Ask HN: What's the best advice you've ever read on killing Procrastination?

For me, procrastination often comes from overestimating the pain involved in performing a task (fear). To overcome it, I promise myself I'll just "take a look at the problem", then I convince myself that I'll just do this quick small task (ex: change a label, do a lookup query) and stop, but pretty soon, I see that this isn't scary at all... and I JDI.

I would say:

1) First thing in the morning, don't check your email, Hacker News, or any other distracting sites. Not even for a minute. You can spend a bit of time figuring out your tasks / biggest rock(s) for the day (see #2); but after that, the next thing you should do is get to work.

2) Set a 1, 1.5 or 2 hour timebox where you get your "Biggest Rock" of the day done first (it's okay to split this across multiple timeboxes.

More on the Big Rock stuff here: http://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivit...

3) Work on your email in batches. So, when you open your email, set 45 minutes (or whatever) to reply / respond to whatever is in your inbox. Then close it until it's time for your next email batch.

4) I haven't gotten into this one yet, but I think it would be good to deal with each email once it's opened. Don't mark it as unread or leave it in your inbox. Respond to it or archive it (or do something with it that would make it "done.").

Yeah, I think those would be my best tips at the moment. The biggest one being #1.

I hope this helps.

"First, care"

http://www.43folders.com/2010/02/05/first-care

For me, start small and work my way up to big tasks. If I try and do something big right away, I'll get distracted halfway through.

Just worry about dealing with it tomorrow.