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Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

deprocrastination.co

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Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#111

Post by rudesoil »

ramblerman wrote: post #7
JonathanFly wrote: post #3

>Start sloppy >Another trick to start sloppy - you might have high expectations of your finished work. >You want to write a great book, not just a good one. Or create a stellar artwork, or start a great business. >All those expectations can put more pressure on you than you can bear, leading you to avoid it by procrastinating. >Instead, you can escape those expectations by starting deliberately badly. I use this one…

This idea is captured nicely in the book "Art and Fear" with the following anecdote: "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroo…

David Bowie and Tin Machine used this technique on their album Tin Machine.

>The Sales’ also pushed for a punishing first-take philosophy, which Bowie found enticing. No overdubs unless necessary for guitar solos, no synths (the old Queen boast), and most of all, no lyric rewrites. The band would go to lunch and return to find that Bowie had written out a complete provisional lyric for whatever song they were working on. But that was as far as he was allowed to go: he was forced to keep to his first instincts. Sometimes this worked out, sometimes it didn’t (see “Crack City”).

>Given these strictures, Bowie and the band stuck to music “that didn’t have too much orchestration about it,” as Bowie said in a 1989 interview. “If it got too chordy and arranged, it wouldn’t be anything what we wanted to do. The structure had to be as loose as possible so that we could improvise.” Rather than reworking songs, they just kept cutting more, with as many as 35 to 40 pieces coming out of the sessions. So most of Tin Machine is basic blues-centered rock, with the average song having no more than five chords: it lacked the harmonic ambiguity and structural games of Bowie’s older work. While the record often worked on a song level, with 14 tracks on the CD version, the album was a wearying listen. Few records are as exciting in miniature and as draining as a whole as Tin Machine.

from here https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/heavens-in-here/

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#112

Post by matteuan »

Related to this post, I just listened to an interesting podcast about habits[0]. It debunks some of the common myths about willpower and self-control. According to the host, the "secret" is building healthy habits over time. The problem is that we need gratification (while forming the habit) and we shouldn't have many obstacles to perform the activity we want to make a habit. Basically, we're all (maybe not you Elon) wired lazy and the only solution is to force ourselves to have only one easy choice.

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/787160734/creatures-of-habit-...

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#113

Post by endorphone »

Two books by the same author that I recommend on this subject-

--The War of Art --Do The Work

Both by Steven Pressfield. They're imperfect -- they call out to imaginary forces uncomfortably too often, and they take a relatively concise bit of content stretching it to book form, leaving it sometimes a bit threadbare, however they're an easy, enjoyable read and I found them useful.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#114

Post by JshWright »

theironlily wrote: post #97
itchynosedev wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I damaged my shin bones because I was running too much too soon and currently taking 2 months break. Side note, I used to run 20k every week, then stopped. Be careful of the problem on the opposite side of the spectrum: your body might not be able to keep up with your motivation.

I think this could do more with your running form and listening to your body than your will that kept you going. It might be worth checking out your form with a running coach. Either way, wishing you a speedy recovery.

You can absolutely injure yourself by running too much, even with perfect form, and before you would notice anything is wrong while "listening to your body".

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#115

Post by codersteve »

keiferski wrote: post #93
sideshowb wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of agree, but if you take the premise of Sapiens that homo sapiens is distinct from other animals in ability to organize around stories rather than more immediate drivers of behaviour - then this may just be part of the human condition.

Yeah, I'm not arguing that we are simply like other animals, but rather that we aren't organizing our work efforts in a way more cognizant of our nature. Instead, most productivity advice seems to be about fooling or 'hacking' yourself into being some sort of machine.

Definitely on to something. Our minds create ideas but it takes long term effort to realize them. Along the way, our instincts get in the way.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#116

Post by s_gourichon »

e19293001 wrote: post #29

I'd like to share this post[0]: The last two weeks I made it a goal to run 5km every morning. A few times, particularly today, I felt lazy and run down, but I got out of bed anyway and told myself that I'll at least walk. The next thing I know I'm running and feeling amazing and on to set one of my better times. The point: When you tell yourself "just one more game" or "just one more post", or "just one more video" a…

There is a company dedicated to tricking (voluntary and conscious) people from procrastination to actual sport, see https://www.squadeasy.com/

The main idea is to leverage the brain's sensitivity to cooperative team goals or competitive goals, plus some gamification. And it works!

Disclaimer: the main founder is my brother, I was involved in the very first steps of the project, and I'm currently on a freelance mission with the company. And the team is looking for a freelance or a permanent Typescript coder in Paris.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#117

Post by dnh44 »

onion2k wrote: post #20
ramblerman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea is captured nicely in the book "Art and Fear" with the following anecdote: "The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroo…

Maybe this works for potters but I don't think it'd work for developers. If a compSci lecturer suggested one group would get an A for writing a perfect, bug free app and the other group would get an A for writing 50,000 lines of code, I wouldn't expect the group writing as much code as they could to make the best app.

If they had to make a ~1000 line program 50 times the analogy would work better.

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#118

Post by micheljansen »

Funny that these are all about starting where my problems are mostly about finishing things. I love to start new things and often struggle to finish something because I would much rather start something new.

I suspect the "shiny new thing" syndrome is common, especially in tech, but I have not read a lot about it (apart from GTD).

Over time, I have developed coping mechanisms for this myself but I was hoping to learn some new tricks. Any tips?

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#119

Post by [deleted] »

spai2 wrote: post #105
BaitBlock wrote: post #100

I've a side project extension underdevelopment "Baitblock": https://baitblock.app that helps people deal with this. We've pretty advanced stuff coming up like in page distraction blocking using machine learning, 1st party tracking protection (deletes cookies on websites that you're not logged in to), TL;DR before clicking the link submitted by other Baitblock members, blocking sites (although it is pretty standard),…

This looks cool! Thanks for making it available for free. Awaiting Firefox support so that I can give this a try.

[deleted]

Re: Tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

#120

Post by onion2k »

cozos wrote: post #24
onion2k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this works for potters but I don't think it'd work for developers. If a compSci lecturer suggested one group would get an A for writing a perfect, bug free app and the other group would get an A for writing 50,000 lines of code, I wouldn't expect the group writing as much code as they could to make the best app.

Group B would be assigned to write 50 apps in this case. In your example 50000 LOC would be like making a really giant pot.

In the pottery example Group A were marked by weight ("fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on."). Making a single giant pot could get you an A if the lecturer wasn't pedantic about the meaning of "pots".
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