Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?
I have read countless number of blogs, watched a lot of videos on solving this problem, tried different methods and failed. Is this a sign of depression or ADHD?
I suffered from massive procrastination and focus problems in the couple years leading up to the test. Once I got a CPAP machine to sleep better, it made a profound change in my life. Mental acuity, productivity, mood, everything was far better. Sleep is no joke. For about a month, my dreams were crazy long epic sagas as my brain caught up on REM sleep it had been deprived of for years. My bosses at the time mentioned I was like a different person altogether. Got great performance reviews.
So, just my tale on how I beat procrastination. Probably not what you expected.
Daily physical activity and more balanced alimentation, maybe the ensuing weight loss, and sleeping with open windows, in different positions, and on softer mattresses regardless of temperature helped. I haven't run tests for a long time but it helped.
I have (treated) obstructive sleep apnea.
The doctor first tried me out on a CPAP machine during a sleep study, but I couldn't tolerate it.
Eventually he made me an oral appliance (mostly acrylic) [0] that works great. It just keeps my jaw a little forward while I sleep. It also fixes my teeth-grinding problem.
[0] I think this one: https://oralappliances.com/oral-appliance/sleep-well-applian...
I use a different treatment, a medical grade mouthpiece basically. I needed to get wisdom teeth removed for it to align properly. Part of my daily hygiene routine now is keeping this thing clean
If I could go back in time, I would still get it as soon as possible because it gives me life and I would honestly ____ myself if I had to go back to living with untreated sleep apnea.
It's not even a 100% fix for me. I may try cpap again.
And my case was technically mild, waking up 6 times per hour during the night via choking on sleep.
It's non-negotiable to treat it imo. Having any treatment available at all is a miracle.
There's lots of causes for tiredness, so it may not be apnea, but if it is you should treat it.
Do you procrastinate about everything? Specific things? If you're just procrastinating about specific things there might be reasons that won't be solved by videos or whatnot. e.g. - like, do you turn things in last-minute at work because you get a lot of negative feedback? People develop defense strategies to avoid or at least defer painful experiences.
Or you could be suffering from a strong case of "I find zero meaning in doing these things." Coping strategies and medications are unlikely to help here.
If you really suspect that you have ADHD, depression, anxiety or something else - talk to a professional. (Mental health professional, not just any professional...) If you do have one (or more) of those things, you probably have problems aside from procrastination that may be helped by getting treatment.
The second one in parallel as a physical problem as not getting good sleep, nutrient deficiencies, lack of exercise etc.
Both are interconnected.
My therapist helped me first acknowledge that it would be a long process to overcome procrastination and to stop being too harsh on myself. Then, I tried to do the smallest possible step that I was capable of doing towards the task I was procrastinating on. This could be as tiny as just sitting at my desk for a few seconds. The next day I would sit for a little longer. Then I would just open the file I was supposed to work on, etc. That's where the therapist was very helpful to me, she helped me overcome the guilt of doing something so ridiculously insignificant and be satisfied with it, while at the same time treating the deeper roots of the problem.
You might "want" to get more work done, but what you really want is to go out for an overdue drink with a friend or your girlfriend, speak to someone you miss, get some time for yourself, get something else sorted first so it stops bothering you, or simply accept that the timeframe or goals you set for your self are not realistic and will need adjusting.
The other possibility that people spoke about here is physical issues. Tiredness will cause you to be unable to perform, and it'll often manifest as procrastination. Procrastination basically is you not doing something because you either don't want to, or you aren't able to. Find out why and fix the cause.
- "Feeling Good" by David D. Burns
- "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore
- "Getting Things Done" by David Allen
"Feeling Good" is about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, and will teach you some practical ways to get yourself out of a bad mood (depression, anger, self-criticism, etc). Procrastination is a logical response to how you are feeling about some task, for example, you are feeling anxious about failing a test, so you play video games because it feels better to play video games than to feel anxious. This book will help you get past the anxiety, so you can focus on the studying. If you only read one of these books, I would recommend this one.
"The Now Habit" offers you some practical advice on how to beat procrastination and schedule your time so you don't feel like all you do is work, work, work.
"Getting Things Done" has a lot of practical advice about how to keep track of what you've got going on in your life so that you can get all your stuff done.
And yes, if you think you are depressed or have undiagnosed ADHD, go see a doctor and/or therapist.
Hope some of this helps.
edit: formatting
I’m still a master procrastinator and my age starts with a 5. I probably won’t be late for my funeral, but only because someone else will be in charge of that.
If not, stop looking at productivity blogs and videos!
