
Ask HN: How do I overcome mental laziness? - fickleycurious
I have realized that I easily give up when I face a hard problem. This is hurting my career prospects. I have been thinking and it may have become an issue because I grew up in a high pressure environment, where a lot is expected from you. How do I change myself ? I have observed that a lot of times I have a vague idea of a problem I am trying to solve but I don&#x27;t put in the effort to nail it down. This affects my confidence and I don&#x27;t want to lead whenever I get an opportunity. How do I get out of this habit ?
======
DanielBMarkham
"Lazy" is just another way of saying that you're not doing something somebody
else thinks you should be doing. Nobody is lazy at playing video games or
eating a favorite food. If you like doing it, you do it. You can't be lazy.
You can only be lazy in some kind of context where you or others judge you and
find you wanting.

So two pieces of advice. First, stop judging so much. Do what you love doing
and don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Second, find things you love
doing that generally make you a better person over time and do those things.
This might require trying out new things every weekend for a while. Once
again, don't judge yourself; instead find things you truly love that you feel
are also good for you. There are plenty of these things for everybody, and
each person has his own mix. Never feel like you have to have somebody else's.

A lot of commenters here are using the mountain metaphor. I'd like to say the
same thing a different way. Stop being so goal focused and instead become
habit focused. You don't want to accomplish some big goal, all you want to do
is do fun stuff that makes you a better person. As a result of that, you'll
probably accomplish some cool goals. But you'd never do that if you started
from zero and tried to guilt yourself into striving towards some goal you
couldn't care less about.

Habits are easy to change. The trick is to try new things and start with
really, really small changes. Most of life is Zen anyway. You either enjoy
doing things and die or you suffer and die. It's your choice.

~~~
austincheney
> Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food.

I cannot disagree more. You can be lazy about something that brings enjoyment.
Laziness is stagnation without regard for enjoyment or perceptions. In other
words it is the opposite of _ambition_ or progression. For example you can
enjoy playing video games and yet become lazy about it through a lack of
effort in that a decline of related goals does not necessarily translate into
lower interest or participation.

Spinning the subject into something entirely unrelated, such as sensitivity or
self-esteem, completely misses the point and could actually be really harmful
advise. If you wish to focus upon or improve enjoyment, self-esteem, or
emotional well being the do so with great deliberation but not because you
have confused those with effort.

—-

Think of mental laziness as a lack of mental exercise. Mental exercise, such
as tough decisions, actually burn more calories and impact your overall
physiology. The only way to fight mental laziness is to increase your own self
awareness with a goal for self improvement over time, like working out the
rest of your body. Some helpful tools are reminders, taking notes, reviewing
prior decisions, and advice from other people.

To fight mental laziness I recommend focusing on these criteria:

* criticality - don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek greater learning

* originality - try something new. A new approach may require a far lower effort and yet may cause anxiety. Confront and appreciate that anxiety directly as part your increased self-awareness

* empathy - empathy is the cognitive exercise of perceiving the situations of other people. Do not confuse it for sympathy, the process of sharing an emotional response. Empathy requires deliberate effort and often does not result in sympathetic state

* deliberation - own your decisions. Take credit for all decisions without fear. If you are afraid to associate a decision with your reputation then somebody will make the decision for you. It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time. A wrong decision in the short term results in learning that can result in corrective decisions that would otherwise be absent.

~~~
smallgovt
I think you've outlined an excellent framework/technique to self improvement
-- not dissimilar to the Carol Dweck's 'Growth Mindset'.

However, I think it's very likely GP has a much more pernicious problem. That
is, he is afraid to make mistakes.

The sentence that highlights this for me is -- "I have realized that I easily
give up when I face a hard problem."

If you're afraid of making mistakes, you won't be willing to ask questions (in
case it makes you look stupid). And, you won't be willing to try something new
(because learning something new leads to mistakes).

This fear of making mistakes is often rooted in an extrinsic desire to be
perfect. And, based on GP's description, this desire likely came from his
demanding upbringing (read: parents).

GP, I highly recommend Carol Dweck's book 'The Growth Mindset'. It's not just
OK to make mistakes -- it's often a GOOD thing because it means you're on the
path of progress.

~~~
austincheney
This sounds like _uncertainty avoidance_. Normally that term is applied to
social groups opposed to individuals, but I am going to use it here because it
describes the psychology behind the kind of fear you speak to.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance)

I suspect for some persons perfectionism is a problem, but the frequency with
which mental laziness occurs and the rarity with which perfectionism occurs
suggests there are different or multiple motivating factors. Perhaps a common
answer is that many people are unknowingly willing to sacrifice flexibility
and freedom for familiarity and predictability. This is even evidenced by how
people write software.

------
hliyan
I had a similar problem where the the bigger / the more complex the task in
front of me was, the more my brain resisted to getting started and the more i
procrasitnated.

I came up with a fundamentally "agile" solution: break the problems down into
smaller tasks until the first task is too small to offer resistance.

E.g. rather than "write architecture specification", start with "outline the
heads for architecture spec" and then maybe "draw rough sketch of architecture
on paper" and then maybe "write introduction".

Almost everything in my to do list these days can be executed in under 10
minutes. As a bonus, it gives you the dopamine hit / satisfaction of watching
a stead stream of items moving from 'todo' to 'done' state on a daily basis.

~~~
sharkweek
I don’t know what the true source is but I always enjoyed this little intro to
a song by The White Stripes:

“When problems overwhelm us, and sadness smothers us, where do we find the
will and the courage to continue?

Well, the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter
with a book, or from a personal faith. For Janet help came from her faith, but
it also came from a squirrel. Shortly after her divorce, Janet lost her
father, then she lost her job. She had mounting money problems.

But Janet not only survived, she worked her way out of despondency and now she
says, life is good again. How could this happen?

She told me that late one Autumn day when she was at her lowest she watched a
squirrel storing up nuts for the winter, one at a time he would take them to
the nest.

And she thought, if that squirrel can take care of himself with the harsh
winter coming along, then so can I. Once I broke my problems into small pieces
I was able to carry them, just like those acorns, one at a time.”

— “Little Acorns” by The White Stripes

~~~
masonic
Did Jack never actually watch squirrels? They don't gather their nuts into a
nest, they cache them individually by burying them in random places and
remembering the locations.

A therapist colleague used a different metaphor.

Patient: "I'm overwhelmed by (task) and can't get going."

Therapist "Do you know how to eat an elephant?"

Patient: "Uh... No?"

Therapist: "One bite at a time."

------
hoorayimhelping
You don't climb a mountain by thinking about mountains then making a huge epic
trek in a couple of leaps. You climb a mountain by taking one step at a time.
You have to take thousands of steps to reach the top of a mountain. Not every
step is going to be perfect, or even pretty. Some will go in the wrong
direction and you'll need to backtrack. Some will be missteps that might hurt.
But if you keep making a concerted effort to climb the mountain, eventually
you'll reach the top. Don't be too hard on yourself - it's important to look
back and see how far you've climbed from time to time. The top may not look
the way you expected, and you may not feel the way you thought, but you'll
have done it.

Stop trying to climb a mountain in a single step, and stop trying to climb the
mountain flawlessly. Just getting to the top is an achievement these days. You
probably don't want to attempt Everest or K2 right after deciding to climb a
mountain. Maybe try a few smaller ones, or some hills first.

~~~
pacoverdi
I like and often use the mountain metaphor myself.

Sometimes the path to the top includes some abrupt parts, akin to climbing a
vertical wall. These are big efforts that requires long periods of
concentration.

These are often followed by easy trails with no elevation, or even downward.
This can be boilerplate that you can do without even thinking.

When you've reached the top, if you realize that the path you followed was not
the shortest/easiest/most elegant one, know that your new muscle strength will
make it orders of magnitudes easier to go down again and find new shortcuts.
Clean up, delete unused parts, simplify, comment/document etc.

Finally, you will not even think of it as a mountain but just a small bump :)

~~~
mtreis86
I like it too.

Find a local maximum that gives you some space to see around you. Climb a
tree, or walk uphill for a good while - maybe a path will be more obvious from
up there. In the metaphor, go spend some time learning some hobby for a while,
something you enjoy doing but haven't put time into, then re-evaluate.

There is no best mountain to climb, just more mountains.

Sometimes there is no path where you want to go and you are the one who gets
to blaze it. This doesn't have to be huge either, the path gets too worn down
in places and new turns need to be added to get around those spots.

If you spend too much time looking at your map and compass, you won't end up
putting many miles down.

------
spawarotti
Some people here suggest you might have ADHD. I encourage you to consider
this, but suggest for you to be very skeptical towards this possibility. You
can find extended discussion on this here: [1]. Focus first on fundamentals
like sleep, exercise, diet, good social and romantic ties. Even if just one of
your fundamentals is off, it might cause your brain to tell you “Hey, you want
for me to put some long, hard, focused effort towards some long-term,
hypothetical payoff, and yet I have this IMMEDIATE, IMPORTANT unfulfilled
need. I am not even sure if I will make through the next week/month/X. Fix
your priorities first, only then let’s play the long-term game, OK?”.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132342)

~~~
Cthulhu_
I live with two people with ADHD and I'm not seeing it. The OP describes
giving up too easily for hard tasks, which is fairly common (I mean I have it)
without any other indications for ADHD.

~~~
eklin
I have ADHD and while giving up easily is an indication for ADHD I have also a
washing list of other symptoms, e.g. switching to a new hobby every other
week, having sudden urges to google random things because my brain thinks it
is of utmost importance to know about it RIGHT NOW, inability to maintain
concentration if the thing I have to do doesn't interest me - but
hyperfocusing on things for days on end if they interest me etc etc

ADHD is much more centered around concentration than just giving up easily, I
guess.

------
activehuman
you might have trauma (little t trauma), which feels weird to call trauma
because its not obvious trauma (death, car accident, abuse etc) but still
affects you a lot and your feelings are still just as valid and they are there
and real. Try to allocate a _long_ time, like 2 hours to focus on something
that you _know_ you have to do. Observe how it feels physically, in your body.
For me, my throat tightens up and my chest gets tight and I feel like crying.
So I procrastinated for years to avoid feeling the awful physical sensations.
I still do, really. They haven't gone away for me just yet. First step is
awareness, next is expecting the feeling, discovering what triggers it, making
elaborate plans and tackling harder tasks in bite sized pieces. Force yourself
to try and improve, because you have to, and soldier through the feelings like
you're on the start of a long battle, or a long journey of self growth.

~~~
71153750
Relate as well and agree with this approach. I'm still working through it.
Even right now, as I watch the minutes countdown to the hour when I will begin
again. I found the works of Dr Gabor Mate to be quite helpful (talks available
on YouTube and I found a lot of value in his book When the Body Says No,
especially the second half which I think you could just pick up and read). He
primarily focuses on drug addiction but in doing so dives deeply into dealing
with trauma. Another source that has been helpful to me is Oprah, her Super
Soul Sunday podcast is great (browse the titles and pick any that seem
interesting to you). And of course I wholly second the recommendations for
therapy, understanding that one's perspective may not be the full picture can
be life changing.

