Hacker News Reader

Comment by terabytest | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. My main issue is to even get myself to sit and stare at the work to be done. It has been really frustrating seeing the lengths I go to, consciously or unconsciously, to procrastinate.

View on HN

I used to work a non tech office job, one day it became so unbearable, I was literally falling asleep and was no longer able to bring myself to do the job at all, because of how much mental effort was required for even the smallest things. I stood up and quit.

What’d you do after that?

Endured condemnation from others while simultaneously looking for a proper tech job, took me 8 months to find.

What was the job?

Data entry

I once had a job where I would sit in my car in the parking lot for 30 minutes every morning just mustering the will to walk into the office.

You're not alone.

Been there. Man, that's a rough place to be.

I think it's mostly about accepting that you are the one in control. The problem of "getting yourself to do something" is poorly formulated, as though some other person was in charge of your actions that you have to convince to do what you want.

This confused conviction is the real problem. There is no other you to convince. The same you that you are bargaining with to do the thing is the same you that's doing the bargaining. You can at any moment just do it.

That's really nice but not really true. There is another you that you need to convince to do boring stuff. That's our own body fighting against doing that stuff. Will is a finite resource.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com