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Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

deprocrastination.co

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Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#11

Post by sanderjd »

aaron695 wrote: post #6

This 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…

I think you may be right about the rest, but I don't understand your last point. "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" is not meaningless and does not simplify to "action > nothing". It's just a different (not nearly as evocative, IMO) way to say "don't let perfect be the enemy of good". And I think this is indeed an important point that chronic procrastinators constantly struggle with.

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#12

Post by masto »

The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me.

I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.

Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I'd tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn't stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who's just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.

A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.

I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there's some advice buried in it.

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#13

Post by lupire »

I'm not comfortable taking advice on "deprocrastination" from someone who made procrastination their career (or side gig?), except for the advice "if you find yourself procrastinating, quit your job and make what you'd rather do your job". But that rarely pays the bills .

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#14

Post by codetrotter »

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=deprocrastination.co

Interesting that pretty much all submissions on the first page of results from this domain is both by the same user and broadly seems to be about the same overarching theme of procrastination.

Is OP the author of the site?

(OP also posts links to other sites, so not saying OP is doing anything wrong though.)

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#15

Post by LeafItAlone »

masto wrote: post #12

The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me. I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference. Without the understanding that diagnosis gav…

With your diagnoses, what are you now doing that is helping you?

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#17

Post by prometheus76 »

masto wrote: post #12

The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me. I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference. Without the understanding that diagnosis gav…

It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".

I have ADHD, and I also do not have a sense of smell (lost it in a TBI when I was a teenager). I tell people, "you take for granted what it's like to have a sense of smell. It affects every moment of your day, catching your interest and directing your attention all the time. Imagine not having a sense of smell. Imagine not smelling dinner or smelling your wife or smelling your baby. Imagine not smelling flowers or not smelling a gas leak. So much of what you take for granted comes from your sense of smell. Having ADHD is like that. You take executive function for granted, and can't imagine what it's like to not have that. When you say 'just write things down!' it's like saying 'just smell harder!'"

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#18

Post by slingnow »

masto wrote: post #12

The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me. I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference. Without the understanding that diagnosis gav…

This isn't at all what they claim. Can you point out where they say that "if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days" ?

What it actually claims is to get you to "bearable levels of procrastination", which I find refreshing, since it seems like a very achievable and realistic goal for those of us that procrastinate. In fact, this claim is nearly the opposite of what you're railing against.

You also said you have personally started making a meaningful difference, but gave zero hint about what you have done, and what impact it has made. And you leave us with "maybe there's some advice buried in it". I'd like to say, no, there's none I can see, unless you'd like to offer something specific and helpful. I'm curious to see what you have done.

Re: Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

#19

Post by thiago_fm »

Great ideas. I believe that dealing with a messy ambient or situations is a nice skill to develop, some people can't handle it at all.

With time, you'll start to appreciate the imperfections, the fact that you can't absolutely focus for a task because people are sending you messages, will have a smaller impact on your emotions and your overall focus will improve.

Having the goal of having absolute uninterrupted time and the stars aligning so you can just do what you need is the root of all procrastination, doing something 10% is better than 0%.

I'm a perfectionist and as soon as I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.

You also don't need to worry, you can't unlearn being a perfectionist, but indeed, you need a few things or moments of your day to unleash that "perfection' energy, it just doesn't need to be everytime.

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