Ask HN: What do you do to counteract procrastination? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you do to counteract procrastination?

14 pointssolipsist21 comments

I have recently started counting down in my head when I need to do something important. When I reach 0, I make myself go and do that thing. While it may sound like a gimmick, it does seem to work well for me. Simply starting to count down is easy to do, and can be done simultaneously with almost anything (except writing perhaps). Counting also gives you time and preparation in order to stop what you're doing (a.k.a. procrastinating). When you reach 0, you have this sense of obligation to stop procrastinating and do the work. The longer you count down for, the more obligated you'll be to do the work.

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To start things off, if it makes you feel better, there has been studies shown that people who have ADD or what they might call ADHD now are more likely to succeed as an entrepreneur than those who don't. This statement is related to the topic because people who are easily distracted are always procrastinating.

To fight procrastination, discipline is the key word here I believe. I've always been bad at time management, but I've improved a lot lately. Now although I attempt to stay productive as much as possible, I still feel like time is not enough.

My approach is that I would start sticky notes on the windows screen, I would make tasklist of the most important things I would have to do today, and bold 2 of the most important things. I force myself to get those things down.

Honestly you can read ALL the books you want. You can use all the productivity apps you want, but when it comes down to it, your own determination is the only factor that will fight this problem. . If you don't discipline yourself and avoid procrastination, don't worry about it because guess what? 95% of the population is just like you. But if you want to become to top 5% of the population, the crim de la crim, then you better start disciplining yourself. That's the self-talk mentality I use nowadays.

Wait until the self-hate level is high enough to make me feel unbearably bad about not doing what I want to be doing. Not a very healthy approach.

I've also been trialling the habit of starting tasks so far ahead of time that the deadline feels irrelevant. It's quite liberating and something I would like to keep up.

There are two of you. It's all about compromise between the two. If you don't compromise one becomes weak and the other dominant. If one becomes dominant you, as a whole, become unhealthy and unstable. There are a few hacks here and there and yours sounds interesting but all hacks are useless with out having some fundamental balance.

A well rested mind is your best weapon against imbalance. Meditate and stop drinking coffee.

Procrastination I find is a side effect of an discontented and imbalanced mind.

I face the same problem. I think it is a "business owner/entrepreneurial" syndrome (if not chronic disease). The shear number of "stupid" (according to our entrepreneurial mindset) tasks that are necessary to accomplish is often discouraging and a turnoff.

My method of getting over this syndrome is made of a few simple steps:

- make myself unavailable for some time (could be a couple of hours or 2 days). And if this is not possible resort to waking up at odd times like 4:30 or 5:00 AM where you have no chance of being disturbed.

- I get started by picking the easiest tasks and doing them almost mindlessly. That helps in making you feel good about yourself (i think the fact of achieving tasks must release some "feel good" hormone/chemical in ones brain, i call it the "good job candy") and once you start getting a taste of the good job candy : you effectively start building momentum.

- Once you build momentum you are usually good for going through the entire list, because having started with the easiest tasks, each next one you complete yields a higher dose of good job candy and thus more drive to dig into the harder tasks.

That being said, an even better (in the sense of it's efficiency) motivator is the near disaster situation during which i suspect most of us become supper efficient.

Motivation follows action.

I don't know if this is strictly true in the absolute sense, but we're very programmed to think "ok I need to get motivated so I can get something done", when what seems to work far better is thinking "ok I need to get some things done so that I can get motivated". This follows the "take small steps, any steps" idea.

I disagree with you.

Why should you do things you're not motivated to do?

A lot of procrastination and not making progress on tasks has to do with really not wanting to do the task, or really not seeing the value in it. If it's studying for a course, it's a course you don't care about. If it's working on a project, it's a project you don't care about. Maybe you don't care about cleaning up your room, etc.

You really need to think about the whys of doing something, and not just assume that work is good. You can trick yourself and push yourself but you need to have a solid sense of the goal before you will really become involved.

That's the goal, isn't it? To really commit to a task.

The implication in my comment is that you do want to do the thing (or that there is some expectation, either personal or external, that you have to do it ex: studying for a course that you need to graduate).

