wit…
Your work-life is only one area where self-discipline comes into play. If you are content with just earning enough money for living, that's fine. I agree with you on that. But a lack of self-discipline might hurt you in areas which are much more serious. If you keep avoiding hard talks with your spouse, eventually you will have a problem. If you do projects or activities with friends and always shy away from the unpl…