Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

I'd vouch for this. It can make things worse at first, but if you are healthy and exercise regularly, it can help increase your focus and energy levels, then you don't have to fight your body so much to preserve them.

I guess it completely comes down to the individual. For me personally, having deadlines with someone depending on what I'm delivering does help to get myself rolling with work I find boring. Of course, I've also noticed that I can do that for only a short time and if I don't get some interesting work to regain my motivation, I'll end up getting depressed.

Right now, I've structured my client work in a way that allows me to switch between things every week. That way I can do a boring thing for a week, then do something interesting, and then back to the boring. If there's no interesting paid projects, I just work on things I can find enjoyment in - learning new things, working on things I enjoy and dropping them as soon as the "fun" goes away.

For personal projects I avoid breaking them down into smaller steps. With smaller steps I can see the mountain of work ahead of me (most of which isn't that fun) and the motivation to work on it goes away, even if there's still plenty of enjoyment to be derived for said project. That's also one of the reasons why I rarely release anything personal I work on - the fact that once its out there and I would need to maintain it, kills the fun.

I also try to limit my working hours to a certain range; the only reason why to work outside of those hours is if I've been slacking off previously and need to catch up to hit a deadline or if the project is so much fun it's already as relaxing as anything else I could be doing to wind down after work.

Getting 8 hours of sleep is also very important for me. Any less for an extended period and I'm beginning to inch towards a depressed state of mind. Any more than 8 hours and my procrastination goes up.

But yeah, finding out what works for you is always difficult, and I think it also changes with time.

I had the same problem you do. I used somewhat of an out of the box solution, which is to listen to subliminal audio. I do this while working, so it costs me no time at all. You can find some free ones on youtube.

It changed me from someone who would want to mess around all day, to someone who actually enjoyed working.

People underestimate the affect of what they listen to and see on a subconscious level and how it affects us. There is a reason that advertising is such a huge business.

If you are listening to melancholy, nihilistic music, especially, change your habits. Constant exposure to people complaining about how bad their life is, in verse, is really not good for your motivation.

I can relate a lot. I'm still burning through self-motivation hacks at 35, some of which are helping while most don't.

Eventually, the hack with by far the largest impact (which brought me to currently being cofounder and CTO of one of the more successful German startups) was realizing that while I simply suck at self-motivating, I never had a problem getting stuff done when working for others. I effortlessly produced two albums for other artists, while I still haven't finished my own single release after 20 years. I tried to build my own company three times and failed miserably.

Eventually, I "just" found the right teams and eventually cofounders with a great vision and lots of focus who constantly pull and motivate me to do the stuff I'm really good at (which is building teams, sharing knowledge and architecturing systems).

So I've just made my peace with the fact that I need someone else to get me started every day and just stopped fussing around it. My talents are somewhere else and I've got lots of creativity and intelligence to make up for my lack of structure.

Stop focusing on your weaknesses. KNOW your weaknesses, but don't beat yourself up for it. Also know your strengths (which is often times the other side of ADHD). Practice self-love every day. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Let me end with a quote of probably one of the greatest procrastinators out there:

> "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." — Douglas Adams

You're not alone. And it's gonna be fine.