One suggestion- mention the printer earlier in the post. It took so long to get around to it that I started wondering if the link was wrong.
I wrote 12 different versions to try to be shorter, but I was losing way too much information that I thought was important to understand why this method works.
I would note there are some known health hazards in handling thermal-paper receipts(BPA/BPS)[1] with your bare hands if you do so often. I don't know much beyond this, I would look into it.
[1] https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-...
Secondly, IME thermal print can fade to nothing after 1-10 years. So these are specifically for short-ish-term use. Not for labeling something that is supposed to last a long time.
These non-poisonous blue receipts have the added benefit of being able to be marked with a fingernail, which is nifty if you're using them to print your shopping list, crossing things off is very satisfying.
Are there any receipt-style printers that can directly print some kind of sticky note? I feel like that would be even more useful since you don't have to keep pins around, though I can see the running cost getting a lot higher
Personally, with receipt-style tickets, I print them and make a small stack. I usually go through them in the same order.
But I can also use a small clip.
It must exist. I noticed at McDonalds (in Denmark), that each item on the tray has a printed label attached that peels off easily, almost like a sticky note.
Amazon search for ‘restaurant ticket holder’ reveals many options for under $20
I have a variety of automations running which print actionable tasks to my receipt printer via a Raspberry Pi. It’s nice having a real-life ticket I can take hold of.
One thing to be aware of if you’re handling receipts frequently: make sure to buy phenol-free thermal paper. Phenol is toxic and some types of it are banned in certain countries.
Since I’m in Europe, we don’t really have paper with bisphenol anymore, but that’s not the case everywhere.
If the substances used are known to be toxic is another matter but you won't know that even with a correct label because it takes time for us to find out that new substances are toxic.
To the GP, if the goal is to avoid phenol papers, phenol papers tend to develop deeper black. And in the US, phenol-free papers are new enough the backside often advertises it. Some are very misleadingly labeled BPA-free, which usually means it's made with the very similar and likely equally toxic BPS.
Seriously though, I'm going to try your idea with the receipt printer (I didn't need an excuse to buy it, no-no, that's not it, haha) and I'll see if it can help me. Sadly, even games cannot interest me for long enough; the longest I could play a game, recently, is a week, then I abandon it.
There is also one that is called "tody" that we didn't try out. Both require a small subscription fee though, which I really dislike. I wish I had found a nice open source alternative. Besides the subscription fee (which was like 18€/year for us both), I have no complaints yet about the app.
I absolutely love how you show and tell, by having an article with an EXP system. But when do I get skill unlocks? I'm really hoping to be able to enjoy your next article with upgrades.
Haha, I’m planning to make a real mini-game for an upcoming article!
My flow is the right kind of coffee. It energizes and allocates. The lavazza espresso 100% arabica is the current that works. Try it out!
If our UIs were more skeumorphic would that help with all this and remove the need for the physical printer?
I might have 5 virtual desktops and 3 different web browsers and each of those has 4 windows open and each window has 20 tabs. Never mind the terminal windows which themselves participate.
Conventional thinking is that if you can't find things you need to download and install some new program, maybe one that splits your tabs into "subtabs" or maybe one that organizes your virtual desktops into "virtual superdesktops", etc. Trouble is now you have another thing to find with all your desktops, windows, and tabs! You just can't win that way even though people insist that you can.
Paper, however, is privileged because it lives off the desktop. It doesn't disappear when you switch tabs, it doesn't disappear when you switch windows, it doesn't disappear when you switch virtual desktops. You can tape it here or there and it stays there even through reboots.
Isn't it just reflective of the fact that you are more disciplined about tidying up your physical world than the virtual one? (And this might be the basis for why the hack works).
Physical objects don't disappear.
I switch tabs.
Physical objects don't disappear.
The power goes out.
Physical objects don't disappear.
Hard to understand in 2025, isn't it?
They also have the advantages associated with not being physical of course.
When you go digital, your brain is writing the sticky note, but also has in its cache the instructions for the menu, the apps you normally use, that annoying notification, etc, plus your rl context. But on physical, you only have loaded the instructions for the pen and paper (and your rl context).
Having too many things in mind can reduce your executive function battery. Hope this helps! (ofc, this is an oversimplification of ADHD)
Picking up the phone to check my todo list puts me in contact with 100 unrelated things, and at some point becomes counterproductive.
If something like the Apple Vision Pro was more accessible and wearing it was more like wearing eye glasses, I think its ability to render objects in space would make it more likely to be an effective interface for virtual task management. Emphasis on “more like wearing eye glasses” because it needs to be an always-on type of experience to come close to replicating a physical piece of paper.
When I need to coax my kids (7 and 10) into completing a tedious list of chores, like cleaning their room and playroom, practicing their instruments, and doing their homework, I also reach for the post-its. They each get their own color and we talk through the best way to break things down, arrange them in a backlog on the wall, set a timer, and agree to meet when the timer goes off to review our progress.
Thank you for your very interesting message!
What I am talking about is really very different from the Pomodoro method. That method uses 25-minute sessions, while I am talking about micro-tasks of 2 to 5 minutes printed on receipt tickets.
As for todo.txt, I mentioned in the article that this kind of tool with a hierarchy does not work for me at all, given the massive number of tasks I have. And I proposed a more interesting and truly innovative solution in response to that :)
Instead made a single issue with a table and each row having an emoji, item title, and when complete link to the fix. As new items were identified I added a row with emoji for 'not started'. Had emoji's were 'under construction', 'already done above', 'not needed', etc. This snowballed with me completing one item per day over 30 days until it was all done. I'm called it EDD Emoji-Driven-Development.
In Sleek (todo.txt for linux) I can have multiple txt with multiple context inside.
On the other hand, I don't think pomodoros are strictly 25 minute sessions. I can setup any structure in my pomodoro app of choice Solanum and chain sessions.
> the crosshair briefly changes to confirm the hit, damage numbers pop up above the enemy, sound effects, enemy death animations, a progress bar filling up, a new skill unlocked, random reward and more...
I wonder if we can gamify todo apps in the same way, most are too boring and too corporate. It should implement all gaming bells and whistles for ensuring you complete your tasks.
I am working on an app!
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 to the work to get it to hit harder: Working by others (social/peer), snacks (biological rewards), free caffeine, money (sometimes lots), etc. And physical trinkets.
We have studied this to death in other parts of our own biology, like food. Unhealthy food/drink is fun. It's a pleasurable reward sometimes, but if it forms the basis for your diet you are going to have a lot of trouble enjoying healthy stuff. You can't outrun a bad diet. You can't add a kale salad after a bowl of ice cream and expect your insulin levels to go down. You have to treat the underlying problem: A hugely stimulating / rewarding thing is displacing the healthy stuff. Almost every piece of sane health advice after 1900 has focused on removing unhealthy factors first.
Work/hobby is no different. When I'm obsessed with factorio (it happened a lot once or twice), I find it harder to focus on work. When I "fast" from those "treats", work takes on new enjoy-ability. Dopamine diet is probably the wrong technical term, but it nails the practical effects well.
I'm sure phones are just as stimulating for some. We all have our vices.
This is one of my big objections do 2FA. My work has been pushing it hard, and from a security perspective, I get it. However, it’s all via an Authenticator app on the phone. We can no longer set down our phones and simply work. To start working, and periodically throughout the day, we are now forced to pickup our phones to authenticate. This invites the chance to see other notifications, check and app quickly, or more generally, break flow as we have to switch to another device and back again.
