How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model • Hacker News Board

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#261

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #254

TeMPOraL wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeking counseling on HN is definitely a recurring trend here, one I've been guilty of too at times, so you may be onto something here!

Oh that's not what I meant, I was thinking of discussing something completely different, or only tangentially related. When you should be seeking counseling.

I misunderstood you, sorry. And yes, I agree with your clarified point too - that definitely happens for me, and I'd guess for a lot of us here. I'm not ashamed to admit that HN discussions satisfy the same needs as meatspace socializing, even if they're doing it the way McDonald's satisfies hunger.

HN is really the worst. With other sites I visit, I can at least honestly say it's a pure waste of time. But here, every couple weeks I'll find something that solves a tough problem I have; every year or two I find something career-altering. If I were to integrate ((value I get from HN) - (opportunity cost of time spent here)), I'm not sure whether it's even negative. My monkey brain definitely feels it's positive (magic of temporal discounting). If I spent this time on other things, maybe I'd be running a space company now. Or maybe I'd be depressed and stuck doing PHP for ridiculously low salaries.

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#262

Post by throwaway234101 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

anon9001 wrote: post #49

non-entity wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok serious question: Every one of these points is very applicable to me, especially 1,2 and 3. I haven't been to a doctor in years outside occasional emergency trips. How do you bring this up without seriously. I don't want to come off as the guy who compulsively self diagnoses based off what they read on the internet.

No problem, serious answer: This is the DSMV criteria: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html Doctors are typically screening with a quiz that looks something like this: https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/adhd-quiz/ It's perfectly reasonable to say "I think I may have ADHD based on what I've read online, my symptoms match and people who know me have suggested I try adderall". Some doctors are fine with letting…

> I'd 100% recommend having stimulants in your toolkit, and chances are you're already supplementing with worse stimulants (like mountains of coffee or soda), so do give them a try, but be careful.

Have you heard of anybody managing their condition with caffeine pills or nicotine lozenges?

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#263

Post by sharadov » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

georgespencer wrote: post #256

sharadov wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD has a wide spectrum, people with real ADHD cannot function without medication ( speaking as a parent with a child who has it). Yes, without medication he would either be not focussed or hyper focussed. But, the biggest issue is lack of executive function, which is debilitating. And, no matter what, real life needs you to be able to follow instructions, and do things in order. If a 7 year old with a simple life c…

Thanks for sharing your experience. Really valuable to me and many others on here. A question and a quibble if that's OK: > what the medication is doing is strengthening the neural connections, so that executive function becomes a habit, to the point where you don't need it. If you do it right 50% of people with ADHD won't need it. I had understood that this only applied to children who are young enough to have devel…

From what I understand, the brain never loses its neuroplasticity, but early intervention is always better. You hear stories of people who got diagnosed as adults, got the right medication and therapy and their lives improved tremendously. Again I want to stress that it is a combination of medication and behavioral changes. For a child, it means a lot of repetitive suggestions, patience and accommodations at home and school. For adults, I've heard Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and meditation working well.

When I said "real ADHD" I was responding to the earlier comment, where the person was trying to say how ADHD is some kind of superpower, and there are a lot of folks I hear say they have ADHD when they clearly do not. It is a large spectrum, but even folks at the lower end of the spectrum find it really hard to function. To give you an example, my son would be at the lower end of the spectrum, but we saw him struggling as he started elementary school. We were less worried about academics, but we started noticing that he was losing confidence because his peers would get what the teacher said while he did not. And, all that was leading to a loss in confidence.We read a ton of books, tried behavioral changes and recommended suggestions before we tried medication. And it simply did not work. We tried 3-4 different medications before one worked with no effects. It was a painful and heartbreaking journey. And our psychiatrist told us we were right to intervene early, because once the kids get to 3rd grade, the academic pressure increases and they are already behind their peers. I recommend Russell Barkley's you tube videos, they are excellent, and really helped me understand what ADHD is.

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#264

Post by oaao_ » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

live1999 wrote: post #199

oaao_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - in my experience, "motivation" is a wildly volatile concept, especially in how a) when it arrives to your thought process, it's usually in the form of bemoaning a lack of motivation, and semi-consequently b) one almost always thinks about "motivation" in a form that is highly moralized (i.e. inviting shame & co.). I find that usually when we employ "motivation" as a concept, it is usually (whether explicitl…

Made an account just so I can thank you for this comment. You have done an amazing job of illustrating the problem of thinking of things in terms of motivation as well as moralizing it. I'm going through a major depressive / procrastination episode. And now i'm asking myself, why can't I just apply the same thinking and approach I use for exercise and diet to the rest of my life. (I.E. it's just something I do, a hab…

I had made an account just to post it! It's warming as hell to know it could help give you a workable verbal framework.

