The 10 minute rule: if you want to do something, really force yourself to do it, but only for 10 minutes. If you want to build a daily habit, commit yourself every day no matter how you feel, but only for at least 10 minutes.
More generally, if you have a bunch of tasks, commit yourself to at least one. Don't necessarily push yourself to do everything but force yourself, no matter how hard, to do at least one. If it's a big task, break it up into smaller tasks.
This one rule is seriously like a magic bullet. 90% of the time you'll end up doing everything. Somehow you're brain just goes from thinking "I hate this, it's so hard" to "wow, this is easy, let's keep going". The other 10% of the time, you can keep your pride, because 1) you at least tried, and 2) it's sometimes a sign of an actual issue (e.g. you feel bad running because you're actually sick). I've heard this advice many times, and somehow I've never yet heard a single person say it didn't work for them.
This is my method, and it nearly always works. Even if I actually only do the 10 minutes, it is often the case that I discovered a blocker, and now I know that I need to find a solution for that blocker, days (or weeks) earlier than I would have if I had not used the "I'll just do it for 10 minutes" trick. This gives me more time to ask someone for help on whatever the blocker is.
When there's not a blocker, I usually end up doing way more than 10 minutes worth.
Also even if I don’t finish the task (think debugging), often I get over the big scary unknown horizon and learn enough to make sleeping on it potentially productive.
Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent people to avoid a lot of work. I feel like I learned really bad work habits early on and am cursed with a flawed brain now. I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and accomplishing it.
Still, I have also found the quality of leadership really determines my productivity. When working independently, and there are 100 different objectives I could work on, it's very logical for my brain to say none of them are important. I have come to appreciate how helpful it is to have a decent boss who can laser focus on objectives in a way that help me line up my work.
>I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and accomplishing it.
It has its downsides. I had mostly bad experience working with software developers from rote learning cultures, because you may guess it, they tend to execute but not think about it. IMO the main worth of a software developer is unpacking customer requirements and getting them to make logical sense so that a computer can understand them.
If you don't question anything coming from authority, i.e. the customer, due to your upbringing, you're already off to a bad start.
Because executing without thinking is not what you hire the humans to do, it's what the computer does.
I will play the devil's advocate here which also express my opinion tho...
Choices have trade-offs, business believe, in general, that things are simple and should be done fast. However, IMO, good design ( independent being software, etc... ) takes time and effort.
Do you personally feel that it would be valuable to have the high authority/rote people in place to execute and low authority/creative thinkers in place to plan?
Exactly, and I do think the tinkering of the execution part is an important part of the creative process. A lot of requirements mismatch becomes visible when implementing.
We don't ask artists to describe the painting and let someone else do the execution part. Working with the pigments, and seeing how they interact on the canvas is important for getting a good result. An intermediary would be detrimental.
In music maybe there's such a thing when you have somebody who can sing well, that has a team of songwriters doing the creative work.
Maybe the question is what other jobs rote learning is good for. I think there are enough jobs that don't ask for creativity, but instead require discipline.
And as with all things, there are probably shades of grey in between. A mix of discipline and creativity might be better than the extreme for many jobs.
> For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and accomplishing it.
Keep in mind there's a selection bias at work. People who don't get things done are much less likely to get through the US's selective immigration system.
> Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent people to avoid a lot of work. I feel like I learned really bad work habits early on and am cursed with a flawed brain now.
The curse of the smart lazy person. I've felt this acutely in my life. But I've made it a goal to develop proper discipline. I'm no Elon Musk and I have my good and bad days, but I at least learned how to work consistently hard for the most part. It only took twenty years to unlearn the bad habits from school.
Do slightly less intelligent people have non flawed brains because they were forced to do more work in an allegedly poor education system? Your brain is not flawed, and certainly not cursed, except perhaps by its own silliness.
>Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent people to avoid a lot of work.
To be fair, if you're self-employed, this is an accurate model of reality.
Leadership quality is huge. Knowing what to work on, and having the tools and support to be effective is invaluable.
I’ve found that as you move up, the ability to “lead yourself” (e.g. solve for those despite clear direction) is essential. A CTO can’t just ask their leadership what to do. It’s their job to figure that out! (With high level vision/direction from the CEO, but the details are on you)
I've seen what the Korean/Japanese education system does to kids, though, and I don't want any part of that. Kids go from being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to completely burned out by the time they're 13 or so
At one point I spent a couple of days watching dozens of videos on procrastination, and this video [1] by Tim Pychyl was by far the best. I strongly recommend it.
It's ostensibly focused on helping grad students with procrastination, but the tips and techniques he gives in the talk can be applied by anyone.
It’s become a running joke in my house, but I bought a book about 20 years ago called “The NOW Habit”, all about beating procrastination. I still haven’t read it.
The most helpful recommendation you could give it would be to tell us whether or not after watching it you did what you were supposed to be doing when you were watching dozens of videos on procrastination?
Eyeroll. Read it. I read everything. Look, my brain is broken. It would literally be easier for me to off myself than do everything I need to do every single day. It's simply hell.
A mediocre life is the best I can hope for without modern medicine. When I had access to it, I felt normal for the short but brilliant time it lasted.