All of this seems like a suboptimal solution.
1. use 'pass' to save the secret: 'pass edit work.secret' <enter it and quit>
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
'oathtool -b --totp "`pass show $1.secret`" | xsel -ib'
to copy it to clipboard automatically.
sudo apt-get install zbar-tools oathtool
zbarimg qr-2fa-code.png
QR-Code:otpauth://totp/username?secret=ABCDEFSECRET012349BASE32&period=30&digits=6
`bash -c 'xfce4-screenshooter -r -o zbarimg | gxmessage -title "Decoded Data" -fn "Consolas 12" -wrap -geometry 640x480 -file -'`
Works great if you have xfce4-screenshooter, gxmessage, and zbarimg installed. It allows you to draw a box around a screen region, screenshots it, decodes it via zbarimg, and pipes the output into a dialog box with copyable text.
With that, you can do
$ zbarimg -q --raw qrcode.png | pass otp insert <some-name>
$ pass otp <some-name> # or pipe to xsel
Although the nice thing about CLI workflows is that I can easily run it by SSHing into my phone (just make sure you set up GPG so the passphrase prompt will appear in your terminal, and not as a popup on the phone!)
Getting the credentials loaded could be a bit of a pain without a camera for QR code scanning. Easiest solution would be via Bluetooth to a companion app, which you would probably want anyway for periodic time sync (likely wouldn't be worth it to embed a GNSS receiver just to update the time).
Probably be a pretty small market, but as a niche Kickstarter device? I could see a small but loyal customer base.
If you grab it from a plugged-in yubikey, you can copy and paste it. That seems way easier
It does—if you carry the Yubikey you don't need a phone.
They also do single-token cards: https://www.token2.com/shop/category/programmable-tokens
GNSS spoofing is trivial now and it's an extremely useful way to manipulate a target device's idea of time, which breaks all sorts of things. (SSL certificate validity periods...)
But for your specific problem there is a simple solution that isn't particularly expensive. Buy a new phone. Install 2FA on it, and don't install anything else.
I really wish they'd just stick to classic TOTP.
Why not save the secret on your laptop and generate the OTP on your laptop?
I personally use an Android emulator on my laptop, which achieves the same goal. It saves and restores state automatically for quick startup.
Let's do a quick threat model on putting both passwords and MFA tokens in a 1password vault.
1Password employees a recovery key + password login by default, and logging into a vault requires you to either have a device with the encrypted vault on it and your password, or have knowledge of your password and knowledge of your recovery key (normally in a file which makes it something you have) essentially traditional 2fa needed to log into a new device.
If someone steals your phone with 1password installed - they need your 1password to be able to access your credentials on the physical device. At that point they already have both your factors - your phone (have) and your password (know) - still protected by 2fa.
If someone manages to fully root your computer, they could wait until you unlock your vault and then extract your credentials. However, if you use traditional 2fa on a separate device - then they can just wait until you log into the target app, and then ride your session and get the same level of access to the target. While there may be a small difference in level of effort or how long it takes, the same access level is possible, and the requirements are that they have very privileged access to your operating system. Someone rooting the device that you login to services is grants them "single factor" access to your services when you access them.
There is some subtle differences between these, but except for situations where you have very high privileged requirements, at which point you should be using yubikeys or standalone MFA devices, using 1Password with OTP and password is very comparable to using a separate device for MFA.
I'm a previous red teamer and currently a blue teamer.
Though i have no idea, that's just how i internalized it over the years. In your 1Pass example, it's a single attack vector (the password of my 1pass) to compromising both the token and the password of the product/server/thing.
Eg a hacker can access my computer, even have a clipboard/keylogger on my machine, and have a difficult finding my token if it's on my phone. They need to attack my phone and my computer.
Having them both in your unlocked 1Password vault means if someone walks by your computer they can access your account. A single location with both of your "2FA". If they had a keylogger installed on your machine, they only need your single 1Pass password to breach your "2FA".
Granted i imagine that a Phone TOTP would still be a concern with a keylogger on your PC, since you still enter it on your compromised machine. Still more difficult than the having the totp key though, of course.
For that matter, how do they prevent you from using the same password for both?
I posted another comment explaining why 1Password Vault with both a password and a OTP code is still secure, but in short it does not defeat the purpose. Your vault's are protected and in the situation where someone gets access to your vault it's most likely to be full access to your computer at which point they have other viable methods to get access to a specific service you use.
Compromising or stealing a device is a significant escalation from guessing passwords.
Thanks for sharing a potentially useful tool but I will not use it without a lot more details about how this browser extension secures the 2FA secrets from sketchy websites/ads.
url freedom.to
Or just disable notifications. The iphone has a do not disturb mode that can be scheduled.
"So long as [employer's] access management vendor... supports the use of physical two-factor authentication devices (for example, a YubiKey), [employer] shall make such devices available to Employees upon their submission of a request for the device."
The only information we were sent to get this all setup was specifically for a phone. The portal that exists to add devices only appears to support phones.
I have a co-worker who simply tried to use Authy instead of MS Authenticator and it didn’t work. There is a lot of bureaucracy that typically makes it not worth the fight.
I understand where you're coming from though, and I think this is where OS features like Focus Modes come into play.
When I'm in a "Work" mode, I literally don't see notifications from most of my apps. They don't show up in the notification center, or on app icon badges, or anywhere.
This takes a few minutes to set up, but once it's in place, it's fantastic. I also do this for other aspects of my life: Photography, Research, etc. When I'm in those modes, I don't want to see anything except for the apps that are specific to what I'm doing. It's worth the effort of setting this up IMO, and extends far beyond just work.
Along the same lines the Meta Wayfarer[2] smart glasses lets you take slice of life photos and videos without needing to whip out your phone. You lose a ton of quality but stay in the moment more. The AI features are getting better so eventually you'll be able to use it for basic information lookup.
0 - https://guide.duo.com/apple-watch
I think humans crave freedom and free time, with good health more than anything else. This frees you up to care about doing things which we feel more rewarding and fun.
Several times you are better off skipping the drills and rituals and just focus on making lots of money as quickly as possible. And of course competing to accumulate more money just for the heck of it is equally demotivating as well. Focus what you want from the money and that is likely to move you along better use of your time and effort.
yeah and i figured thats fine !
I take time spent on HN as an example. I used to think if i limit my HN time to under 10-15 mins a day, would be ideal. But the slippery slope was stopping. It felt rude. And i had no one but myself to get angry on. Weird loop.
I then go the opposite, allow myself to binge. Kinda forced looking at HN every occasion i had a few mins. I get bookmakes to avoid typing the url. Browse on every device. Add comments, browse past lists, front page, best comments, etc. All the dopamine boosts. And I notice the dopamine effect reduces. The fun in comments, upvotes and finding something new just evaporates. A day or two of this makes me sick of the orange banner and the beige background. I delete bookmarks, remove everything. Make a new account to start fresh. Add a rule to block the domain, all out of a natural reaction, mind you.
i dont have real stats but it feels like over 2 years of this, i've spent less time on HN, than before. I'm not constantly fighting myself. It comes and goes in waves, like seasons of nature. Right now its spring and slowly getting into HN summer as explained by my flurry of comments past few weeks.
