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For me, the essence of it was to stop trying to please other people, stop trying to fit into some sort of mold, stop thinking of myself as being on or off some mythical 'track'. The only track is your own life, and what makes you happy and lets you survive. Everything else is pointless, just a bunch of noise. When you give up that way of thinking, life becomes so much simpler and less stressful. There's nothing you're 'supposed' to be doing, so it doesn't matter if you 'get things done' or don't. When you do decide to get things done, make it something you believe in or at least believe is necessary and important for you to do. And when you don't, so what? Human beings aren't anything more than a bunch of monkeys scampering around on some infinitesimally tiny little speck in the universe. We tend to take ourselves very seriously, but things we accomplish don't matter an iota beyond giving ourselves a bit of meaning and purpose.

I, like you, have always had plenty of creativity and drive, but I have absolutely zero drive for any task that isn't motivated by my own beliefs, passions, and desires. It sounds like you might be similar. If you feel such a monumental blockage toward completing certain tasks, then just leave it, give it up, it's not for you. Instead, find something you do want to put your energy towards and don't look back.

Also, as far as psychiatric drugs go, I suggest looking into some neuro supplements first. 5-htp, L-tyrosine, choline, rhodiola, and a good multivitamin (plus eating well and getting exercise, of course) have worked really well for me. For many people, these can have much greater positive impact than prescription meds without the unpleasant side effects and dependency. It's better to work with the rhythms of your body's chemistry than to introduce abrupt changes, which is what prescription meds do.

I wish I could upvote you more than once for this.

I know I'm a little late on replying, but I just wanted to say thank you for your comment. This entire post was something I needed to hear.

Self motivation is an art. It's something everyone everywhere has had to learn, so don't feel down because you are struggling with it. As with all abilities, some people are naturals, some have to learn it. My personal opinion is that, as with most abilities, the "naturals" are just people who learned self motivation at a very young age. You have to learn it, as did I, and as did many more people than you can imagine.

Take it as a personal project to manipulate yourself. This is the trick. You want to have your reptilian brain under control, and the problem is that the reptilian has lots of power. There are a number of strategies, try and try again until you find one that fits. For me, the one that really worked is delayed gratification as a reward for small accomplishments. Trivial stuff, such as "I can break for coffee once I fix that small annoying bug that is just boring to fix". Frequent, delayed rewards.

Anyhow, talk about it. You'll find most people go through the same problem. Virtually everyone goes through phases of procrastination, and you'll find everyone has invented their own method of snapping out of it.

I like this explanation the best, primarily the first few sentences. Motivating yourself is really as unique as you are, and as stated, if you're not naturally gifted at it, it takes significant trial and error to work at.

For me, my primary limiting factor is that I tend to burn out easily. Currently, I plan a couple or a few days a week that will be "productive days" where I run errands, tidy things up around my apartment, and generally tie up loose ends (bills, finance, make appointments, etc.). I used to work on trying to spread it out more evenly through the week, but I found the quality of my work really decreases the longer that I try and keep up the pace. I need a day, or two, or even longer sometimes to get back in the "productive mood".

I know these things, and being aware of them helps me plan accordingly, and set realistic goals. I've been doing this since college, and the quality of my work has really improved, because I tend to work best when I want to, and relax best when I need to. These cycles come about naturally, and I try to exploit them.

Everyone is different. And the important thing is to constantly try and improve, even in little ways, at even a seemingly glacial pace. Small goals for me snowball into larger ones. But it's all about really coming to know yourself.

> Self motivation is an art.

I personally think that, if you're lacking in motivation to do something but you realize it's something that needs to be done, you're lacking in self-discipline. Instead of waiting or hoping for motivation, you need to be disciplined and /do it/. Start with sleeping discipline: go to bed at 11 sharp, get up at 7 sharp, and stick with it. Excercise disipline: force yourself to go for a run every night, whether you feel up to it or not. That kinda thing.

With procrastination, the general advice is to force yourself to sit down and do something that needs to be done for five minutes. Surely you can do five minutes, right? Then reward with an instant-gratification thing. The general advice is to do 30 minutes, but I'd go down to just one minute or something if it's really bad.

Ask for help / monitoring, too. My brother had serious procrastination / concentration issues when he had to finish one of his last assignments. I was asked to help him out; I just asked him where he was, what needed to be doing, and er. Well, I just sat and read something while he worked.

So, self-discipline, and a friend to help you keep focused on the task at hand. Ask him to shock you if you reach out for distraction or something.

I have a more generic view. Lack of motivation can be caused by a number of factors, so the solution is different in each case. You are both right and wrong. In many cases, the "just start and then keep at it" method works. In many others it doesn't.

