Comment by afarrell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by afarrell | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Also, in that 25 minutes, you can discover the actual blocker to doing the task. Oftentimes, I find that my dread about a task is because of some ambiguity. By committing to a certain chunk of time working on it, it becomes obvious what that ambiguity is.

Of course, then I have to push through the discomfort of resolving that ambiguity. But that is easier now that I'm an adult and:

1) Know how to frame questions in a way that sets the answerer up for success.

2) Can ask "why are we doing this?" (better phrased "what is our goal in doing this?") and get an actual answer this rather than "because I said so".

3) Have the backbone & confidence to push back when someone says "stop procrastinating, just write the damn essay." and press until I get the question answered or decide that I'm not going to do the task.

Yes! What's stopping me is usually that I'm not entirely sure how to do something or I'm afraid that I will uncover some really hard or time consuming problem when I start doing the task. Instead, often only a short time is needed to get an overview of the task and realize it's not that hard.

For me, the first step is to commit to only a five minute overview and information gathering session. During those five minutes I will figure out what output is expected from me, write down a couple of concrete tasks, and then start with the one that either looks like it will add the most value or, if I'm low on energy, the one that's most fun. When I tick it off, I'm at least closer to completion and hopefully has enough momentum to start the another task on the list.

All of the above are best case scenarios, as I still usually put off things for way too long and have to work through the night to catch up. I constantly try to improve this, but as soon as one deadline has passed with a marathon work session, I relax because the next deadline is far off.

"Oftentimes, I find that my dread about a task is because of some ambiguity."

I think in the 2018 workplace, this kind of ambiguity about problem (or solution) is as responsible for procrastination as social media. Subtle and hidden, but a big-gey, at least that's my guess/anecdata.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com