I’m not a psychologist, but I believe that occurs often, some things just lose that sparkle with the time, and it’s okay, you just need to find a new way to make your task. This article is a good example of how you can do this, and, with some time, change your methods!
Some things require larger blocks of time. For example, you need several days in line to take a vacation; you can't simply take "5 minutes of vacation" every day. Some things are done much better if you dedicate an entire day, or at least a few consecutive hours to them: whether it is learning something new, writing a blog article, relaxing, hanging out with your friends, etc.
It would be more natural to work 16 hours a day when you feel like it, and then take a day off.
- It reduces the subconscious slot-machine mechanic (compared to refreshing a Web page) since I know there won't be anything new in my feed for the next several hours.
- There are also tangible benefits to using a proper feed reader, like only seeing unread items. That also discourages "cheating", since reading things outside of my feeds will require me to mark them as "read" after the next update.
I receive comment-replies via email, filtered into an IMAP folder that refreshes a bit faster than the RSS feed, to allow conversations.
These don't have notifications, but if I'm in the mail reader I can see their unread count (usually zero; and hence can be dismissed with a glance)
Unfortunately, that part of the brain usually sucks at coming up with an alternative plan, and "do something else, anything" is not very actionable. And you still need to pay your bills somehow.
The natural reward for work is work done. I don't need a motivational system to do the dishes. The motivation is seeing the dirty dishes gradually disappear, and the kitchen become cleaner. I don't need to create pieces of papers to represent that, because it is already happening right there, in real life.
If I work on a project, it helps to specify all things that need to be done (as opposed to working on something open-ended), so that I can see how I am getting closer to the moment of "done". A nice thing about test-driven development is that you produce a set of checkboxes first, and then you gradually check them off. Even if the work is open-ended, if I keep thinking about new features that would be nice add, it helps to specify a "version 1.0", and after achieving it, a "version 2.0", etc. The idea is that after each version I can take a break and feel that my work is done.
The least motivating thing is probably the job, as an employee. You work for 8 hours a day (generously assuming no overtime). There is no way to complete those 8 hours in e.g. 4 hours of working harder and then take a walk. In theory, if you do Scrum, you should have a certain reasonable amount of work assigned per sprint, and if you do it faster, then I guess you can take a short break and do something enjoyable (such as refactoring). In practice, almost no one does Scrum by the book; you will probably be randomly interrupted by extra tasks, and given unrealistic deadlines to avoid the possibility of completing the work earlier.
Another demotivating thing about the job is that there is no personal consequence of completing a project; you immediately start working on a new one. The natural response to completing a work is to congratulate yourself and take a break. But at work, the vacations are mostly unrelated to projects. Also, you are paid per time spent working, not by the number of projects finished. So it is all disconnected.
So I guess it all needs to be a part of some greater project, which can possibly be completed one day. Such as, putting your money in index funds, and planning to retire as soon as you reach a specified amount. Then each day you can congratulate yourself for getting 0.01% closer to the goal. (Or you can save money for other specific things, if that is what you desire.)
My problem is typically more that there are plenty of more interesting things to do than anything I'd like to do right now.
Man no offense but this sounds devastatingly sad. "We must starve ourselves of fun so that the barest excitement at work feels good."
Much like people that struggle with their weight need to turn every meal into accounting for lean protein and leafy vegetables.
Eventually, you crave the broccoli a bit more than you used to, and it makes the diet easier.
If not then you're already 'starving' yourself of the purest form of pleasure (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong). I don't think taking one step further is that sad.
Instead, there are many thousands of different substances which can elicit, heighten, prolong or enable pleasure; some illegal, some legal, some included in your favourite meals and snacks.
Even vanilla is a ”drug” which enhances pleasurable feelings. (Vanillin and ethylvanillin are monoamine oxidase inhibitors and consuming them will increase serotonergic and dopaminergic activity)
Yeah, I mean I think we barely know what that would even be. But some drugs come pretty damn close I'd wager, and I'm not talking about vanilla or ethylvanillin.
I think if you've dabbled in opiates, you've come pretty close to what the purest form of pleasure would feel like.
Having had fentanyl for a couple of surgical procedures, I am inclined to disagree. No one should feel that happy after having their colon inflated like a balloon or chunks of metal screwed into their bones.
Like this is clearly not healthy.
When I was a kid, I'd eat Trix cereal. I enjoyed it. Now - I find it sort of gross. It's too sweet. You can reach that same point with cake or pizza or a candy bar, etc. - in that, those foods become sort of gross. Foods like spinach become more satisfying. Not only that, but that satisfaction may yield a higher reward than you ever could with Trix cereal. But you'd never reach that higher level of satisfaction as long as you're eating Trix cereal every day.
That is extremely dependent on an individual's metabolism. When I was young I had hyperthyroidism and could not keep enough weight on. I could, and needed to, consume a huge amount of calories without gaining a pound. Now, my thyroid's burnt out, and my sleep is terrible, and it feels like I gain wait from breathing in air.
More specifically, when TFA talks about difficulty writing an email vs playing hours of video games, I thought it was worth mentioning that 2 hrs of factorio 3 or 4 nights a week might actually dampen the excitement of work a little by providing a perfectly tailored experience designed to engage the part of your brain that your employer would pay your for.
The analogy isn't about "hunger is the best seasoning" (although isn't that an apt colloquialism !), the analogy is insulin resistance is something like "dopamine resistance" both take consistent large over indulgences or poor decisions (however socially acceptable!) to cause a runaway effect which degrades "health".
Hope that's clearer. It's about establishing healthy habits not starving oneself.
Self-discipline looks different for everyone. I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy.
A desirable (practical) reality would seem to stem not just from first order effects now, but also in summation of all the credits and debits that it leaves us over time.
Don't worry, that rule only applies to poor people!
.
More seriously, how long does it take to stop the dopamine high? Could we schedule our lives so that we would e.g. spend one month doing the most exciting things ever... followed by three days of meditation... which would make us ready for a few months of hard work... and then do it again?
You know, so that we are still productive at work, but don't have to sacrifice most of the joy in life to achieve that.
Interestingly these seemed to be one of the messages of Severance, and Dylan's character even appeared to have ADHD
Sorry for being off-topic, but you actually can (not a scientist, just speaking from experience). My guess is the digestion slows down and the sugar gets released into the system at a slower rate (probably because of the lower overall Glycemic index?). Anyways, it actually works! Just eat your salad before the ice cream to make sure it does :)
Hard agree, and yes we have our vices, but wouldn't life be better if we had more agency over them?
My phone is overwhelmingly a detriment to my life, it's just disguised as a necessary utility by doing the same things I could do anyway if I didn't have it. It's not never uniquely valuable to me, but those rare signals don't need to be tightly coupled with so so so much noise.
The big one for me lately is the aptly named tethering. It's wild that it's not just built into my mac at this point, if it weren't for that, (maybe 2Fa as well) I'd leave the phone at home so often I'd probably forget about it, and I long for that future.
Think about games where you're grinding doing tedious stuff to level up your character. Not nearly as fun, but still something you can end up doing for hours.
However, if the task ahead of me is great and I'm motivated, then I automatically seek less novelty to focus on it. IOW, maintaining a boring baseline of routine so that novelty is selective is important as a way of being able to "jump into action". It's good to get off the phone. It doesn't replace the intrinsic motivation.
