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A receipt printer cured my procrastination

laurieherault.com

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Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#371

Post by laurieherault »

kazinator wrote: post #208
laurieherault wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every image is feedback. Scrolling Instagram or Facebook gives you constant feedback.

Feedback is a response to an input. Okay, sure, clicking the remote to turn on a TV and selecting a channel is input. So, by a stretch, we can call the four hour binge a kind of feedback generated by two button clicks. Sometimes people get glued by a screen that they did not turn on; is that still feedback? E.g. kids watching a screen in some waiting room at a children's dentist.

I think we can talk about feedback without input, yes. The reality of feedback is actually very broad. If we just look at the world of video games, and consider all the different types that exist, there is a wide variety of feedback, some more or less tied to input. In some cases, like narrative games, the feedback is much less connected to the input than in a fast-paced FPS, for example.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#372

Post by aaronbaugher »

turtlebits wrote: post #324
kamaal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would do people a whole lot of good, if they start looking at a great day as executing well tested 'checklist' rather than a 'todo list' built from scratch every day. No wonder some of the most productive people like Knuth, or people like presidents many times have fixed schedules, clothes they wear, food they eat etc etc. If something is working, do it more often, you want to do more of what works, at some point…

You can't generalize. Everyone has things that work for them. Taking a few minutes to recreate that todo list for the day from a blank slate helps my brain get ready for the day and makes me more productive. (akin to stretching before exercise). I don't need a checklist for eating, cleaning, etc, but maybe some do.

I'm going to try that too. An ongoing todo list just starts to slip from my mind. I have a whiteboard in my kitchen, where I figured I'd write tasks I needed to do and erase them off when I finished them, so it'd be a continuous todo list. But after a while, it'd slip my mind and I'd go weeks without even seeing the whiteboard in my awareness, and then when I did remember it was there, it'd be half outdated and I'd have to start all over.

Getting into the daily habit of using any tool/method in the first place is the hard part for me, so making it as tangible as possible and not-too-convenient might help.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#373

Post by allenu »

laurieherault wrote: post #349
allenu wrote: post #255

I've also discovered that breaking down tasks into micro-tasks helps me get going on things. I've found that I get easily overwhelmed if I have a massive list of things to get done, and adding another task to it makes it even worse. However, just nesting tasks into parent tasks and finding the right "child" to place a new task in makes it feel more manageable, and I know that those nested tasks are typically small th…

I completely relate to what you are saying. I do not use Markdown, but I use Notion because I find it just a little more convenient. But with my software, I am actually trying to reach the same speed as Markdown for advanced users. I have coded dozens of keyboard shortcuts to handle all the actions.

The keyboard shortcuts should help a lot! If you can nail navigation from the keyboard, it'll go a long way to make the UX feel breezy.

I made a corkboard/index cards app for Mac and iOS called Card Buddy and I spent a lot of time working on the keyboard navigation there and it made a huge difference on the feeling of fluidity. For instance, even while you're editing a card, you can navigate to a neighboring cell and start editing it just through the arrow keys. That makes it super fast to jot down lots of notes right away. I noticed a lot of other apps would require you to move the mouse and double-click to edit somewhere else and even that friction makes those apps feel sluggish.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#374

Post by roywashere »

reddit_clone wrote: post #327
jvanderbot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try a CLI-based workflow for 2FA. As long as you can exfiltrate the secret (and you often can by pretending you can't scan QR codes), then you can use oathtool to generate passcodes. 1. use 'pass' to save the secret: 'pass edit work.secret' 2. use oathtool to generate 2fa given a secret: ' #!/bin/bash oathtool -b --totp "`pass show $1.secret`" >&1 ' use it like '2fa work' If you have 'xsel' you can even do…

We also have Microsoft authentication that displays a number on the browser and asks you to enter in on the device! :-(

My company also uses MS auth + 2fa for everything. Even signing into corporate G-suite :-). But I do not like the Microsoft Authenticator - I previously had issues where it would not show the number - and I was able to switch to a different TOTP provider. It’s a bit buried in the menus but possible

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#375

Post by thomascountz »

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that these paper tickets have BPAs: Beat Procrastination Abilities.

On a serious note, the article so cool and well written. I appreciate demonstrating the gamification effect right on the page. When I finally get a receipt printer for tasks, I hope to implement timed reminders that print throughout the day.

And to be clear, I don't mean yet-another-source-of-notification-overload, I mean things like "Go eat lunch." Maybe some can relate to how helpful and delightful that might be :D

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#376

Post by wordpad »

> If later in the day you notice you're starting to procrastinate, immediately return to the system.

This is by far the most insightful advice backed by actual research.

Recognizing a deviation in your desired behavior and having a prepared fallback plan for how to get back on track.

Could be as simple as - if I catch myself scrolling on the phone I will put the phone down and standup.

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#379

Post by xp84 »

The "tasks on slips" remind me of the Cast Deployment System that was used at Walt Disney World 20 years ago (not sure when it started or how it evolved, but it was in use then).

All cast members in every park and other location were dispatched by PCs with receipt printers. To begin a shift or return from a break, you typed in your number to a CDS PC (located basically behind any convenient backstage door). The PC would just print a slip of paper and log your out. The slip would be one of:

1. Relieve John Doe at in . John Doe: return to PC (I think it also had a multi-stage bump possibility, where you replace John and John is sent directly to bump Bob.)

1b. Relieve John Doe. John's break time Start: 9:05 End 9:35

2. Do until 9:08 (e.g. Straighten plush in or Stock candy in )

3. You're released to go home

It was a wildly efficient system, which basically allowed their operations software, which presumably knew about attendance, ride wait times, store sales, etc. to put each person to the most useful position at any moment, and also to give people specific useful things to do during slow periods (or indeed to release them early if they didn't have anything actually important for them to do).

Re: A receipt printer cured my procrastination

#380

Post by ryandrake »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #104
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 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…

Really, most people's adult lives are just a constant stream of boring/difficult tasks they need to grind in order to get through: School, work, paying bills, managing money, doing taxes, cleaning the house, cooking food, doing dishes, fixing this, maintaining that... If you don't have a way to trick your brain into grinding these things over and over, you're not going to get very far.
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