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Comment by hliyan | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar problem where the the bigger / the more complex the task in front of me was, the more my brain resisted to getting started and the more i procrasitnated.

I came up with a fundamentally "agile" solution: break the problems down into smaller tasks until the first task is too small to offer resistance.

E.g. rather than "write architecture specification", start with "outline the heads for architecture spec" and then maybe "draw rough sketch of architecture on paper" and then maybe "write introduction".

Almost everything in my to do list these days can be executed in under 10 minutes. As a bonus, it gives you the dopamine hit / satisfaction of watching a stead stream of items moving from 'todo' to 'done' state on a daily basis.

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I don’t know what the true source is but I always enjoyed this little intro to a song by The White Stripes:

“When problems overwhelm us, and sadness smothers us, where do we find the will and the courage to continue?

Well, the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith. For Janet help came from her faith, but it also came from a squirrel. Shortly after her divorce, Janet lost her father, then she lost her job. She had mounting money problems.

But Janet not only survived, she worked her way out of despondency and now she says, life is good again. How could this happen?

She told me that late one Autumn day when she was at her lowest she watched a squirrel storing up nuts for the winter, one at a time he would take them to the nest.

And she thought, if that squirrel can take care of himself with the harsh winter coming along, then so can I. Once I broke my problems into small pieces I was able to carry them, just like those acorns, one at a time.”

— “Little Acorns” by The White Stripes

BE LIKE THE SQUIRREL GIRL BE LIKE THE SQUIRREL!

That song theached me this way of overcoming issues and always comes back to my mind when splitting problems <3

Did Jack never actually watch squirrels? They don't gather their nuts into a nest, they cache them individually by burying them in random places and remembering the locations.

A therapist colleague used a different metaphor.

Patient: "I'm overwhelmed by (task) and can't get going."

Therapist "Do you know how to eat an elephant?"

Patient: "Uh... No?"

Therapist: "One bite at a time."

Same. I open my favorite moleskin A4 5mm graph notebook (graph paper is the only correct paper for notebooks btw), which is a treat to write on, I grab my favorite pen and start listing the tiniest, smallest steps I can make towards the solution.

Like "Open IDE and two terminals and point terminals to correct branch".

First, I enjoy the process - moleskin + favorite pen. Second, my brain started to think about the task. Third, I starting to get into flow state". Usually I jot down like a dozen of those steps or so and I'm pretty deep in the flow by then.

I tried notebooks, but my writing is poor and I don't enjoy it. I usually stick with just opening a text document and writing bulletpoints. I can express myself a lot faster as well that way. Mind you I probably write too much thanks to being a pretty fast typist.

I'm a fast typist too (about 600CPM) but I can't draw as fast on a computer as I can on a piece of paper. To me, paper still beats a computer for the initial 'idea' gathering because I like to just write anywhere on the paper and connect lines, circle important things, etc..

A computer is a great tool for documenting important things that I need to keep, but for scheduling my day I just use a notebook. I can browse through them for a couple of days but most pages will not be needed in a few weeks from now.

The important stuff that comes from this I do digitize with a tool like draw.io. Which I hate to use actually, it's not user-friendly to me, but it's what we use at work.

have you tried dot-grid paper? All the benefits of graph paper (easy to draw lines and boxes, and have a straight edge to write along) but the "grid" fades into the background. Come to the dot grid side. We've got better drawings. ;)

I shall try that, thank you =)

I had a similar issue and the fix for me was the system "Getting Things Done". The biggest paradigm change from it was, "You can't work on projects. You can only work on actions related to projects."

Came to this thread to say: The GTD methodology talks specifically about breaking tasks down, and in fact is the first place I even came across the idea of breaking things down as a way to overcome procrastination.

Really great stuff

Very good advice, additionally, I would build habits that help you get things accomplished.

For example, get up early every day, get ready and go directly to an area where the only thing you do is work on your tasks and you force yourself to accomplish at least a task while you are there. It's amazing how your point of view changes once you don't have to think about what you will do next and when you will do it.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up,” is absolutely true. Especially, if you don't have to think about it.

For me, the #1 thing was not going out drinking. I used to go out and consume alcohol 3-4 times per week and I had no idea what an energy drain it was until I stopped.

It's been a whole new world since then.

I’m 37, I’ve had 1 year in my life around 33 where I went out to have beers in the evenings, 3-4 times a week. I never fully recovered my work ability.

I created a dedicated linux user for remote work. Other than the fact that I do not have to install the same software twice its almost like owning two computers that are isolated from each other.

> the more complex the task in front of me was, the more my brain resisted to getting started and the more i procrasitnated.

This is because our usual ways of procrastinating give us instant gratification with very little effort, so they raise the bar for real work that gets us there with much more effort, often for less tangible gratification.

Video games are particular bad in this regard (and I've played many 1000s of hours).

I think the proverb goes "The hardest part of running a mile is putting your shoes on".

Surely holds true for me.

> Almost everything in my to do list these days can be executed in under 10 minutes.

That's pure genius!

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