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Comment by ohazi | Hacker News Reader

I often tell myself to "just start" rather than to "just get it done," especially when I suspect my anxiety is driving.

If I tell myself I'm just going to sit down and pretend-work on the thing that's making me anxious for five minutes, just to get a feel for it, and if it ends up being crappy, I'll just toss it and start over later, I'm usually able to short-circuit the anxious "everything must be well-understood and perfectly optimized before you even start, or you're going to fail, because this problem is crazy hard" part of my brain.

Usually five minutes turns into 45 minutes, and I either finish, or conclude that it wasn't so bad after all.

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>> I often tell myself to "just start" rather than to "just get it done," especially when I suspect my anxiety is driving.

Same here, and specifically for tech work: I try to start with a unit test and a random-generator algo. Getting that trivial thing to run is often the activation energy I need to get started on writing the main workhorse functions.

Exactly. Seed, trunk, branches. They last thing you want is to build something big that, when it does the wrong thing, leaves you with too much code that you're not sure about.

> pretend-work

I pretend I'm live streaming my programming session, it seems to cause some switch to flip in my brain and seems to help.

Maybe I should actually live stream? But I probably wouldn't have real viewers, and don't know how to fit multiple monitors into a stream.

I'm convinced that the majority of the value from pair programming (literally sitting next to each other, not "virtual" pair programming) comes from the fear of looking like a lazy idiot in front of the other programmer.

Hah same here. Half the time I ask someone to pair with me it’s because I simply cannot muster the motivation to do anything for whatever reason. I find I go through a couple of weeks of this a couple of times a year, I guess you’d call it mild burnout.

If you assume mild burnout, do you think it’s long term the right strategy to force yourself through it? What would your body have to do to tell you that it’s not mild anymore? What if it does? Take care!

Just a bit of anecdotal experience for additional thought: I did the same for years, ignoring the signs, pushing through long hours, etc. and eventually developed idiopathic epilepsy. As it’s idiopathic, there’s no known direct cause (e.g. no head trauma, no tumors, etc.), but there’s a decent amount of evidence that supports at least a strong correlation between my lifestyle (lack of sleep, overwork, etc.) and the development of the disease. And of course lack of sleep is now one of my primary triggers, but that’s also fairly common amongst epileptics once the disease is ‘active’.

Best wishes GP.

Edit: point really being: it’s mild burnout until it’s not.

^that + usually when you pair program, you try to explain your thought process and reasons behind the decisions you make to another person, and in doing so, you actually end up delivering. And learning the material through explaining it to others is a very effective and very known technique, so that makes sense.

I think it's more related to having to communicate your problem(s) and intention(s) to someone else. I often find myself overwhelmed by tasks at work and home. The best solution is a to-do list, but even reciting out loud the steps necessary is enough to calm the anxiety and focus.

I don’t think communication has anything to do with it. It’s just shame.

I tested this out once with a friend who complained about procrastination issues. I suggested he have his wife sit by him while working from home. His wife has no programming background whatsoever but she knows that browsing Reddit or YouTube isn’t work. Apparently he got a lot done that day.

Free Startup Idea: Supply “interns” to shadow employees to create the same effect. Logo could be a Peter Pan style comic of a programmer and his silhouette.

>> His wife has no programming background whatsoever but she knows that browsing Reddit or YouTube isn’t work.

Or Hacker News...

Oh yes indeed. My wife can spot the orange banner from a mile out. She also knows when I'm instinctively alt-tabbing as I hear her coming near. For tasks where I know what to do and just need to code it, I'm easily 2x as productive with my wife around, and that's after accounting for the distraction of us talking about stuff.

Strongly agreed; that is my impression and experience as well. Two people paired up keep each other in check. I sometimes find it stressful and exhausting, but it's hard to deny the productivity boost.

There's a few people online I talk to working on completely different side projects than me. Maybe I should suggest pair-programming remotely to them.

You dont, usually.. I keep one for the code and the other for the browser/private stuff.

You can setup a 'scene' in obs to switch to the other window if you need to, but keeping it focused on your editor/work display really helps those private moments slip to the stream less often.

Jordan Peterson has talked about getting something started in the context of "negotiating with yourself" to get past anticipatory anxiety. In short you have a conversation with yourself and agree on some minimal step forward, even if it is seemingly trivial.

Basically it goes something like "Do I agree to update my resume tomorrow?", "No.", "Am I willing to open up my past resume, and just add the companies, positions, and dates?", "Okay, I can do that".

So you realistically go back and forth with yourself until you find some step, even if it seems pathetic, that won't cause much anticipatory anxiety. Then sincerely feel good about getting that step done, because it is infinitely better than do nothing.

I have found that to be a useful mental tool/trick - will edit if I can find the reference because he conveys the concept much better.

Edit References:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfQZcpaBqo4&t=5475s "CV Writing Example"

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-kWEDr6VS0&t=3462s "I don’t even have the conscientiousness to sit down and do Self Authoring. I bought it over a year ago and haven’t opened it. What the hell is wrong with me?" (A little more funny, similar thing)

Joel also had a good essay on this, fire and motion. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

When you say you want to completely understand the problem before starting, your personality sounds like an enneagram type 5, check it out to see if that describes you. If so, that might shine a lot of light on where your anxiety comes from.

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