There's an aspect to productivity advice that is about shouting down your burnout by adding more productivity hacks or taking stimulants or flagellating oneself. Burnout's root cause has to be approached by asking the tougher questions about life and aligning with a philosophy that is truthful to that. The work itself will have moments of routine boredom, exhilaration, and heartbreak, but the motive has to endure all of it.
This breakup alone could allow someone who can procrastinate on something big but doesn't like to be burdened by many tasks the shortcut, without further gamification, of performing some micro-tasks either to reduce the queue or to "procrastinate" on the rest.
You can get a range of different thermal printer types, one discovery I made was that if you went looking for thermal printers in North America and looked for a width in millimeters you'd get cheap Chinese printers that were often adequate, if you looked for a width in inches you'd get name brand printers that were more expensive. Most thermal printers these days connect to USB but you can get one that connects to Ethernet which I think is ideal if you want something to be controlled by a server.
Yes, I have a printer with both RJ45 and USB. I spent a bit more to get that, so I can stay flexible depending on what I want to do with it.
Absolutely brilliant. It's so stupid (in that it's kind of silly how easy it is to game our mammal brain) but I can absolutely see this giving an extra kick of motivation.
Have you heard of the INCUP model for ADHD? Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion. The more factors an activity has, the more drive the ADHD mind has. Rarity system adds novelty and a bit of passion.
Also if you have looked into operant conditioning at all, you know that variable interval reward schedules are the strongest behavior-forming systems (hence, slot machines and every game that act like them).
As for variable interval rewards, I knew about the concept, but I did not include it in the article because it is already too long, and also because I have not yet found a smart way to use it in my productivity system.
Maybe it'd be fun to combine this with your receipts, where random tasks reward points to earn prizes.
Or maybe this is just more procrastination!
Well, what is life but procrastinating on death?
Oh you sweet summer child.
He builds his list from scratch every morning. The list is flat, so as you go about your day and subtasks occur to you, they are added to the list without explicit links to the main task.
I thought it might be risky to start with a blank list, because something important might be forgotten. But it turns out that a blank list is a great filter for what is truly important and motivating. If it is important, you will remember it at some point during the day.
This system is also excellent for shorter periods of time. If I come home and want to get started on dinner, want to tidy up a bit and have a few other demands on my attention, I put my laptop in a central location, open up Notepad, and just start typing in everything I see around me that I need to do. Usually I start with maybe 5 items, but as I start doing things I quickly add tasks to the list, and it might grow to 15 or 20 items. But then at some point the list starts to shrink again as these small, granular tasks are completed. It is strangely satisfying to see the list initially grow and then shrink to nothing. It also leaves me with a feeling of having thoroughly attended to everything that was bothering me when I first walked in the door.
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 things that don't work wont be on your check list.
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.
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.
If you think you will try out a new recipe from scratch everyday it shouldn't be surprising if most of your days don't add up to much, or even add up to a negative.
My partner vibe-cooks and it's almost always great.
I follow recipes I know will work because if I deviate the food will be BAD
This sort of thing seriously is dependent on the person
As someone with ADHD I’ve never found this to be true. I often forget to eat. I’d forget to file my taxes without reminders.
ADHD obviously can make stuff like this hard, and most neurotypical people seem to operate on a "if it's important I'll remember it" mentality, which I'm incredibly jealous of. I still haven't found a good system for tracking important tasks without getting "overloaded" with too many tasks and/or subtasks.
I ask because I often realize I'm hungry or it's time to eat, but I'm too engaged in the task I'm doing and I think "I'll eat a bit later" and then once I've done that the first time I often never consider again, at least until the next meal time. I wonder if that's what people mean when they say it, or if the idea of stopping for a meal simply didn't even occur to them?
- I just don't notice I'm hungry (this one happens most to me)
- I notice I'm hungry but get distracted and forget
- I notice I'm hungry but I don't have the energy to devote to making/finding food
- I notice I'm hungry and I straight up don't care even though I'm aware I should
Considering that all of my tasks come from my to-do list and there's no way at all I could remember the dozens of tasks on my to-do list (I'm a manager, maybe that makes it worse), it's actually just impossible for me to avoid my list. Guiltily or otherwise.
The list doesn't make me anxious, having all of these tasks undone makes me anxious. Forgetting them makes me anxious. Having everything written down then doing everything and being on top of everything keeps me calm and sane.
> If it is important, you will remember it at some point during the day.
Varies person by person. My memory is nowhere near good enough for this to be true.
it is easy to make todo items. The hard part is realzing you can't do everything and you must not do something
I started using GTD, but due to sprawling list overwhelm, evolved it into nanoGTD, where I start each day with a blank page and recreate my projects and next actions from memory/imagination.
This works best on paper. To make sure nothing fell through the cracks, I just turn to the previous page.
Your wife will have the easiest and most satisfying task :p
Sure, I'll get it done... eventually. But no amount of gamification will motivate me to put this much effort into habitual cleaning. I hope the author's strategy helps someone, but it assumes you have the motivation but not the methodology.
- get up with alarm - make the bed - shave - take vitamins - read 5 pages
Checking off 10 small tasks right in the morning sets me for a productive mood.
There's a power in simply accepting that it's just a feeling, whether you're tired, motivated, hungry... The feeling that you want instead, is a sort of disassociation. The stronger the feeling, the harder it will be. And then you just do the thing you need to do despite lacking motivation or being tired or whatever.
There's something liberating about it that is a bit difficult to put into words. Like "fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway". Sounds a bit stupid, but it's not entirely wrong.
However it's not a magic trick, but rather a kind of thought muscle you can try to train so to speak. It works for me increasingly, despite being quite terrible at this kind of thing. Or rather two muscles: One is creating a distance/objectivity to your feeling or state of mind, the other is to start the action. Sometimes the second part is almost automatic once you do the first part well from my experience.
I even gave an example in my article about this for initial cleaning, specifically with emails. We usually wait for a day when we feel motivated to sort everything out, but that day never comes, and we end up never doing the task. The idea is to have one micro-task every day, like processing a maximum of five emails. Or even five separate tasks of one email each. And on a day when you really have no motivation, you just push yourself to handle one overdue email.
Get on it lol
And if something is really hard to plan ahead, like doing research, I can create 5 minute tickets.
To me I sometimes see past these patches for my problem, which is a pain threshold that I need to resist running away from when facing a complicated problem, and why is there pain at all? It all becomes a math equation where you have a better thing to do vs the one you are doing and how to rework your mind to calculate it differently
Cleaning the house is fundamentally boring. It doesn't matter how many parts you split it into lexically — it's just inherently boring.
It is a piece of software I developed myself using Tauri. The only major difficulty is that you need to send a specific format to these printers. But there are plenty of libraries that make it fairly easy to do.
Kinda like those chefs working the plating section. Order up!
A little out of scope since the article wasn’t about the finer points of ADHD but I’ve always wondered if we’re being disingenuously hard on ourselves by labeling it a disorder.
So many people show the symptoms and they’ve only gotten worse as the world has become more complicated that it seems less like a problem with the individual and more like an natural effect of putting what are essentially still caveman brains in a world of flashing lights, vibrating phones and notification noises.
