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 to get moving. Then the motivation kicks in and I can start moving for real.
The same approach helps me with tasks outside of software development, and even outside of work.
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.
It's also useful to jot down a quick list of (say) three items that are at the top of your mind when you leave work for the day, and they too will help with a context restore.
The magic of Git means you can immediately find them in the working index and get back on to it. Just remember to remove them before the commit.
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 will find them too, but any in the diff you'll know for sure were added by you.
And why it matters to get them from the diff if they're on disk already? Literally one command to find all of them, rather than going through git?
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4825/the-art-of-fi...
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.
If you want to lose weight but don’t feel motivated, it might be because you associate getting started with a strict workout routine and highly restrictive dieting. But taking smaller steps in the right direction can spark motivation. From my own experience, I know I naturally start eating healthier as soon as I get back into running.
That said, in practice it may be reasonable advice on average, but there's also a problem where it's not very practical to eat the "same" calories as someone else, unless they are together with you all the time.
I would suggest picking a fixed point in time every week. At this point in time you will finish (if they are small enough, otherwise split in multiple steps) on of these chores/repairs. E.g., every Saturday afternoon from 1 am you will finish one of these. The rest of the time you then do not need to think about these which is your reward for doing one chore/repair.
Maybe the idea can help you starting things?
It also helps that, sometimes, when the tasks are big, I convince myself that I can finish it later. Many times I do not have to finish it later..
Like “brush teeth”, “do nothing at all for half an hour after work” “remove trash photos for the day in the phone”, “finish working” (here I have a detailed sublist ending with “close computer lid”) “move todos I did not have time for today to tomorrow”
another cool habit is “I did list”: add items that you did that were not planned, because we sometimes forget why we did not do something “planned”, because we actually did something else important that we are just blind to when “planning”. for example, “meal”, “took some rest that I actually need”, “took out trash”, “told someone irritating to fuck off” etc etc
Or maybe that is just another excuse :)
of course we are pressured to be “consistently highly productive”. But is it healthy and sustainable for everyone? Probably not. So I would start with “consistently bare minimum productive” and not demand more from myself. If I demand more, the “procrastination” kicks in, because my body knows that it needs rest and relaxation.
we are not robots: work for us and not we for work.
You can characterise this real factor (quality of time over the year) as 'procrastination' but I think this is unfair. Other factors such as joy/depression, meaning in work, personal circumstances, etc also come in to play. But yeah, if 'work' is the highest principle one has, these are just excuses for procrastination.
It's definitely going to be too hard as it is imo simply not possible and is a non-goal for a marriage.
family is trickier. finding the right partner is very hard. it takes a lot of introspection and being able to recognize flaws in yourself and in your partner. it took me decades to understand what i need in a partner. and now i feel like i'd rather stay alone than have a partner that doesn't fill my needs. that sounds very selfish, but it goes of course both ways, i also look at the needs of my partner and evaluate whether i can fulfill those needs. (in short it's about compatible goals. many chinese women for example just want their husband to be successful and enable a comfortable life. fortunately the woman i found didn't because as i said above, that's just not a life goal for me)
when you mention space, the olympics and video games i get the impression that those are not even your real goals, and you are more likely lamenting that you feel like you don't have anything to strive for.
as i wrote above, it took me decades, not just to understand what i need in a partner, but simply what i need in life. the interesting thing is that now that i think i understand that, actually fulfilling that need became less important. understanding myself helped me detach.
as for beating procrastination, for me it's not about increasing productivity but being productive at all. it's not just 20%, it's 200% or more. it's about keeping that job and doing enough to get leads for the next one.
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.
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.
I procrastinated so badly I could never apply for jobs. And the jobs I did get I lost quickly due to the same procrastination.
But sometimes it's not inaction we're choosing against; it's discomfort.
In that case, this becomes simplistic.
The trick is to come up with a tiny goal and give yourself permission to quit once you reach it so it’s not like your overwhelmed by the full task.