It's simple when you step back and think about it: You had a problem (productivity/organization not as good as you want), you tried a solution (reading/watching for productivity tips) and you noticed the outcome (your productivity didn't change).
It isn't working for you, so try something different! Try it, measure it, reflect on the result. Keep doing this forever.
There's no magic method, no magic pill, no organizational system that will just make everything work and be easy. But watching videos and reading articles feels good. It feels like you're just one step away from being totally organized and never having to stress about work again. Of course, that isn't true.
- Totally keep motivation out of the equation. Depend fully on routine. Give yourself time to think before you commit to something. Totally reject it if you don't deem it worthy of doing. Once you make the decision, carve out slots in your calendar/text file for that task only. If it's something long term, make a habit of it, and do it even if you don't want to.
- Reading two chapters of a book is better than reading no chapters of a book. You are two chapters' knowledge worth wiser than yourself when you didn't start the book. Implementing two features in the your side project app leaves you more competent than when you didn't start at all. Realize this. Don't think about finishing, end results at all. Just start.
These don't guarantee you finish something. But these ensures that you start. Not finishing things is another problem, but that's not what the OP has asked.
Nothing wrong with having "brush teeth" as a daily task in Todoist or whatever flavour of todo app you click with! :)
The "Due" app on iOS is particularly nice for these sort of routine tasks - it'll keep notifying you every x minutes until you tell it you've done it
I am ignorant of these things. Please let me know.
I think people over think it, causing excessive anxiety to themselves.
Why is it a good evolved strategy? Because of uncertainty:
If something is due at some deadline in the future, the further we're from that deadline, the larger the chance that whatever the task is won't be necessary. So waiting for it to become more certain and do something else makes sense in terms of reducing effort (energy expenditure).
Don't try to solve for it, just focus on getting the right things done and learn to let go of things that really don't matter.
I would recommend reading "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity".
It helped me a lot being successful at that point of my career where I had more things to do than time to do them (spoiler alert: you just don't do some shit, it really doesn't matter).
I respect your take, because generalizing advice is always impossible and at some surface level I agree.
I’d investigate more on the poor emotional management and regulation that leads to procrastination, I think there, there is always room for self improvement that applies to other areas of life.
What I see is a push to make procrastination look like a character flaw and trying to sell "solutions" to it. Even to the point of using ADHD medication to increase focus, training courses, etc.
This causes a lot of anxiety and pressure to perform in otherwise healthy individuals.
As if procrastination is THE reason you don't succeed (and why daddy doesn't love you), and if you could just fix it, all your dreams will become true.
Success is (in my experience) more about luck and prioritization.
Luck because there are a lot of things you don't control, and prioritization because most things don't really matter, and learning to focus your energy in the ones that do, will take you a long way.
It feels nice to read it or watch it but unless we decide to change, it's not going to happen and decision fatigue is the main cause of this. Making fewer decisions will help.
I like to call it "The Curse of Decision Making" which is upon us.
Length of watch/read laters ∝ Magnitude of Procrastination.
I keep thinking eventually I’ll watch the right video, or read the right blog, that will be the silver bullet to solving the problem, but I don’t think that exists.
Usually if I’m procrastinating it’s because the thing isn’t clearly defined, I lack knowledge around the best way to do it, I haven’t done it before, and I feel like I’m going to screw it up… and I don’t want to screw it up, so I don’t do it at all. This is deeply rooted and a few videos aren’t going to change that for me.
Some procrastination techniques have helped me, lots haven’t, even more only work some of the time. I generally have to swap things out to keep it fresh.
I’ve collected helpful techniques in a sort of Personal User’s Manual[1] and tried to sort them by what I perceive to be the problem, e. g. perfectionism, anxiety/fear, overwhelm. I also have a list of resources (physical, mental, people,…) that I go through to see if one of those can help me.
My idea is similar to The Anti-Planner by Dani Danovan[2], which I personally haven’t tried yet, but have heard great things about.
If wished, I’d be happy to share specifics. I wanted to keep it semi-brief since I’m on mobile.
[1] https://add.org/tadd-2019-your-personal-owners-manual-pom-wh...
[2] https://anti-planner.com/shop/the-anti-planner-how-to-get-sh...
Last year I found myself spend a lot of time hoarding tasks to do at work, but less to work on them. It’s causing constant anxiety, and the anxiety is driving me to take more tasks, making promises that’s gonna be missed. Once I felt it’s such vicious circle I went to a doctor and after many visits and tests, they finally decided that I have ADHD and prescribed me some non-stimulant meds, it took about 12 weeks for the side effects to wear off and finally start working.