One clear example of the one-size-fits-all failing is explicit in your discipline of go to bed at 11 sharp get up at 7 sharp. It is known to only work for morning people. I tried exactly that, and for me it leads to slow unproductive mornings. Move the bedtime schedule to 3AM or 4AM and suddenly I get four or five great work hours in the night (way better than the equivalent hours in the morning).

It depends on how you're wired, and my point is that learning how each person is wired is a personal project, through trial and error. Erring is OK.

Hi, I can relate to your situation, I feel like you are describing my life. My experience is this: all the psychological/organizing tips won't help. Problems is somewhere else. It's not about being lazy, not about being afraid of failure, needing latest organizing spreadsheet or anything like that. It's about brain chemistry and people around just don't get it as they try to understand your behavior assuming their state of mind. Books like "The Now Habit" address different problem entirely. I think I've read like hundred of "organizing", "anti procrastiation" etc. books. I see them as worthless when it comes to problems you describe. What they give you is very short lived kick and then a lot of frustration. What helped me is diet, supplements and drugs. I haven't tried adderall but I tried modafinil. It is life changer for me along with very low-carb diet which keeps my energy high during the day. I realize it's very anecdotical but I tried everything under the sun and after ~15 years (I am 30) of misery I finally feel better these days after implementing above mentioned changes. I feel like I lost the best years of my life trying to follow advice of people who just don't get it. Doctors who will do everything to avoid prescribing druga (it's not US). Authors who put well sounding boilerplate advice into the newest self-help book and people around who just assumed laziness. Now I have organized desk first time in 15 years, I keep my apartment clean first time since I live alone (~8 years or even longer counting living with roommates). I paid all the bills on time first time in a decade (it even happened before that they cut my electricity off because i just forgot/didn't want to do it despite having a lot of money available). I have my clothes arranged and shelves organized. I didn't do ANYTHING like described in NOW habit. I didn't implement ANY strategy to do this. I've just changed my diet and noticed I don't need to sleep during the day anymore and don't crash in the evening. I took the tablets and suddently I felt like just dealing with all the mess in my life so I did it.

Honestly I think this is the most spot-on answer. While I can try to adopt these new habits, they will only work in situations where I try them. What about with relationships? I got adderrall to deal with school, but I've since nicknamed it my "being social" drug, because the effects are so far reaching beyond just schoolwork or motivating myself. It turned my life around, and I've since been convinced my issue is chemical and beyond my control. It magically fixed everything, even things I wasn't expecting. I will investigate this further.

I can relate to all of this as well. Like the above person, I find myself lacking motivation to complete the most basic of tasks. I'm often motivated more by fear of embarrassment or failure, which causes things to pile up and lead to stress in my life. A while back I was on Lexapro for my social anxiety and that seemed to help. But I haven't had health insurance for the last few years and therefore haven't been to a doctor.

With that said, in your experience, what is the best type of doctor for visit for this kind of thing?

My experience with doctors is very negative. Maybe it's because we are (Poland) somewhat behind 1st world. Most doctors assumed everything is ok because I was doing well when it comes to money (I was lucky to find a profession I was very good at despite disorganized lifestyle and putting not so many hours into it) and treated me like someone who makes stuff up. I tried psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists. I even suspected something might be wrong with hormones so did all the tests/check-ups. No doctor even suggested I might try diet change/drugs/supplements for my problems. From what I read it's different in US and other countries where it's easier to find a doctor who try to help you. It was hopeless undertaking here and I wasted too many years trying (most doctors here don't even believe something like adult ADHD/ADD exists let alont other "made up" problems which according to many "comes from bad upgringing and lack of discipline").

How much modafinil do you take? Where do you get it from?

100mg in the morning although some of my friends take 200mg. 100mg is enough for me to keep me awake/motivated/focused to about 4-5pm; rest of the day is ok as well and I usually sleep very well after that (interestingly I need less hours of sleep having taken modafinil in the morning). Depending on country you can get it from various sources in some (UK for example) you can just order it from India 100% legally. In US it's more of a problem but people still get it. Try reddit/r/nootropics for a start (and recommended places to get it). I also like /r/ADHD for community/support. Please consider what I wrote as personal very subjective testimonal and in no way an advice, let alone medical. If you decide to take any drugs please at least read about possible negative effects/precautions you should take.

From what you have written you shouldn't be studying. I would honestly consider a complete shift away from a 'mental' discipline.

You sound like the lady that passed her driving test on her 50th attempt. This is a person that should not be driving.

