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Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

swapnilchauhan.com

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Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#51

Post by mips_avatar »

bluecoconut wrote: post #5

Worrying what others think resonates with me a lot. Every few weeks I try to motivate myself to write more online (HN, X, blogs) and consistently get “self sabotage” stuck. (Been going on for >2 years) The article just says they pushed through and “put it aside”, but that has never seemed to quite work for me. I can push through once or twice, not enough to build a daily habit/obsession like I want. Anyone have any t…

I think maybe polish is getting in the way. There's so many really beautiful blog posts out there, well researched, and the author can represent themselves as an expert. But more often than not the really deeply true information I tend to find is a quick little hacker news comment written quickly.

Now a hacker news comment can only contain so much, so sharing your truth a little broader might require some additional medium (graphics, code example, video) but you can clearly articulate yourself well in a HN comment, so maybe think of the blogs as just a little more than a HN comment?

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#52

Post by bayofpigs »

hop_n_bop wrote: post #31
bluecoconut wrote: post #5

Worrying what others think resonates with me a lot. Every few weeks I try to motivate myself to write more online (HN, X, blogs) and consistently get “self sabotage” stuck. (Been going on for >2 years) The article just says they pushed through and “put it aside”, but that has never seemed to quite work for me. I can push through once or twice, not enough to build a daily habit/obsession like I want. Anyone have any t…

The Pomodoro technique works well. Set a timer for 15 minutes, and focus only on your writing for until the timer goes off; or longer if you like.

Love Pomodoro timers so much had AI make an web app to link them together. You can customize and use it here: https://1recipe.com.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#53

Post by caseyy »

atmavatar wrote: post #27

While hard work may pay off in the future, laziness always pays off now :)

And laziness in a way is very natural and healthy. Resting, digesting, being present is boon to longevity, vitality, and creativity. Mindless production has been put on a pedestal too much in recent years.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#54

Post by caseyy »

bluecoconut wrote: post #5

Worrying what others think resonates with me a lot. Every few weeks I try to motivate myself to write more online (HN, X, blogs) and consistently get “self sabotage” stuck. (Been going on for >2 years) The article just says they pushed through and “put it aside”, but that has never seemed to quite work for me. I can push through once or twice, not enough to build a daily habit/obsession like I want. Anyone have any t…

> Anyone have any tips that worked for getting over this hurdle?

This might give you something to work with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42102050. Maybe you're confusing natural and reasonable behaviour with self-sabotage? They look the same from some perspectives (such as perfectionism and people-pleasing).

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#55

Post by Sparkyte »

spuds wrote: post #44

I struggle with this myself, especially around writing. My solution, from a coding perspective: If I had a massive new app to build, it would indeed feel overwhelming if I felt like I just had to sit down and build it. I think we get extra stuck on that with writing, as it often feels like we just need to go from an empty page to a well-reasoned and edited blog post, with a lot of ambiguous struggle in between. With…

I agree with this, but when working with a team I always feel motivated to see the progression made. Rarely do solo developers work well with others and rarely do collaborative developers work well by themselves. It really depends on the dynamic of the environment and the goal of the team.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#56

Post by Sparkyte »

bluecoconut wrote: post #5

Worrying what others think resonates with me a lot. Every few weeks I try to motivate myself to write more online (HN, X, blogs) and consistently get “self sabotage” stuck. (Been going on for >2 years) The article just says they pushed through and “put it aside”, but that has never seemed to quite work for me. I can push through once or twice, not enough to build a daily habit/obsession like I want. Anyone have any t…

Sometimes I feel like someone already wrote what I am writing and it doesn't feel good to just work on something I know could be critiqued hard because an alternative exists.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#57

Post by hinkley »

Sparkyte wrote: post #55
spuds wrote: post #44

I struggle with this myself, especially around writing. My solution, from a coding perspective: If I had a massive new app to build, it would indeed feel overwhelming if I felt like I just had to sit down and build it. I think we get extra stuck on that with writing, as it often feels like we just need to go from an empty page to a well-reasoned and edited blog post, with a lot of ambiguous struggle in between. With…

I agree with this, but when working with a team I always feel motivated to see the progression made. Rarely do solo developers work well with others and rarely do collaborative developers work well by themselves. It really depends on the dynamic of the environment and the goal of the team.

Which is a pretty pickle when you’re trying to hire devs. A candidate with a large GitHub repo may actually not be the team player you’re looking for.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#58

Post by hinkley »

bluecoconut wrote: post #5

Worrying what others think resonates with me a lot. Every few weeks I try to motivate myself to write more online (HN, X, blogs) and consistently get “self sabotage” stuck. (Been going on for >2 years) The article just says they pushed through and “put it aside”, but that has never seemed to quite work for me. I can push through once or twice, not enough to build a daily habit/obsession like I want. Anyone have any t…

Hemingway said once that the trick to getting writing done was to stop writing when you know what happens next.

Other writers have talked about being compelled to write to get an idea out of their head that’s stuck there. I think they’re much the same thing. You’re essentially leaving yourself in that obsessed state until you can sit down again.

If you try to sit down with just a long term goal in mind you’re torturing yourself. And likely creating negative reinforcement of future stuckness. Write the bit in front of you, pause when you have an idea what’s next, not when you run out of steam.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#59

Post by StefanBatory »

I grew up with parents who had anxiety. I had to be perfect, I couldn't make any sort of mistake because they'd get angry at me.

Naturally, I ended up not even attempting doing anything, because the punishment for not doing something and making a mistake was the same.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#60

Post by Rinzler89 »

hinkley wrote: post #57
Sparkyte wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this, but when working with a team I always feel motivated to see the progression made. Rarely do solo developers work well with others and rarely do collaborative developers work well by themselves. It really depends on the dynamic of the environment and the goal of the team.

Which is a pretty pickle when you’re trying to hire devs. A candidate with a large GitHub repo may actually not be the team player you’re looking for.

>a large GitHub repo

I feel like in SW, impact and quality should be a lot more valuable than quantity of repos/apps you write. A few lines of code that fix a Gnome/KDE/$BIG_FOSS_PROJECT bug would be a lot more valuable in my book, than say another one in the millionth pile of JS note taking apps, or a repo full of "Baby's first Rust app"

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