Hacker News Reader

Comment by Shugarl | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar issue, and I found a solution : Rather than aiming to follow my plan, I aim to do a predetermined amount of tasks (25 in my cases), regardless of whether or not they are in my schedule. I use an app to keep track of the amount of tasks done, and it has been surprisingly effective!

View on HN

I wish something like that would work for me. I would immediately begin to analyse what counts as a task. I'd set myself tasks, realise they're much more difficult than I thought they were and realise there's no way for me to complete this task and also hit my 25 goal.

Then I'd get frustrated with myself and probably go surf reddit for the rest of the day.

No system of any type has worked for me consistently.

I feel you on this. I have found that no system lasts for me. I have also found that any system can help to get me going. Such that now I try not to use anything to plan his things will end, but only how I will begin them.

Similar problems hit me with exercise. About the only system I have there is too obligate myself to finish something. For example, if I walk the dog a mile out, I have to walk the mile in, as well. Bike to work? I have to bike home now.

I also tend to overanalyze things, but books like "Atomic Habits" and "The Slight Edge" were really helpful. It made realize that there's no point to try to properly define what a task is, as what I can do at any given day depends on my physical and mental state.

How I perform when I have a bad day is completely different from my performance on a good day. Something that's a task today might not be considered like one tomorrow.

There'll be days where I'll only do 25 small things then call it a day, and that's okay.

> I wish something like that would work for me. I would immediately begin to analyse what counts as a task. I'd set myself tasks, realise they're much more difficult than I thought they were and realise there's no way for me to complete this task and also hit my 25 goal.

Can you permit yourself to subdivide those tasks that turn out to be more difficult?

Subdividing in total doesn't work for me. Unless it is something I already know how to do. Identifying the next thing works ok.

So, if something is taking longer because you're identifying previously unanticipated subtasks, does doing the yak-shaving count toward your count of tasks, or not?

Ha! Sadly, no. Fidling with the editor is never really the next thing. I have had brew mess up things before, such that fixing it is.

I used to have an hour or so a week where I would consider what I called process improvement. And if anything ever really slows me down, I do consider that a priority.

I meant more along the lines of tracking an issue through transitive dependencies, and then having to make a change at each step before the fix is apparent in the code you were actually writing.

I once found a weird import issue in a Google App Engine demo that, IIRC, traced back through to pip, virtualenv, and eventually setuptools.

Which app? Definitely curious if it'll help with my own procrastination (and possibly undiagnosed depression).

The last time I made some headway on why I seem to endlessly procrastinate (said headway being enabled by, er, "self medication"), I came to the conclusion that it's because my brain sees a whole bunch of things to do, and instead of taking the rational approach of "well take things one at a time", it instead gets into a whirlwind of indecision, panics under the stress of all these things to do, and immediately starts reaching for an escape, thus compounding the problem. In the "self medicated" state my brain was more able to get into a groove of "okay, do $N more things" and actually make some headway, but only until the nausea caught up to me (at which point I had to force myself to call it a day).

My hope is that it's just a matter of tooling, and that a better toolset will help me get out of ruts without needing to rely on mind-altering substances.

I just downloaded one of the first apps that I found on the Google Play Store when I searched for "incrementor". I think any app where a number goes up when you press a button will do the trick.

My understanding is that procrastination most commonly stems from emotional disregulation. I’ve definitely experienced that myself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com