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Getting Past Procrastination

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51–60 of 185 posts

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#51
post #44
post #11

> Action leads to motivation, not the other way around. For me, this sounds a bit tautological. Of course the opposite of procrastination is action. It’s similar to saying, “If you want to lose weight, just eat less.” It’s certainly true on a meta level, but very difficult for some people to implement.

But in a way that can still be useful. Like, "just do something" isn't deep wisdom, but when you're stuck, even a cliché can break the mental loop.

Yes, fair enough.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#52
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The magic of Git means you can immediately find them in the working index How does git help you find certain texts in files? `grep` should do the trick just fine, unless I misunderstand what "chuck Todo comments in the code" mean, the code lives on your disk no?

Grep works too. I just spend a lot of time in git or tools that wrap it. It's an unconscious habit to check the status and diffs when I open my editor.

Yeah I mean I use the git cli exclusively too, and use it switch contexts, but I'm not sure why'd I use it to find stuff that is already on disk. But, you do you, was just trying to understand if there was any benefits I didn't knew about :)

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#53
post #24

> Action leads to motivation, not the other way around. I've found this to be very true. A trick I found that made this easier for me is to leave a trivial task to start tomorrow with, often with notes to remind myself what to do. Ideally the trivial task is on the way to something bigger, not finishing something. That gets me into my editor, gets me running the code / tests / etc., and gives me a trivially easy way…

Yep. When there are no clear tasks, I sometime leave a syntax error at the place work should continue tomorrow. This is quite effective. It can make the answer to the "Where was I?" question immediate instead of taking a few seconds and this is one fewer barrier.

I always leave work( for lunch, for home) at failing test . Try to anyways.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#54
post #25

"Across a decade working at hypergrowth tech companies like Meta and Pinterest, I constantly struggled with procrastination [...] I was not making progress on the things that mattered." Maybe unless one can really convince themselves that their daily work matters (really matters and not just for their team/company metrics) one is bound to procrastinate as a symptom of some subconscious sense of pointlessness.

Relentlessly trying to lock up as much of the world's information as possible behind your login wall, I'd be struggling with procrastination as well.

Maybe the answer isn't so much finding new tricks to play on your mind, but finding something to do that doesn't involve codifying more power in the strong leader, to increase his masculinity in the worklace or whatever the political issue du jour is.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#55
post #25

"Across a decade working at hypergrowth tech companies like Meta and Pinterest, I constantly struggled with procrastination [...] I was not making progress on the things that mattered." Maybe unless one can really convince themselves that their daily work matters (really matters and not just for their team/company metrics) one is bound to procrastinate as a symptom of some subconscious sense of pointlessness.

I observe the opposite: the more important something is the more afraid I am to approach it. I procrastinate because it is important.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#56
post #31

The older I get, the more I realize there's no point. I'll never be rich. I'll never have a family. I'll never go to space. I'll never take part in Olympics. Best I can do is beating a video game on medium. So I try to focus on that, instead of spending 80% of my life trying to make myself 20% more productive.

Regarding the family part. Don’t feel terribly bas about not having a family. There is the possibility of a divorce and the resulting court ordered payments that can be far more devastating. It’s simply too hard to keep someone else happy all the time. Frustrations add up, more fights, more insults, more angry words. As humans I don’t think we can ever be happy.

I know, but it still sucks to be alone. It's instinct to seek partnership

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#57
post #31

The older I get, the more I realize there's no point. I'll never be rich. I'll never have a family. I'll never go to space. I'll never take part in Olympics. Best I can do is beating a video game on medium. So I try to focus on that, instead of spending 80% of my life trying to make myself 20% more productive.

Regarding the family part. Don’t feel terribly bas about not having a family. There is the possibility of a divorce and the resulting court ordered payments that can be far more devastating. It’s simply too hard to keep someone else happy all the time. Frustrations add up, more fights, more insults, more angry words. As humans I don’t think we can ever be happy.

> It’s simply too hard to keep someone else happy all the time

It's definitely going to be too hard as it is imo simply not possible and is a non-goal for a marriage.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#58
post #24

> Action leads to motivation, not the other way around. I've found this to be very true. A trick I found that made this easier for me is to leave a trivial task to start tomorrow with, often with notes to remind myself what to do. Ideally the trivial task is on the way to something bigger, not finishing something. That gets me into my editor, gets me running the code / tests / etc., and gives me a trivially easy way…

Yep. When there are no clear tasks, I sometime leave a syntax error at the place work should continue tomorrow. This is quite effective. It can make the answer to the "Where was I?" question immediate instead of taking a few seconds and this is one fewer barrier.

I've always used "$$". It's probably a subliminal thing.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#59
post #25

"Across a decade working at hypergrowth tech companies like Meta and Pinterest, I constantly struggled with procrastination [...] I was not making progress on the things that mattered." Maybe unless one can really convince themselves that their daily work matters (really matters and not just for their team/company metrics) one is bound to procrastinate as a symptom of some subconscious sense of pointlessness.

When I see stories like this I always wonder "How did you get and keep jobs at meta and Pinterest if you have a procrastination problem?"

I procrastinated so badly I could never apply for jobs. And the jobs I did get I lost quickly due to the same procrastination.

Re: Getting Past Procrastination

#60
post #55
post #25

"Across a decade working at hypergrowth tech companies like Meta and Pinterest, I constantly struggled with procrastination [...] I was not making progress on the things that mattered." Maybe unless one can really convince themselves that their daily work matters (really matters and not just for their team/company metrics) one is bound to procrastinate as a symptom of some subconscious sense of pointlessness.

I observe the opposite: the more important something is the more afraid I am to approach it. I procrastinate because it is important.

I suspect it's because of fear of failure, as failure is more consequential the more important the task is.
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