This way of thinking isn't (yet?) /always/ something I'm able to just root myself in, down to the autonomic depths of my lizard-brain or whatever, and I definitely still slip into moments or swathes of variations on, "I am in some way fundamentally wrong/insufficient".

So, sure, it's not a panacea that lets you evade depressive troughs completely, BUT it lets you go through those with a supervisory lens that says, "was that thought/attitude/self-perception unambiguously extra-moral? no? then it's not real; it's just a shame narrative; carry on". That's MORE than enough for a shit-ton of cumulative and lasting progress.

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#265

Post by benibela » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

kkylin wrote: post #173

I think this is in general quite insightful, but I want to pick one nit (in reaction to "A professor doesn't tell you when to..."): having advised a number of PhD students (in applied math), I think one of the most important parts of the job of an advisor is to coach. That is, help students make decisions, set timelines, figure out when to do what. Most students who get this far are capable of solving well-posed, tex…

My biggest problem is writing/presenting efficiently. Usually I spend several hours on a single paragraph or beamer slide. Today I spend all my time preparing my defense presentation (besides social media), but only made drafts for two slides.

And my advisor is also very busy. He says he will write the introduction for a paper and then finds no time to finish it

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#266

Post by jazzdev » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

vitabenes wrote: post #54

pmoriarty wrote: post #43

Some time back, I read all I could on procrastination, and watched dozens of videos on it, and by far the best thing I found on it was this video by Tim Pychyl: [1] It focuses particularly on procrastination in graduate school, but is widely applicable elsewhere. One of the key insights that Pychyl, a psychologist who studies procrastination, had is that procrastination is not (as is commonly believed) a time managem…

Yes, Pychil's work is incorporated in our materials. This is the recipe for procrastination (according to us): 1. Think about a task - "I have to do _____." 2. Have an automatic negative reaction 2a. Negative thoughts - "I hate doing this,"... 2b Negative feelings - Feeling stressed, afraid,... 3. Procrastinate - Do something else to feel better. Procrastination is all about escaping negative emotions. Something make…

Interesting video. Pychil claims that procrastination is a weakness of will. For another perspective, check out the book, "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" [1], which claims it's not just about will (executive function), but also about tunnel vision and reduced fluid intelligence, all caused by a situation of scarcity--time scarcity in the case of procrastination. And they claim reduced executive function is situational. It's not a fundamental attribute of the procrastinator.

[1] = https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebo...

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#267

Post by rev0lutions » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:22 AM UTC

I'm missing the "trigger" piece of this since remote work kicked in. Any tips for effective work triggers when wfh are much appreciated. I've tried the common ones - designated work area, set schedule etc but I end up spending all day (apart from mtgs) surfing the web instead! ugh... I thought I mastered this in grad school

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#268

Post by tagh » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

DecayingOrganic wrote: post #19

You can read the paper itself [0]. It was originally introduced as a behavior model for persuasive design, later on has become quite popular in self-help field. To summarize, it states: "The FBM asserts that for a person to perform a target behavior, he or she must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) have the ability to perform the behavior, and (3) be triggered to perform the behavior." The author then makes the case…

Not strictly related to procrastination, but the "just one tooth" method didn't work for me. Stuck with it for a few weeks, and then my motivation just tapered off.

What worked was permanently bundling flossing with brushing. That meant that if I _really_ didn't want to floss I didn't have to, but then I also had to skip brushing. Not brushing feels gross to me, which is why I think it worked. There are now a few nights a year where I don't brush my teeth... but overall it's a huge win.

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#269

Post by wildpeaks » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 10:21 AM UTC

epicureanideal wrote: post #73

joekim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is a lot more complicated. There is no "mental energy reserve", but we do get energized by norepinephrine in the brain and once it becomes saturated it it loses its effect. A simple technique to reset it is to activate the "sigh reflex". You just breathe in twice at a normal pace and then slowly exhale through the mouth. Another more powerful reset is to do yoga nidra for 10-20 minutes. Yoga nidra, once you f…

I'll definitely try this, but do you happen to have any links about this? And yes, I realize "mental energy reserve" isn't a scientific term, it's just a term I'm using for lack of something better to label something I experience. Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more t…

You might enjoy reading about The Spoon Theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory

https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine...

It's a similar way to describe budgeting mental energy reserves, and how some activities lose spoons while others replenish them.

Re: How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

#270

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

jlelonm wrote: post #253

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

28 years old and just got diagnosed. Do it - it makes a difference. I was amazed how much meds helped me. I'm far more productive doing tasks that are boring.

which meds are you taking?

Ritalin, and only 10mg. Twice a day.

It's remarkable the difference it makes for me. I have gotten more work done when needed to, have improved in my hobbies, conversations are much better, I stay focused on tasks...it's incredible the difference.