The smallness of the task is important, but it’s even more important that you genuinely give yourself permission to stop when it’s done. If you don’t do that, it’s not “one small task”, it’s “step one in a big task” and you’ll keep procrastinating
For coding it’s a sequence of: “Ill just get all the software and documentation open and organized”
“I’ll create a few empty files on a new branch”
“I’ll just stub out a few things I KNOW I’ll need”
…
For other non-code writing, I’ve occasionally been able to hack it in a similar way by writing progressively more detailed outlines.
For physical projects, sometimes it’s just about gathering supplies and organizing tools.
One example for me is getting out of the house: I loathe the idea of getting dressed, getting into the car and driving, whenever I contemplate it, but once I'm behind the wheel, the thought always is "this isn't so bad". If I think about the getting dressed bit, that too, thought of in isolation, isn't so bad. It seems it is the anticipation of a seemingly complex sequence of tasks that tend to put the brain off.
You might have ADHD.
And is is very important to know whether you have it or not because all that advice for neurotypical people will not work for you then. In fact it will harm you. It will make you feel as a failure.
You need to figure out how your brain works and only then you will finally manage to make lasting changes.
(I’m always curious to learn other potential diagnostic markers for adhd)
For some people struggling with chronic lifelong procrastination, the oft-repeated advice from the author such as "Action leads to motivation, not the other way around." ... and similar variants such as, "Screw motivation, what you need is discipline!" ... and other related big picture ideas such as Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams' "Systems instead of Goals" -- all do not work.
And adding extra rhetorical embellishments to the advice such as using the phrase "it's simple [...]", and using the word "[...] just [...]" as in:
- "Stopping procrastination isn't that hard to solve. It's simple. Just chop up the task into much smaller subtasks and just start on that tiny subtask. That will give you momentum to finish it."
... also doesn't work. Some procrastinators just procrastinate the initiation of starting that tiny subtask! For the few that actually do try to start with that first step, they'll quickly lose steam because of boredom/distraction/whatever and the overall task remains unfinished.
A lot of books and blogs about time management repeat the same advice that many procrastinators have all heard before and it doesn't work. The procrastinators understand the logic of the advice but it doesn't matter because there are psychological roadblocks that prevent them from following it.
EDIT reply to: >That doesn't mean the advice is bad,
I'm not saying the advice is wrong. Instead, I'm saying that some well-meaning people who give that repeated advice seem surprised that it doesn't work on some people. Because the advice givers believed "Action Precedes Motivation" worked on themselves, they automatically assume that imparting those same words to other procrastinators will also work. It often doesn't. The meta-analysis of that advice and why it sometimes doesn't work is not done because the people giving that advice are the ones who used that technique successfully. This creates a self-confirmation bias.
isn't the problem here that the answer is very individual. for me for example some of the above things do work, and some don't. some of the time. it's like it depends and there is no clear answer even just for myself. knowing whether i had ADHD would not make any difference. i'd still not know what works.
for example i have seen tasks lists recommended as one way to deal with ADHD. because the lists help focus. isn't breaking things down into small steps the same thing? others here with ADHD also claim that specific suggestions work for them. so this isn't clear cut, and it doesn't make sense to just dismiss the suggestions.
you are right, there is more than just getting started. boredom and distractions are a problem too. but they are also a problem for "normal" people.
seems to me that the only thing we can do is to list a number of possible approaches, and let everyone pick what works best for them.
so back to the original question: what does work for people with ADHD?
I used to procrastinate a lot when I was a PhD student and later in academia. Sometimes, it was literally weeks of doing nothing and stressing out.
I eventually migrated to big tech and I now rarely procrastinate. We have pretty tangible goals, good results are rewarded and lack of results would raise concerns pretty quickly.
In my case, working in the right environment helped a lot with procrastination.
In my case, not always, but often, procrastination shows up when fear is involved. Fear of failure, of not doing something perfectly, of the task being too big. What’s helped me is turning the task into a challenge, because I know that personally, I thrive on challenges. It re-frames the fear into something exciting, and once I get started, I follow all of the other advice such like breaking it down into small steps. Thanks for sharing.
I have found that “procrastination” is not a particularly helpful word because, for me, its meaning includes a shame component that can obfuscate causes.
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