

Ask HN: What's the best advice you've ever read on killing Procrastination? - taphangum

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thetrumanshow
For me, procrastination often comes from overestimating the pain involved in
performing a task (fear). To overcome it, I promise myself I'll just "take a
look at the problem", then I convince myself that I'll just do this quick
small task (ex: change a label, do a lookup query) and stop, but pretty soon,
I see that this isn't scary at all... and I JDI.

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michaeldwp
I would say:

1) First thing in the morning, don't check your email, Hacker News, or any
other distracting sites. Not even for a minute. You can spend a bit of time
figuring out your tasks / biggest rock(s) for the day (see #2); but after
that, the next thing you should do is get to work.

2) Set a 1, 1.5 or 2 hour timebox where you get your "Biggest Rock" of the day
done first (it's okay to split this across multiple timeboxes.

More on the Big Rock stuff here: [http://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-
your-productivit...](http://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-your-
productivity-this-week/)

3) Work on your email in batches. So, when you open your email, set 45 minutes
(or whatever) to reply / respond to whatever is in your inbox. Then close it
until it's time for your next email batch.

4) I haven't gotten into this one yet, but I think it would be good to deal
with each email once it's opened. Don't mark it as unread or leave it in your
inbox. Respond to it or archive it (or do _something_ with it that would make
it "done.").

Yeah, I think those would be my best tips at the moment. The biggest one being
#1.

I hope this helps.

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frou_dh
"First, care"

<http://www.43folders.com/2010/02/05/first-care>

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Zev
For me, start small and work my way up to big tasks. If I try and do something
big right away, I'll get distracted halfway through.

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Jacquass12321
Just worry about dealing with it tomorrow.

