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Comment by fdanconia | Hacker News Reader

What are your coping methods?

My main one is a notebook that never leaves my side. If I have a thought, impulse or idea that isn't what I'm currently doing, I quickly write it down, usually with a flowchart kinda sketch and then go back to what I was doing. I give myself a maximum of about 15 seconds for this. Once I finish what I was originally doing I look in the notebook and pick the next thing to do.

The other big one is 3 goals a day. Every morning when I wake up, I give myself 3 goals that I must accomplish before going to bed. Generally they're trivial things, take out the trash, wipe down the kitchen counter, that kind of thing. I find that no matter how simple, it gives me the feeling of accomplishing something I set out to do and helps me reinforce non-impulsive thinking/decision making and remind myself that I can in fact finish a task that I thought of more than 30 seconds ago.

I can expand on how I cope tonight when I have more time if you'd like.

I've shunned mechanisms like this for fear I would become dependent on them, and then really in trouble if I were to lose the notebook, which, unless it was permanently attached to my body, would be quite likely.

Having 'the cloud' has started to help me. It's something I know I can't lose, so I'm slowly allowing myself to become dependent on it (things like calendar, short notes, and keeping track of receipts). And by the cloud, I mean google drive, emails to self, etc..

Hmm, doesn't writing something down increase your ability to remember about it later?

In my case writing seems to work as "hey brain, this stuff is important, don't forget". If I write something, it turns out I didn't need to. If I don't, it turns out I'd have better done.

Yes, that is something. The act of writing it down helps my ability to remember it.

Think about it this way: Would you shun glasses because it's possible to lose/break them?

Probably not for the same reason, because they are easy to replace. A notebook full of thoughts is not.

Interestingly though, I have shunned glasses for fear of becoming dependent on them. I can see well enough without them, and noticed, after wearing them for a while, my uncorrected vision was worse than before I started wearing them. Whatever mechanisms my eyes had developed to see better became less effective after wearing glasses for a while. I lost the last pair about 4 years ago and haven't replaced it.

I've used a notebook at well and I think you'd be able to work with the same strategy. The notebook is just ephemeral thoughts that you have the impulse to take action on, so you write them down instead of acting on them. At some point you move the worthwhile content to a better resting place. It shouldn't end up being an irreplaceable object :)

Edit: Specifically, I followed the Bullet Journal system: http://bulletjournal.com/

Not GP but still interested.

One very nifty hack is the pomodoro technique.

Correctly applied [0] it seems to trigger competition-mode[1] and a sense of urgency. This helps the brain cross the "interesting" threshold and stay focused instead of coming up with other ideas or dozing off.

0:-)

1: "I really should be able to get this done in the next 25 minutes."

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