------
toomanybeersies
There is the potential that you have ADHD, because what you're describing
sounds similar to my situation. I eventually ended up on stimulant medication
to help, but there's non-stimulant medication available (if you're opposed to
eating amphetamines for breakfast), as well as counselling and other treatment
options that don't involve medication.

Even if you don't want to seek professional treatment, you could look up
articles on solving problems and achieving goals written specifically for
people with ADHD and see if those help.

~~~
jacobolus
Someone doesn’t have to have ADHD to shirk from hard problems.

Expecting technical/intellectual problems to be easy to solve is something
that is drilled into most people by the school system, which rarely if ever
present problems that take more than a few minutes to solve, and pretty much
never expect students to try tackling problems that require weeks of effort.

The result is that when many people encounter a hard problem, if they can’t
make progress after spending a bit of effort on it, they give up and conclude
that either the problem is too hard or they are too stupid to keep going.

There is probably an influence from inherent personality differences, but I
would speculate that building up stamina for tackling hard problems comes down
substantially to practice.

~~~
organsnyder
> There is probably an influence from inherent personality differences, but I
> would speculate that building up stamina for tackling hard problems comes
> down substantially to practice.

I was diagnosed with ADHD my senior year of college. Before that, the mindset
you're advocating got close to breaking me.

~~~
jacobolus
My “mindset” (if you can call it that) is that most people don’t get much
experience tackling hard problems, at least up through school. In light of
that, what I would “advocate” is that people should try to get practice
working on problems at their current level of stamina/ability (which might be
very low), and slowly work their way up, instead of beating themselves up when
a problem much more difficult than what they were used to seemed like an
impossible challenge.

Maybe you can elaborate about what “mindset” you were thinking of, and why it
came close to breaking you? I suspect you were misunderstanding my intended
message, and that the “mindset” you are imagining is pretty far from my own
set of beliefs.

Note that before I was not _advocating_ anything; only stating an observation
that most people don’t get much practice tackling hard problems, and that
people with or without ADHD can have difficulty tackling hard problems. Do you
think that is inaccurate? It seems pretty uncontroversial to me. I know a lot
of people who have difficulty with hard problems, and some of them definitely
don’t have ADHD.

* * *

I am taking care of a 3.5 year old full time, so I’ll give you some relevant
examples from that context:

If I try to read a book aloud which is much too hard for him (say a novel
pitched at teenagers), he gets bored and wanders away. But his attention span,
vocabulary, grammar, etc. are gradually improving, so the books he understands
now (e.g. Pippi Longstocking, The Cricket in Times Square) are much more
sophisticated than the books he could understand a year ago (e.g. Henry and
Mudge, Frog and Toad), which are in turn much more sophisticated than the
books he was interested in a year before that (e.g. Go Dog Go, The Very Hungry
Caterpillar).

If we try to work on some 1-player logic puzzle games, the ones that say “age
7+” on the box are currently too difficult for him and he gets
bored/frustrated and wants to do something else. The ones that say “age 5+”
are pretty good, and he can do them with some external help. The ones that say
“age 3+” are getting to be easy by now, and he can do them independently.

If we go out to practice balancing on a vehicle, a 2-wheeled scooter is now
getting to be okay if we go carefully, but 6 months ago it was too difficult
and therefore very frustrating. A year ago, he was just starting to figure out
the (pedal-free) balance bike, and now he can zoom around on it. If I tried to
get him to ride a skateboard I predict he would fall off and not want to try
(heck, that’s probably what _I_ would do if I tried to ride a skateboard).

One of my son’s friends has no experience with a balance bike, and is
embarrassed to try in front of anyone, because my son (who has more than a
year of practice) can zoom all around, whereas any kid just starting finds it
to be a great challenge. But the same kid can swing across the monkey bars,
something my son cannot, because that’s something that boy has practiced for a
few months.

* * *

Activities like writing computer programs, playing music, writing essays,
playing sports, cooking, etc. are similar: they require many challenging
skills which must be slowly built up over the course of years of practice, and
are very daunting for someone who is unprepared. The way to get better at
these is to start at your current level and practice, in a playful and low-
pressure environment, slowly improving until you can handle high-level
challenges.

And the same is true of meta skills which apply to many domains like searching
and reading academic literature in a field you are unfamiliar with, coming up
with a few choices of high-level problem solving strategies and then picking
one to apply, breaking the problem solving process down into smaller
manageable chunks until you get down to a chunk small enough to just dive in,
taking organized notes, trying many small examples when you don’t yet have a
solid conceptual understanding, finding and tackling a simpler related problem
instead, stopping occasionally while working to check if you’re making
progress and if the current strategy still seems promising, recognizing that
you are badly stuck and finding the right person to ask for help ...

~~~
new_learner
I usually just lurk here but something in your comment made it impossible for
me to ignore. I do not want to be rude but think you are behaving exactly like
a pushy parent who would cause the sort of trauma OP is facing right now.

This constant push for a 3.5 year old to read books that clearly require more
mental effort than is okay for his/her age, play 'logic' games that he/she can
get no joy from are a huge red parenting flag. You might have good intentions
but your relentless need for him to raise up to these arbitrary standards of
yours that have been created without any regards for his/her happiness are
going to put so much unsustainable pressure on the kid.

By forcing your kid to play with the games he can not understand or reading
the books he doesn't like, you are just stealing his/her childhood. I can only
hope that you realize this sooner than later.

~~~
jacobolus
I missed this before, as it was posted long after the original comment.

> _pushy parent_

This is funny. Other parents at the playground (back when playgrounds were
open) are constantly telling me how unusually non-pushy I am (sometimes
critically, sometimes admiringly). Example: “I’m glad to have you as a
reference for how laid back a parent can be with kids still doing okay, so I
won’t feel so bad when my immigrant inlaws give me trouble for being too lax
with my kids.”

I admit I have been pushier than I would like recently when it comes to the
kid running down the hallway at 1 AM (which causes complaints from the
neighbors downstairs), shoving or hitting his 1-year-old brother (which makes
me more anxious than it probably should), or wanting to dump yet another bunch
of toys on a floor already covered by the previous two bunches of toys.

> _books that clearly require more mental effort than is okay for his /her
> age_

What are you talking about? We read those stories which the kid enjoys
(sometimes over and over, at his insistence), and stop reading those which he
does not.

If he finds the content of a book to be too over his head, too boring, too
scary, ... then we set the book aside. (For example, recently William Steig’s
_Dominic_ was too scary, and St. Exupéry’s _The Little Prince_ was too
abstract.) We might try to return to those in a year when his tastes and
abilities have changed, but at that point might decide to leave them aside for
another year.

 _He_ is the one who most wants to spend a lot of time reading together. I
just indulge that desire because I enjoy it too.

Why do you think listening to chapter books as a 3-year-old requires a “more
than okay” level of mental effort?

> _play 'logic' games that he/she can get no joy from_

Huh? I bought a bunch of logic games because I personally enjoyed the first
two I tried, for myself. Some of them are targeted at age 3+; others say age
8+ (and are enjoyable for adults). But those numbers are at least somewhat
arbitrary, based on the age at which it would be appropriate to hand a not-
otherwise-prepared child the puzzle with minimal additional direction/support,
and leave them to figure it out for themselves.

The 3.5 year old really likes playing the puzzle games! They are fun and
interesting. Some he likes to do mostly by himself. Some he likes to help me
with. If the challenges get frustrating, we set those aside and do something
else instead.

I promise you that we are not doing any puzzles which “he can not understand”
or which he “can get no joy from”.

> _relentless need for him to raise up to these arbitrary standards_

There is no relentless need for anything, and no standard, arbitrary or
otherwise. We just introduce a wide variety of tools, materials, and
activities, and let him engage with them at his own pace.

> _stealing his /her childhood_

What do you consider to be a “not stolen” childhood? Parents leaving their
kids entirely to their own devices and not engaging when the kids want to do
things together? Parents leaving their kids in front of animated TV or iPad
games for hours per day? Parents leaving kids with only a few toys/materials
because they don’t want them to gain experience with a broad variety too fast?
Whatever happens to be on offer from the nearest preschool?

Recently the 3.5 year old spends at least half of his time playing
independently with whatever toys he feels like – his younger brother takes a
lot of adult attention too – and unfortunately (due to Covid-19 shelter in
place) we are stuck inside away from other people instead of visiting the
playground for a few hours or walking around the neighborhood chatting with
all of the nearby retail/restaurant staff, as we used to do before lockdown
times.

It’s frustrating that we can’t get together with other kids of the same age
too much right now. (I’m sure things are even harder for older kids; 3-year-
olds are just starting to make friends and learning to play together with
other kids, but for a 7- or 10-year-old being stuck away from friends must be
really tough.)

* * *

With repeated practice and a little bit of help/guidance kids can learn all
sorts of skills to a quite high level.

Witness the enjoyment and rapid improvement of Shinichi Suzuki’s young violin
students or Mona Brookes’s young drawing students. These are ordinary
children, given a little bit of structure and guidance, put in an environment
where practicing a little bit every day or a few times a week is enjoyable,
and then allowed to flourish for themselves.

It doesn’t take any draconian pressure, just enough adult time and attention
to make a space for it.

------
0x008
By overcoming the concept of "lazyness". Society makes us believe that
lazyness is just "not wanting to do something". But that is scientifically
proven to be factually wrong. Procrastination is rather a result of our doubts
and fears regarding our invidual performance and escapism with respect to the
negative feelings we accumulated towards a specific task (even if we don't
realize that!). We can feel fine until we discover the mountain of negative
feelings we have pushed far far away in a corner and forgotten about. People
who are functioning and very seasoned procrastinators don't even realize they
are doing it.

If you realize that and manage to develop some empathy for yourself, you can
overcome procrastination quite permanently. It is not a weakness to be fearful
or have doubts (and in extension to be "lazy"), but a very human aspect of our
nature and everybody. It is very very normal to be fearful of failing. But we
have to do it anyway all the while telling us that it is ok to be a little
anxious and that everybody else has the same feelings unless they are seasoned
veterans in a specific topic. And it has been proven time and time again that
the strongest and most successful human beings are the ones who accept this.

All other answer (i.e. "breaking down the problems") just combat the symptoms,
not the problem itself.

------
jimmysong
I'm going to guess that you're going to get more mileage out of cutting
something out of your life than in adopting yet another mindset, habit, drug
or whatever. Some possible things that might work:

* youtube/netflix

* social media

* news

* sugar

* video games

These are the things your brain goes towards automatically as an easier "win"
than in facing the harder problem. Cutting them out will leave room for you to
face harder challenges.

~~~
arkanciscan
ADHD can be exacerbated by low energy. Some psychiatrists recommend eating
sugar to help maintain focus.

As for the other stuff, if I cut those out I get miserable and more easily
bored. Better to use them as carrots; "if I do 45 minutes of coding I can play
1 game of Rocket League."

~~~
taylorlunt
> As for the other stuff, if I cut those out I get miserable and more easily
> bored.

In my experience this is temporary. It takes about 1-2 weeks for my brain to
adjust to the "new normal" of not playing video games or binging youtube.
These 1-2 weeks are quite boring, but after that I am able to find things I
would normally be bored by interesting. It's as if there is a "boredness set
point", and once you cut out the most stimulating activities, less stimulating
things like coding or reading will become more interesting to you.

That said, I like video games and youtube videos, so I often go for a middle-
ground approach like you.

