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Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule.

The key to defeating your procrastination may be to progressively build up a habit of doing work you prefer to avoid by setting up regular cues.

Eg to build a gym habit I set out my gym clothes each night. Then after a week of that I began to put them on before getting in the car to work. Then after a few days I drove past the gym in the way to work. Then went in for 1 minute and so forth. I know this sounds absurd. With these tiny steps I built a habit of the gym that is now 1 hour five times a week. Now I am building a habit of keeping my kitchen clean with the same progression of micro cues. You could imagine similar steps involving preparing your desk, later just sitting down at it, and so forth,all with cues like your first coffee, or you finished dinner etc. The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit. Eventually it is mentally easier to maintain the habit than to break it.

Another tip, if you absolutely do not want to fulfill the habit on a particular cue, complete as many micro steps as you can, eg if I have an injury I will still go into the gym for a shower and to change before work.

> Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule.

I doubt this is it. Instead, I think that enough time without having to do the tasks that are being procrastinated reduces pressure and makes you less resistant to do them.

In a way, procrastination is your brain resisting continuous grind.

You are a mad genius. I'll think about your technique, thanks.

I like Terry Crews attitude: “TREAT THE GYM LIKE A SPA.

Yes. It has to feel good. I tell people this a lot - go to the gym, and just sit there, and read a magazine, and then go home. And do this every day.

Go to the gym, don't even work out. Just GO. Because the habit of going to the gym is more important than the work out. Because it doesn't matter what you do. You can have fun - but as long as you're having fun, you continue to do it.”

I’m practicing the same - it’s mostly about the routine, habit, without aiming lofty goals. That’s probably why most of the side projects fail - overachieving and aiming perfection.

why do we need habit if its already fun. Is fun not really motivation enough?

> The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit.

Has this worked for you on long term basis. What is stopping me for ignoring that cue and just chilling.

For the gym it's worked consistently for several years. The idea is that you build a habit in the brain so that you do it "because that's what you do". Similar to you brush your teeth when you do into the chrome in your pyjamas, you don't make a decision to do it.

I do pay to remove procrastination. I think a great example of the level of procrastination I’m talking about is this — despite getting two tickets, I didn’t renew my tags for my car for a year and a half after their expiration. It’s not like I was broke or busy. I just felt UGH every time I thought about it. I procrastinate things despite the great personal cost it might incur because of the anxiety of something even the most mildly unpleasant.

I wouldn’t want to do work at work, so I’d endlessly scroll Hacker News or Reddit for about a year and a half. I’d leave at three because I was bored. I left one job and got fired from another.

I take prescription amphetamines now. The difference is night and day. Developers I’ve worked with on the medication think I’m intelligent and diligent. Developers who have worked with me off the medication are baffled I got hired. People have a hard time believing they’re talking about the same person. The reward is great, but so are the costs. I’m really irritable in the evenings, and I struggle to be kind and enjoy time with my wife and daughter whom I’m ostensibly doing this for. I can’t just take some in the evenings, or I can’t sleep. It makes me more distant emotionally. My wife can instantly tell if I’ve taken Adderall, and not in a good way. My sense of humor changes, more cutting and rude. I take a drug that changes what interests me. I don’t take it on the weekends, because I’m terrified I’ll develop a tolerance, as happened once before. Tolerance doesn’t mean all effects (including side effects) are diminished. When tolerant the emotional effects seemed to scale linearly, bizarre things like crying on the kitchen floor because my wife didn’t want to talk about Austrian economics at 6am, but the concentration effect would level off and I’d feel foggy. So I sleep 14 hours on weekends, giving me even less time away from work and with my family. Vacations are the best because my wife says I’m “the man she married again” after a few days off the meds. I feel good but maaan am I unmotivated.

I’m not saying I live in some dystopian nightmare. My life is so much better for it. Adderall has made me a firmly middle class citizen, it took me a year and a half of not taking it to realize without it (and propranolol, which reduces anxiety by just a tiny bit), there’s no way I can work a developer job. So every three months I pay the doctor, then pay the pharmacist, and I get a pill that fundamentally alters who I am.