Have you considered being a lumberjack? I'm being serious here. You need to do something crazily different. Maybe work in a restaurant. Physically hard work with someone chewing on your ass to get it done quicker. A place with no long term objectives.

Call it mind training but what you are doing at the moment is trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

> You need to do something crazily different.

I just want to chime in here.

I graduated with a CS and math double major and Chinese Minor in 06. I backed out of a programming job offer and instea ended up working for my uncle as an RF engineer for the next 2 years. That was working for about half the salary and no benefits. I disliked it enough to eventually quit and staige (intern) in a restaurant for 3 months.

Those 3 months have been the most empowering period of my life.

After exploring other fields that I thought could be passionate careers, I've come back to programming and found a renewed interest.

This advice worked for me.

I have a very similar disposition to the person you are replying to. At 20, I ditched college because I was unable to deal with school work. Considering the state I was in then, this was one of the best decisions of my life.

I was pretty lucky to be able to get a good job thanks to my computer skills, one that was more immediate; very little long-term objectives (tech support), and managed to get enough impressive stuff to put on my resumé to more than catch up to those who did graduate college.

Unfortunately, as I move up in the field (towards sysadmin), more long term objectives tend to crop up more and more in my professional life, whether I want it or not, and I am not any better at dealing with them than I was before.

Unless the person you're responding to is content not to moving up professionally, I fear that he will have to tackle his lack of mental discipline one way or another...

I have felt exactly as you felt for a long time. The answer that's working for me is really short: look at the problem and look for something really small and say "I could [do x]," and then immediately do x. This gives you the freedom from thinking about the larger thing it is a part of, from thinking about the order of doing things / trying to optimize it. For example, let's say I want to clean up my place. If I look at everything it looks overwhelming, boring, and I think about how I let it get so bad. This is very unmotivating. But I look for a smaller problem: I see a coat on the floor. I say "I could hang that up." So I hang it up. More importantly it gets me moving. Momentum is everything! The mind latches on to unfinished problems. If I throw one can into recycling it's going to look at the next can next to it and will 99% of the time will be compelled to do the next one. Whatever project I've recently worked on will have a much greater chance of continuing.

You can do the same thing with work stuff. I could just open the spreadsheet. I could just open the email I need. I could just log in the box I need. Suddenly I've started working on it and I'm good for the rest of the day.

Look for something really microscopically small to do next. It doesn't have to be optimal, it doesn't have to be the most important, the most urgent, or even that useful. If the task is small enough it slips under the threshold of such evaluations. I think this also gets you into the habit of taking action immediately rather than waiting. But if it doesn't, you can always kick start yourself again by doing anything small. "I could ...."

This is the only thing that's ever worked for me; although even though it's worked, and is trivial to implement, even so it's often not been enough. How can one have a tool that successfully does the job, and yet so often ignore that tool? I don't know. Motivation is a strange beast.

For me it rarely works. I know, what you mean, sometimes it does, doing one thing makes my body follow with others semi-automatically, without thinking about each one. But most often I just do this one thing and then stop. I can then do another, and another, but each with the same effort as the first one.

Now that you mention it, that's pretty accurate. You do still have to think about each step still; just keep repeating the process of finding a really small thing that is totally doable immediately and do it. The difficulty remains the same throughout, but it would be at a doable level the whole time. On the other hand, I do get excited that I'm actually making progress on something, and I try to get to a point that has a reward.

I am not a psychologist, so give careful consideration to what I am about to say.

Have you ever noticed that you can achieve a goal when there is no pressure or expectation? If that is the case, I recommend finishing this semester the best that you can, and then take a one or two year break from school.

Apply your creativity to a project that incorporates some of your education so far. Don't set a deadline, don't tell anyone about it, and don't concern yourself with whether the project can be monetized. Come up with a project that starts out small but can be built onto and improved. A project that can be used later in a larger project is ideal. Don't spend a lot of time researching before you get started; simply start on it. Don't obsess over details; remind yourself that you are working on a prototype, and that afterwards you will be building another one. Take regular breaks from the project and go back over past course materials for ideas in ways to improve your next design. Most importantly, the whole process should be FUN.

The one or two years spent should allow you time to fortify your education and change your subconscious attitude towards engineering. Completing a large project will give you a reference point of what it takes to succeed in the long term.

I'm an even worse procrastinator and what is helping me the most is Beeminder: You define a goal and pay exponentially increasing sums of money if you fail.

For it to work you need to dislike losing money, be honest about your goal progress and rerail if you derail (although they now have an automatic rerailing feature). Getting some pleasure from the goal progress and statistics is important too.

I'd start with something like "study 1 pomodoro/day of $course" and slowly increase it. Maybe also add a time requirement ("by 2 pm").

