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Comment by nicbou | Hacker News Reader

Usually, I solve this by making it the only thing on my list that day, and clearing as many hurdles as possible the day before. This can mean anything from preliminary googling to cleaning up my workspace and taking out the required tools.

This means that on the fateful morning, it’s the first thing I do after making coffee. No checking emails, no small chores, just a shower, coffee and getting to work.

I read somewhere that a lot of procrastination is fear of failure or fear of the unknown. Sometimes tackling the latter is the best way to start. I circle the problem late in the evening when there is no pressure to start working. I just read, take notes and draft plans. Making it easy to get started is sometimes the best first step to take.

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This is great advice, even if it sounds cliché and obvious. I like to say that you have to set yourself up for success. That is, make it as easy as possible for your task to actually be easier and more straightforward (i.e. get the other stuff out of the way the day before, clean up, mute your phone, empty your agenda, etc) It’s very common for us to do the exact opposite, and then we feel bad later because we failed. Of course! We made it even harder for ourselves then it already is. I think that many people (especially coders) got used earlier in life to do things naturally, to have natural motivation to work and that was enough. If at some point that’s not the case anymore, because you’re older, has more responsibility, is tired, or a combination of all these, you lose your “method” and don’t know what to do. So: recognize the difficulty of what you are going to do, and set yourself up for success. And also learn to expect less from yourself and be happy when small goals are achieved (you’ll learn this the hard way anyway; after not doing anything, even a small thing will feel like success).

The "how" isn't as obvious.

I try to get as far as possible without actually starting work. I'll get all the little things out of the way.

- Prepare clothes for the next day - Prepare a mug with a teabag, sugar and a spoon - Close tabs, launch the IDE, start the Docker containers - Gather the addresses, emails or phone numbers I need to call - Write a very short term to-do list to get the day started - Clear small unrelated tasks if needed (inbox triage, small errands etc)

It's very similar to mise en place when you're cooking. You take care of the small tasks first, so that the main task goes smoothly.

It's really effective. In fact, it's sometimes hard to snap out of it and do other things.

There's a book called "Eat That Frog". The main advice, as the title of the book suggests, whatever the biggest most-important task, regardless of how unpleasant (akin to eating a frog), just do it first and do nothing else until it's done.

Works for some things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This tends to lead to doing nothing for a long time.

>I read somewhere that a lot of procrastination is fear of failure or fear of the unknown

The Brain Science podcast from Changelog has an episode about perfectionism and how it can lead to procrastination, by the fear of rejection or failure.

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