
Ask HN: How do I stay "on" all the time? - rfnslyr
When I was young, maybe 14, the thrill of visiting forums and discussing things was the absolute best. I was always ON. Messaging randoms just because I can and talk, making friends online. Dying to come home to write that shitty script so I got 3 replies on a forum.<p>Now, I&#x27;m only &quot;ON&quot; about 10% of the time, and that&#x27;s at work. I got my own apartment, state of the art hardware, I got everything I wanted that I thought would help me, but now I&#x27;m here, exactly where I want to be, and yet I still don&#x27;t have the drive.<p>It seems like the more I think about what I want to attain in software, the more apathetic I become to the field in general and just want to escape. I have goals, but I rarely come home and work on something, I just go on Reddit and smoke weed until I go to bed then feel depressed for wasting yet another day.
======
GuiA
It's a situation that more software developers than you may think find
themselves in.

\- exercise regularly (once a week to start with, ideally every day). A lot of
software people are obsessed with the gym, which I personally hate. Find
something that fits you. It could be rock climbing, swimming, playing
basketball, etc- just do something. It has clear effects on your brain.

\- eat well. Software companies like to feed their employee redbull and
Doritos; don't touch that crap. Making a salad at home is cheap, quick and
healthy.

\- as another commenter suggested, maybe seek out something more
intellectually demanding than software engineering if you're bored. Pick up a
number theory or quantum physics textbook, or get into chess- whatever works
for you. Making CRUD web apps is not all that it's made out to be.

\- try to cutdown the weed. Force yourself to never smoke before a certain
hour. Ie if you get home at 7 and go to bed at 11, no weed before 10.

\- cut the crappy websites like reddit. Modify your /etc/hosts, block the IPs
in your router and then change the password to garbage, etc. those sites are a
giant black hole and are designed to make people do exactly what you're doing.

\- go out in nature. It may be just me, but living in the city kills my brain
cells. Drive out once or twice a month for hikes, etc.

\- other things that have worked for me, but ymmv: getting rid of most of my
gadgets that waste time (iPad, super fancy phone with a million useless apps,
etc). Installing Linux on a cheap netbook so that i can't get distracted by
video games (heck even YouTube videos are rendered choppily, which is great).
Meditation. Reading more paper books and less blog posts (a kindle+tpb is
great for that). Making a list of leisure activities that I find acceptable
and making sure that I do at least one of them a day (reading, drawing,
playing an instrument, chess, etc)

\- finally, you may be depressed or burned out. It happens. Think about going
somewhere exotic for a week or two, isolated from your daily environment &
work. Think about seeing a psychiatrist. They're trained to deal with this.