The fact that I have to rely on something like Beeminder to get things done can be a little hard to accept. I'm essentially the same procrastinator, I'm just forced now to do things. I have yet to find a way to fundamentally change myself but if there is, then a structured life surely is a better starting point than being depressed because you've procrastinated your life to shambles. I also have some hope that the habits formed with Beeminder will have some deeper self-discipline changes in the long run.

Apart from the slightly mentioned Pomodoro Technique, Anki also helps me.

Thanks so much for saying this! This is exactly how feel ourselves. :)

Danny of http://beeminder.com

I'm also 24.

Spent much of my life struggling to do basic things as well.

24 years of hearing the familiar platitudes of "just do it", like telling a depressed person to "just smile".

Fortunately I stumbled upon slow-release d-amphetamine and it changed my life.

> Do I go see psychologist/psychiatrist?

Yes. Try several until you find one that clicks.

I'm quite like you, maybe not so severe, but I also can't start doing things before it's the moment I'll be really fucked if I don't. And I'm actually most motivated, when I fuck something up, it's like a guilt motivation - when I achieve something, it rather drives me into procrastination rather than doing more. My other strong motivation is though curiosity - I am focused until I find a solution to a problem, but lack energy to implement it.

With social interaction it's also the same - I do get bored really fast, about the time I start to find someone's behaviour predictable (but for me it's borderline people who I can get along with for longest time).

Where I'm different is that I rarely fail my exams - but I believe it's because I'm kind of talented. Most often it's enough for me to take about 75% of classes (not even listening all the time). And it's also kind of annoying - the fact my GPA is much lower than it should be, considering my natural abilities.

I've been trying meditation recently, and it seems to help - even after 20 minutes I'm able to clean my room without mental pain normally associated with it. Unfortunately, I often even meditation suffers from my procrastination - and the less I meditated in few days, the more chances I won't in the following day. But I guess I'll keep trying.

I recommend everyone read the book, "How to Conquer Your Frustrations" by Dr. William J. Knaus It covers procrastination extensively and I found the way the author explains the structure of behaviours very insightful. In the interim, do your best to manage your procrastination by ordering your activities that you can do one to avoid another. For example, read this book to avoid cleaning your home. Study to avoid going to the gym. Good luck!

I would suggesting seeing a psychologist. I hesitate to offer advice given the huge variability in brain chemistry I've encountered. People are just inherently wired differently a lot of the time.

That said, and take this with the grain of salt that I don't know you, stop judging your progress against your peers. Everyone has their own life, and the best thing you can possibly do is to find some activity that you honestly enjoy and do that. Who cares if your high school friends are in top law schools? Some of the most interesting people I've ever known didn't bother graduating because they just basically weren't into it.

Unfortunately, your resources are probably limited, but if you can I'd suggest taking some time off to travel to a new environment (if you're social enough to interact with people there). A change of environment seems to do wonders for a lot of people with similar motivational issues.

Dynamics isn't really that hard. All you really need to know is that force results in deformation and acceleration. If you hit the books now, you can probably get a passing grade, especially if you understand calculus.

I realize my response is kinda dense, but in reality I find it easier to start when I think I have a fighting chance.

I was like this many years ago and managed to fix it.

I am strongly considering developing an online course about this and to get some more hands on experience I am happy to help few people for free. If you would like my help please email me your Skype details. You can find my email in my profile.

You and I are very similar. I wouldn't say that I've got ADD, but I did fall into depression while in college, and have the same difficulty with managing any kind of long-term work or commitment. It also affects my personal finances; unless I set up automatic transfers to saving accounts, I am unable to keep anything for more than week or so.

So I ditched college at 20, was lucky enough to get a good job despite that and work from there, but as I slowly get closer to 30, I find that the world has less tolerance for my problem. I'm moving up in my professional life, and as I do I find that juggling with long term projects is starting to become more and more important to my work.

But anyway, you wanted help or advice.

One of the ways I am coping with it, is trying to make sure I can capture motivation when it happens. I guess my issue is not that I have NO motivation, but more that I am unable to summon it myself. But it happens to pop up at times, so I found that I can get things done if I remove obstacles that would stop me from using it.

For instance: I am trying to learn how to draw these days. It's a skill I always wanted to have and I decided to fix that. But most of the times, I don't feel like doing it. Just because I have free time doesn't mean I'm able to force myself to draw. So I always carry a sketchpad and pencils; whenever the motivation to draw crops up, I can catch it and make use of it.

