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At the End of a Procrastinated Day

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Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#71

Post by rdouble »

Tichy wrote: post #64
tomjen3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since monday my home internet hasn't been working. Was told by tech support to call them if it didn't work two hours after rebooting it. My internet is important to me (and using an iPad with 3g wasn't a great solution). The tech call wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes. I had the time. Yet I procrastinated making the call. I might have made it, but the connection started working today so I didn't. The plan was…

Having to wash socks is incredibly depressing. Not sure what can be done about it - perhaps move to a country where you wouldn't need socks, which would probably also have more sunshine :-/ Or get floor heating, or a household hand? Maybe some bearable solution could be found.

consider a pair of slippers and laundry service

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#72

Post by narrator »

At the beginning of the day when I'm lying in bed, after looking at my calendar and reading the morning email when I get up, I picture myself going through my whole day in my mind. Whenever I get stuck in the middle of the day, I take some time to let my right brain image stream through the rest of my current task, which usually gets me back on track.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#73

Post by baby »

Finally a post that talk about procrastination without giving advice away.

Because really, I've read them all. I'm pretty sure I could do a PHD about procrastination. The thing is, I would never start it.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#74

Post by baby »

alf wrote: post #44

The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the urge to…

This is a very interesting statement that I've read before.

It is interesting because it deals with the moment you're working and not about the moment you're procrastinating. Because yeah we've all read those articles while procrastinating which gave miracle solution. Never works.

This is a real solution.

It doesn't tell you what to do to stop procrastinating, it tells you how to stop working as not to procrastinate the next day.

It is a lifestyle about knowing WHEN to stop something. And I truly believe it can be applied in a lot of life situations.

When you talk to a girl, don't wait the last minute, when the conversation starts getting boring, to leave. Leave in the middle of a conversation, leave when it's interesting. She will keep a good memory of you in mind and the next time you meet her you guys will be at a peak of exchange.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#75

Post by jacobr »

alf wrote: post #44

The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the urge to…

Key is: know how to finish. Otherwise you (I) will spend the night awake thinking about how to finish.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#76

Post by TheEzEzz »

JamesAn wrote: post #9

How I kicked the same problem: Spend a day procrastinating. Contemplate how unpleasantly wasteful it was (even if it felt superficially 'fun' at the time.) Spend time being productive. Contemplate how I enjoyed doing it, and how I enjoyed having done it . Consider the contrast between a day spent (in my case) learning C++ versus a day messing around on Reddit. I don't have to make an effort any more. After my allotte…

Just a friendly caution: overcoming procrastination to study is very different than overcoming procrastination to work. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps because learning is more passive than producing. Perhaps because learning usually feels productive, like you're permanently gaining something, whereas a lot of work will lead you to question the purpose of the work itself, and usually doesn't compound in value of time.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#77

Post by potomak »

dudurocha wrote: post #13
brandoncor wrote: post #4

Reading that was pretty eery since I just ate a banana, got a glass of water from the kitchen, have Chrome open with 20 tabs (including, obviously, Hacker News) and have a Pomodoro Android app within reach. The only thing that snapped me out of it was that my app was free.

The only difference to me is that I'm reading a book in my kindle, and I use the e.ggtimer.com/pomodoro to work. Feels bad man.

Same for me, but using http://tomatoes.heroku.com

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#78

Post by skrebbel »

alf wrote: post #44

The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the urge to…

Kent Beck calls this the "Red Test Pattern". If you do test-driven development, check in your code, write one more test that fails, and only then stop working.

Works wonders for me.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#79

Post by patrickyeon »

alf wrote: post #44

The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the urge to…

Similar to the idea of stopping in the middle: leave something easy. Leave a small task, an easy one, un-done so that you can start with it next time. It works for the same reason, you don't immediately encounter a barrier when you start back up.
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