Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

1/ Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day. It can be something as simple as « open the ide and compile the project once ». The trick is that after that first step you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started.

2/ when learning a new skill or trying to improve , focus on one or two things only for the duration of the training session. Eg : this tennis game i’ll consider i’ve won if i’ve managed to stay relax for the whole match, on every point.

View on HN

The "smallest possible thing" hack is a great one. It also works great for exercise. If your goal for example is to work out every morning before work, instead of setting ambitious goals for what's going to happen tomorrow morning when the alarm rings at 6am, promise yourself the following: "I will physically get out of bed. I will put on my workout clothes. I will do five pushups. If I don't feel like doing anything else after that, I will go back to bed."

When you've gotten up, gotten changed and begun to move, the prospect of going on to do an actual workout becomes like 90% less unpleasant of an idea, compared to how you perceived it from the comfort of your warm soft bed.

It works, try it.

Seriously just did this earlier in the week. Had been dogging myself for a while to do strength training in the morning before work. Can't pull myself out of bed. Eventually I said "I just need to get to the gym, nothing more". If I get there an only get 5 minutes in, it's OK. Made it and had a 30m work out.

Wow, the "If I don't feel like doing anything else after that, I will go back to bed." seems like the key part of it. Giving yourself a way out makes it even easier to commit to the small task. Good tip.

> Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day.

This is also useful for side projects if you are under time pressure from more important things. Every day, spend ten minutes doing something that will move the project on and keep you in touch with it.

> "you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started"

This works. But only if there is a cadence that you comfortably settle into. Slow feedback cycles in your tools, real world blockers or other problem-domain bureaucracies can kill whatever sense of cadence you have, a bit like when a Parkinson's patient can walk forward quite well until they reach an obstacle -- and even upon removal of the obstacle, their motor cortex can't provide the necessary neurological oomph to get them back to cadence. This is how I currently feel where I work. I'm used to quick feedback cycles and a quick cadence. But am weighed down by endless blockers. It's a large company with lots of entrenched tooling, too, so not so easy to remediate the situation.

what I find is something similar while running long distances.

There's a point where pain and other senses disappear because you are so focused on the task.

I'd imagine it's similar, you fall in to a rhythm and then you sort of dissociate from the laziness.

Being suicidal depressed will also hinder things.

Hey man, you are loved. Wish I could have said this to my girlfriend. She used to say things like this in passing. I can tell you that the pain of missing her never goes away. Just remember that you are loved and don't be afraid to reach out to someone for help.

You can also help your future self by writing that smallest possible thing on a post-it for the next morning.

> « open the ide and compile the project once »

I find that I need to set at least few small tasks to get the ball rolling. If I set something like this as the only task I needed to do I would just play video games or waste time afterwards.

I recently started making to do lists that only include things I know I can ABSOLUTELY get done today, and I only make them in the morning. It includes a lot of things like "take a look at feature X"

At one point, I was making todo lists that included:

- things so easy they were guaranteed to be completed - things that I may or may not complete - things so impossible they were guaranteed NOT to be completed

This meant that every day I would defininitely finish some but not all of my list. This helped with getting started and also not beating myself up about the things I didn't accomplish.

Yeah I often find it best to start the day with the easiest jira on my list. Fix a typo or whatever. Once I’m started the harder tasks come easier.

wow....this is pretty powerful mind hack

I will definitely use it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com