Puts me in a tricky spot as I experience similar descriptions of the problems, and I deeply resonated with deliberately seeking out stress as a fix, which I realized worked over time. I have specifically done this.
That said, that’s an unhealthy approach via playing with fire (missed deadliness, etc) and the over time negative impacts of stress.
That said, I am firmly in the camp that some or a lot of modern ADHD is caveperson brain finally DDoS’ing itself via too much info throughput. We hit a max ingest limit sometime in 2013, and it never got better. Some folks loose their mind very publicly online, others live and die in tech jobs via if they can manage tabs and attention properly. Not a bad outcome vs worst case, if the latter is my case.
So where does that leave me - I go on modern era drugs with what seems to be life-long requirement bc of modern era tech decisions I never agreed to? This seems wrong in 10 different directions. To start if I can barely maintain control over what goes into my mind and attention for reasons I didn’t agree to but must adapt to, at least I can control if I put new problems, fixing other problems, into my body.
So… needless to say receipts sound like a cool method to test. At least it was nice to see others discuss the exact buzzwords I think to myself - I can pay attention there, but god f’ing dang it why can’t I do it over here?
- pleasure
- achievements
Both reset daily. Both can be changed by each activity.
Well-being is calulated sth like this:
def wellBeing(pleasureNow, pleasureSoFar, achievements):
return pleasureNow/(pleasureSoFar+pleasureNow) + len(achievements)
And pleasure experienced is scaled by the pleasure experienced that day so far. Which means if you do 3 things that provided 1, 10, 100 pleasure - you'll experience ~2.8 pleasure, but if you do the same things in reversed order 100, 10, 1 - you'll experience ~1.09.
So ordering the pleasures and splitting the achievements matters A LOT for your well-being.
I am a compulsive notification-clearer so this mostly works for me. But I also have a receipt printer and have thought about doing something like this before, so I appreciated the ideas in the article! Maybe I'll rip up some scrap paper and try it that way (or just send the tasks to my printer instead of my notifications server, haha).
Clarity is key
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.
E.g. suppose the subject is watching a game show. They get internally involved, within their mind, by trying to guess an answer before the contestant does and then fist pump when they get it. When watching a crime story, they try to guess whodunit. That sort of thing.
There can definitely be a sense of working toward a reward.
I think there's a huge connection to physically writing it as opposed to typing and printing. I never did anything with the weight lifting logs, I thought I might, but the most I ever did with anything in the past was looking at the progression from the last few days or weeks.
https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-toxic...
Even assuming that "BPA-free" paper I'd buy is really so, and not just BPA-covered one imported from China and said/labeled to be "BPA-free" by someone somewhere in the pipeline...
However, none of them say what their actual 'active ingredient' is and I am curious if these are necessarily known to be better. Most of them describe themselves as 'plastic coated'.
I'd love to learn more of these sorts of little actions that bring calm and joy to my brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NudLfyl2cXc
I picked it up from Tim Ferriss, "The goal is visual tidiness, not Four Seasons."
To break down tasks one can simply indent a list.
A to do list gives feedback every time you cross an item of the list.
Sticky notes and printers seem like exaggerated form of a todo list.
It makes the task tangible. You will have a much harder time ignoring your tasks if they are physically on your desk. Tearing up the ticket and putting it in a transparent jar adds an extra layer of satisfaction.
You are right, crossing off an item on your to-do list is a form of feedback. But having it on paper and throwing the paper into a transparent jar makes the feedback even stronger. If you look at the first part of my article, modern video games strengthen feedback loops much more than they used to.
As for list indentation, it may work well for many people, but not for me. I deal with very large and complex lists, with many levels. If I use one single indented list, I end up with a task list that is too long to be pleasant or practical to use.
She worked as a librarian in the seventies. Tasks like restacking books was not fun, so she turned it into a game. Her coworkers, on the other hand, drew out the boring tasks as long as possible. When it came time to pick someone for advancement, they chose my mom, because she was more productive at the menial tasks.
I also use post-it notes, but if I used them for everything, I don't think it would work for me. The reward is in pulling down the note and setting the wall cleaner. But if I were to add notes every day, I have a feeling the effect would be disheartening. Similarly, I love getting the living are clean, but when kids/family make a mess again within hours, I'm less incentivized.
It is easier to get started when the task is very small.
But I also used to procrastinate a lot with post-its. That is why the ticket printer is the perfect solution for me.
The approach that this guy is taking to break out of the addicting loop of gaming/scrolling/whatever is to try to take the principles that make those things appealing and port them to the things that we know we should be doing. Video games have these short feedback loops and quick rewards, so his idea is to make real life more like a video game, in some small way. I was surprised to see that even this website has little achievements in the bottom right corner, when you scroll or see a section for the first time you'll get a little popup congratulating you.
There's nothing evil or wrong about this on the surface, of course. But I wonder if it's not making the situation worse by ingraining a need for quick feedback and frequent external affirmation into wider and wider areas of our lives. In one of my favorite books of all time, Amusing ourselves to Death, Neil Postman talks about the "entertainmentification" of education. The book makes the brilliant and alarming insight that over the centuries, all of humanity's efforts have gone into dealing with the problem of lacking information (and, I would add, entertainment). But now we have the opposite problem: we are so flooded with information, and entertainment, we don't know how to handle it, and society is totally unprepared. If memory serves, Postman warns that we are becoming a people who can't do anything that isn't entertaining. And this was published in 1985, long before Tiktok and its ilk.
Another approach, which admittedly does require some mental strength, is to allow oneself to get bored. Boredom is the mother of invention. I have a theory that our brain has a preferred level of stimulation; if external stimulation is high, internal stimulation will diminish to achieve the desired total; and if external stimulation is low, internal stimulation will increase. The most productive and satisfying times I've ever had in my life have been when I cut myself off from cheap entertainment. When I do that, suddenly I enjoy the hard things again.
I have another theory, that great things are accomplished by people with nothing else to do. If we allow ourselves to swim in an environment of endless entertainment, we're effectively kneecapping our ability to do great things.
---
Also, isn't handling a lot of receipt paper bad for you or something?
Yes if you are worried about microplastics. Dr. Rhonda Patrick has an episode where she talks about receipts specifically (at the 1hr 2m mark) [0].
To paraphrase: thermal paper receipts are loaded with BPA which gets absorbed through your skin. The chemicals are worse too since the plastics for receipts aren't scrutinized like they would be for a food storage item. They use BPA is used as a color developer in thermal printing.
It gets way worse if you've used hand sanitizer, lotion, or sunscreen recently since those increase skin permeability. Studies show dramatically higher absorption rates when your skin barrier is compromised. Although I can't find a link for that right now.
Definitely something to think about if you're a cashier or work somewhere handling receipts all day. I've started just declining receipts unless I actually need them for returns/expense reports.
This may be controversial, but I believe a part of the prevalence of ADHD in younger people is that their set point is unnaturally high from childhood as they never learned how to be bored.
This is my mental model as I personally have observed my set point change throughout my life. I think it makes sense logically as well as these small dopamine hits can become addictive like anything else, just to a lesser extent than something like heroin.
As for the paper, you need to choose one that is bisphenol-free, otherwise it is obviously problematic.
One may argue that if society were simpler or different than today, many of such cases would not be a problem as it is nowadays, kinda like people wearing glasses: you dont ask if they cant see or if they need help, because they have the proper tools (glasses) and environment (our own perception) that fully accomodate them when needed.