It gets better, friend. Hang in there.

~~~
robertjwebb
In a way Hacker News more insidious than Reddit, because a lot of the articles
are about people being productive and successful it tricks you into thinking
it's more "wholesome" than Reddit/Buzzfeed/etc. It is, but that doesn't
warrant the hours and hours of idle browsing that you can potentially spend on
it.

------
overgard
I think what happens is this: when you're first starting, you tend to get
buoyed along by a lot of small victories that give you a big rush. Even
something simple like getting a program to compile gives you a bit of a high.
All those small victories make it easy to keep going, and you have a definite
sense of progress. Once you're more experienced though, those victories start
being fewer and farther between, and progress becomes less obvious. Nerdy
analogy, but it's like gaining levels in an RPG. The first 10 or 20 are easy,
and then each progressive one becomes more and more grind.

Maybe you could get some of that "rush" back by setting your goals to non-
technical things for your technical projects? IE, instead of "learn this",
maybe "launch this by X" or "get X many users"? Maybe what you need are small
measurable milestones to hit.

The other thing is, sometimes it just helps to have some sort of "dumb"
activity that can get you into rhythm. Like, when I'm trying to get into
coding, a lot of times I'll just sort of start cleaning up code, writing some
simple comments, and refactoring things, because it's sort of a brainless
activity that can get me going. YMMV, but it helps just to start being active
and ease into the hard things.

------
atiffany
When you were 14 you had a lot less red tape in your world. When you wanted to
do something you could just dive into it; you didn't have to wait till you
finished your work, paid your taxes, flossed your teeth, and did your laundry.

Something I had to figure out that no one ever told me is that the older you
get, the more proactive you need to be about managing your self and your time.
A few suggestions for doing this:

\- develop a morning ritual. For me this involves waking up to music a few
hours before I have to do any work, making a healthy smoothie for breakfast,
doing a few exercises, meditating, and planning my day.

\- before you start working, plan out your whole day into 25 minute intervals.
Think about what you want to accomplish to grow for yourself first, and then
schedule your work around those personal goals.

\- Keep a journal of your daily plans, and regularly track your progress. Try
using Evernote for this.

\- Get in the habit of devoting about 10% of your mental resources to
directing your own emotions toward thinking positively, focusing, and
eliminating your own bad mental habits.

Hope some of this helps.

------
drawkbox
Everytime you feel you are wasting time during any hour, jog in place for 7
minutes and get a coffee or some gum after. You will either be fit or you'll
have things done, either way you will feel pretty good. Rewards systems always
help, or chores/exercise where you are slacking i.e. if I don't get this done
I'll have to do something worse... Also schedule in time wastage, schedule in
a show or movie per day, then only watch at that time. Where that fails I go
on lockdown on RescueTime. Occasionally though you just need a break, take a
day or two off from work completely. Put some fun items on your todo not just
work.

Starting is actually the hardest part if you are demotivated. Commit to work
on something for 15 minutes or 3-5 of your favorite songs and agree that if
you aren't feeling it you can stop. Many times that is all you need to get
going into a full day flow state, small chunks of time with the ability to
stop if you want. I also leave an easy issue on some game code if I need to
get right back in the next day.

Where all else fails, create a project that is more difficult to work on, if
it is procrastination it tends to the easier tasks. Make some tasks that are
harder above what you want to get done. If you setup the right rewards/balance
systems you won't have to trick yourself, stuff will just get done. Small
bites.

------
kohanz
Is exercise a regular part of your routine? I personally find, as counter-
intuitive as it may sound, that I feel more energized when I'm exercising
regularly. Also the evidence of the positive effect of exercise on depression
is substantial.

~~~
rfnslyr
I most definitely need to get back into that. Moved to a new area out of my
comfort zone and the gym options are shit, but I'm sure I'll find something.

~~~
redact207
You don't need a gym to be fit. The cost of a couple of months membership can
buy you a pair of kettle bells and some resistance bands. Doing core,
functional exercises outside in the fresh air under the sun - it's immensely
more refreshing than a stuffy old crowded gym. Good luck to you.

~~~
rfnslyr
I used to be into powerlifting and bodybuilding, dabbled in olympic style
lifting as well, so for my hobby I would need a good gym. I agree though, it's
just that's not what brings me joy, I much rather push heavy weights.

------
no_wave
You can't.

This is going to be something that will come up again and again as the
lifehackers do whatever they can to trim and prune themselves into the life
that's most convenient.

You aren't broken - the framework that you're forcing yourself to operate in
is. No matter how many drugs and how much adderall we take, we can only ignore
what our minds are trying to tell us for so long.

There's something that you want to be doing right now, and it's not what you
think it is. You'll have to figure it out or be stuck in limbo.

------
jchrisa
Work on stuff that matters. If you get demotivated then maybe it means you
realized the thing you we working on doesn't matter as much as you thought. So
you pivot and work on something that keeps you motivated.

------
torspo
You say you got everything you wanted that would help you, maybe that's one of
the reasons. Scarcity forces creativity, there's some challenge too.

Also things have developed to be kind of complicated compared to the good old
days when commercial games were made by some dude just like you in his moms
basement, maybe from zero to completion.

