101–110 of 115 posts
The reason a post like this will get so much action on a site like hacker news is that programming sucks as an activity, and alternative activities are more interesting. Thinking about programming is fun, finishing a program is fun, solving a little programming puzzle can be fun, but programming in general sucks as an activity. That's why programmers procrastinate, because programming sucks.
I have found all of my procrastination to stem from lacking a certain degree of knowledge of how to perform the task that I'm procrastinating. When I don't know how to do something or I don't know how long it will take, then I don't know where it fits into my schedule, so I never fit it into my schedule. Most of the time, I grossly over estimate how long something will take, i.e. "all day" when it's probably only a 1…
Would you waste time while your boss watches you?
Get someone who would sit by you while you work. I convinced a friend to sit by me for 45 minutes everyday while I write a story. The friend does not write a word, I do all the writing and it’s been a about 3 weeks now and the book is about 15k words already. Use this technique on one task at a time.
Answer Number two
Commitment contracts - get the book carrots and sticks. The most useful part is in the first section. It’s simple. Get a friend, your wife or anyone who you can trust with money. It worked for me in completing and editing a book I've been skipping for months.
I stay at Ghana and i’m a student with a monthly allowance about $100. I had about $100 in savings but used $50 from my savings in betting.
On Monday, I give 5 - $10 notes to a trustworthy friend. I chose the work I have to complete before the next morning. If I do it, she gives me back $10 from the $50. If not, she keeps the $10. It’s simple it’s worked for me.
Got the idea from the book carrots and sticks but from my explanation, you’ve gotten the fire you want. What better thing to light your ass on fire than the prospect of losing your own money?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
care to put it on github? I'd love to give it a try (though I don't have too many problems focusing myself. I'm in the middle of a workday, just doing some..shit, HN).
Sure! https://github.com/snoonan77/boss.py -- Mac specific though easily tweaked if you have a working TTS command line tool floating around.
I wouldn't give a rat's ass when faced with a disconnected prompt forcing me to acknownledge the fact that I was browsing funny cat videos for the last two hours. Maybe that little "see, you're doing it again!" bump works for someone, but not for me. If those activities were to be made public. Well, that would probably have a totally different effect on me. After all, who want's to be seen as lazy?
* Fear of letting others know that I was actually doing: nothing.
* The feeling when receiving recognition from things accomplished.
-pro. c.
My thoughts on procrastination and activation by fire. "Prompts affect thought" yes, but the context was social. I wouldn't give a rat's ass when faced with a disconnected prompt forcing me to acknownledge the fact that I was browsing funny cat videos for the last two hours. Maybe that little "see, you're doing it again!" bump works for someone, but not for me. If those activities were to be made public. Well, that w…
I gain something from these posts, as these are experiences of real people. Why is any procrastinator here, reading, rather than doing something that should be done? Why do certain news titles or content seem more interesting than others. I skimmed some titles and noticed that some words grabbed my attention more than others. Thinking on these words let me remember exciting things that I had done before. They have a strong (emotional) fingerprint in my memory. But then again, why did I do those things in the first place? Maybe they were brought out in a setting that already made me feel good, and thus there was no friction sliding in to the work that, in turn, left me with the memory.
Could these prehaps be combined to something resembling self-triggered strong drive to accomplish a task?
I don't know. Maybe this is stupid and obvious, but I though to share, maybe it'll spark something.
This is just a friendly reminder that if you would describe yourself as a procrastinator, it might be something more. If you've always been one, if you want to do things, but can never do it, it could be a sign. ADHD is a real problem, and has real solutions (and those solutions aren't all addictive). If you feel like you are always running behind, always trying to catch up. If anyone says you are a great developer,…
I think I do exhibit ADHD symptoms, but I don't think I have it, or if I do, I don't have it bad. I can get a little dramatic in my writing. I have been able to make some progress on some fronts, I'm just easily dissatisfied. Thank you so much for your concern, though. What are the solutions you're talking about? Do you mean medication? I think I'll give myself a few months to try and work things out myself (I think…
I was surrounded by clear ADHD cases growing up. They were more-or-less bouncing off the walls and constantly getting in trouble. I knew I wasn't like "those kids". But the inattentive types—those that can't focus or tend to hyper-focus on one thing to the detriment of others—fall through the cracks because they're not acting out. And, if they're otherwise high-performing, they'll be able to pull through their work with the occasional forgotten assignment or scheduling snafu. Teachers, bosses, even the affected themselves seem to think just need to concentrate harder and they'll do better next time.
But, telling someone with ADHD to concentrate harder is like telling someone nearsighted to squint if they can't see the chalkboard. And it's not a flaw in their character anymore than myopia is.
Anyway, I don't know your life or backstory, just that seems pretty familiar to me (tried pomodoro, thought of/started on a similar system before abandoning it in graveyard that is my ~/Projects folder). If any of this has struck a chord, I've found that simply changing my work circumstances have helped me immeasurably. Two years ago, I was working at home and left to figure out every choice and solve every problem in a pretty open-ended project. I'd spend hours reading papers, tutorials, and blogs with little to show. Now I'm in an office with an open floor plan and a team working toward a common goal with a time constraint. Medication would probably help me even more, but I exercise quite a bit and am wary of side-effects. Therapy would probably be even better, especially because, while my organization and execution at work has gotten better, my own tasks are about where they were before.
If you're interested, I found "Driven to Distraction" by Hallowell & Ratey to be a pretty good reference (although, if you get through the whole thing, you might not actually have ADHD).
I have found all of my procrastination to stem from lacking a certain degree of knowledge of how to perform the task that I'm procrastinating. When I don't know how to do something or I don't know how long it will take, then I don't know where it fits into my schedule, so I never fit it into my schedule. Most of the time, I grossly over estimate how long something will take, i.e. "all day" when it's probably only a 1…
This is exactly right, for me at least. Sometimes its easy to know what is required, and probably guess at how long it will take (15mins or 1 day), usually because you've seen other people do it this quick. But if you don't know how to do it, and even worse, don't know where to start to learn it (which book to read, which course to take, who to ask) you can end up sitting about doing nothing but getting frustrated. A…
Even worse is when the todo is to also make a decision. I need to automate backups to a new NAS. Do I install Linux? FreeBSD? FreeNAS? RedHat? Good old debian-stable? I should definitely explore all decision branches, in full detail, to make the best choice. open in new tab, open in new tab
But I have no idea how long that would take. I can't even set aside 15 min (or 45) to determine how long it will take. It's incomputable. It's either dive headfirst and hope to come out with a working solution, or put it off another week (and hope some howto pops up on ars).
I just set up a bunch of IFTTT recipes to trigger when random stocks go up/down by 1% in a day, and then get it to push-notification me a question like "what are you doing right now?" I should only get one every couple of days they way I configured it (I think,) so perhaps requires more stocks. I wrote a different question onto each one, so I could easily get different reminders on the same day. If anyone else knows…