Looking back I feel like ADHD might be occupational hazard for some. Or just a result of bad habits? I personally was switching context very often, like 15 minutes on a project in python, then switched to another one on Go. Also I’m the yes man at work. Now I just slot half a day fixated on only one project, and use the “focus time” feature on my calendar (blocks chat etc).
And Dr. Huberman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48jlHaxZnig
Everything else didn't have enough data for me to latch onto.
Life is difficult, and some tasks are not meant to be fun. You can't fix that. You can however reframe your minds' perspective on the manner. Instead of thinking "Man there are so many dishes to do, I'd rather be playing Helldivers 2 now" you can think "I can do 5 dishes... That was easy, I can do 5 more dishes... Look how many dishes i did! I can do 5 more". Even if it's clearly a lie to yourself that you enjoy it, you'll find that your brain will start to believe it.
Over time, your brain will take on the new perspective. This is why "faking it until you make it" works.
- Knowing what you really want - and reflecting one minute about something before starting it. If you're clear with yourself that you don't want to do something, it helps too. - understanding a bit more about motivation in general (why we do what we do, Edward L. Deci) - Knowing what extrinsic motivation may motivate you or not and reflecting a bit on it: a bit more money, anticipating nice things, the joy of things well done, reognition. Working on some vain thing for a better performance review (for the boss, conditioning yours) next year doesn't motivate everyone. - Sharing the psychological burden: talking about it, linking with other projects, some kinds of collaborative work. Maybe I'm getting older, but I sometimes suspect a lot of the bulsh* meetings and collaboration at work serve mainly this purpose. Not every method works for everyone though. - Solving general health problems, anxiety, depression, sleep apnea issues of course helps.
I think the best thing you can do is treat this as a problem of maximizing biological energy -- you "want" to do something, but your brain doesn't comply. The brain is a metabolically intense organ, consuming by far the most energy by weight of any in the body. Its weight makes up 2% of the body's, but its energy consumption is 20% of the body's. Therefore, any subclinical disruptions in bodily energy are felt here first. Therapies supporting mitochondrial efficiency and easy digestion should therefore be considered. While stress can and does improve energy production in the short term, it does so at the cost of general efficiency and lifespan. This is part of why powerful stimulants can successfully treat ADHD.
I have personally had great success applying the ideas of one Ray Peat. Glucose metabolism is more energetically favorable than fatty acid oxidation. At the same time, consumption of starches promotes bacterial endotoxin production. Therefore, the maligned simple sugars are preferred to starch -- milk and fruit juice over rice and bread, occasional ice cream[1]. Muscle meat is balanced with gelatin or collagenous tissue. Dietary PUFA is kept to a minimum: strictly no seed oils, and limit the non-ruminant animals and cold water fish, like chicken (no ability to hydrogenate dietary fat), and salmon (its unsaturated oils allow it to not freeze up solid in the ocean, but oxidize rapidly in your metabolically active tissues).
raypeat.com
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cre...
Procrastination imo is far more related to your neurology – most of which is beyond your control.
I can't speak for others here but in my own life depression isn't really a demotivator unless I feel my circumstances are out of my control (which is rare), otherwise feeling crap about something is probably one of my single largest motivators to fix it.
I don't have ADHD so can't speak to that.
What works to some degree for me personally is just considering my brain's reward system. This will sound weird, but personally I find taking a bunch of caffeine exclusively when I'm do things I want to be motivated to do works very well at keeping me motivated to do that activity.
Caffeine is an easy way to give you a boost of dopamine so if you can associate that with an activity you'll just find you're just naturally drawn to that activity. I'd also recommend L-Tyrosine and L-Dopa if you want to get a bit more experimentative, however you'll need to be careful about how regularly you use these. Artificially boosting your dopamine levels can demotivate if it's not done in a targeted and infrequent way.
The other thing I try to avoid is negative emotions during activities I want to be motivated to do. If I associate a person / thing / place with a lot of negative emotions I find I disengage with time. Specifically stress is probably my biggest negative demotivating emotion.
The effects are subtle and take time, but they definitely work. I hear nicotine gum is amazing for productive too if you use it very infrequently. I've not tried it myself though because I'm not sure I'd be able to regulate myself.
I doubt any of this is going to help much if you're naturally a lazy person though. It just helps me a bit, although I've never had much of issue with procrastination anyway.
