How Seinfeld's Productivity Secret Fixed My Procrastination Problem

There is an app in App store called 'Commit' (Nathan Barry's) which does that.

They have a monetary incentive to interpret your data as failing to meet your goals. That is a huuuuuuuge amount of trust to bestow on a random company.

I agree that the Seinfeld hack (aka, "don't break the chain") can be incredibly powerful -- but only once you have a long chain to not break. So there's a catch-22 until then -- you can sometimes keep failing again and again indefinitely, never building up the motivating chain. And that problem repeats every time the chain breaks. So you're always in a precarious situation where one bad day can precipitate many more bad days, where you go down a slippery slope of "one more day won't hurt; I'll get a new chain started tomorrow".

(Extreme bias warning) With Beeminder you can commit to maintaining a certain average, like 3 posts/commits/pages/whatever per week. So it's not all-or-nothing like the Seinfeld hack. You can build up a safety buffer and then take some time off, without the danger that that will lead you down a slippery slope of sloth. With Beeminder's yellow brick road you've precommitted to not let your overall average dip too far.

If the rate you want to maintain is exactly 7 per week -- 6.9 is unacceptable -- and if you can sustain that long term, then "don't break the chain" is probably perfect. For everything else, there's Beeminder!

I've found that any type of motivation/gamification methods that are tied to time don't work for me at all.

For example, when I work on a programming project every single day, then every time I sit down to work on it, it takes a mere 5 minutes to remember where I was previously. But if I come back to it after, say, a week, it can take up to 20 minutes.

This isn't based on any kind of science whatsoever though. Just an observation I made about myself.

I think it applies here. There may be better ways of doing things, but I'd rather get something done than do nothing, lamenting the fact that the method at hand isn't the most perfectly efficient way possible.

Another thing is that 15 min/day is pretty easy and it's main purpose is to lure you in. It's much harder to devote an hour or two or more. But 15 min is easy peesy. Once you are in, you tend to stay in for longer.

As for efficiency about cleaning the house, there is more to it than how much time it takes you. Having a clean home all the time is beneficial in ways that you miss when you only clean it once a week. You may not even be aware of the negative effects of the mess.

Random question- did you do really well in school when you were young? If yes, did you then get progressively worse as it required more prep?

I didn't do as well as I hoped in high school because my parents couldn't afford a tutor. Getting me there was hard enough. I'm not exactly stupid, or so I've been told, but failure after failure which can be attributed totally down to my lack of self-discipline certain makes me feel inadequate.

Hell, just implementing this very technique is one of my failures, amongst other failures to improve my self-discipline.

It's having a massive impact on both my work and home life. Even to the point of asking HN for advice. Nothing I try works.

I'm seeing a psychologist tomorrow for an extra perspective. I hope they can help (as long as the appointment doesn't slip my mind at the last minute!)

I work on personal projects a few days or weeks at a time and then after solving the first set of big problems I generally let it slip and lose interest. The source code lives on my hard drive and then one weekend next year or a few years later I remember what I had been writing and I come to revisit it. Maybe I rewrite the program or extend it up to the next level, or just look at it and think "That's where I was, mentally, in 2010; I think I've made progress since, I'm not the same programmer anymore."

I place no intrinsic value on finishing the projects itself because then they would start to resemble work and I want my hobby projects to be fun.

At work I procrastinate too but that's mostly doing the more interesting tasks or tasks with the highest impact first and the less interesting tasks only when really, really needed. So I don't basically procrastinate, I just prioritize.

I think procrastination is prioritizing, really.

And sometimes you prioritize complete idling over doing anything at all which I think just tells that you were trying to do the wrong thing because if you weren't you would have forgotten to eat while staying up doing it.

I feel like it may be due to ADD or something like it. Whatever it is, it's definitely quite annoying.