This could also apply to other things, but I am mind-wandering. Maybe somebody could draw more links to stuff like this.
This.
When I catch myself procrastinating, it often helps immensely to push myself to at least subdivide a task on my todo list further. Then try to push myself to do one of them, and if I still resist, try to subdivide tasks further.
I then move the task to a Done list by pressing a keyboard combo.
The only purpose of my Done list is exactly providing feedback the way the article recommends.
I never look back over past days "Done" entries. My Done list exists only there so that when I marka task done on my TODO list, the Done file that's open on the same virtual desktop gets the entry added to the top, under today's date, so I get the satisfaction of seeing the list grow. I used to just strike them out in my TODO list, by I found I like it better to see the TODO list actually empty out.
I could probably just wipe it every morning, but it feels satisfying knowing I have the timestamped records even though I never look at them.
In my experience, all systems fail without outside pressure and/or right nutrition and exercise. If I eat a lot of carbs and in general, gain fat and dont exercise I get nothing done. Eating ketoish and exercising every 2/3 days and I get a lot done.
Thinking about work as loops is the right idea, I do agree. Human brains slowly accomodate new thought-patterns and one must continously keep at them to make them appear easy. Any time I come back after vacation I feel immediate exhaustion and repulsion towards programming even though it's easy to me. You just lose the familiarity.
Anyway, I write tasks down as well although my system is just a webapp I built for myself. It's interesting I built it as hacky prototype but I've never come around finishing it even though I've been using it somewhat regularly for 5 years or so. Or I write down things on paper.
The least ceremony required for the process, to me, seems is the only long-term solution. But I appreciate this another take on it.
But I agree with everything you said, especially the part about how we need to be minimalist when it comes to task management.
1) 3x5 cards printed on a printer dedicated to this task 2) Command line routine where I can: a) Enter tasks b) Be able to update card by putting in the card number assigned to the task (which also includes a date). c) Be able to reprint a card if needed d) Be able to view the card on the screen (obviously).
Written in bash.
This is not to be clear to do things that are procrastination but rather to be able to keep track various things that I want to get done the next day or other info that I want physically able to view on my physical desktop during the day.
(I hate to handwrite and can type very well so...)
The 3x5 card printout will contact a checkbox where you can just ink check any item.
The routine makes sure that you only type in the correct number of characters per line so it doesn't wrap.
I then modified this to be able to use larger index cards.
Index cards lay flat on the desk (as opposed to a receipt printer).
Important to have a dedicated printer for this taks otherwise to much friction changing paper.
IME most printers struggle with printing thicker cardstock, or non-normal sizes, e.g. trouble with keeping that size paper straight or with bending/feeding.
Is it just a normal-sized printer, or are there special index-card printers?
I use this system for my projects but I don't rely on any software other than a text editor. I like the app demo shown at the end of the article, but I find custom software never feels fast enough for jotting down tasks in the right place within a hierarchy as compared with a text editor. I just use a markdown file with indented lines to indicate nesting level. Once I complete a task, I put an x within a little box, like "- [x] bug: page layout ..."
It's very satisfying when you have a big task that's a little abstract and overwhelming at the start, but over time gets more and more subtasks as you dig into it, and then those subtasks get closed out one by one, leading you to finally close out the top-level task that started it all. The fact that the text of the subtasks remain also gives a quick indication just how big that task really was. (I don't delete completed tasks, but I do move them somewhere else in the file to keep it organized somewhat.)
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_printer#Health_concern...
Break down tasks into micro-tasks. Doesn’t have to be written down.
Get my body involved. Take handwritten notes when reading.
Create micro-deadlines. Have short meetings with colleagues to share progress.
Inject mini-rewards. Do one 20-minute task. Then watch one music video on YouTube.
I could see room for a productivity app that smoothed out this workflow.
In my case, I generate multiple images and tell the printer when to cut. I also have another version without images. The difference between the two is that the version without images is two to three times faster to print.
One part that is not addressed is procrastination because of tasks that are scary.
I think I have fairly low levels of anxiety in general, but there are things I know I need to do but I’d just rather ignore them because they somehow terrify me.
Things like “call someone to negotiate a price”, or “find a holiday place to rent when I know it’s already too late”, or “reverse-engineer what this giant pile of untested legacy code does, rebuild it in something else, and make sure everything works like before”.
I am 100% sure I’d rather let the receipt printer take a day off than tackling any of these.
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
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.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/society/20180524/the...
There are receipt paper options that don't have these compounds, but they are uncommon.
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 <Position> in <Location>. 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 <TASK> until 9:08 (e.g. Straighten plush in <STORE NAME> or Stock candy in <STORE NAME>)
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).
> With this new system, I haven't missed tracking my habits even once.
When I'm in a productive era like that it mostly feels amazing. But it also comes with this looming threat that it can't go on like that forever. The feeling that maintaining such a high standard will only lead to a big fall once something inevitably disrupts the system. It also creates a sense of burden because by being so 'active' in the world, people come to expect you to remain active. And many of the tasks you've completed lead to more tasks that wouldn't exist if you had just stayed lazy.
This, combined with the realization that I can get away with doing almost nothing productive as long as I have a job, has made it hard for me to even want to be productive.
I have a better one though: a job leaves almost no time or energy for actual work.
Not having a job feels like a good option if you can select into it but the barrier is high for me
If something doesn't trigger my "oh no, this will lead to more responsibility" alarms, I can be very productive. For example, I love to plan a trip, because it has a discrete start and end and is entirely within my control.
As someone who has spent decades procrastinating, reading about systems to get things done, trying many of them, working with coaches and mentors, and teaching project management, I like to think have a cultivated interest in the topic. I’m very happy that the author found something that works for them. I’m not a gamer, so I didn’t find the comparison particularly relatable. What I did find relatable was the point about getting the dopamine hit (I know that’s debated, but let’s use it as a metaphor) off crumpling up the paper and throwing it away. That’s something I always found gratifying about a physical board full of sticky notes, and it’s just not as rewarding to mark a ticket done in Jira.
In my personal experience of ADD, novelty is a major motivator. A system like this has the appeal of all sorts of new sources of stimulation - physical objects, a new electronic toy, software to write, etc. The problem is that once that wears off, if I’m only doing it for the novelty, I won’t stick with it. I need to engage some of the other sources of motivation (interest, challenge, urgency).
Also, I would love to see someone write an article like this where they keep it entirely in the first person. In other words, focus on “my experience” and “I do this” and “this works for me”. I experience a sort of automatic pushback when I read things like “this will help you” or “you need to”. It may be linked to demand avoidance, or just my belief that there is not a single productivity system or hack that works for everyone. “You need to” try things out, reflect on your own personal struggles, and tailor the solutions to fit. Also, I’m not sure if I would ever call it a cure.
Something I’ve found very helpful is an app called Llama Life. It is not free, so stop reading if that’s a deal breaker. I think of it as kind of a pomodoro timer that someone cleverly fixed for me. I find pomodoros appealing, but they never worked for me. With Llama Life, I stack up what I plan to do for the day along with a guess at how long each task will take. The first benefit this has is that I know what I’m meant to be working on. And when the timer goes off, if I’m not done, I can snooze or extend it, or cut my losses and move on. The other thing I like is that it shows me the total amount of time I’ve allocated, and when each item ends. This helps me to avoid overcommitting: when I look at the end time and see 9:30 at night, I’m forced to reevaluate and cut some things. Anyway, I’m a happy customer.
