procastatron

I don't see why that's hard to believe.

I'm very good at selling myself and my skillset but I'm deathly afraid of girls.

Yes but look at how many great people accomplished things before they were 30.

I'm nowhere near that! Look at Ryan Holiday, he was the director of marketing at American Apparel at fucking 20.

I'm not "incredibly" smart. Top 5% sure, but there are people on here who have accomplished way more than me by my age and are way way smarter than me when it comes to programming.

One of the smartest people I've met online is a kid who is 18 now and built an entire OS, compiler etc all in Javascript just because he could. He routinely builds new languages and compilers for himself just to get better.

I really envy that kind of passion. I know in 10 years he'll probably have invented the next Ruby on Rails etc. But at the same time, I don't necessarily want to be the best programmer. I think I'm more inclined to be the best "product person" which at the end of the day still means programming, just with more of a business aspect.

Read this a while ago. It's a great article

I did this for a week, it worked quite well.

However, I'm definitely not a morning person

At the end of the day, you're comment here has more truth to it than anything else in this thread.

And it's one of the reasons I indulge in self-loathing more than I should

I used my salary as a way of getting people more hooked into this thread. If I was sitting on my couch all day doing nothing, I think I would have gotten less replies.

By showing that I'm actually out there working on this and that I truly want to do better, I believed I could generate more of a discussion from people that have been in similar positions and want to help me.

I don't agree with that. I have programmers that come in and do a solid days work every single day. It might not be the best code, but I see them working on it all day long.

It sucks because even though I'm accomplishing as much work as they are, I can only do it for a few hours a day. I'm envious of their focus and ability to actually get shit done. If it wasn't for them, I probably would be fired. Although....even then, everyone else at this company loves me so much that I don't think they could fire me.

I feel like I could have written this a few months ago. I tried something similar but then fell right back in my normal routine.

Not saying it won't work for you. I've just become very doubtful of all the "self help" methods as it's rare that I find long term evidence that it has changed people's lives permanently. I read on average, 1-2 self help books every week, I think they've helped me with certain areas of my life but overall it hasn't fixed the root problem.

I saw a school psych when I was in college and all it really did was piss me off.

The guy spent 30 minutes asking me these types of questions except even more generic and then afterwards said "Yep, you have ADD".

I hardly talked about myself and the way he phrased the questions made it super easy to say yes to all of them. He wrote me a prescription and I never got it filled because of how little I felt he actually had done. I've taken all kinds of ADD medicine from friends, etc but somehow getting a prescription from what seemed like a bullshit therapy session made me stop taking ADD drugs altogether.

If you read some of my other comments, when I take adderall, ritalin, daytrana etc I end up just being more focused in my procrastination. It's like my brain says, "I know what you're doing drug, and I'm going to fuck with you"

Have more sex is easier said than done...

Also, I'm definitely going to get a therapist after this. Looked around and found some area ones. I'll make an appointment "later" :)

Yes, I'm curious too

I usually am at the office for 80+ hours a week. It could be burn out, but even when I reduce down to 40 hours I basically cut everything I accomplish in half. Somehow my brain realizes what I'm doing and I procrastinate just as much.

I have realized some other effects from burnout, but I think this procrastination issue is something different entirely

But at the same time, it seems unless there's a physiological difference in people like me, we should be able to condition ourselves into working more.

What I'm doing with my extra time is not productive by any measure and although it makes me really good at producing random facts at dinner parties....I can't see much else gained by the time I waste.

I ran a freelancing company for about 2 years. I did a really shitty job managing clients and would often just ignore their calls. In fact, I'd feel better right away when I ignored them completely. It would just bite my ass in the long run.

I ended up being fairly successful from it as even though I was horrible at communication, I worked on an hourly basis instead of milestones and was able to at least deliver something substantial to the client.

I think I've had this with everything though. Even things I really enjoy I find myself procrastinating about

Truth. I find myself doing a lot more mentoring than menteeing. I haven't found very many older smarter people in my community. That said, I'm way behind a lot of you guys on HN in terms of knowledge. I wish more of you super smart programmer guys lived in my immediate community

Unfortunately, this usually results in a slower pace than I can stand. The guys on my team are all young too 19-26, and frankly I'm more knowledgeable than most of them. I really have had some good pair programming sessions but usually it's just me teaching best practices the whole time which can get pretty draining. I also think I don't like it because I can't go off and get that procrastinator dopamine rush

This might be related. I have horrible approach anxiety when it comes to girls. When I'm in a convo, I usually do pretty well and multiple people have told me I'm good with girls. Once again it feels like I'm cheating the system, I use a few PUA tricks once in a while but in reality I've never gone on a date which would surprise most people I know

When I take addy I just find myself trying to procrastinate even more. Except then it's concentrated procrastination

Maybe. But I fear taking more on will only be more detrimental

Has any of this shit actually worked for people and made a huge difference?

I look at people like Kevin Systrom or Mark Cuban and from what it looks like they never had these issues.

Hm, yeah I think I have that to.

I can't ever finish anything because then what??

This is my biggest fear. Having the same problems now at 40. I look at my dad and as much as I swore I'd never let myself have his same work ethic (push hard, than go at 1/4 pace for 90% of the time).

Reality is that I'm worse than I've ever seen him right now. I can go for a few days without doing a single git commit. I have a team under me that makes it look to my superiors as if shit is getting done. And when I need to I can pound out really really good code and save the day.

Yeah...I need a therapist or something

I think for me I partly get a thrill and a dopamine reward out of not doing what I'm supposed to. For the same reason I used to spend hours a day in bed or online, failing college classes, but then quickly pounding out a few hours of good work for a lofty paycheck

It's true though. It feels like it should be so easy and simple but it's really a deep rooted problem

Wtf

I think too much shit is probably part of my problem. I say yes to everything all the time and as a result I'm involved with literally every part of this startup. I've definitely made myself a Godin lynchpin but people are starting to lose faith in this silly wunderkinds ability to execute.

Meditation is a good idea. I tried getting into it, ended up reading up on some weird sex meditation shit and went down the rabbit hole on that one. I really think clearing my brain several times in the day would help me.

It's funny I've seen this list a hundred times but listed out here for some reason it seems to make more sense.

Addy - hate how it kills my creativity and I try to beat it and convince myself it doesn't work Modafinol - my favorite drug but I tend to stay up for a long time and just procrastinate more. Would definitely be super helpful if I can beat procrastination first CycloBenz - haven't tried, will order

I have found paracetam to be super helpful but it only works for a week or two before khans to cycle off it. I was on it about 2.5 weeks ago and did in 4 days what I normally have been doing in a month.

I should start to exercise more...

That's actually what I do most of the time. I got really god at Spanish because I was procrastinating and to fight it I switched the language on every "fun" site I was using to discourage me.

I have to access HN on my phone because I've blocked this domain, reddit, and about 20 others in my /etc/hosts in attempt to stay focused. Instead I just find more obscure shit to get distracted with until I realize it's a distraction and ban it