The key is to at least quickly get the project to a state where it's actually usable, and does something, even if it doesn't yet have all the features you envision right now. Over time, if you or other users seem to get some sort of utility out of the project, you'll eventually feel compelled to go back and make those changes and really make it more perfect. And if no one seems to get any utility out of it, then maybe you just saved some time you would've spent obsessing over making it perfect, and maybe it is good to actually lay it to rest.

The secret?

There is none. I'm just better at organizing myself for my goals. I used to go about cool programming ideas like this:

1. Have an initial idea and get really excited about it

2. Clearly see in my mind how I would implement it

3. Think "this can't take more than a week!"

4. Start coding frantically, making sure to have an elegant, modular, reusable code-base

5. On the way, come up with more and more super-cool features

6. Think about every little detail of every feature and make sure implement it "the way it should be done"

7. Give up after two weeks because the project has become overwhelming and despite a massive code-base is not anywhere near a first usable prototype

I think the problem starts at 3. (maybe at 2.) and then gets successively worse all the way down. These days, my workflow looks perhaps more like this:

1. Have an initial idea and get really excited about it

2a. Do a reality-check, find it's probably not worth bothering in the big picture and do something else instead

2b. OR: if I really think the project is small enough, go ahead and give it a go.

3. Think of what the really cool features of the idea are

4. Remove them all and thus come up with a stripped-down, barely even usuable version of the initial idea.

5. Implement it in the most minimal, hackish code base possible: hardcode everything, ints instead of enums, strings are your friend,...

6. Actually finish this bastardized version of the initial idea!

7. Only then decide if it's worth going on from there toward the initial bling-bling idea by means of refactoring and refining or adding more features

Usually, by the time I get to 7. I decide I don't need it - either the version is actually good enough already (meaning the initial grandiose vision was over the top) or it has become clear already that the excitement of point 1. was unwarranted and I probably should have gone for 2a. instead of 2b.

In rare cases, however, I do stay in step 7. and improve upon the initial prototype iteratively. This can even go on for an extended period of time. But even then I'm trying to make sure that I stay true to the same method which can probably be summarized with the following question you have to keep asking yourself:

How can I achieve my goal with the least amount of work?

For me, I've realized it's paramount that I get to a result quickly - that is more important than properties like "with the most beautiful architecture" or "with the best possible UX" etc. You might think that 2a would lead to less stuff done, but in the end I think it actually leads to more mini projects actually becoming a reality.

There's an old saying that goes "Once begun, the job's nearly done" - STARTING the project is the hardest part.

So I use an egg timer or if I'm working with my headphones on the PC, I use Orzeszek Timer (it's free) - but the idea is I set it for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes (whatever amount I want to make sure I work on a task) and then remind myself that starting is the hardest part, and that all I have to do is work until the timer goes off, and I can quit.

The reality is that normally once we actually start working, we stick with it for a while, but I believe the timer allows us to 'check out' and just focus on work.

See, when we are working, there are a million things going on in our heads, reminders, deadlines, things on the internet we want to look at, but with a timer and an understanding that the timer will remind us when we can quit, we can just focus on working.

Do you think self discipline is inherent or learned? If it's inherent, then you can't fault an individual without it.

If it's learned, how does one acquire it? It seems like programs like this are the "Gen Y" approach to learning self discipline.

Perhaps the baby-boomers learned it from their families, whereas Gen Y did not. Which (if anything) speaks volumes about the parenting quality of your generation ;)

I looked at your last half dozen comments. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: How many days can you go without making a snarky or negative comment on HN?

  In his twenties he set out to improve himself very systematically.
  He first ascertained the qualities that he found most important to
  cultivate, including Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality,
  Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility,
  Chastity and Humility. He then devised a simple daily record and chose one
  of these virtues each week to focus upon. His record contained a matrix
  with a list of the virtues he wished to perfect in his life down the left
  side and across the top a list of the days of the week. He would then mark
  a dot or check in each box when he failed to meet his own expectation for
  the virtue he was seeking to practice that day. His goal was to have a
  week free of all marks showing success.