Most things have been done already and done well by either very talented
inviduals or companies with lots of people. It's not fun to reinvent a wheel,
especially if you're doubtful that it would be any better than what's already
out there.

Getting older also gives you self confidence and/or lowers your need for
validation from others. Impressing a tiny fraction of anonymous people on the
internet doesn't change how you feel.

If you got good at what you're doing, then you know that you could accomplish
what you want and how to go about doing it if you just decided to do it,
that's mostly not motivating or challenging, more like a chore.

I'd suggest starting a project with some kind of measurable outcome, such as
trying to get your stack overflow score up, making some kind of utility that's
faster than the existing ones (a faster grep, an xml parser, ..) or something
like that.

------
nollidge
If you're like me, I'd say stop having goals and just do stuff that seems
cool.

I'm not a very goal-motivated person, because it always seems far off and
unattainable and like there's a lot of work I'd have to do to get there for
little payoff until the very end. So I just do little stuff, code dumb little
apps that don't do much except teach me something I didn't know before.

------
colept
Consider getting a dog. They're great energy and can help you pick yourself
out of a bad mood. The regular exercise of walking one everyday is enough to
regulate your stress and improve productivity.

~~~
anigbrowl
There's something to that. I unintentionally adopted a German shepherd a few
months ago and learning to look after him has been quite an interesting
challenge, though sometimes a frustrating one.

On a broader note, consider that when you were 14 the world and the conept of
agency were both novel. In the meantime, you've realized that neither are all
they're cracked up to be, and your progress through the world isn't as rapid
as exciting as when you first encountered it. Some stuff that you thought was
uber-cool back then turned out to be meh.

However, I do find that if you're struggling with boredom the endless flow of
trivia on the internet makes that worse rather than better. Rather than
Reddit, curl up with a good book.

------
sparkie
I'm usually only on about 10% of the time for similar reasons. Once I start
browsing I rarely resume what I was hacking on, but I try to force myself out
of the habit before I start.

Use LeechBlock or similar browser plugin to limit your reddit to certain times
of day (Later, rather than early, or you'll get distracted). Breaking habits
like reddit browsing is difficult to do without forcing yourself to do
different. Make sure you configure it so that you can't disable the block, or
you could develop the habit of just disabling it when you hit the block. Also,
if you find yourself mindlessly browsing, take a break from the machine and
grab a brew or something to snack on, or do some exercise.

The biggest hurdle is actually getting started. Once you've got open your
editor, the project your working on, and a goal in your mind, the rest is
straightforward.

One thing that might be holding you back is lack of short term goals or over
ambition, because you will always feel like you won't have enough time to
complete anything of value, and chose to put it off instead. Give yourself
some short goals with some Todo organizer, or org-mode, but don't list to
many, and don't expect to finish them all.

Force yourself to consider a joint, or some other entertainment (like Reddit,
HN) as a reward for achieving some goals.

Also, consider working on some open source project, or work on one with
somebody you know. Having someone else to motivate you and discuss ideas with
is a massive help, as long as you don't spend all your time talking crap.

------
mwoke
I feel you

When i was about that age. The thrill to chat on irc was so big. I remember
coming home from school, looking forward to be on irc all night, only to find
out there was a netsplit on efnet and the channel was taken 'over'. I could be
on irc all day, all night, till early morning. I could socialize with the
people i met from anywhere, all day, all night, till early morning. I could
code, for things i was excited about, all day, all night, till early morning.

Then, some years later, i realized. Life hit me. Friends moved on, people
changed, things around me changed, responsibility changed, i changed. I still
code, love to code, even made a living out of coding. But not like when i was
young.

I wonder a lot, about what has changed. I could be "ON" all day back then. Now
i rarely bother to join, give my opinion or reply immediately. I consume a lot
though, reading, thinking. I feel even surprised i am replying on this topic,
but it resonates with me very much.

Mind you. If one was to ask me. Are you happy, i am. I don't feel depressed.