Wanting to do something, or realizing you need to do it does not remove your personal barriers that lead to procrastination: maybe it seems too difficult, you don't know where to start, you're afraid of failure, or maybe you're suffering analysis/paralysis. You're still "motivated" in the "I want/expect to do this thing" sense, but you lack the motivation in the "wow I can do this, get to work" sense that you need to push through and get moving.

This is where "motivation follows action": you start small, identify some easy steps that will begin moving you towards the goal, and do them -- and through this action, motivation often follows.

Merlin Mann has written interesting stuff on this topic before: http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-102...

What he's suggesting is kind of a mind game, but hey if it helps you then why not right?

Have multiple projects that are reasonably different. You can then procrastinate by working on other projects before coming back to your current project as procrastination from those.. Works for me anyway.

JFDI

As pithy as that seems, it really is the best way to overcome procrastination. Just do it. Just do something that moves you closer to your goals. Pick just one little thing and get it done. Then pick something else and get it done. Once you've started getting momentum (even just a little bit of momentum), pick the most important thing and get it done, then rinse and repeat.

It's going to sound like I'm trying to plug my newest app (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unbroken-chain/id415158247?mt...), and I suppose I am, but that's one of the reasons that I wrote it: to help me make sure that I am moving closer to my goals each and every day.

Just do it.

How? How do I do it? Things just don't play out by themselves. What mindset do I need to have in order to do the things that move me closer to my goal? Just do it could answer anything. It doesn't provide any details or make me anymore motivated (despite what Nike may think).

I find that one of the most enjoyable procrastination activities is to plan out the thing that I'm supposed to be doing. I have something I know I should do, but I can't make myself do it. So instead, I sit down and break down the big task into a number of little tasks. That keeps my procrastination demons happy because I'm not actually doing the task. Except I am, because at the end I have a list of (hopefully) much easier tasks to do. If necessary I do that recursively - break down my new list of easy tasks. Eventually it gets silly - the next task is so simple I could do it very quickly without thinking. So I do it. And then often I find that once I've done the first thing, it's easy to carry on with the second, third,... that's the momentum thing kicking in. Sometimes things don't start flowing after doing the first task. At that point I put it to one side to do another time.

Wow. OK, then... You have enough gumption to ask how to get motivation and to argue about it, but not to do anything that will get you closer to your goals.

Forget the "just do it" part, if that so upsets you, about what I said and read the rest. For me the only way to get motivated is to progress on something, that's the "pick one little thing and get it done" part.

If that doesn't work for you, so be it - We all work differently. Use the anger that you directed at me to get motivated.

I apologize for the tone - I didn't mean to come across so nasty. I simply wanted to hear more about your ideas, past the "just do it" part. Sure, we all think and work differently, but what works for one may also work for another. That's why I originally posted this question.

I did read past the "just do it" part and I see what you're saying about progressing on the work. However, I'd like to know what you (or anyone else) does to get started. How do we get that initial burst of motivation?

Again, I'm sorry about the way I reacted.

No worries.

We all have different things that work for us. You have your count mnemonic, to misuse the term. For me it really is as simple as finding something, anything that I can get done. One example: I needed to update the sales copy on one of my landing pages, but for some reason didn't want to get started. What did I do? I started by changing the background color of the site. Something easy that took just a couple of minutes, then when I'd finished testing that and found it to be an improvement, I moved to changing the headline on the page and eventually the whole sales copy.

No matter what psychological tricks you may employ, in the end it will always come down to just getting it done.

For tasks at work that I dread, I set aside a certain time of day to deal with it. If I run into something that is that sort of task at another time of day and I don't feel up to coping with it (and it's not urgent/high priority), I set it aside and deal with it during that time slot the following day. Once my pile of dreaded tasks for the day is done, my head is clear to focus and get on with getting on with it. I also group certain tasks for efficiency, like I try to do all my printing around the same time. It helps me with mental flow/workflow.

At home, it usually is much more about taking a nap, feeding myself, and so on. When my body is properly cared for, then I can be productive. When it is not, I piddle around and "procrastinate". But for me it's really not some mental block or avoidance thing. I have a medical condition and when I am tired and/or under the weather, I just can't be productive. So the piece I focus on is addressing my physical care. Everything else flows from that.

have drive to succeed

If it was that easy, we'd all be 10x more successful than we are currently. =)

Don't be silly. I would be like 30x more successful.

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