~~~
arkanciscan
I don't want my "normal" life to not include anything that gives me joy.

------
biswaroop
This could be because you were told you're a smart kid. Kids who are praised
for intelligence over effort have been shown in some studies to pick easier
problems and give up quickly if a problem is too hard.

Check out Carol Dweck's research. Here's an early article:
[[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/14/science/praise-
children-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/14/science/praise-children-for-
effort-not-intelligence-study-says.html)]. Note that there are some criticisms
of her work, and like many other studies in psychology, reproducibility is an
issue. However, I found this quite useful in diagnosing my own thinking
patterns towards effort.

~~~
kevmo314
Oof, I feel that. Any ideas towards improving focus on more difficult efforts?
I end up with a lot of unfinished tasks and it's been notably
counterproductive.

~~~
galvin
Focus and practice helped me.

Cut down the number of tasks you're working on at once. If you think about it
there's probably some that don't need to be done. Personal projects that
you'll never see through can be dropped. Narrow down the most important and
focus on them. Throwing something away isn't failure, it's a decision to
prioritize.

It's an ongoing process which requires practice.

With focus you can practice finishing things, starting small. Finishing tasks
feels good and leads to more things being finished.

If you feel lost or are having difficulty taking next steps it's probably a
sign that you need to break up a task into smaller pieces. Try picking one
small part you can do now and finish that.

Tangentially, you might also be interested in "Time Management for System
Administrators" by Limoncelli. It's got a lot of good info about getting
things done (in any domain).

------
exabrial
For some people, procrastination is a form of emotional management.

For others, sometimes the best strategy is "embrace the suck": do it even
though you're likely to fail. Keep repeating until you don't.

Having a good well rounded education or library of random facts helps you dig
into problems because it gives you perspective. Learning should be a lifelong
process.

Finally, physical health is very important. If you're not working out, start a
regular, manageable, cardiovascular exercise routine. There's many benefits to
this, better sleep, better focus, and confidence building.

~~~
ndynan
Just wanted to add 2 cents to this comments and the rest of the comments in
this thread. Lots of good stuff here on ADHD, trauma-orientation, and
emotional management.

To build on this thread, I think it's important to _feel_ what is happening
when you procrastinate. What is it like in your body when you think about your
task. Is it because you think you are going to fail? Because the task involves
interpersonal conflict? Is it because you just don't want to do it (not
interesting).

If you can start w/ your body + emotions, you'll get a felt sense of what is
standing in the way. From there you can start to ask the question "why", is
there a reason that those types of emotions happen when faced with this type
of task?

As someone with ADHD, anticipatory anxiety has stopped me in my tracks
countless times. I try to use this method to be aware there is anxiety, the
feelings, and the story I'm telling around that anxiety. For me the anxiety is
often a way of not starting, and if I don't start I can't mess up. In
recognizing that, I can be a little bit more supportive of myself and be more
willing to try.

------
throwaway392938
I'm using a throwaway account for this because I don't want to be this candid
with any account that can be traced back to me.

After reading some of the response mentioning ADHD and the issues people have,
I wanted to talk about my issues and see if it resonates with anyone else and
if others relates to it. It's not something I ever really discussed with
anyone and I do think it would be good for me to hear from others.

I have a mental barrier to doing certain tasks. For example anything related
to paperwork or bureaucracy, I want to do those tasks, I know I must do them
but whenever I start thinking of them I have a kind of barrier that stops me.
It's extremely difficult to overcome that barrier. While I dearly wish those
tasks were done, when it comes to starting, I cannot muster any of the
motivation...

If I read a novel, I will either finish the novel within a few hours (or
series of novels within a few days) and forget to eat or do anything else or,
if I stop, I usually never come back to finish it.

It doesn't affect my work much because for work I do meet deadlines and I work
from home but I'm still able to find the energy to do things. I do have one
issue in that if I know exactly how to do a task, then the only for me to
really complete it in time is for me to do it while watching tv or something
that distracts my brain a bit. Otherwise, I quickly fall into looking at
websites, spending time on hacker news or reading about anything new that
piqued my interest.

I've never thought about seeing a therapist until now, but recently my
girlfriend broke up with me mostly because of this and I still have a very
hard time pushing myself to do what needs to be done (I really want to do it
but whenever I start, I just hit a wall, it's like there's something pushing
me to ignore it and do anything else... I sometimes even end up not wanting to
do anything else but still can't muster the energy to start on those tasks)...

Apologies for the rambling...

~~~
throwaway392938
For some reason, when I try to edit this post, it doesn't update it correctly,
there's a paragraph missing:

On the other hand, whenever my mind find something interesting, I can have a
lot of focus. I'm able to spend a couple of week only thinking about that
issue, during that time, nothing else really matters, and I can't really get
interested in anything else. I have difficulty talking about anything else
with my partner (which she used to find annoying). This can be anything from a
problem at work, to researching what the best video projector would be and
trying to understand everything behind the technology of all models in the
market place... I do have a tendency to become completely uninterested about
that subject or that task after it. So, for example, recently, I suddenly
became obsessive about headphones and audio gear, I researched everything
about them, bought quite a few high end headphones (spent a quarter of my
salary on them) but by the time they finally arrived, I was no longer
interested and couldn't even really find the motivation to test them. I barely
use them and they are now gathering dust on my shelf

~~~
InvisibleUp
That sounds exactly like what the ADHD community calls a "hyperfixation". If
you do want to look down the ADHD path more, here's some articles and such
that might be helpful. Obviously, see a therapist about all of this and get
diagnosed too if this all seriously resonates with you.

\- "Why I Procrastinate" \-
[https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/](https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/)
(disclaimer: i wrote this one)

\- "ADHD: A Lifelong Struggle" \-
[https://gekk.info/articles/adhd.html](https://gekk.info/articles/adhd.html)

\- ADHD Alien comics - [https://adhd-alien.tumblr.com/](https://adhd-
alien.tumblr.com/)

\- Dani Donovan's ADHD infographics -
[https://twitter.com/i/events/808796572716765185](https://twitter.com/i/events/808796572716765185)

~~~
throwaway392938
Thanks both for the feedback and for the resources. Yes, I will definitely see
a therapist.

------
vntx
Some things that have been extremely useful for me:

Play video games that require intense focus for prolonged durations to perform
well like Starcraft 2, CSGO, DOTA 2 helped me build mental endurance.

Reduce social media. I’ve found that this was the most productive. Social
media was fragmenting my attention by making me anxious and addicted. After I
reduced Reddit and Facebook usage, my mental discipline increased drastically.

Keep a journal. I’ve found verbalizing my thoughts in a simple and concise
manner is hard and requires a lot of focused thinking.

Aerobic exercise helps; more circulation for your brain means it can work
better

I’ve been dealing with the same problem too so I’ve been finding ways to
engage myself.

~~~
axiosgunnar
Genuinely curious, does playing video games really improve focus etc.? Is this
anecdotal, or did you read some paper somewhere?

~~~
vntx
Sorry, don’t have any specific papers for you, but if you google around you’ll
find the general consensus is if you’re forced to focus on any mentally
straining task for a prolonged period, it’ll generally help your mental
abilities.

If the game is challenging for you, it will likely help.

Check out neuroscience books if you want to be deep in this stuff.

~~~
KarlKemp
This is the "willpower" theory by Baumeister. There's a book of the same name.

The theory is controversial. The effect likely isn't too big, or it would be
harder to design experiments where it doesn't show up at all.

But even assuming the theory is correct, playing video games wouldn't be
considered beneficial, at least as long as you are enjoying it.

This should be somewhat obvious: if you enjoy doing something you are
obviously not training your capability to do something that you don't enjoy.

The closest you can get to have license to indulge is that Baumeister would
predict _not playing video games_ (when you would like to do so) will deplete
your willpower, and make it harder to resist other urges (such as not working)
_for that day_. Over the longer term (several weeks) however, repeatedly
resisting that urge to play would train your willpower.

------
viburnum
Me too.

One way to look at it is that it's a signal that you're working the wrong
thing.

Something that's worked for me is to think of the contexts where you feel like
you are motivated or productive, and then try to put yourself into those
contexts. For example, on my own I have a hard time getting started and I get
paralyzed by indecision. But when I'm on a team I feel like I can't let the
other people down, and somehow the paralysis just disappears.

Good luck, and don't be too hard on yourself. You're a normal human.

------
derekp7
Do you find that when you have to do something mentally unpleasant (such as
homework back when you were in school / college, or doing your taxes, or
whatever similar thing affect you), do you tend to space out? Or do you get a
feeling in the pit of your stomach like you are about to be sent to the
principal's office (to use an over-used analogy), and you find that you must
do something else (that is pleasant) just to make that sickening feeling go
away?

If it is the first (spacing out), that could be ADD/ADHD. If it is the second,
then it could be fear of failure / depression. If it is neither, then you will
need to find a way to re-train your mind, by forcing yourself to see hard
problems through.

A professional may need to help you if it is the first two problems. But if it
is the third one, the standard techniques is to do deliberate practice,
starting off with mild problems and working yourself up through more difficult
ones as time goes on (but going back to milder ones and spicing up your
workflow with slightly more difficult than what your are used to). Kind of
like interval training for physical exercise -- you don't just try to run
slightly faster each time, you run at a sustainable pace and punctuate it with
something above your abilities for short bursts.

Some people find that they can't do this without a personal trainer. For work
type problems, you may need to team up with someone that can help coach you
through.

Here's another analogy that I believe carries over. For much of my life, I
didn't like tomatoes (except I liked ketchup, tomato soup, pasta sauce, etc).
One day I got tired of picking tomatoes off my burgers, or out of a salad, and
decided to eat them anyway. After doing this for a few months I got to where I
could tolerate them, and eventually start liking them. Same thing with sour
cream -- now I love it. And buttermilk. Got tired of throwing out buttermilk
that I'd buy for making biscuits, so I taught myself to like it. Now I can't
get enough of it.

~~~
apostacy
Having spent my teens and early adult life with undiagnosed ADHD, it can
manifest itself as depression and anxiety from constantly feel frustrated with
yourself from not being able to focus or achieve your goals. Getting treated
for ADHD may solve other problems.

And ADHD-like symptoms of difficulty focusing can themselves be comorbid with
depression, and a non-stimulant medication like strattera may be able to help.

I shared some of my experiences with ADHD medication earlier in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22920962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22920962)

There are just a lot of things that I wish I had known.

------
bpodgursky
I don't have a magic fix, but a few things that have worked for me, in
different contexts:

\- Remove your options. If possible, turn off your WiFi, router and phone. If
I don't have an easy way to distract myself, it's easier for me to get "into
the zone", and for my brain to really engage.