I've been through what you are talking about, but unfortunately I could not continue using those medications.

What worked for me was not forcing structures in the brain to function through chemicals but actually changing them through a breakthrough treatment called Neurofeedback. It is possible to physically and permanently alter the behavior of the brain and achieve far greater results than any drug could possibly do. Along with proper physical/mental training you can come out far ahead and still retain the "you" instead of some artificial version that may never go away.

The leading specialist in this field can be found on this website. You can find information about it here[1]. After significant research into the functioning of the brain. I realized that ADHD isn't a focusing problem. It's that the focus networks in your brain haven't been adequately trained and require the use of pharmaceuticals to temporarily induce this along with other negative side effects.

[1] http://addcentre.com/

I also have diminishing returns and consequences from the medications that enable me to be gainfully employed. I'm very interested in this.

The website wasn't super clear on what Neurofeedback was after a cursory glance. Here's the summary from wikipedia[1] for anyone that is curious.

> Neurofeedback (NFB), also called neurotherapy or neurobiofeedback, is a type of biofeedback that uses real-time displays of brain activity—most commonly electroencephalography (EEG)—in an attempt to teach self-regulation of brain function. Typically, sensors are placed on the scalp to measure electrical activity, with measurements displayed using video displays or sound.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback

Unfortunately it is difficult to understand without experience and "learning" it. It was completely different from what I expected, but I was going to try anything. Basically by mounting a few EEG electrodes on your head it can measure 3 types of frequencies(Delta, Gamma and Alpha, although don't quote me on this). These frequencies relate to the "focus", "relaxation" and "cross-talk" functions of the brain that primarily are controlled by the Sensory-Motor Cortex. Most people who have trouble concentrating and functioning probably have difficulty in all these areas.

Once you are hooked up you are expected look at a screen and listen to some music(usually classical), and try to get your frequency responses below some baseline. Basically strengthening them like a muscle. You actually train yourself based on the feedback the sensors are giving you.

I managed to do some reverse engineering and figure out how the brain works to blow the numbers out of the water. Going from far below average to way above in a matter of months changed my life. I even figured out some things the center never tried before. Like significantly increasing the time I try to maintain the baseline, which allowed me get above average results. There was a lot more I figured out, but far to much for a HN post. Feel free to email for more info. I might make a post on it one day.

You don't have an email in your profile. I'm very interested in learning more. This sounds like something an enterprising hacker could set up in the comfort of his own home.

I updated my profile before the post with my email, not sure why you can't see it. I added in the description in case you still want to contact.

I also thought about doing this at home, but the risks are just too great to mess with something as deep as the Sensory-Motor function. I was happy to work with trained experts who monitor and correct problems. There is actually a lot to it, but the treatment is only a few months and you never really need think about it ever again. Since you can focus on doing things instead of endlessly trying improving brain function.

Hey thank you. I’ll look into it. I did have excellent results with simply reducing my baseline stimulation, thereby making normal things more interesting. I stopped watching TV and playing video games for almost six months, didn’t listen to the radio in the car, tried to have quiet as much as possible.

But it was also difficult because it was easy to slide back into old habits, and the ADHD would come back. For me it definitely seems to be a sensitization issue, the more generally stimulated I am the more difficult it is to do much of anything aside from the absolute most stimulating things.

Why are you sleeping so much on weekends? The specific reason?

I really need to stop taking stimulants on weekends. Or at least one day a week too. I don’t know if being off them one day a week will help enough. A lot of the issues you cited are happening to me. And the problems you cited of what happens if you take them 7 days a week are happening to me as well.

I also feel trapped by them. I’ve been off them. But my work output drops steadily until I’m barely doing much. I believe if I stay off them long enough I’ll recover. But the two times I’ve tried i give up after 1-2 weeks as I want to get work done and go into a depressive spiral not doing enough.

Especially now being out of work and changing career paths I feel I can’t stop taking my relatively high or at least strong medium dosage.

I don’t want to be on my current dosage once I begin working for an employer. I’m really hoping I can delay work start date by a few weeks and go cold turkey then continue on a lower dosage. Like half.

