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Comment by kmnc | Hacker News Reader

What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very nature stops you from taking steps to beat it? Is it possible to quit procrastination cold turkey? If I want to stop smoking one way is to just stop and deal with it. If I want to stop procrastination do I have to be doing something productive 24/7? How do I attain the discipline for that?

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I actually was at that stage a couple of years ago - I couldn't get anything done, which made me feel bad and depressed, which made me not get anything done. I couldn't even start doing something in a meaningful way.

It's such a bizarre thing to think back on that I can't even fully empathise with my former self..

This is what made me realise what was going on and rectify the situation, it all just "clicked". I had been doing this since early high school at the time.

Why: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastin...

How to beat it: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.ht...

The thing which really worked for me was realising that if I really work and try hard to work on something for even lie 10 minutes, I can get into a flow state and then it's easy. And from there it was just baby steps forward over a matter of a couple of months until I remember getting into a flow state all the time and thus my mind thinks of it as "easy" and it is.

This is exactly the same experience I had when I was younger and learning to feel confident talking to girls. It's really hard, but when I'd done it all the time for a while I have enough semi-recent memories of me doing the thing, that the thing seemed like an easy and normal thing to do.

It's a weird feeling, procrastinating on work by reading an article about how to stop procrastinating.

It's a weird feeling, bookmarking an article about procrastinating to read sometime later.

I actually had difficulty finishing the article because it kept making me want to go get something productive done.

This whole site has amazing reads. Thanks for the link.

Is this what people talk about when we're all sat in the Dark Playground?

There are many techniques that work. The one thing that does not work is relying on willpower. The two main ones that work for me are:

1) Make the path of least resistance the right one. Do a task together with others. Make it just a little bit harder to fall into procrastination. Split up the task into a five minute task and the rest, and do the five minute task. Once you get started it's often easy to continue.

2) Engage in conscious rational thinking. The main problem with procrastination is that you do it unconsciously. Try to form a mental habit where you evaluate what to do rationally. When you detect that you are going to procrastinate stop yourself and think on it for a minute. Is it really necessary to browse reddit, or can you bring yourself to do this five minute task and then browse reddit? Stop yourself and think that through and convince yourself, really convince yourself on an emotional level, that doing the 5 minute task first is what you want to do, not just what you feel you must do.

External pressures help. I've been trying to learn more about data science through MOOCs but starting a Masters degree is what really forces me to spend my time engaging with it rather than procrastinating. It's an extreme case but you can create external pressure for most things. For example if you're trying to stop procrastinating on a side project, set up a demo with someone in 2 weeks' time and you'll suddenly find it easier to focus.

YMMV of course, but it works for me!

> "External pressures help..."

They can but not always. I've used this tactic often, placing myself in difficult situations sometimes forces me to act when nothing else will.

One time I was out of work, all I had to do was make a few phone calls but I didn't. I kept putting it off until tomorrow; then tomorrow turned into next week, next month and so on...

To cut a long story short I stopped paying the rent thinking hassle from my landlord would force me into action. As luck turned out he had his own problems and collecting the rent wasn't a priority for him.

2 years later I was in a very embarrassing situation, as was he. It worked out OK that time but it shouldn't have.

If you suffer from procrastination FFS just accept you're acting out of fear and confront it. The longer you leave things the worse they get.

Fair enough, my advice and experience relate to things that aren't of such consequence as what not paying rent could cause.

"Just confront it" is something you have to figure out yourself as a procrastinator. You can read all the advice in the world, but you have to actually come to the realisation yourself that your only option is to "do things". Once you've done one thing you have a reference point to look back to.

I didn't mean to detract from your comments, which are entirely valid.

It just resonated with me that I have previously adopted an extreme version of this tactic and thought other people may do the same?

Is there some organisations, say, like Quitters, Inc, but against procrastination?

I don't know if there is a way to be transformed overnight. But I have definitely achieved incremental improvement after reading a good book like The Procrastination Equation. You just keep iterating, like any skill.

> If I want to stop procrastination do I have to be doing something productive 24/7?

My instinct would be to do the opposite. Clear my schedule as much as possible and give myself only one, small thing that I need to accomplish for the day. From there, I'd build on each successful day and work up to the point where I'm taking on more satisfying expectations. If procrastination is my expectations of myself minus what I can get done, there's two ways to beat it...increasing action (your suggestion) or temporarily decreasing expectations.

To put another way, think about avoiding procrastination as a muscle, you can view becoming productive in the same way you'd view becoming strong. No one would suggest that a beginner go out and try to bench press 300lbs. Start with smaller weights and add weight as your strength increases.

Discipline is habit, habits are like muscles, you need to use them regularly to keep them.

> Habits are the key to consistency. Not discipline. [1]

[1]: http://zenhabits.net/discipline/

Best essay I know on this subject, should be on the list:

http://markmanson.net/procrastination

It's a good article, but I think it fills the same function as waitbutwhy.com's articles - and they are stronger in this case.

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