\- Convince yourself to spend 5 minutes taking a stab at the problem. If you
need to, set a timer. You can do anything for 5 minutes. And once you're 5
minutes in, the problem won't feel so massive

\- Start writing down what needs to be done. Make a list, and then start
making the list more granular by breaking the "big tasks" into "small tasks".
Big tasks are frightening. Small tasks are easy to do one at a time.

\- Put yourself in a new environment. If you procrastinate at home, take
yourself out to a coffeeshop, or library where you can work. If you have a big
enough house, have a "work room" and a "play room", and don't mix the two.
Commit to not getting distracted in the work room.

\- Surround yourself people you want to emulate -- here, productive people. If
you're in uni, this is easy. If you're not, try to find discord channels, IRC
channels, or whatever. It's always easier to be motivated when you're
surrounded by other motivated people.

None of this is magic, and I don't want to pretend to be a paragon of
efficiency (I'm on HN right now, after all). But the key is really to try
SOMETHING new, if you aren't happy with your mental stamina -- and keep
changing variables until you are.

~~~
abdullah_rm
I found "Surround yourself, people, you want to emulate " works very well for
me, especially if I surround my self with people that I aspire to.

------
xgdgsc
My experience is what you do after you get up in the morning have great impact
all day long. I use appdetox on phone and webblock on chrome to block easier
news/SNS apps for the day and only allow them or gaming for a fixed time at
night as reward(after a while I find solving hard problems more rewarding than
yhose shallow entertainment). I find it became easier to focus on hard things
after starting doing this. If you do easy things at morning, the whole day is
ruined. Also I run or swim at 5pm.

------
eyelidlessness
It was already mentioned in a sub-comment, but I think it deserves a more
thoughtful top-level comment and a little bit of personal anecdote. (Edit to
clarify: more thoughtful than the other top-level comment; the sub-comment was
also very thoughtful. Edit 2 to add: another good top-level comment addressed
this possibility while I was writing this response.)

I would seriously encourage you to consider an evaluation for ADHD, if you
have not already. Easily giving up when confronted with challenges is a
classic ADHD behavior, and it's often described and perceived as laziness.
Having greater success under higher pressure is a classic trait as well.

I'm (obviously) not qualified to diagnose you, but I recognized something of
myself in your description of the difficulties you're facing (so much so that
the first thing I did before typing was find-in-page for ADHD just to see what
had already been discussed).

It's possible the tendency to retreat from challenges is part of a feedback
loop. You mention that your confidence suffers. This is more likely to
discourage you from facing future challenges. Each challenge feels a little
more out of reach, and each consequence increases the pressure.

One thing that a lot of undiagnosed adults don't know is that ADHD can present
like as anxiety and depression. It can also look like fear and apathy. It's
hard to spot, because we're accustomed to childhood symptoms, which are often
a lot more disruptive.

If it helps encourage you to consult with your doctor (if you haven't
already): a little over a year ago I was diagnosed. I've been adjusting
treatment over that time, and it's still not perfect, but in that time I went
from an anxious falling apart mess grateful to have a job at all, to taking on
leadership of a team. (Obviously, a great deal of other things have improved
along with that, but I'm trying to stay relevant to the question.) Side
effects of my particular med (currently vyvanse) are non-existent, I'm just
gradually working up to a dose that works for me. Even times of greater stress
don't discourage me (though they can require more recovery time, but... that's
normal?). There's been literally no downside.

Like I said, I'm in no way offering a diagnosis, but I would seriously
encourage seeing someone who can. And if you're going that route, I'd also
encourage doing some reading on how ADHD affects/presents in adults. The DSM
is... well, entirely geared toward childhood diagnosis, and your doctor may
rely on that.

------
lutorm
Are you sure this isn't "self sabotaging", ie not trying hard so that you can
tell yourself that failure isn't because you're not smart enough but because
you didn't actually try?

This can be a common coping mechanism for people with "fixed mindset". For an
overview of the "fixed" vs "growth" mindset research, see e.g
[https://fs.blog/2015/03/carol-dweck-mindset/](https://fs.blog/2015/03/carol-
dweck-mindset/)

(This is some really fascinating research and I've talked to lots of people
who grew up as "smart kids" that feel this describes at least part of their
personality.)

------
renewiltord
You need to get a small win of some sort. It doesn't matter what. Just aim at
the smallest win you can get on the work. If you fail at that, aim for a
smaller win. There will be at least a tiny win you can manage. You will feel
better. Then double down.

~~~
rajlego
Was gonna say exactly this. Doing something small and actually accomplishing
makes a huge difference because it tells your brain _I am capable of doing
things_. From there it becomes easier to slowly raise the bar of what your
brain thinks is doable and thus things that you'll psychologically be able to
go ahead and do.

It's really important also to make sure you don't aim for things that are too
hard and fail too often. A bit of failure is okay but if your ratio of failure
to success too low you'll lose self confidence and it becomes harder to get
into a sort of "flow" of progress.

------
hereme888
Adderall

Sorry, had to crack the joke.

On a serious note, my answer would be: take an individualized approach. Here
are some examples:

\- Was your motivation damaged by decades of forced boring school? You need
time to relearn enjoyment of learning

\- Are you a nihilist? Seek therapy and a real reason to live with passion.

\- Are you depressed, PTSD, etc? Seek help.

\- Are you unhealthy? Change it.

\- Do you genuinely have ADD or something that neurologically explains it?
Seek help.

\- Are your friends unmotivated like you? Seek different friends.

\- Do you sleep poorly? Improve that.

\- Do you have an addiction that messes your dopamine (or NE, 5-HT) levels
(porn, cocaine, etc)? Get help.

------
29athrowaway
In this era, we are overwhelmed with stimuli.

The worst form of stimuli are endless feeds of unstructured, unrelated
content. And the most successful sites on the Internet have them. They're
really entertaining, but then, when you want to grab a book and read it, you
will have problems staying focused and finishing a full chapter. At least with
RSS you had the chance to mark items as read and move on.

What you describe could be ADHD. But sometimes it's just being sleep deprived,
eating unhealthy, and being exposed to too much stuff. Sometimes it's anxiety.

So what can you do? just unplug. Go for a hike, run or camping. Sleep well. No
music, no Internet browsing in your phone. Just pay attention to your
surroundings, breathe, let any anxiety go away. Then, go back to your stuff,
but always practicing attention hygiene: don't expose yourself to too much
stimuli.

Then, track your tasks, and make sure you finish them. Don't cheat by making
new lists, or dropping tasks for no reason. Just make sure you stay on track
with your plans.

If it's too much, start small: simple tasks, simple outcomes. Once you get
better at it, commit to more complex tasks.

Some GABA supplement before sleeping can be good too. But you should ask your
doctor about that first.

------
Consultant32452
I like some of the other answers, but I'd like to add a potentially different
filter on this situation. Sometimes different filters offer different kinds of
insights into the same problem.

The thing that came to mind immediately when I read your concern is the big 5
personality traits. The big 5 is possibly the most thoroughly researched and
supported concept in psychology. There's tons of info about it online.

Your situation, when looked at through the prism of the big 5 might be a
combination of any of the following: low openness, high neuroticism, or high
disagreeableness. You'd have to read a bit about these personality traits and
do some introspection into which of these applies to your situation. You'd
then need to look at the specific techniques to train the partiality traits
you want. Fair warning, it's not generally realistic to actually change your
personality type. But you can learn to change your behavior. For example a
high neuroticism person might always be extremely anxious about public
speaking, but they can learn skills to help them perform when necessary.

------
lcall
Related prior discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124489)
("Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time (bbc.com")

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096571)
("Ask HN: I don't want to be a worker any more I want to be a professional")

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20930439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20930439)
("how do you keep your programming motivation up?")

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18903886](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18903886)
"Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project? "

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777976)
"ask hn: how do you stay disciplined in the long run?"

------
irjustin
Other replies have hinted at why this may be the case: ADHD, told you were
going to excel/smart causing non-effort/try, failure adverse.

For me it was all of those and probably more that I'm not even aware of yet.

What did I do to over come?

First, I haven't fully. I struggle every day, and know that it is okay. Even
after I decided to tackle the problem 10 years ago, I work at it.

For myself, I knew a key symptom that I had is I don't like to finish
anything... like anything... no matter how small. A lot of it was rooted in my
fear of failing. That's probably linked to the idea that I was supposed to be
smart. I'm an engineer, good at math, all the classic things that cause
parents to say - oh child shouldn't fail.

This showed up in my every day life. I realized I would never even finish my
rice... there's always like 20% left. I was always starting a project and then
simply moving on to the next. Never taking it to a specific end-goal.

So to tackle my problem of not finishing something, I started with the
smallest thing - my bowl of rice. I started requiring myself to finish it.
That last 20% was a struggle. I'd sit there and struggle. It wasn't the amount
either; I would get less food, which did help, but I still had a lot of
trouble. I'd get up and leave then force myself to go back.

I didn't allow any other requirement to enter. No other projects, no other
personal goals. I had to finish my bowl. It was, one meal then one day,
backslide, two days in a row, and it took me about 3-4 months for it to become
a habit. I let it be the goal for another month or so before I finally told
myself I accomplished this goal.

For once in my life, I finished something. I set a goal and completed it.
F'ing bowl of rice. But it was mine.

From there I scaled it to a very small Rails project I could complete in 1
weekend, an online language dictionary for myself. It was stupid easy so I
knew I could do it. My goal was to deploy it on Heroku and use it myself for
some small language learning. Took me 3-4 weekends to fully deploy & self-use.
But I did it, my first side project completed. A clear goal, achievable and
finished.

It took me 6-12 months to even _begin_ to feel I started tackling my problem.
From there I slowly scaled and I've personally learned I can only do 1-2
things at a time to completion.

Best of luck to you. I only hope the best for you.

------
arkanciscan
I shouldn't be giving advice because I'm probably worse about this than you,
but I've read a lot of books on the subject and tried a lot of things. Some
things I've had success with: \- journal/Todo lists, just the act of writing
about what I want to do seems to make it real, till I start procrastinating
about journalling ;-/ \- say "I want to" instead of "I have to" or "I need
to". You do what you want right!? \- set a timer, do some work, then reward
yourself by setting a shorter timer and having some fun \- get an
accountability partner, schedule a call where you discuss each other's goals,
bust their balls

Good luck finding a solution and if you do tell me how you did it!

------
peterlk
Find something you care about.

It's hard to push through tough problems to achieve a goal that you don't care
about achieving. The pressure you grew up in now needs to come from yourself,
or more reasonably, the situations you put yourself in. For example: take the
life's savings of every family member and friend you have, and go try to make
more money with it. The pressure will surely arrive.

An alternative possibility: It may be that your career is not high on your
priority list, and you'd rather make some money so that you can fund a
passion, travel the world, raise a family, or do something else. If those are
the things that you are passionate about, a promotion will not fill the hole
where they are missing (for long)

------
sevilo
Why do so many people suspect OP has ADHD? Isn’t it more common for people to
give up when faced with hard problems than not? It usually takes experience
and training to learn to become persistent at hard problems. I’m definitely
much better at keep at a difficult goal now compared to my early 20s due to
mindset change and experience. Seems backwards to assume it’s a medical
problem at as soon as OP mentions that, and I feel the need to point out it’s
a dangerous direction our society has slipped into assuming every imperfection
with a person has to do with mental disorder.