Love a lot of things and don't waste my days. At least, not anymore.

I wonder, how do you come home. Feeling energized or mentally exhausted. Is
there anything (else) that you are passionate about. Is there anything else
that makes you forget about time, except for mind numbing drugs? If you feel
you are stuck, try changing your environment. Changing your mind goes along
with it.

Experiment with your habits, drop some and try some. Enough sleep, a healty
diet, exercise and being outside are definitely essential. A different job,
new people around you, also worth a try, but harder. More books, less
television. Simplify. Your background story is very short though. There are a
lot of things to consider when trying to figure out your (own) perceptions,
emotions and motivations.

------
amit_m
Stop smoking weed for a month. See if that increases your drive in some
quantifiable sense (it probably will). If so, stop smoking as a daily habit.
Save it for special social occasions and only on weekends.

After you've regulated your cannabis intake, try to get some exercise into
your routine, in any way possible. The important part here is to FORM A HABIT
and stick with it.

I find that for myself the easiest change was to start cycling to work instead
of driving. After about two weeks it started feeling like the most natural
thing in the world and now driving appears odd.

After your body is reasonably healthy, if you are still unmotivated then maybe
it's time to make a major change to your routine. e.g. job, relationships,
location, you probably know which one needs to change. If that change doesn't
help rinse and repeat.

Another option is that you're suffering from mild depression, in that case
consult with a psychiatrist. Some antidepressants work like magic in matter of
days.

------
fembot__
I take smart drugs and supplement with a product called Alleradd which
replenishes my neurotransmitters and helps avoid the comedown.

What I will say is that everything I've ever gotten excited about became less
exciting as soon as it became my job. The main way to combat this is in your
own mind. The thing that makes a job suck is the inane task you have to do as
part of of a whole. The way to combat that is to remember what you're really
in it for. To think about the big picture. Remember that what you're coding
now is training for the big idea that you have that's going to change
everything. For me, it's really important to think of the things I'm doing in
abstract terms, otherwise I get bogged down in the details. I have to feel
like I'm doing something that's part of something bigger!

Good luck, man. I know what you're feeling. Also, exercise never helped
me...sorry.

------
inDigiNeous
First, stop thinking you are wasting your days. Don't ever judge yourself,
that will only put you in a infinite loop of judging, nothing good comes out
of that.

Forgive yourself even if you got nothing done. Say "This is allright even if I
didn't get anything done, it's allright to make mistakes and do nothing. I
forgive myself."

Do this whenever you are blaming yourself for something. It's the key to
healing from any self placed limitation, to allow it to happen and then allow
positive changes to take place.

Start exercising regularly, go running, swimming, do yoga, whatever. Very
important in order to keep your energies running and your mind working, like
many others here have noticed too.

There are also very good advice here, so I will not go into more detail, but I
see these are the most important parts to get out of the place you are in,
based on this short information you gave.

------
chewxy
Write a thousand words before 8 am everyday. Or code a bunch of useful,
productive stuff that is concrete (i.e. you can see results immediately after
compile - output logs is a very good way to do this). Before going to bed,
leave yourself a hard to solve problem and an easy to solve problem.

------
rollo_tommasi
You have aged. Your energy level and motivation will decline until you die.

The rate of change varies from person to person, and you can probably
reinvigorate yourself to a degree with a better lifestyle (more exercise, a
better diet, a stimulating job, a vibrant social life), but slowing down is
inevitable.

~~~
chubot
Ha. I don't think it's quite that grim.

Sure, your overall energy level goes down when you age. But if you matured
well, then your motivation goes up because you know what matters to the world
and what matters to yourself. And you have more skills. People are motivated
to do what they're good at.

When you're young, you're trying lots of shit, but you mostly suck at all of
the things you try. You're a dilettante. Your low expectations and sense of
novelty keep you excited. You're spending a lot of energy, but objectively not
getting much done.

When you're older, you're trying less stuff, but the skills you already have
allow you to use much less energy to to accomplish much more.