Postscript: Installing it on my laptop needed going through some IT bureaucracy. And my #1 procrastination creator is filling out forms. Guess they'll just keep paying me the same for less work.
I know electricians for instance who love doing their stuff, so they have no issue in being motivated, while they were a mess in their previous work field.
And vice versa.
It’s not always possible of course, but the solution is not to ‘gameify’ your life, it will only work for a little while before getting bored of it.
And for the « home » task, I believe it’s more of a routine. If you know every Saturday morning will be to clean the whole house, you just do it without thinking much.
If you've never had your dream job yet still wasn't able to do shit, you don't have to crack down on other people's attempts to become functioning members of society.
The truth of the matter (especially with ADHD or HFA people) is that once you even start doing a small sub-task, you then quickly become addicted to or motivated to getting more and more of it done, and before you know it, you've gotten many sub-tasks done or even accomplished a large task you'd been procrastinating about.
I’ve seen this called something like “using your adrenaline as adderall”
https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/1ifdwwn/youve_be...
False! Plenty of horror games have basically nothing happen most of the time but are very engaging (perhaps even too much so). Alien games are my go to example.
most horror game fans I know is treat it as a "one time experience"
that's why most horror games have a shorter game time/playthrough
I've worked remotely since 2016-ish and still can't comprehend why this is an issue.
The type of procrastination I was referring to wasn't related to that. It was related to the idea of work being more optional than required and seems much more prevalent that\n the % of the population that struggles with the above.
- It was MY method
- It was simple enough to fit entirely within one piece of thought
- It provided a clean feedback loop when I could strikeout the completed task
- I like handwriting
So it relied on things that my brain finds pleasurable
There's a lot of freedom with this. It can serve a much more than just writing boring task names.
Now that I’ve seen the idea of using a thermal printer to print out little task tickets, it instantly feels like a much easier system. I’m planning to get one next week and see if it actually helps me get started more easily than writing things by hand.
"Hey assistant, what do I have to do?"
"1. Send email to Bob"
"2. Clean your desktop"
"3. Read paper XYZ"
"...and more"
"OK assistant, set 1 as done"
"Congratulations, great job! You achieved the bronze badge this week by completing 70% of your tasks!"
Now that I understand it so much better, I start to recognise it everywhere. After reading first paragraph of the article, I immediately though: Laurie must have ADHD!
For ADHD the things that often help are: breaking tasks up into smaller tasks and having a way of tracking progress. You don't want to do that on a screen, your phone is a distraction device!
I write my to-do lists on a paper notebook so I can tick them off. But the label printer idea is also a smart one! Though maybe a bit over-engineered, but I guess that was just a way for Laurie to procrastinate on the solution ;-)
The trap is usually "I've figured it out and this new system will solve my life" only to be burned out days or weeks later because this only addresses the symptoms and not that cause.
Cultivating a more friendly environment has been a great help for me. That and taking notes.
laurieherault•1d ago
lipowitz•23h ago
I notice a bit of a link in behaviors between people I know who have ADHD and/or OCD. I'm not really sure what someone who "gives-in" to OCD impulses would feel as side effects, etc.. But I'm kind of curious if you see a downside to having followed loops for their reinforcing effects over days of work, etc?
laurieherault•23h ago
Yes, the system needs to have as little friction as possible, otherwise it becomes very difficult to maintain. That’s why the ticket printer is interesting.
I don’t really suffer from OCD so it’s hard to say, but it’s a very interesting question. I hope someone will be able to answer it someday.
ayhanfuat•23h ago
laurieherault•23h ago
sirwhinesalot•23h ago
Sadly, I've tried the task breakdown stuff before and it hasn't helped. It's not even just the fact that I procrastinate doing it, but that even when I manage to do it, it makes no difference.
Anything that requires more than a one off "session" of intellectual work is doomed. Even if I do manage to do some good work for a period of time, I'll undo it later, I cannot stop myself from throwing everything in the bin. If I force myself not to throw it in the bin, my brain refuses to function.
ADHD medication also does nothing to help me. It makes me feel anxious for a bit, gives me a pile of side effects, and that's about it. I've tried increasing the dose and all it did was make the side effects worse (including extremely smelly sweat, for whatever reason).
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Helped a little while I was doing it, then I reverted back to normal.
I've even tried the whole accountability thing, but nope. Even if I'm on a call with someone who (like me) commits to do a task, and actually does it, while I committed to do mine, my brain will just tune out and at best I'll be able to do something on autopilot (works for loading up the dishwasher, but not much else).
On the days I manage to burn my willpower to fight it, it drains my energy like Windows 11 does battery on a portable gaming handheld.
Perhaps one day I'll find my own solution and become a multi-millionaire selling a book on it.
laurieherault•23h ago
What really made a difference for me was starting very very very very very small, with almost no ambition. That is truly the most important point in my article, but I am not sure if I managed to communicate it clearly.
The idea is really to say something like: my goal is to write for 5 minutes, and if that is too hard, I do 2 minutes. And if I manage that, I consider the task done and I can pick another one, also 5 minutes long.
This gives me a real sense of accomplishment and helps me focus on what I have already done instead of everything that is left to do.
sirwhinesalot•22h ago
It still costs me the same "percentage of willpower", if you will, as I would have spent tackling it as the first step of the larger task. And once the willpower runs out, it's out.
With video games it's not that different. What keeps me playing aren't the small rewards. If small rewards were enough to keep me going I'd play pacman all the time. The only thing that keeps me going is curiosity.
laurieherault•22h ago
aaronbaugher•22h ago
I don't know how to zoom in mentally on a tiny, manageable task and block out the rest. I'm usually unable to start on any part of a project until I can comfortably hold the whole project in my mind.
aaronbaugher•22h ago
Nothing really helped with that until one day I realized I was getting too old to keep being broke because I wouldn't finish work until I absolutely had to, so I got a job where other people give me stuff to do and expect it within a reasonable time frame. I still procrastinate more than I should, but there's too much to do for me to do nothing, so I'm always getting through something, and maybe that will become a habit.
But I hope tools and methods like this help others. It seems like every new method is a great fit for someone out there.
laurieherault•22h ago
aaronbaugher•21h ago
I've tried sticky notes before, but tended to use those just for the bigger tasks, while thinking I should put my regular daily habits on a single sheet that I could check off, to keep the sticky notes from becoming an unruly mess. But then the daily list always got neglected. I still got the dishes done, but I wouldn't get it checked off, so the overall system fell apart. Putting every task in the same single-note format may feel like overkill, but may be what it takes to work.
laurieherault•16h ago
mietek•3h ago
I found that the usual ADHD medication (methylphenidate) does not work for me. However, modafinil does. YMMV.
https://gwern.net/Modafinil
encom•23h ago
My experiences with ADHD align pretty closely with yours. We're of a similar age, but I was only diagnosed recently, and I'm still settling into this, adjusting medication and so on. But just knowing now what's wrong with me, is a game changer. It means I can work with it or around it, instead of being in a state of frustration and despair that I can't function like everyone around me.
In my experience, if I find a task interesting and intellectually stimulating, I can grind away at it for hours and lose track of time. But if it's boring and tedious, it's nearly impossible for me to make any progress at all, unless the consequences for not completing it are severe.