------
sershe
Interesting, I feel like I have the same problem for the opposite reason -
things I cared about came easy to me in HS and college, so I never learned to
put in effort as much as others had to; if the task is daunting I am likely to
just give up.

I found that what works well for me is breaking the task iteratively into
(sometimes, ridiculously) small steps, writing them down (that is important
for the approach to work, at least for me) and forcing myself to just do one
small step at a time.

Interestingly, this approach affected my skillset for software development
too... for example, on my current team I have a reputation for being good at
debugging difficult issues, even though I dislike debugging and I'd rather
never do it. I dislike it so much I always narrow down and break down the
problem into very small parts, which apparently is a great approach to
debugging.

Btw, another thing that helps me is playing challenging videogames. There was
this article I can't find now about CRPG and action games, where you are
either often rewarded for just sitting there, or actually have to learn a
physical skill. I found that forcing myself to suck and improve a little bit
in RTS and action games, instead of playing (awesome) CRPGs all the time, is a
nice low stress way to learn to make effort :)

------
googlegoggins
Hello, I can relate to that a lot. I don't usually comment on HN, but I'll
give it a go on this one.

Also grew up on a high pressure environment, as in: "If you fight at school
and lose, you'll get a second beating at home"

\- If you can afford, seek professional help. Yeah, a therapist. It will help
you to learn how you operate.

\- Accountability mirror, from "Can't hurt me" book. Some of stuff in the book
is meathead advice, but you're a smart guy, you'll be able to filter it out
and adapt. The audiobook is great. Look it up.

\- 3sec rule: If you want to do something, don't give yourself time to come up
with an excuse not to, because you will convince yourself.

\- Commit: Publicly say you'll do it, to the point you'll lose face if you
don't. There you go, not doing the thing will hurt more than doing it and then
you can trick yourself into not procrastinating.

For instance, I was offered a lead role many times, but refused. Until a day I
said: "Fuck it, I'll take it". No time to convince myself otherwise. Now, If I
back off or do a poor job, I'll lose face. And it turns out, once you start
doing those apparently big things, you learn they are not really a big deal.
Then you start feeling more confident.

Finally, be kind to yourself.

Cheers

------
quaquaqua1
Only do something for 1 minute, focusing as hard as you can.

Then take a break.

Then try for 2 minutes.

Then take a break.

Repeat until you can focus for a long time :)

------
ilaksh
Staying motivated to face difficult problems can be a challenge for lots of
us. Although it can also be challenging to stay motivated if the task is too
easy.

First thing I will mention is that my understanding is that your brain has a
finite amount of energy/processing power available over the day or within a
certain period. So if you can reduce some mental or physical energy
expenditure from other things (for example, commuting takes a lot out of me
personally) you may have more energy available for hard problems.

Another thing is that there are specific skills/strategies that are useful for
solving hard problems. The biggest one is decomposing problems into smaller
tasks. And I guess that OOP is now still unpopular these days with various
groups, but object-oriented design has been a big help for me in terms of
breaking larger problems down into subproblems and organizing information.
That is a skill that you can practice and get better at.

The most basic way to decompose things is just to start typing a list of
everything you need to do at a high level. Anywhere you can think of a smaller
substep, fill that in.

Then when you are having trouble getting motivated, try to find one of the
subtasks that you know how to do from your outline, tackle that, and hopefully
that will give you momentum for a more challenging subtask.

Another strategy is just to make sure you are taking advantage of Google and
all of the existing solutions out there.

And another thing, as far as the brain's available powers, having fuel is
important. So things like skipping breakfast seem very questionable if you
need to do heavy mental work in the morning. Coffee can help you get started a
bit sometimes.

------
tluyben2
I have this (at least by the sound of it: if totally different, maybe
something is helped by this anyway) (and had it for for 35 odd years). I was
told I can ‘achieve anything’ during my childhood which, somehow is a signal
to my brain to pick the things I definitely can do and leave the harder things
because it might actually show I cannot ‘achieve anything’ (duh, ofcourse I
can’t, but it is not a rational or even conscious thing anyway).

Luckily I found a mechanism to cope with that very early on; I build a ‘story’
around the task/project/thing that I want to do but also ‘prove to my brain’ I
am ‘all that’ (so I don’t simply don’t do it as is the first instinct);
basically to narrate that this is only the first step and it will probably be
crap, but it will become that shiny perfection that was promised later on
through iteration.

I do this with everything; cooking, software dev (where it is actually the
normal way things work), hardware, management, sports, etc. Some things go
‘perfect’ the first time, most obviously do not, but they either become
irrelevant or get better (and even perfect for some definition).

That way, I am mentally shielded from not doing them in the first place
because of my mental block. This used to be (in my teens) an actual narrative
with myself where I told myself a story how something would go; starting
really badly and insignificant as possible and then building out that
narrative up to castles in the sky. Coming back down I would then be able to
start the journey at the bottom while genuinely believing I would get to the
top ‘in some time’ (it really does not matter if you do; the starting and
iterating matters the most imho). Now the process is automatic, but it still
has that same feeling to start with; I will never get over it but I managed to
cope.

------
yoones
Many answers assume that you have ADHD, that may be the case but here's
another path to explore: undealt-with emotions.

Imagine you have a wire on your hand and you want to plug it to an electrical
outlet that's on the wall right in front of you. You technically have all it
takes to plug it. What if there's so much garbage between you and the wall
that you can't reach to the electrical outlet? You can't plug the thing no
matter how hard you try. Not that you're lacking something, but rather that
some stuff gets in your way.

Emotions do get in the way. Some you may understand, some you may suspect,
some you may not even be aware of. This is very common and you can work on
these issues.. but probably not by yourself. If you decide that you're okay
with discovering what's going on that you're not aware of yet (there always is
some things we're not aware of), then a trained psychologist can help you a
lot.

Oftentimes people suggest technics, tricks and whatnot to get around the
symptoms. Maybe it's best to face the problem, understand it and fix it not
with guilt but with kindness.

Good luck on your journey.

------
quezzle
This may sound flippant but it’s deadly serious:

 __ _Just Do It._ __

Put your head down and do the work and stop not doing it.

I spoke to my counselor once about going to the gym and I was expecting to
hear him talk about emotional issues that might be preventing me going etc and
he said: “there are some things in life that you simply have to take action
on. Going to the gym is one.”

Nothing more fancy to it that that.

Do the work. Take action.

~~~
daniel_iversen
This is not good advice and if anything can make people feel worse about
themselves and have the opposite effect. Do you also think that an alcoholic
should just "do it" (i.e. stop drinking) or a depressed person should just
"get over it"? Where's the line (I know I took your example a bit further to
prove a point).. Our brains are complex and it takes all kinds of
psychological "tricks" to make progress on certain things.. In the scenario
posted, making tiny almost insignificant progress, over and over, is a good
way to go. I also like (depending on what I'm having a hard time getting
started with) outlining my work, especially if its writing or a presentation -
write headings, keywords, thoughts... rearrange a bit here and there and in
the end you realise you only have to beef out words into sentences and the
whole thing is almost done and being at that stage you get a huge win and the
remainder is a breeze. So different approaches. Even with your career though,
putting an actual short and medium term plan together for yourself (and maybe
sharing it with a friend or family member) can help tremendeously!

~~~
quezzle
I don’t agree with your response.

>> Do you also think that an alcoholic should just "do it" (i.e. stop
drinking) or a depressed person should just "get over it"?

False equivalence.

Not doing work is neither depression nor alcoholism.

If you find you get to a point in life where essentially you have fallen into
lazy habits then you fix it by taking action.

~~~
fluroblue
>>> Not doing work is neither depression nor alcoholism.

It definitely can be as a result of depression. I don't think we have enough
information to rule out things like depression.

------
tikiman163
There are some good theories regarding delayed gratification and behavioral
modifications you might find useful.

First, how good you are a choosing to wait to receive a reward later has a
strong bearing on how difficult of a problem you can solve, because working on
a problem is what feels rewarding, solving the problem is. To that end there
are certain habits you can pick up that greatly help with modifying your
behavior, and provide a sense of success before the overall problem is solved.

The first thing I recommend is to make your own lists of short tasks that need
to be completed. This in itself can be satisfying because writing the list is
effectively your first finished task.

Next, after completing a few tasks you need to reward yourself with something
you enjoy. It shouldn't take much time to do, but it should be something you
won't get easily board of. Continue rewarding yourself after a set number of
tasks. Generally, you should be getting a reward about once an hour to start
out, not more. After a few days, maybe a week, increase the number of tasks
you must complete for a reward. Continue increasing the number of tasks per
reward every few days. If you find yourself losing motivation, then decrease
the number of tasks required.

Just a few tips, the reward should be something that you can do quickly and
that you can resist doing while you're still working. The reward should be
mildly habit forming, but not addictive. Also, if it's food related you might
want to make it small enough that it won't make you fat. A favorite candy can
be a good choice so long as you can make the rewards small but still
satisfying. It also shouldn't be something complicated or distracting to other
people. If it's too complicated that can kill your own productivity. It also
helps if you take a short break like 5 minutes per reward or at least take
short breaks a few times a day even without a reward.

------
elbear
There can be multiple reasons for your behavior.

What I think could help you the most is reading about schema therapy[1]. It's
a therapeutic method which says we all carry certain lifetraps which we
acquired during childhood.

Some lifetraps: \- abandoment: you are afraid of being abandoned by a loved
one \- worthlessness: because of the way your parents treated, you feel that
you don't have any value. You can't understand why anyone would love you, for
example. \- failure: you believe you can't accomplish anything in life

There are a few more.

I found this book very helpful in understanding Schema Therapy and the
lifetraps that apply to me: [https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Your-Life-
breakthrough-be...](https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Your-Life-breakthrough-
behaviour-ebook/dp/B07Q2JVRPT/)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy)

------
dbg31415
Whenever there's something I don't want to do, I say, "I can do it for 15
minutes." And I book in the next 15 minutes I can find. Sometimes it takes a
few starts, but that approach has yet to let me down.

Also, I book in an hour a day for "productivity" \-- and literally I just try
and knock out as many short-tasks I can think of in that time. Anything under
3 minutes, time to do it. Take out the trash, send an email, fold clothes,
whatever... I just try and smash out as many things in that hour as I can.

I used to struggle with procrastination. I was the kid would start his
homework at 8 PM on Sunday. The thing about that is more often than not you're
fucked if something takes longer than you expected.

And now... I rarely get caught off guard with tasks, I know pretty soon if
something is going to take more time than I'm expecting it to take.

Don't worry about how talk the mountain is, just take a few steps and see
where you get.

------
geocrasher
I have a tough time concentrating on hard problems too. I don't have ADHD, I'm
just scatterbrained and easily distracted. When I do hit that "zone" I can
stay in it for hours, but I rarely get to that point on any single problem.
Here are some things I do:

Go for a walk. Don't face the problem head on specifically, just absorb the
gist of the problem and then go for a walk and let your sub conscious deal
with it, then about half way through your walk, start talking out loud about
it. This works well for me when I'm stuck on something.

Learn what real problem solving is. Look up the Wikipedia article on
Troubleshooting, it's fantastic and has some great insights.

The main thing about problem solving is not to be overwhelmed by the entire
problem. Break it down into its most basic forms, and then solve a part of it,
then work toward the solution. Don't try to build all of the solution at once.
Iterate toward it. It works.

HTH YMMV.