I feel this pain deep inside my brain. My head is like a million points moving in several directions at once, all the time. In fact, I just set up another appointment where I am going in full throttle for whatever medication I can get. I am completely exhausted trying to keep these points all lined up in a straight line.
You might want to take a serious look at your nutrition. Nutritional deficiencies or imbalances can cause all sorts of very serious issues, including mental issues.
Taking long walks in nature (as in 2 or more hours long) can help, as can unplugging from the internet and other media, and meditation.
Many of us hyper-stimulated, and are in a pavlovian loop of jumping from one source of instant gratification to another, without taking much time to reflect one's own life and the world. Quieting one's life might help.
1000% agree about the hyper-stimulation. I see the signs of it in everyone around me. Very very few people take the time to "unplug" and ACTUALLY experience some quiet times, reflect on life and shut out the infinitely-noisy outside world.
The nutrition point is so difficult to evaluate - a lot of personal variation, many anecdotes, few good scientific studies, a lot of subjectivity and misattribution, people getting fired up online and turning it into ideology... it's very difficult to figure out what's true and what actually works for you.
I think it is mostly a case of scientific belief in a trial by error process: if you believe in trying a bunch of different ideas, you are likely to eventually hit on solutions that help or hinder. You do need some minimum set of ability and brain power to do this effectively. However, even prophylactic or placebo effects can be minor wins (so long as you can manage to avoid dangerous things, like too much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor ).
These are great tips. I do miss my days spent outdoors (took a few years off to run a flower planting crew at a landscaping company and run some long distance races).
As for nutrition, I do think I'm doing well there. Other than a sugar fix at night, I eat pretty good/healthy/whole food.
Unplugging is probably my short term answer. I'm also going through the stresses of resigning from my day job and ramping up my side work, so that's a source of intensity too.
In my experience, even having access to all the medicine you need doesn't really make things that much better. Sure you can force yourself to work or sleep or smile for a day, but you can't do it every day.
After reading the 1 and 2 star reviews, is there any one particular point that differentiates this book from the others? (Getting Things Done, Eat the Frog, The Now Habit, etc.)
Thanks for sharing! I will favorite this comment to watch later, completely forget about it, see it some other time, and not watch the video (like everything else I favorite on all services)... haha :`D
Not a bad piece, but for me it turns out almost all of my so-called procrastination and laziness is rooted in a congenital medical condition. When I can manage to take good care of myself, energy and mental focus lead to productivity. When I can't, then I look like some kind of loser to the outside world.
I suspect that under recognized health issues are a common factor in such patterns. I knew a guy who swore he wasn't allergic to anything but began every single day with something like an entire pot of coffee and ended it with up to an entire bottle of wine. Uppers in the morning and downers at night is a common medical approach to managing severe allergies.
The other thing that helped me enormously was reading some book from a library when I was living in Germany in my mid twenties. (No, I have no idea what the book was called.)
It covered an idea that was supposedly fairly common before modern psychology became popular. The idea was that you have a certain budgeted ability to do a particular type of thing and if you aren't getting enough of that thing, you will do more of that type of thing voluntarily (as a hobby) and if you are being forced to do more of that type of thing than your internal budget supports, you will start experiencing burnout.
Programmers routinely give a variety of anecdotal testimony that fits with this concept. Some can program all day at work and come home and program some more to work on a side project. Some are so done with it after programming all day. Others loved it when it was their hobby but have come to hate it now that it is their day job. Their internal budget only supports doing this part-time and such people tend to change careers at some point and then eventually rediscover their love of programming as a hobby.
I think one key to making life work is figuring out how much internal budget you have for different sorts of things and arranging a life that fairly consistently uses up that budget without demanding more and also somehow pays the bills. And then everyone thinks you rock and you get to be contented.
And few of us get told that. We usually get told x, y and z external things matter a great deal and we need to somehow conform to that instead of being told our lives should be designed around ourselves and that's the path to success.
This quote. From Doreen's long lost German book is pure genius. It is the first and best description of the reality I've been experiencing:
"The idea was that you have a certain budgeted ability to do a particular type of thing and if you aren't getting enough of that thing, you will do more of that type of thing voluntarily (as a hobby) and if you are being forced to do more of that type of thing than your internal budget supports, you will start experiencing burnout."
Everything else I've read has generally been about increasing capacity, and perhaps to some extent one can, but perhaps there is a sweet spot. For example, in lifting weights, you have your capacity for today and for this week, and you want to manage hitting your sweet spot for where you are at a given time so that you can grow without injuring yourself.
This shifts the conversation from trying to find and endless source of creation inside yourself (not realistic) to an awareness of and managing your current energy budget for a specific type such as creativity so that you tend to your self and optimize your choices so that energy is not wasted.
>an entire pot of coffee and ended it with up to an entire bottle of wine. Uppers in the morning and downers at night is a common medical approach to managing severe allergies
Allergies cause tiredness through inflammation caused by release of antibodies and histamines, afaik. Hence the use of an upper as a workaround for wakefulness.
On the other hand, allergies may also cause restlessness through symptoms such as itching, a runny nose, burning eyes, etc. So a downer might help someone ignore those symptoms.
