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A receipt printer cured my procrastination

laurieherault.com

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Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#221

Post by guztaver »

infogulch wrote: post #198
gofreddygo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This stops working after a while. yeah and i figured thats fine ! I take time spent on HN as an example. I used to think if i limit my HN time to under 10-15 mins a day, would be ideal. But the slippery slope was stopping. It felt rude. And i had no one but myself to get angry on. Weird loop. I then go the opposite, allow myself to binge. Kinda forced looking at HN every occasion i had a few mins. I get bookmakes t…

Pretty sure my commenting pattern is similar. I write a bunch of comments in a short period then none at all and just lurk for a while. All the HN comment data is published, right? (BigQuery?) I wonder if we can find cyclic comment patterns for individual users. It might be harder to find patterns if the user creates a new account every cycle like parent, but maybe just users that have been active for 2+ years.

That’s also occurs with me, but in games! Sometimes, I feel “obligated” to play, the urge of playing that unique game, then suddenly, it disappears.

I’m not a psychologist, but I believe that occurs often, some things just lose that sparkle with the time, and it’s okay, you just need to find a new way to make your task. This article is a good example of how you can do this, and, with some time, change your methods!

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#222

Post by cluckindan »

raincole wrote: post #214
vonneumannstan wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong technical term, but it nails the practical effects well. Man no offense but this sounds devastatingly sad. "We must starve ourselves of fun so that the barest excitement at work feels good."

Do you do drugs? If not then you're already 'starving' yourself of the purest form of pleasure (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong). I don't think taking one step further is that sad.

That’s insanely stereotypical. There is no ”drugs” that is ”the purest form of pleasure”.

Instead, there are many thousands of different substances which can elicit, heighten, prolong or enable pleasure; some illegal, some legal, some included in your favourite meals and snacks.

Even vanilla is a ”drug” which enhances pleasurable feelings. (Vanillin and ethylvanillin are monoamine oxidase inhibitors and consuming them will increase serotonergic and dopaminergic activity)

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#223

Post by psadri »

Back at Polyvore we used real post-it notes on a board to track progress. We had a weekly cadence but the tasks were granular enough to be completed in a day or two. Each week we’d peel off and crumble the completed tasks into a bin. It was a really satisfying experience in a way that digital facsimiles can’t quite match.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#224

Post by diggan »

cluckindan wrote: post #222
raincole wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you do drugs? If not then you're already 'starving' yourself of the purest form of pleasure (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong). I don't think taking one step further is that sad.

That’s insanely stereotypical. There is no ”drugs” that is ”the purest form of pleasure”. Instead, there are many thousands of different substances which can elicit, heighten, prolong or enable pleasure; some illegal, some legal, some included in your favourite meals and snacks. Even vanilla is a ”drug” which enhances pleasurable feelings. (Vanillin and ethylvanillin are monoamine oxidase inhibitors and consuming the…

> There is no ”drugs” that is ”the purest form of pleasure”

Yeah, I mean I think we barely know what that would even be. But some drugs come pretty damn close I'd wager, and I'm not talking about vanilla or ethylvanillin.

I think if you've dabbled in opiates, you've come pretty close to what the purest form of pleasure would feel like.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#225

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

password4321 wrote: post #220
vitro wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check this out: https://github.com/Authenticator-Extension/Authenticator

Taking the 2 out of 2FA since 2017! Thanks for sharing a potentially useful tool but I will not use it without a lot more details about how this browser extension secures the 2FA secrets from sketchy websites/ads.

Most trusted desktop password manager apps can manage and autofill OTPs in browsers as well, e.g. KeepassXC and 1password. (If you're making the tradeoff anyway, I think you may as well use a password manager you already trust with other secrets.)