~~~
balfirevic
> I don't have ADHD, I'm just scatterbrained and easily distracted.

What's the difference?

> When I do hit that "zone" I can stay in it for hours, but I rarely get to
> that point on any single problem.

Maybe you're already aware, but that's very common with ADHD.

~~~
geocrasher
The difference is that I can overcome it with will power. A person with ADHD
cannot.

------
cjbprime
You might try something like:

* write down the smallest next possible step towards this goal. It should be something you're very close to knowing how to do already. It doesn't matter if it leaves you still a long away from the ultimate goal.

* set a short timer (e.g. 20 minutes) and work on it until the timer goes off.

* reward yourself with something fun.

* repeat.

~~~
john-tells-all
Creatives use this technique (Pomodoro) to overcome procrastination and stay
effective to achieve their goals.

I have a video discussing using this technique with Agile Scrum. As a
developer, we can borrow ideas from other disciplines!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCPTc79oVg8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCPTc79oVg8)

------
manmal
Regarding motivation, I‘ve had good results with Cannabigerol - just like CBD,
it’s a non-psychoactive compound of hemp, but it’s effects are different. It’s
a powerful neuroprotectant (suspected to promote new brain cell formation),
and for some reason it makes me super interested in technical problems and
their solutions, and with it comes the motivation to code and tinker. Near
infrared radiation of the forehead also helped [1], but for me that is more
for mental capacity and less for motivation. For me, Co-enzyme Q10 also helps
a bit with motivation, as does chocolate (obviously a short term hack, and I
don’t eat it often as I get dependent easily).

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21042852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21042852)

------
jungletime
The problem is that you can fail if you try. And failing at anything is a
scary thing. So its easier not to try. And there's comfort in mediocrity. And
your brain will reward it.

The trick is that you should accept failure as part of the process, a
necessity.

Most people will get catch a cold or flue during the year, and so is with
mental health. Don't expect not get down at some points.

But you should always treat yourself as someone you want to help. To that end,
take a meta view of yourself.

Here are some tips:

1) Look into personality types, and figure out which one you score high at.
Use it as guide. Nothing is definitive, but could provide you some insight
into why you behave the way you do.

2) Fresh air and exercise is important. Spend at least an hour outside every
day, walk or whatever. How long you can walk, is actually a very good
indicator of your health, and life expectancy.

3) Try Yoga, the really good programs, combine movement with breath, and even
a bit of meditation. It will improve mental clarity, and help with
flexibility. Like this one. [http://katepotteryoga.ca/namaste-tv-
show/](http://katepotteryoga.ca/namaste-tv-show/)

4) Good dental hygiene. Bad Gums can cause serious inflammation, and health
issues. Make sure you fix any teeth problems quickly. And don't smoke.

5) Good sleep hygiene. Black out windows a night, and make sure you are get
fresh air into the room. C02 levels can build up in your room during the
night. And make sure if you snore, to get medical help with it.

6) Realize that you soon will be dead. And many greater, smarter people than
us, have lived this life before. Read or Listen to books they wrote. It will
often contain their best insights summarized.

Like for example some stoic philosophy, which is great at helping visualize
the worse case scenario, and accept it. Marcus Aurelius is great. This is a
fun series.

"The philosopher's guide to happiness"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVA8jX9KQcE&list=PL785793324...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVA8jX9KQcE&list=PL7857933243B7D31B)

7) Make Future plans, and daily to do lists. The process of writing things
down, focuses you on what you need to get done. It really does help. Seize the
day!

8) 25 minute timer, 5 minute breaks.

------
surroundingbox
Perhaps your mental laziness is an unconcious way in which your mind is
telling you that you are not in the right track. Since you grew up in a high
pressure it seems that now you need an opportunity to live, for some time,
under low pressure conditions in order to obtain a new vision about what to do
in the future.

Edited: googling I found someone recommended the book the slight edge, and a
review is here that contains the main ideas: [https://www.amazon.es/Slight-
Edge-Jeff-Olson/dp/1626340463#c...](https://www.amazon.es/Slight-Edge-Jeff-
Olson/dp/1626340463#customerReviews), look for Daisy's review.

------
sreyaNotfilc
Q: "How do I overcome mental laziness?"

A: Do the thing you feel you're suppose to do, and not the thing that you're
currently doing.

It really is that simple. While you have spent the time writing about how not
to be mentally lazy and reading comments on possible answers, you've could've
\- knocked out a chapter or two in a certification book \- built that module
you've pushed aside \- pursue working on a weakness that you feel is holding
you back

Fortunately/unfortunately, the onus falls on you to reach your goals (whatever
it may be). So, just do it!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0)

------
emmanueloga_
Perhaps the problems you want to solve are too hard. In this regard, I really
like Jonathan Blow's advice [1].

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XAu4EPQRmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XAu4EPQRmY)

------
watwut
Take breaks, dont expect to solve it at once. It is ok not to solve hard
problem today. Keep coming back to it and keep mix the hard task with smaller
tasks. Solving few smaller tasks as breaks from the big hard one helps you to
keep confidence in yourself up.

When you have vague idea of a problem, keep thinking about. This is time when
thinking while walking somewhere is more beneficial then just sitting at desk.
Your mind is less "restricted".

Also, it is normal to feel frustrated or depressed or ineffective while
solving hard problem. Managing these emotions is part of the task, having them
does not make you lesser. But when they are getting too much, take a break.

------
ExactActuation
It all comes down to mindfulness.

If you keep doing the same things, you'll keep getting the same results.
Meditation can rewire you for mindfulness - and that doesn't always mean
sitting and meditating - but everyone should have a practice. Get out into
nature, ride a bike, learn how to play guitar. Work on something completely
different than APIs/IDEs/OSes/hacking.

I also recommend THC. Weed candy in particular, when I take about 10mg, I get
a constant flow of interesting ideas and correlations for hours afterwards.

When you attain that mindfulness it's easier to guide your mind where you want
it (in this case, solving technical problems). Good luck.

------
growlist
> may have become an issue because I grew up in a high pressure environment,
> where a lot is expected from you

Interestingly, some of the most successful people I've encountered seemed to
be operating out of expectation from various people - family, peers etc. I
guess different people react differently. And there's also the question of
happiness. I knew a shit hot young lawyer who, having worked extremely hard
non-stop from her early teens to her late twenties decided all she really
wanted to do was live in the home counties and have children, rather than
sacrifice pretty much every waking hour in exchange for >£100k pa.

------
shrimpx
Set time aside where you won’t do anything except your task. Even 15 minutes
helps. No big deal spending 15 minutes on something, right? Get a stack of
sheets of paper and a pencil. Start laying thoughts down, some bullet points
and a basic diagram. Imagine a bit how you’d implement it. Concurrently open a
text editor and type some code sketches, non working code that carries a bit
of the structure you’re thinking about. Go back and forth between paper and
code, diagram, write down bullet points that occur to you. You’ll find gaps in
your thoughts, you’ll be compelled to fix them. And so you’re on your way.

------
stjohnswarts
Laziness isn't always "lazy". It can be fear of failure or fear of wasting
your time. Learn to value small successes rather like completing a chapter or
incremental increases in knowledge rather than waiting for the euphoria of "I
completed the thing!" That has probably helped me more than anything and
prevented a lot of frustration when learning/doing something new. Also, say
"I'll work on it only a half hour and then stop" sometimes you'll find you are
enjoying or at least appreciating what you're doing and keep coming a bit (or
a lot) longer.

------
flyinglizard
1\. Every seemingly hard problem can be broken down - or at least,
approximated - by a series of easier problems. Do the easier problems.

2\. Separate the thoughtful from the mechanical - some tasks need you to shut
down your thinking and just wing it. Like installing a new computer or a
development environment or boilerplate code and all that. You solve these with
time: put in an hour and it will be done. Just tell yourself that as time
passes, so will this issue.

On the other side are problems which require thinking rather than doing. You
solve these by concentrating and shutting out noise.

Mixing the two types of actions is devastating.

------
fredrb
I had the exact same issue facing hard problems in my work. I noticed that my
main issue was keeping focus. My solution was to introduce on distraction free
90 mins slot of work in the morning (my most productive time) to tackle the
hardest problems. No e-mails, no phone and no de-railing to other topics. The
results so far have been great. The inspiration came from Deep Work [1] by Cal
Newport. The book describes the philosophy behind it.

[1]:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X47ZVXM/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X47ZVXM/)

------
travisgriggs
Lots of good possibilities here. My own experience has been that when I'm more
physically fit (eating, sleeping, etc), I'm better mentally fit. And when I'm
more mentally fit, I'm more spiritually fit (for whatever definition of
"spirituality" you want). When I feel one is lagging, I usually find part of
the problem in the layer below. And that fixing that causes the next layer up
to flourish better. Irrationally, emotional fitness seems to weave in and out
of those three in irrational ways. :)

------
kleer001
You're suffering from a low trait conscientiousness. It's going to get you in
a lot of trouble and drive the main line of suffering in your life on so many
levels.

There's nothing else as important in your life as fixing this. It's going to
be difficult. Probably the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/raising-
your-...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/raising-your-
conscientiousness)

------
jakeogh
Seriously: exercise. You will have more energy, feel better, and be mentally
shaprer. Exabrial said it better, I just wanted to reiterate it. It's had an
excellent impact on my life.

------
cryptica
The financial system is a mess these days... I think being lazy is a good
thing. Just find a 9 to 5 job and do the bare minimum work that you need to be
able to eventually retire.

Don't waste your life chasing success. Success is completely random.

The journey to learning this terrible fact will teach you a lot of things,
none of which will make your life any better. It's far better to be a lazy
idiot. Stupidity and laziness are very useful tools for succeeding in our
modern economy. Lazy people don't get burned out.

------
Javantea_
Your questions are answered in the thread, which is a pretty significant feat
to overcome (I ditto the pomodoro method, exercise, and higher expectations).
That said, laziness is not all bad. Keep some of it in case you need it. Given
sufficient motivation, I recommend aligning your productivity with meaningful
outcomes. If you can't, you will be back here looking for another solution in
not much time with a bigger problem. But then again, there are worse things in
life than being lazy.

------
not_a_moth
> I grew up in a high pressure environment, where a lot is expected from you.

Same, and university and career too... I wrestle with the same problems.

Basically, I think it's reasonable to give up if you don't enjoy working on
the problem or can't find satisfaction in it.

If externally motivated it's harder. Here you'll want to focus on techniques
to force yourself to do things.

Otherwise check in with yourself regularly about what you want and why you're
doing things. If you get alignment with your work then things come easy.

------
rad_gruchalski
> I grew up in a high pressure environment, where a lot is expected from you.