That's at least how I understood it. I never thought about it like that before - quite enlightening.
On the other hand, not everyone who regularly drinks coffee in the morning, and alcohol at night has allergies. I'd guess it's probably the minority.
Please note the large quantities consumed with great regularity. Most people aren't doing that.
I'm not comfortable with how much attention that detail got. It's speculation on my part and there could be other explanations for the behavior, though it fits with what I have heard from people who were on prescription drugs for their serious allergies.
I think the general point that "under recognized health issues likely contribute to so-called procrastination" is solid, but I'm not really comfortable with the direction this went in comments.
For those who resonate with this post, it might help to know that the author more recently announced he was diagnosed with ADHD and that he started receiving treatment (including medication) for it.
Thanks! That is so funny. The article was screaming ADHD at me all the time while reading it. Especially this feeling of vague anxiety. He basically comes up with typical ADHD coping strategies.
“the best you can for the next five minutes.” I remember one grueling hike, a 12-hour slog where we were forced to carry filled sandbags, where I found myself dehydrated, demoralized, and exhausted. Blocking out discouraging thoughts of the hours ahead, I focused on doing the best marching I could for the next five minutes. When those five minutes had passed, I focused on doing well for the next five minutes, and so on and so on. By concentrating only on short periods, I mastered my own exhaustion and ultimately finished the hike. Next time you’re faced with a seemingly impossible task, try focusing on doing the best you can for the next five minutes, then repeat until you cross the finish line. I also recommend reading the book "Can't hurt me" by david goggins
Since we're all sharing, the concept of tracking progress by the day as popularized (but not created) by Jerry Seinfeld[1] has helped me quite a bit.
What also helped is realizing there isn't a silver bullet or magic pill that will get me to do the work: the work has to be done, and I have to do it at some point.
I started a few spreadsheets for things I'd like to log: amount of piano practice per day (aim for 30m), amount of script pages written now that I've transitioned away from programming, the amount of laps I swam that day, etc.
It feels appropriately "bad" to keep filling in the cells with "0". And looking at the "streaks" I have keeps me going.
Here are example pics of some of my spreadsheets, maybe this could be useful to some:
Conditional formatting reminds me of various thresholds per day and per week. Red = below minimum, yellow = at or slightly above the minimum, green = above the minimum
He denies that he created the idea, but he has spoken about it ("making an X on a calendar"). In his mind it probably seemed like a simple observation (he's pretty good at those), and I could imagine he was surprised people took it to a near-religion ("the Seinfeld productivity program").
I'm not sure it's accurate to say he denies "that he ever had anything to do" with it, but his comment there is vague enough to be read either way I suppose.
I think you're misinterpreting him. All he's saying is that its ridiculous that he simply crosses something off on a calendar and people are acting like he created a brilliant productivity system.
He finds it hilarious presumably because people have been crossing things off on calendars probably since calendars and writing implements both existed at the same time.
Yeah, whether you like his humour or not, Seinfeld's insights into consistently producing are great, and the dude has consistently produced for a looong time.
I’ve read a lot of articles, seen a lot of videos about procrastination (of course, when I had other things to do).
But this one was an interesting lecture. Even if it sounds stupidly simple, I found it really helpful to link procrastination and level of anxiety and I’m glad it helped me put words on how my feelings are.
I've had good results for the past ~6 months using Habit List [0]. What's worked for me is to slowly add 1-2 new items, being thoughtful about prioritizing them. Then when I'm consistent with those, adding more.
I used to have trouble starting tasks. I still do, but I used to do.
There’s a line from the movie Ghostbusters that I like to quote when I need to get started: “Type something, will you? We’re paying for this stuff!” https://youtu.be/7dnaumEHJa8?t=14s
I love to-do lists simply as a way of getting me started on a task. The efforts to machine instruct, line by line, each discrete step, makes tasks more manageable, for one, and I am able to think out unknown unknowns along the way. By eliminating abstractions in the task, the task is nearer completion through brute force execution.
If only these sorts of workarounds really worked when your brain doesn't have enough of the right chemicals. "Can't make myself do the thing" turns out to be called ADHD, and T3+T4 thyroid treatment and Adderall have helped me.
Similar to "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly"?
The key is to lower the psychological hurdles / consequentiality burden of doing things. Simone Giertz's philosophy in making shitty robots that do stupid things poorly is an exemplar of this. There's no fear of failure *because the whole idea is not worthwhile" ... which makes the process an excellent learning tool.
More generally, if you have a bunch of tasks, commit yourself to at least one. Don't necessarily push yourself to do everything but force yourself, no matter how hard, to do at least one. If it's a big task, break it up into smaller tasks.
This one rule is seriously like a magic bullet. 90% of the time you'll end up doing everything. Somehow you're brain just goes from thinking "I hate this, it's so hard" to "wow, this is easy, let's keep going". The other 10% of the time, you can keep your pride, because 1) you at least tried, and 2) it's sometimes a sign of an actual issue (e.g. you feel bad running because you're actually sick). I've heard this advice many times, and somehow I've never yet heard a single person say it didn't work for them.