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#226

Post by Tokumei-no-hito »

al_borland wrote: post #95
jvanderbot wrote: post #65

> Why can I focus for hours on a game but procrastinate when writing an email? OK I got a bit triggered by this sentence. Not at TFA, but sharing my own experience: Games are fun . And I don't mean Type 1 vs Type 2 fun and the email is somehow type 2 fun. I mean that the stimulation / "hit" from a game is just higher than 90-99%% of work tasks (writing a new CLI or optimizer excluded!!). We pile on much stimulation t…

> I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. This is one of my big objections do 2FA. My work has been pushing it hard, and from a security perspective, I get it. However, it’s all via an Authenticator app on the phone. We can no longer set down our phones and simply work. To start working, and periodically throughout the day, we are now forced to pickup our phones to authenticate. This invites the chance to s…

do you use a pw manager? bitwarden (OSS) has it built in if you pay for premium. i think it's an extra 1-3/mo but well worth it to support the team

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#227

Post by androng »

this sticky notes method likely works well when it comes to breaking down tasks into small pieces. I struggle on that sometimes but I think I struggle more when the task is inherently boring like exercise with long (boring) rest periods or the outcome is uncertain, like working on software with no users. In this case I think I would procrastinate on making the sticky notes too

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#228

Post by imtringued »

akavel wrote: post #210
laurieherault wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the main problem is the paper with bisphenol, which has been banned in Europe.

Even though bisphenol-A is banned in EU, I believe bisphenol-B is still allowed. I suspect - though I don't know how to research whether it's true or false - that everyone just switched to bisphenol-B, which is said to be either similarly, or more toxic than BPA... :( Even assuming that "BPA-free" paper I'd buy is really so, and not just BPA-covered one imported from China and said/labeled to be "BPA-free" by someone…

You need to go out of your way to buy phenol-free paper. It's a thing but unfortunately it's a niche rather than the default.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#229

Post by OutOfHere »

voidUpdate wrote: post #106
OutOfHere wrote: post #82

That BPA/analog ink is going to do your health no good. Estrogen-mimickers are not exactly your friend.

Will estrogen-mimickers help with my MtF transition?

Not a good idea. Use real estrogenic agents. Mimickers don't even function like estrogen. Mimickers block function.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#230

Post by Viliam1234 »

kamaal wrote: post #126
Helmut10001 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often trick myself imagining life is a game that throws boring or difficult tasks (boredom often equals difficult ) at me that I need to survive. It often helps because I I can picture finishing these things as rewards that help me get to the next "level". It was particularly helpful getting beyond difficult times (many bad events coinciding). Not sure if this can be transferred to others, or if it works because of…

This stops working after a while. The real deal is you begin the realise the 'points' you accumulate playing this game can't be redeemed to do something fun or satisfying. This game begins to appear totally pointless as you age(Points are less useful as you age, and dying with lots of points means time and effort was spent to acquire a thing that can't be spent now). Which causes even more procrastination. I think hu…

Yeah. Sometimes the reason you can't focus on something is that some part of your brain is trying to tell you that you shouldn't.

Unfortunately, that part of the brain usually sucks at coming up with an alternative plan, and "do something else, anything" is not very actionable. And you still need to pay your bills somehow.

The natural reward for work is work done. I don't need a motivational system to do the dishes. The motivation is seeing the dirty dishes gradually disappear, and the kitchen become cleaner. I don't need to create pieces of papers to represent that, because it is already happening right there, in real life.

If I work on a project, it helps to specify all things that need to be done (as opposed to working on something open-ended), so that I can see how I am getting closer to the moment of "done". A nice thing about test-driven development is that you produce a set of checkboxes first, and then you gradually check them off. Even if the work is open-ended, if I keep thinking about new features that would be nice add, it helps to specify a "version 1.0", and after achieving it, a "version 2.0", etc. The idea is that after each version I can take a break and feel that my work is done.

The least motivating thing is probably the job, as an employee. You work for 8 hours a day (generously assuming no overtime). There is no way to complete those 8 hours in e.g. 4 hours of working harder and then take a walk. In theory, if you do Scrum, you should have a certain reasonable amount of work assigned per sprint, and if you do it faster, then I guess you can take a short break and do something enjoyable (such as refactoring). In practice, almost no one does Scrum by the book; you will probably be randomly interrupted by extra tasks, and given unrealistic deadlines to avoid the possibility of completing the work earlier.

Another demotivating thing about the job is that there is no personal consequence of completing a project; you immediately start working on a new one. The natural response to completing a work is to congratulate yourself and take a break. But at work, the vacations are mostly unrelated to projects. Also, you are paid per time spent working, not by the number of projects finished. So it is all disconnected.

So I guess it all needs to be a part of some greater project, which can possibly be completed one day. Such as, putting your money in index funds, and planning to retire as soon as you reach a specified amount. Then each day you can congratulate yourself for getting 0.01% closer to the goal. (Or you can save money for other specific things, if that is what you desire.)

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