Talk to a therapist. You should find out which experiences from the past
trigger your “laziness”. The past high pressure situations trigger a pattern
in you. Discover the pattern, you’ll be able to understand why certain tasks
cause the anxiety. Once you know where it comes from and why it happens, you
can overcome that. Sometimes just a simple talk with a therapist can help, no
need for pills.

------
alfor
Take a look at Dr peterson personality test 'understand myself'. Maybe you
have a open personality also named creative and it often work in opposition do
industriousness.

In that case maybe your are more suited to chaotic endeavor where you can
thrive in the unexpected while other drown into it.

Let's say you get a new job, are you at your best at the beginning where
everything is new or have you better energy when things are settled and in
theirs place ?

~~~
kharak
I have a hard time finding such personality tests helpful. What job would a
trained SWE do if he discovers his high openness? Switch from Java to
Javascript?

~~~
alfor
Work on short term contract where the ability to grasp things quickly is more
important that dutifulness.

A cool job I heard was technology assessment for corporation that want to buy
another compagnie, you look into the technology to see if it actually does
what it say, what is the amount of tech debt, etc. You make a report and then
you move on to the next.

------
ribtoks
You can try pomodoro timers technique. You try to focus for only 25 minutes at
a time and then give yourself some slack. Hopefully after you will see what
you achieved in those 25 focused minutes will motivate you to repeat that
exercise. I use FocusBit app for that, but there're plenty of pomodoro timers,
you name it. The main trick is to get a ticking timer in front of you if
nothing else can motivate you.

------
Fiveh2751
Read this and thank me later.

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-
procrastinators-
procrastinate.html&ved=2ahUKEwjmgajHx_boAhVKRBUIHdipBEMQFjAAegQICBAD&usg=AOvVaw2byWnUNO9cXMujBUZHronD)

------
davzie
Hey. I literally have struggled with this and found a way to help turn the
corner. I wrote about it only yesterday here: [https://davidthorpe.dev/kick-
the-shit-out-of-procrastination...](https://davidthorpe.dev/kick-the-shit-out-
of-procrastination/)

I hope it helps. Feel free to reach out if you want to chat since this is a
topic very close to home.

------
teekert
I have this too, but one day a boss told me: "That's fine, we need someone
like you in our research department, you start a lot, have many ideas, let
others finish them if they turn out valuable. But try to think about what you
can solve today, think about your grand vision in 3 years, what do you need to
do today to get started on that? That would help."

------
nurettin
> I have realized that I easily give up when I face a hard problem.

Watch a master tackle a hard problem. Copy their resilience and enthusiasm.
I've done this for a few years and it taught me to be patient and focused.
Also, leading requires responsibility. To gain a sense for leadership, try
teaching and helping others. Show them how you solve problems.

------
rodolphoarruda
Maybe it's not clear to you the possible reward you can get from exploring
your idea, solving the problem, delivering what is expected etc. So the task
itself becomes meaningless or purposeless. I think this topic has a lot of
touchpoints with procrastination, even though they are different things.

------
sys_64738
You need to break the problem down into chunks with SMART goals. Then you need
to define intermediate milestones which you complete within your allocated
time period. For example, do a design do before lunchtime. No doc. No lunch.
Higher order needs such as food or going home quickly help focus the mind.

------
coder98075
Try focussing on smaller chunks of 25 minutes session and take a break. There
is a good Coursera course on "learning how to learn", which talks about how
our brain learns and retains information. They also talk about different
technique, which directly addresses mental laziness.