Did you get tested for ADHD? I know I always wondered about my procrastination habits, lack of discipline or executive functions (prioritizing and time-boxing tasks) and anxiety.

Seems this is very frequently co-morbid with ADHD - and there are different ADHD subtypes, the loud-mouthed and irritable one and the silent, inattentive one.

>my propensity toward picking up new hobbies (which usually involves spending decent amounts of money aka "shopping") before getting bored, selling everything (which I usually put off until I physically can't accommodate more stuff) and repeating the process

This also is sooo common in ADHD people, just saying...

I have the exact same issues regarding starting tasks/hobbies and not being able to finish them. I've actually never, in my entire life, managed to stick to anything for longer than a week. Aside from school, but you're basically forced to go through it.

I've tried multiple times to get through college, but I could never study consistently or at any length of time without feeling exhausted after a couple of minutes, if not before even starting. People keep talking about getting started is the hardest part... No, not for me. I'm lucky if I can get through 20 minutes before I can't focus and need to do something else for an hour or two.

I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure.

I will not deny that I am biased as I am pretty sure I am afflicted with ADHD and it fucked up parts of my life well and good. So, by all means, take it with a grain of salt and do your independent research.

That said:

>I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure.

This again is not untypical, some call it "hyperfocus" which I hate because it sounds like a superpower while it probably just is what neurotypicals call "flow".

Do you get "in the zone" while doing your taxes? Or do you get into it while devouring information, researching things you find super interesting or in the initial phase of a new project? If it is the latter, it fits.

ADHD does not mean you are unable to concentrate at all - it means you have troubles concentrating on boring tasks, on extrinsical tasks, on yak-shaving problems. It still allows you to go super deep into some rabbit hole you find interesting in the moment.

If I were you, I'd research the symptoms and different presentations (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html) and see how well they fit. If they fit, maybe head over to https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/ to read some personal perspective. The sub is not super high quality, and confirmation bias is an issue, but I felt it is a good resource to check how well I click with others from an ADHD background.

And if you still think that maybe there's more to it than being a failure, seek treatment. A bit of Adderall or Ritalin should give you a pretty good idea whether your functioning can be improved by meds. Exercise is extremely valuable as well.

Good luck (and no, you are not a failure :)

>Procrastination, and being with it, is a large part of my life. I find it incredibly interesting but if I could pay a large sum of money to take it away in an instant, I'd hand over the cash immediately.

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good ─ Søren Kirkegaard

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom...

Try mediation to identify and get more comfortable with the feelings that trigger the procrastination or task avoidance. Once you start on that path and identify the problems you can also make changes in your life, instead of just accepting the feelings.

> And thus, this is another example of my aversion to difficult work

Nice. A parallel: "I'd take a pill just to take my procrastination away! Hell I'd take 2."

I had some real procrastination issues at work. I mean, I was really beating myself up, praying about it every night and sometimes during the day. Eventually I just had to start in on the tasks I had been putting off.

Perfectionism is another facet of this thing: I need to handle x, y and z but that's going to be really tough, especially "z"... Fuck I'll start tomorrow. I had a gnarly data-munging thing for work, one of those "garbage in, garbage out"-type things, except the expectation was "garbage in, $$ out". I couldn't see my way around all the tiny difficulties I foresaw arising.

When the pain of procrastinating became greater than the pain of just starting in on the work, I finally was able to make progress. It wasn't as bad as I had been thinking. So pessimism and cynicism seem to also play a role.

Anyway, a favorite saying of mine is "god don't do manual labor". I could pray for motivation (or meditate or whatever), but what was needful was for me to tolerate the feelings and get started. Hard to do!

There are two classic jokes about praying for help:

https://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man

http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/1gkcpp/the-lottery-ticket

Here's a similar story:

A guy is standing on the beach and his clothes and hair are all ablaze. Another guy says to him, "dude go jump in the water, you're on fire!" To which he responds, "I know, just a minute tho, I gotta figure out where this damn fire came from."

It’s funny you mention praying! I’ve found that praying about accomplishing a task really helps me. I’m not a regular churchgoer, but praying definitely does something. I feel centered and like my mind becomes less scattered.