* Flow Club, a virtual coworking space (it really help me realize how unrealistic I am with time). Lots of people with ADHD love this service * Social Anxiety medication * Journaling 750 words per day * Using a todo list manager that only shows me the most important or relevant tasks (omnifocus). There is no perfect todolist manager though and I’ve gone through a lot * This survey of productivity methods: https://todoist.com/productivity-methods (eat the frog was best for me, people are different) * Trying to get more sleep * Identify when I’m just asking too much and identifying better goals * Switching medical providers if their advice isn’t working * Getting a rigorous test diagnosis from a psychologist. People said I had ADHD but a battery of neurological tests showed high functioning autism. * Reading books like learned optimism and when panic attacks from top psychology professors * This youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2EEnJedcYU&t=22s It’s for students, but he’s right that many times procrastination is an emotion management problem
When I get stuck, i find that one of two methods really helps: * Breaking my todo list into smaller tasks * Filling out a daily mood log from when panic attacks to determine the negative thoughts
Things that haven’t helped much at all: * Talk therapy - you generally have to find someone good and I felt we just spend time talking about nice things and never got into anything useful, they just don’t want to offend you. So hard to find a good provider and I saw quite a few and it was a big waste of time. They either used some modality that didn’t fit or weren’t very good. * GTD and long todo lists. I find that I just end up doing the tasks that I’m not avoiding and get done everything but what I want to get done. * Watching endless youtube videos or reading books about beating procrastination
Did they address any of the identified reasons, and if so, in which way?
Personally, I think the core of my own procrastinating is a misguided sense of perfectionism.
I want the tasks that I'm working on to be simultaneously easy, stimulating and myself to deliver perfect work. If any of these dimensions is missing or unlikely, I will procrastinate without end. I've arrived at a point where I've come to accept complete failure on almost all endeavours and feeling like a permanent loser, I won't even try any more.
So far I found it impossible to become okay with delivering imperfect work, since, at work or in private life, I'm objectively being judged on the quality of it and my reputation hinges on it as well.
That’s not the point, though. You need to qualify that your behavior is creating stress or problems, be motivated to solve it, and be open to uncomfortable changes. However, things like ADHD and depression will be very significant obstacles to that (I have both), making it seem impossible to take even the smallest, earliest step. Only ones qualified to help you with that is a professional.
I'm not sure this is 100% true for all people but I found it to be a helpful way to think about things. The book is worth reading overall, and I think a lot of the advice in it would apply to anyone who wants to be able to spend a large portion of their life on focused work, whether that's activism, running a company, parenting, etc.
Possible starter point : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33633512
Of course, if you notice a broad pattern in every part of your life please consider professional help.
Sounds like procrastination.
Other than that, I think all of the tips and blogs aren't useful -- except if they give you that little dopamine hit to actually pick up something and get started. Which in my experience is the only useful advice, pick something and do it. The momentum from doing something rather than nothing is often enough to carry you through to the next thing.
Yes. I listened to Mel Robbins' book "The Five Second Rule" and it did help me. https://www.melrobbins.com/5secondrule
> Is this a sign of depression or ADHD?
No, it's just that you have a particular set of skills, and you have a certain set of priorities. If you had different skills, or different priorities, then your behavior would be different.
Proper breaks can also give you the opportunity to get up and walk around instead of perpetually doom scrolling or staring at a blank screen. So it's a double win.
My route to getting going is to pick the smallest easiest thing I'm procrastinating and just do it. Then use the kick of success to do a harder one.
Just don’t watch tv or play games, or if you do, new ones—and enjoy it fully.
A post on hacker news doesn't seem the place for it. There are probably better support groups/forums to ask in.
There are probably many questions to answer that would help you determine what it is. A few that come to mind:
* Is this new or have you always struggled with procrastination?
* Do you have (or have you had) other symptoms of ADHD?
* How was/is school?
* Do you have some subjects you thrive in and some you fail at, and nothing between?
* Have you started a new job or role at work?
* Do you like it?
* Any other major life events? Fired, kid on the way, death in the family, my friend on discord stopped talking to me.
* Does the procrastination apply to almost everything?
* Are you doing something really hard, succeeding at that and can't make yourself do other hard things?
* Are you saturating your brain scrolling on the internet and it doesn't have room for anything else?I did consult a psychiatrist and was prescribed medication [SSRIs]. However, I had experienced some negative side effects due to the medication.
I'm off them for now but I am looking for alternative solutions.(Hence this post)
I appreciate any kind of advice and suggestions.
It sometimes slightly mitigates it but never fixed it.
Only thing which was life-changing: Ritalin.
Best advice besides that: whenever I have a meeting outside of work I create diligently a calendar event with notifications for -1 day and -1h and write down / estimate the time for travel.
Therefore no advice per se can really help.