------
matonias
Slighty off topic; Is it me or is this whole era paralyzed by mental laziness?
We have so much input and little dopamine hits that putting in hard work is
easily forgotten, since you only have to look at your screen to be ‘pleased’.
Curious if anyone some have opinions about this.

~~~
micouy
Some people say it's becoming impossible to get bored now. I'm trying not to
follow my reflex of going to HN/Reddit/YT every time I feel even slightly
bored but it's too easy. Eating breakfast - HN, going to sleep - YT, tj book
is a bit boring - reddit. I'm 19 and although I didn't spend my childhood with
a tablet, I've had a smartphone since I was 13 or so. I have no comparation
but I think some part of me "went numb" because every time I feel a need of
doing something I feed it with too many engaging but meaningless stories and
the possibility of motivation just goes away. And since my phone is always
with me it's like a permanent state. I just don't know anymore what it is like
not to know what to do and suddenly feel motivated to do something. Instead I
have to force myself to read that Haskell book I wanted to read for 2 months
despite the fact that I just love (or had loved?) learning new things.

------
paulcole
You might also want to consider the possibility that you’re a lazy person who
doesn’t have great potential. This is the conclusion I came to about myself
and it has actually made my life a lot easier. No more stressing about not
achieving anything, etc.

------
seshagiric
I tried Bacopa for a short while. It really helped clear the mental fogginess
but shot up my blood pressure. I have much better results with

1\. Timely sleep

2\. Exercise (cardio or weights)

Note: Exercise takes 2-3 days before it shows results but after that I threw
away the Bacopa (high BP was scary).

------
purrplexed
Is is really laziness or perceived inadequacy? It is super easy to fall into
the trap of you are lazy. Instead ask, is the expectation that you feel
justified or are you measuring yourself against something that is not
sustainable.

------
ttonkytonk
Whatever it is that you feel you should do but don't want to, do the smallest
thing that you can get yourself to do, even if it's essentially symbolic e.g.
if you have a yard full of pine cones to clean, pick up one.

------
hkt
This is a symptom of ADD in extremis. Take the other advice here about trying
harder, but if it doesn't work consider looking at what ADD entails and ask
whether any of your other behaviours fit that description.

------
RickJWagner
I keep a small whiteboard by my desk. When I have to get 'unstuck' on some
problem (I am a software maintenance engineer, so I solve problems all the
time) I start to sketch the problem.

Works for me. Things get unstuck.

------
pcannons
What’s an example of a hard problem you recently gave up on?

------
idoby
Consider that you may be in the wrong career. Ask yourself: what _is_ the
thing you're ready to charge at? What _is_ top of mind for you?

------
pavelevst
The food that we eat can make us lazy. Try to change and see if there is any
difference. For me it’s fried, sweet and bread (as far as I discovered)

------
kaixi
Get some quality sleep. Seriously. I thought I was mentally lazy, it turns out
I was just exhausted from chronic sleep deprivation.

------
joelbluminator
Read a good book about procrastination, that's what I think you have. I read
one by Nils Salzgeber, very good.

------
trwhite
I'd recommend reading Angela Duckworth's "Grit". It helped me overcome the
same challenge.

------
hedoluna
don't work alone.

have a chat with a colleague and try to discuss the problem with him/her.
maybe they already solved the issue, or have an interesting insight to move
forward into the solution.

and be ready to have a working solution instead of a perfect solution.

------
sebastianconcpt
Are you lifting? Are you eating clean following the macros calculated for your
goal?

------
ghastmaster
Treat it as any other addiction. Easiest way to overcome it is to simply,
stop.

There are countless forums, help lines, government/private programs for
addiction and it still exists.

The power is within and wholly dependent on you. A microdose of LSD
occasionally with a focus on changing this aspect of yourself might help.

------
riazrizvi
You need a good behavioral model to understand why you do the things you do.
It’s best if you create your own, based on your particular strengths and
tendencies, by researching about behavior and keeping a journal to accelerate
your learning like a field scientist.

But here’s a quick general model to get started:

1\. Consider 4 drivers of behavior: Need Levels (serotonin/oxytocin),
Activation Level (norepinephrine/stress vs relaxation rest), Energy Level
(glucose/glycogen vs insulin spikes and energy conservation), Drive/Learned
Behavior (dopamine/learned reward behavior vs helplessness).

2\. If you have big needs, ie you are needy because of say chronically low
serotonin levels, you will be more desperate to seek pleasure, even if that
runs counter to your stated goals (stay up late binging, even though it will
lower your ability to perform at work).

3\. You need energy to mentally process, so to be a high performer at work,
you need to pattern your life to have max energy at work. So exercise and eat
well to be energetic between 9-5. This might mean addressing general
neediness, otherwise you will keep doing destructive behavior outside work,
that will harm your performance. You won’t go to the gym, won’t eat the
healthy food because you are too busy addressing desperate pleasure.

4\. If you don’t improve your general energy level, you will tend to overuse
stress elevators, like caffeine and harsh self-talk, but over the long run
that will impair your health, make you physically weaker, while also impairing
accurate self-awareness (because it becomes too necessary for you to believe
good things about yourself even if false).

5\. Your learned approaches to solving problems, aka getting rewards, have to
be trained by you. Dopaminergenic systems that deliver ‘drive’ when you are
confident the outcome will result in success. You need to learn how to
approach challenges at work to get immediate rewards of serotonin and
oxytocin. For example, how to approach your work to get approval from
colleagues, or how to approach your work to receive intrinsic reward like
problem simplification (which rewards by lowering the mental burden of the
problem), or aesthetic beauty creation etc...

You might see in your life several problem behaviors through this model, but
one that stands out to me is related to #5, you don’t have effective
strategies to get more immediate reward out of hard problems. That’s typical,
especially in people with high standards. When training people to be more
effective, I teach them to break up hard problems into steps, but also to
appreciate the process of working on problems from different angles. Because
then they start to see short term rewards that they can achieve in the process
of working toward their goals... What is your process for analyzing the
problem? What is your process for collaborating on the problem with others?
What tools do you use? This way you will find that a hard problem, that
initially looks like a barren forest with a single reward after a 100 miles of
journey, is transformed into many pockets of orchards where you can look for
trees with low hanging fruits of short term pleasure... Each day you get up
and look for fruit, you can sustain yourself on a single hard problem for
years like this, speaking from personal experience.

------
kingkawn
Experiment with the tone of The inner voice you use to overcome it

------
dfsegoat
Do the things you need to do.

Don’t let your brain try to trick you out of it.

------
BasDirks
Make it a game to find goals that excite you.

------
tribeofone
Lookup Wes Watson on youtube.

------
unstrafed
I've lived with ADHD for about half of my life. You may or may not have ADHD,
but what you're describing sounds pretty similar. Here're a few things I do.

0\. Rexamine physical health. In the past two years, I have been diagnosed
with sleep apnea and low testosterone (I'm a guy). Having those two treated
has been almost miraculous. The ADHD is still very real, but I find I can
fight the inattentiveness if I've had a good night's sleep. (And, I guess not
coincidentally, a good night's sleep for me is between 6 and 7 hours on a
CPAP. I can rarely make it to 8 hours. Again, the ADHD is real.) I've also
been examining my diet, my weight, my activity level and other physical
changes I can make.

1\. Be constructively self-critical and responsible for your actions, but not
self-destructive. I shouldn't accept failure from myself due to lack of
attentiveness/motivation, but that's not a license to tell myself that I'm an
intrinsically, irredeemably bad person. This may be a cliche in SV, but with
ADHD or the feelings you're describing, every failure really is a learning
opportunity. Your feelings of lack of motivation are not anyone else's fault,
but they're not yours either. However, only you can take the initiative to
make the situation better.

2\. Think through the activities you do where you actually do have quite a bit
of clarity and focus. I'm guessing there's something you do that just makes
time seem to melt away. See if there's a way to harness what interests you in
that activity, and see if you can apply it in a constructive way. I have two:
playing RTS games and driving or doing some other fairly monotonous activity
that nonetheless requires attention and focus. Playing RTS games has actually
helped me develop strategies to remember to do things, and driving long
distances suggested to me that if I constrain my environment in certain ways,
I can actually be quite productive and attentive.

3\. Use some strategies/invent your own.

\- I find that writing down checklists is a huge help. It makes the big
problems crumble into small manageable bricks. (For checklists, I've started
literally putting notes in VS Code in a markdown file, and then using the
Markdown Preview Enhanced extension, which shows an interactive, two-way bound
rendering on the right pane of my screen.)

\- Bootstrap the right mindset every day. I put a few post-it notes around my
monitor, bathroom mirror or other places that I'll see to remind me how to
deal with life. I put enough up that they'll help me without making me feel
overwhelmed. This strategy is also useful for any self-control issues you may
have, which usually goes hand-in-hand with a lack of motivation/feeling
overwhelmed by big problems. When I make a good decision based on a reminder
from the past, it's a fun feeling. These good feelings can form a sort of
virtuous cycle where you find yourself being a bit more disciplined than you
have been.

\- Quit social media. I've entirely cut out Twitter and I only use Facebook
Messenger. I don't miss any of it. I visit HN more now, and use the
"attentiveness" features in my profile. This may seem drastic, but it's
helpful.

\- If you can't quit something (YouTube, for instance), use some sort of
blocker that will keep you locked out for a time. I edit my /etc/hosts file,
although there are more automated tools that can do this kind of thing.

\- Read up on tactics people use for things like speed reading or note-taking
or other organizational and personal management skills. Then put them into
practice. I've started using a RocketBook for note-taking, and it's wonderful.
I use a specific note-taking method called the Cornell Method [1], and I find
my focus and comprehension when learning big new topics is much higher. Find
what works for you, and implement it.

\- Trap yourself into pro-productivity habits, not anti-productivity ones.
Eliminate any distractions or interactions when you're doing productive work;
maximize the number of distractions when you're doing unproductive things
(like getting so far into YouTube's recommendation algorithm that you watch a
Japanese guy make hard objects out of bread or fingernails - this may or may
not have happened to me). I set timers for that stuff and otherwise try to
harass myself as much as possible. When I'm working, I set Do Not Disturb mode
on anything supporting it, I turn off other notifications (within reason - I'd
recommend you still respond to your boss/client, for instance). Look into
things like the pomodoro method, where you work for 25 mins and take a 5
minute break, and see if you can increase the productive time.

4\. Find something you think you can't do, and then try to do it and don't
give up. Steve Jobs once said, "Everything around you that you call life was
made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can
influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use." [2] My
experience has shown this is quite true. We make our own luck. I've learned
that with enough effort, that feeling feeling in the pit of my stomach that
coincides with the thought "I don't know how I can tackle this problem" has
almost always given way to the feeling of victory when I actually do solve the
problem. I haven't had 100% success, of course, but I always frame the lack of
success as TODOs to revisit later. I have my current job because I did this,
and it's the best job I've ever had with the best team I have ever worked
with. Once you do a single thing you thought you couldn't do, your perspective
on life does change somewhat.

5\. Make change gradually. I didn't take a magic pill and have all problems in
my life solved. In fact, I can't do this - I'll be dooming myself to failure.
If I try a new exercise regimen or trying to form habits or something like
that, I do them one at a time. I find it hard to cope otherwise. My wife is
the opposite - she gets motivation from shocking herself into a new routine,
but I just can't handle that approach. I set major goals on the order of
years, milestones on the order of months, and then individual strategies and
tactics on weeks or days.

6\. Find the positives of your situation. Unlike most people who have a basic
intuition about how to accomplish complex tasks, I have devote my own
brainpower to it. However, this has resulted in me developing an almost
scientific process for improvement, which most normally motivated/attentive
people don't have. There were people I graduated college with who had no
issues with ADHD and were far ahead of me in terms of organizational skills
and the ability to self-manage. However, through continual work over the years
I've surpassed many of them in accomplishments. Career accomplishments are not
a measure of a fulfilled life, of course, but making genuine contributions to
fellow humans (even if those are fairly small but real) is a good feeling that
is hard to overstate.

7\. Try to control your emotions without suppressing them or letting them run
wild. I find that a lot of the source of my "mental laziness" actually doesn't
involve the mind at all, but my emotions. I have to engage the mind to
counteract the emotions I experience, and when I do, the strong emotions
holding me back (e.g. fear, anger, boredom, despair) are actually not that
severe. Putting emotional experiences into words is a simple strategy that can
be helpful. Our brains have a sophisticated neocortex which can handle complex
reasoning, including linguistic reasoning. Our emotions are thought to be
processed and generated by our limbic systems, which are present in most
vertebrates and is pre-linguistic (though is very much involved in
vocalization of emotional tone, even in non-humans). I've found that the
higher functions of our brains can actually put the lower functions in their
place when warranted.

8\. Use therapy and other resources to help you. Therapists can absolutely
help. You will find there are probably treatments that you can do that will
help, and many of them do not involve medication. A therapist can be
especially helpful at determining the causes of why you feel the way you feel,
and may be helpful in developing strategies to overcome these issues. A
therapist can also be a shortcut to some of the experimentation I mentioned
above. They are often aware of explicit strategies that work for many people,
and those might directly help you or might be a good seed that grows into
something unique for you. And it's sometimes helpful to be forced to put your
thoughts and attitude into words for another human being, who can synthesize
it and review it with you.

This list has ballooned from a few planned points, but I hope it helps. You
can vanquish this problem. I think you would be surprised at how much you can
accomplish by putting forth just a little bit of intentional effort in the
right ways.

[1] [http://lsc.cornell.edu/study-skills/cornell-note-taking-
syst...](http://lsc.cornell.edu/study-skills/cornell-note-taking-system/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw&t=38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw&t=38s)

------
fargle
Don't give up.

------
marciojmo
tl;dr: Role play a robot.

Try to block "thinking". Every time you catch yourself "thinking about"
instead of doing, stop thinking and do something related to the task. Remove
all distractions. Put your phone in another room, close your e-mail and do the
smallest thing you can do to move your task forward, don't "think about", just
do it, as if tou were a robot. Once you get tired, be satisfied with your
progress and relax (release your thinking from prison, Now it is allowed to
come in). Practice "I must do this" in other areas of your life as well,
without thinking, until you develop grip.

------
6nf
I hate to recommend drugs to anyone but they worked for me

------
shivasword
Reading through these posts there are many solutions, most of them are vague
-- no clear method of implementation. I'll offer an actionable strategy which
I have been using to progress from a depressed late 20something dependent on
family charity, to graduating a competitive coding bootcamp and building
prototypes for a startup.

The key is to exercise those proper faculties of mind -- a few simple
exercises are cold showers, long-distance running, and meditation.

Cold showers have taught me how to overcome the initial difficulties; to
continuously put oneself into a position of discomfort, then use powers of
consciousness to develop acceptance is a powerful practice. There are various
methods to implement this habit -- at the end of my shower, I set a timer for
5 minutes and progressively drop the temperature whenever I acclimate to the
current state. The game I play is to spend the longest amount of time in the
coldest water by dropping progressively quicker during those 5 mins.
Challenging yourself is a reward within itself.

Where cold showers build mental strength in the domain of environmental
changes, long-distance running builds endurance. As a side-effect, there is a
strong correlation between mental health and cardio exercise, aerobic exercise
generates BDNF which acts as a precursor for neurogenesis. Depressed people
often have smaller hippocampi, and BDNF literally grows neurons in the
hippocampus, where we store memory. There are many other evidence-based
positive side effects. For implementation, I would suggest the Maffetone
method, which teaches users to never push to hard, as it leads to burnout; but
instead to progressively build up endurance by exercising at a comfortable
rate. The only tool necessary is a heart-rate monitor, and any type of cardio
activity can be substituted. His method is used successfully by ironmen and
triathlete winners. It's a method to learn patience.

Samadhi is a state characterized as intense one-pointed concentration
established through meditation. It is impossible to practice meditation
without practicing those steps which lead towards a meditative mind. The yoga
sutras of patangili provide a programmatic method towards this state. What is
practiced by most popular western yoga is the practice of asana, or preparing
the body for meditation. Following asana is pranayama, which is the regulation
of breath through various practices. It is thought that breath control is the
vector which enables us to manage the rest of our autonomic system, which
enables our own internal state to control how we react to events -- the
fundamental basis for freedom. It is difficult to discover teachers for these
practices. Practically, I would suggest searching for Wim Hof's breathing
method as a good introduction or entertaining exercise. Michaël Bijker is for
those more serious.

Overall, implementing any one exercise should help you towards your goal,
together they provide a strong basis. I've found scheduling to be effective
for consistency. I would be lying if I did not mention I received help from a
pharmaceutical as well. Having developed non-productive habits in the past,
the pharmaceutical helped as a motivational catalyst, although medicine in
relation to mental health is not magic, it requires effort and consistency to
develop healthy habits.

------
techslave
exercise!

------
paypalcust83
I'm unsure what aspects we are talking about. Is it one or more of the
following?

0\. ADD. (lack of motivation to execute, lots of plans, many unfinished
projects)

1\. Inability to buckle-down, focus, and complete mentally-exhausting, complex
work.

2\. Analysis paralysis. (Fear of failure, criticism, or choosing the wrong
approach, so not progressing to avoid the previous.)

3\. Fear of responsibility/loss of respect. (Leading is responsibility; owning
problems, results, and team support. It's not being always right or doing 100%
of the thinking.)

4\. Imposter syndrome. (Having the skills but still afraid of being
unqualified.)

5\. Fear of being a novice. (Fear of new skills, roles, and/or things.)

Before offering unsolicited advice, I think it's better to dig into what are
the brutally-honest underlying concerns.

------
loveJesus
Praise the Lord, second commented post on Hacker News. (i try not to
capitalize i) i had been diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, and eventually Bipolar
Schizoaffective disorder. I had been on all kinds of meds including Haldol,
antidepressants, and amphetamines like adderall. My psychiatrist back in 2003
said i was a 9 out of 10 of the worst cases he had seen. I can now focus fine
for over 12 hours, yet haven't even had coffee nor any medications in over 5
years. One big thing that helped me was that my dad here would start playing
hymns on the piano and i would sing along, and my concentration eventually
went up to about 3 or 4 hours, then eventually took up the piano myself and
now i feel normal. Another big part was being able to spend time in prayer,
fasting, and service to God and others. This helped me to have much more peace
with what i choose to be doing, instead of feeling like i am wasting my life
when something more important may be available. I am far from perfect but the
Lord has been good to me, and i want to share He does miracles like always (i
think this is kind of cool
[https://youtu.be/Pw9iSO7rUUY](https://youtu.be/Pw9iSO7rUUY) ). I do want to
share how God has helped me through Jesus Christ, if i can help somehow please
let me know in Jesus name.

------
sharavsambuu
u just need enough sleep