Breaking down tasks is a good idea, and it's something I've thought of myself. Just vacuum the stairs. Just press New Document in LibreOffice and write ONE sentence. Just wipe down the bathroom mirror. I'm not sure I'm ready for a solution as elaborate as yours, though I find the technical aspect of it fascinating, and I might explore it just for that reason.
laurieherault•23h ago
I totally relate to the way you described it! You can try my solution in a really simple way using post-it notes. Just do a few tests and see if it works for you!
hyperific•23h ago
I did notice that on mobile the left edge of text on your website is cut off by about half a character.
Also I liked how reading the article was its own game loop with progress bar, level up notifications and items! I hope you use that on future posts!
laurieherault•20h ago
What phone model do you have? I suspect the screen is on the narrow side.
Yes, I am even going to make a real little game to show that you can get absorbed by a very simple game if it uses the gameplay loop and multiple feedback mechanisms correctly.
Thank you for your comment!
ffin•23h ago
laurieherault•21h ago
You are right! I will change it!
adamsilkey•22h ago
What's been working for me lately is carrying a Field Notes notebook everywhere with me combined with some of the ideas you talk about here (breaking down tasks into smaller and smaller pieces). It's the perfect size for me to carry around every day.
It's also been helpful as I've been defaulting to opening up my notebook as my basic distraction device as opposed to opening up my phone.
laurieherault•20h ago
pmarreck•22h ago
coliveira•21h ago
laurieherault•21h ago
uncircle•22h ago
I don't have a receipt printer, what helps me is an A4-sized whiteboard with marker when I feel like I'm falling behind my tasks. Also, to use todos sparingly, so they retain their effectiveness. It's actually quite underrated to forget and let go of tasks; what's important tends to stick around in your head and keep you up at night.
The snark was from my personal experience that serial procrastinators ride a particular high when they change their methods, especially if they spend money for something that hopefully solves their issues. It never lasts long, we return to baseline quite fast. This is why there is tons of posts about "here's how I solved my procrastination issue" when they've only used the supposed panacea for a couple of days. What's I find more interesting, is methods that have worked for someone for years. Then one can claim to have found a cure, albeit one that probably only works for them.
In any case, keep writing. It helps a lot if you too suffer from squirrel brain.
souvlakee•21h ago
That's probably why the author has beginner tasks on the whiteboard like making a bed, washing the dishes, etc. It's hard to imagine having such tasks throughout one's entire life while struggling with procrastination.
laurieherault•21h ago
That is what makes it a method that requires very little time and energy, and therefore something that can be sustained over the long term.
kstrauser•5h ago
laurieherault•21h ago
You are absolutely right, and I have actually tried lots of different things and abandoned just as many methods after only a few days. But what pushed me to write this article is that this time, it was different. After several months, this method is still holding up.
aidenn0•20h ago
deadbabe•20h ago
Chronic procrastinators will inevitably procrastinate no matter what method they find.
uncircle•20h ago
Wanting to have a perfectly organised life is unrealistic. We're not machines, but we're bombarded by the message that we can do better at organising our lives, often by those that want to sell us their product.
Groxx•17h ago
For day to day stuff I just use a more normal whiteboard that I do my best to erase at the end of the day, and migrate longer term stuff to some other location. I like it better than a regimented "always empty" system since reasonable leakage from one day to the next is pretty common for me.
uncircle•15h ago
Groxx•10h ago
genezeta•21h ago
Offtopic but rewarding your article on Firefox on Android, there's a slight misalignment on the side. The left side gets cut off about 5-8 pixels, I'd say. It cuts off most of the first letter on every line.
It might be just my phone, of course. But I don't have any particular extensions installed or anything else.
petemir•21h ago
laurieherault•20h ago
Thank you for your comment! It is super helpful.
genezeta•16h ago
Admittedly it's not a hi-end phone. I use a Moto G7. Screen is 1080x2270 at 6.2 inches according to [ https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g7-9357.php#eu ]
Trying it again to verify... You're right that it's the width. I get a small-ish horizontal scroll. But the problem is that no matter if I scroll it completely to that side the left still gets cut off.
genezeta•16h ago
kortex•21h ago
I have been planning on making a system based on those long scrolls of paper for doodle boards, so at least there is a history, but of course I procrastinated on building the mount for it.
I would love to use your application, I know there's a million to-do apps out there but I get the overwhelm/daunting very easily, so I really appreciate the scope-hiding aspect.
laurieherault•18h ago
I cannot wait for you to try my app :)
flir•12h ago
Games eventually stop rewarding you with dopamine, and your brain loses interest in them. Same goes for the jar. ADHD brain needs to keep changing the process, in order to keep the reward novel. What works today won't work in six weeks.
(With me it was tearing the index card in half when I'd finished the task. Very satisfying - for a while)
ascorbic•6h ago
ventricity•4h ago
colgandev•19h ago
The video game analogy rings very true for me. It helps me a lot to read articles like yours because it gives me new ideas to try. I fully agree with your premise and I've been experimenting with indeed card based systems but have been frustrated by, as you noted, how having to repeatedly make the cards every day basically means I'll probably stop doing it. The receipt printer is a fantastic idea. Making mental only systems physical seems to invoke the spatial parts of the brain. I've been trying to find good ways to synchronize my mental, digital, and physical information. I'd love to read more of your ideas if you publish anything else on your mailing list. Cheers
laurieherault•18h ago
PKop•18h ago
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/receipt-paper-harmful/
laurieherault•17h ago
plumbees•17h ago
laurieherault•17h ago
chrz•4h ago
LeonM•1h ago
I have ADHD, amfetamines help me relax, caffeine causes me to fall a sleep, some anti-allergy medication can cause me to stay awake for 2 days straight.
I read that in some countries doctors can prescribe mild sleeping pills for babies to help them stay calm during long flights. They always advice to test it before going on the flight, because some babies can actually become hyperactive from that medication. If that happens, there's a good chance the baby has ADHD.
dizze•35m ago
WhyNotHugo•17h ago
laurieherault•16h ago
stared•15h ago
I am curious for two things:
- How you stay motivated to create this task list each time. Or for another question - is it a new cool recipe, or have you been sticking to it for more that 3 months?
- What to do so not to go into the rabbit hole of creating and splitting tasks? For me, it is easy to overdo this step, both in breadth (too many things to accomplish) and in detail (too many steps; if you think about it, making and easting a sandwich is a dozen steps or so).
widforss•13h ago
freetanga•4h ago
Calendar, weather, to-dos, all in a single thing I can keep in my wallet if needed. I recall somebody posted a project for printing daily news on the roll too (I don't)
2muchcoffeeman•4h ago
You dont have to do this yourself. A partner or friend could remind you about stuff and literally send you an order.
I’d personally use one of those spikes instead of scrunching up in a ball.
vsupalov•2h ago
As far as "app which helps create overview, reduce overwhelm and taks small steps" - I wonder how many of those are out there? I have written about 3 of those already for various use cases and in different flavors. Using them over a longer period of time, once the chaos subsides or the novelty wears off seems to be hard for me personally.
ArekDymalski•2h ago
A_Stefan•1h ago
Liked you included one of many studies from M Csikszentmihalyi
lorenzk•5m ago
dakial1•4m ago