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How to overcome resistance to work

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Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#21

Post by diminish »

TrevorJ wrote: post #2

Some great suggestions here, but I find the best method for me is to just crank some music, down a couple swigs of coffee and dive in. About 95% of the time the issue isn't about getting stuck partway through, or approaching the problem wrong, it's about getting through the first ten minutes of work. Resistance crumbles after that and motivation and focus kick in to full gear.

The 4 things suggested are exactly what I discovered to work for me; but I guess it depends on your personality and your particular case.

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#22

Post by gala8y »

raheemm wrote: post #9
stephengillie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something to be said for the ceremony of grooming for work, travelling to your workplace, interacting with coworkers, during approximately the same time each day. Work is the "2nd space" in the Starbuck's "3rd space" advertisements. Have you tried working in the same seat at a library or other public place each weekday?

That's a good suggestion. I use a spreadsheet to monitor the # of hours worked each day and my goal is to keep that on an upwards trend. Its based on Seinfeld's 'dont break the chain' tactic. This has worked the best for me.

Being able to check time logged against projects is first, crude metric. I settled on an app with week view as a default - one glance and I know everything.

Some of my friends freak out at the possibility of 'wasting even more time' by trying to track time. I disagree. Tracking is light (0.5%?) and clears mind from all unnecessary underground thinking and stress resulting from not knowing the numbers.

The idea is to keep it simple. I track in one place and I (mostly) track projects only (billable and non-billable) plus some phone calls (with comments). Tried to track HN related browsing but... it was... never mind.

Did you added some code to the spreadsheet to make it easier to use? Any graphs to _see_ it?

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#23

Post by xSwag »

Programmer here, I usually start to procrastinate when I find something difficult/too tedious to do. Whenever something like this happens, I find that taking my dog out for a 20 minute walk really refreshes me up and motivates me to do the task!

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#24

Post by JosephHatfield »

The technique recommended in the article is similar to Kaizen, the method that Toyota implemented in the 50's to overcome quality and productivity problems. It's the practice of using continuous small incremental changes to lead to larger improvements. It also happens to be a great way to overcome many psychological hurdles.

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#26

Post by planetguy »

_delirium wrote: post #18
bitwize wrote: post #8

Step 1: Realize that if you don't work, you'll fucking starve. Step 2: Close HN. Step 3: Work like fucking crazy, to put as much distance between yourself and starvation as you possibly can.

Step 1 is not really true for a large number of middle-class Westerners, though, and even less true for middle-class Westerners with tech skills. There are a lot of unpleasant things that would happen if I stopped making money tomorrow, but it would be a long time, if ever, before I starved. Between savings/friends/parents/foodstamps/etc., I would have to seriously run through about 20 fallback plans before literally…

If I stopped working tomorrow, it would be months before anyone even noticed. Probably much longer before they got around to stopping my pay. This doesn't help with motivation at all.

This doesn't help with motivation. You folks who are living on the edge of starvation have it easy!

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#27

Post by capex »

planetguy wrote: post #26
_delirium wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1 is not really true for a large number of middle-class Westerners, though, and even less true for middle-class Westerners with tech skills. There are a lot of unpleasant things that would happen if I stopped making money tomorrow, but it would be a long time, if ever, before I starved. Between savings/friends/parents/foodstamps/etc., I would have to seriously run through about 20 fallback plans before literally…

If I stopped working tomorrow, it would be months before anyone even noticed. Probably much longer before they got around to stopping my pay. This doesn't help with motivation at all. This doesn't help with motivation. You folks who are living on the edge of starvation have it easy!

"You folks who are living on the edge of starvation have it easy!" Where did you assume that from?

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#28

Post by einhverfr »

My approach is horribly more complicated and involves a set of two TODO lists. The first is my immediate list, and always has 12 items on it (4 harder ones and 8 faster tasks). 3 tasks (1 hard and 2 fast) are always marked as current works in progress. 3 more are listed as next up. The next six I choose freely from to promote when I complete a task.

Then I have my mid-range to-do. Tasks usually stay here for days to weeks (my short-term I get unhappy when something is there for more than a few days). Items here are coded with a * for a bigger item and a % for an item I think I can do quickly. The % are moved to my short-term list in chronological order (with some exceptions) while the * ones are moved in based on what I think i can tackle next.

This gives me some variety and some freedom to jump around between tasks and stay productive. I have ADD so thats a good thing. It also lets me set goals that I can usually meet and procrastinate constructively. More than once I have had tasks I really had resistance to starting become trivial after thinking about it for a day or two. But yea part of that is breaking the task down, thinking about it, maybe making a couple abortive attempts to complete it.......

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#29

Post by einhverfr »

newbie12 wrote: post #19
heretohelp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 4: Burnout, depression, homelessness The above is the advice of an amateur who hasn't actually had to tackle work in a self-motivated manner whether the OP fits that mold or not. Moderation and focusing on what is actionable is how you keep rolling.

This is spot on. After four years as an independent, burnout is a huge issue. I'm 1/3 as productive as when I started down this path.

I have had unproductive patches too as an independent. right now I am going through a reasonably productive time. There are times when the inspiration just kind of flows, and even hard problems end up being easy when confronted. There are other times when simple problems end up hard. There is some natural oscillation between the two. I have started to learn to take advantage of the pattern. Take down time when I need it (that's a hard thing to do as an independent) and work hard a lot of the rest of the time, even if it's only 6 hrs a day of hard programming (and probably 4 hours a day of other crap, and another 2 hours a day of still other stuff).

Re: How to overcome resistance to work

#30

Post by gwern »

TrevorJ wrote: post #2

Some great suggestions here, but I find the best method for me is to just crank some music, down a couple swigs of coffee and dive in. About 95% of the time the issue isn't about getting stuck partway through, or approaching the problem wrong, it's about getting through the first ten minutes of work. Resistance crumbles after that and motivation and focus kick in to full gear.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3kv/working_hurts_less_than_procrast...
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