Another example: I'm taking classes on Coursera. Sometimes I feel like listening to the lectures and doing the class work, sometimes I don't, and I can't really force myself to do it when I don't want to. However, since Coursera works well on my cell phone, I am capable of listening to the lectures anywhere at anytime.

Never underestimate the small stuff like doing the dishes. In my case, two things I would like to do is put some money aside and lose some weight. As ridiculous as it sounds, making sure I deal appropriately with the dishes is crucial to attaining these goals. Why? One of the biggest reasons I can't save money and that I am getting fatter is because I am always eating takeout or delivery. It is both expensive, and unhealthy. I would really like to cook more; I love cooking. But as I said before, you need to remove any obstacles beforehand if you want to be able to capture the motivation when it happens. Having to do the dishes before cooking is such an obstacle. Having to go to the grocery store is an obstacle to cooking. So something as small as a dishes problem, is stopping me from dealing with my cooking problem, which is stopping me from dealing with my money and health problems.

I try to have many hobbies going at once; the more things I have that I could be doing, the more likely that there'll be at least one of those things I'll be wanting to do in my free time.

I also try to keep the work divided in smaller chunks and set small, tiny goals for myself. For instance, like yours probably is, my room is a stupid mess. Worse than a messy teenager's. I would never be able to tackle clearing ALL of it; it's waaaaay beyond any motivation I can muster. But at some point I wanted to use my desk. So when the motivation came up for it, I cleaned up the clutter on desk. Same thing with the laundry; one load at a time. My room is still a stupid mess, but at least there's a few parts of it I'm keeping clean.

That's another tip: keep things clean, clear and done as you go. Never rely on future you, that dude will disappoint you. Most people are able to leave things get a little messy, then clean up for an hour or so and are done with it. You are not. You need make a habit of doing things immediately, on the spot. For instance; do the dishes immediately after eating: all of them, always, even if you have guests. If you let them pile up, no matter how small the pile, that will be one pile you will never really want to deal with until it becomes a problem.

Anyway, good luck. I'm rooting for you.

I've had a similar experience, although not nearly as challenging as yours. I believe you do need to seek help. But in the meantime, I'll share what's worked for me, so that you can give it a shot. You'll really just have to find what works for you.

I got some help during college, but unfortunately for me, medication would lead to very high blood pressure (probably combined with stress and other factors at the time and due to a predisposition that runs in the family) so I stopped taking them after a couple of months.

I have found that I don't need them as much though. Like danenania suggests, your problem is likely one of body chemistry that few understand (kind of like depression), and one especially of brain chemistry. I've tried l-tyrosine only and haven't really noticed much change, but try it (GNC has it). What's really helped me, specially lately -- and when I look back at High School -- is exercise. Exercise, exercise, exercise. I have found for me, that exercising intensely even for 10 minutes (though more is ideal) during the morning is an excellent way for me to feel very focused and energetic the rest of the day. The key is intensity.

So here's what I suggest, especially since you like extreme sports: * wake up early -- it's not easy with ADD, I know, but sleep early the first night before it. * hit the gym, or visit to your favorite jogging place * Run your guts out!

Jog at a good pace for ~4 minutes after stretching a bit and walking one minute. The 5th minute, sprint/run as fast as you can without stopping. Then walk for 1-1.5 mins, and do at least one other set of this, but ideally 3. (As always, build up to it an adapt to yourself--as long as you really push yourself for one minute). What also works for me is also listening to music that gives you a "braingasm" during your sprints -- I love Radiohead's "Weird fishes", for example, because it's a great song and is conveniently 5 minutes long. Best of all it has the lines "I hit the bottom and escape" during the last minute--during my sprints. This seems to release dopamines (I feel a great rush) AND pushing yourself beyond the point when you want to quit will also build will power. I try to do this at least 3x a week and unless I stay up (sleeping well is also key!), I always look forward to this because of how great I feel the rest of the day. Working out intensely has also been great for my body weight, and for reducing stress -- which means less stress eating and less impulsiveness (it's a feedback loop). Just walking isn't that great for stress (which you need to take care of first). You really, really have to push your body beyond its limits.

Once you take care of your stress, I'll echo others: find what you're passionate about. If your passionate about engineering, but hate some classes like I did, get help on those classes (do study groups, office hours, etc). And take what you learn in the courses you love and build something great with it.

You will move world if you want to.

Or when you are in fear from something, if you believe in fear.

Fear from not being successful :D. Fear from not reaching someone's else expectations. Fear from doing right/wrong things.

Motivation ultimately is carrot-stick mechanism. You should never be motivated to do something you like. Because it is natural.

And all I can tell you, you have not found what you would like, because you too have placed values in very very unbelievable(for you) place.