Honestly I think there is an additional compounding effect with programming --
you can write programs that make you a better programmer. I still use little
tools and scripts I built 5 to 10 years ago, and they magnify my productivity.
I know that as a 20 year old I would have spent an entire afternoon on
something that is now second nature; a one-liner.

It's not a matter of having more energy. You don't want to spend lot of energy
while programming, at least.

~~~
rollo_tommasi
You're describing one method of coping with the inevitable decline, and I
think your advice is excellent and I'm glad it works well for you. But the OP
was complaining precisely about a decline in energy and that 'sense of
novelty'. I don't think there's any point in suger-coating the reality that
for most people those feelings peak early in your youth.

~~~
chubot
Well, I'm not and no one should be "coping" (with being in their 30's!), and
it's not a "decline". It's only a decline if you look at the downside and not
the upside.

I totally agree that you have more raw energy and there is more potential for
excitement when you're 14. But like I said, if you want to write good
software, "energy" and "excitement" are not top on the list of attributes you
need.

I think the OP is basically describing mild depression, which is a completely
different issue, unrelated to getting older. You can be depressed and young or
depressed and old. In fact I was a lot more depressed when I was younger.

You turned an issue of motivation into an issue of age, when they're not the
same thing.

Perhaps if your goal is to write the next Facebook, and you're in your 30's,
the time has passed. You're not going to be Zuckerberg, or Larry Page. I guess
some people have trouble coming to grips with that. But personally I don't
care so much about those kinds of things (and didn't when I was younger
either.) You're not going to be Van Halen or Jack White either. Suck it up :)

------
adventured
If you are sure you still want to work in software, a few tips.

1) Work out (if you're not), to keep your energy high; it's also arguably the
best combatant of feeling depressed.

2) Work on projects you're passionate about or find challenging in software.
If your job isn't fulfilling that overall mission, consider a change.

3) Maybe starting your own business so you can better dictate your goals and
challenges, is another answer.

It kind of sounds like you're in the wrong field (given your apathy and
wanting to escape). I've known a few software prodigies - people that were
seemingly gifted toward writing software from a young age. A lot of them were
miserable in the field as they got older (perhaps too easy?). Maybe software
is too easy for you, or just boring period at this point.

------
rk0567
In short,

\+ Exercise regularly (yoga or games/activities) - at least 3 times a week.

\+ Eat healthy

\+ Meditate [0]

\+ Focus on creating better habits (quit smoking; instead of wasting time on
reddit, read books, especially this one [1] or go for a walk)

[0] [http://www.siyli.org/take-the-course/siy-
curriculum/](http://www.siyli.org/take-the-course/siy-curriculum/) (watch the
video on mindfulness meditation)

[1] [http://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-
habit/](http://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/)

------
socialmediaisbs
Take vacations, find stuff totally unrelated to what you do to get into (for
me, it was professional wrestling), and take long breaks. The issue is that we
all only have so much attention we can use up over the course of a day, a
week, and the more that's used, the less likely we are to give a shit about
anything. So you gotta refresh it and not worry about being "on" or not. If
you do the refresh, you will be.

------
cmaury
How stressful/demanding is your day job? When I was working 12 hour days at a
start up, the only thing I was able to do when I got home was surf reddit and
go to bed. I was so drained; physically and mentally exhausted.

It wasn't until I left that I was able to put more energy into the things that
I enjoyed outside of work: coding, commenting, creating shit, etc.

I dk, it might be worth it to consider doing something else during the day.

------
soboleiv
> I'm here, exactly where I want to be Moving towards something is more fun
> than protecting existing position.

> I have goals, but It seems, those are not 'recharging' at the time

== Try some of these for a week or two == Do nothing(nothing at all, just sit
and observe which thoughts are bugging you) Do stuff you like. Do something
you haven't done before. Make mistakes. Learn.

------
samsquire
What do you want to attain in software?

I would recommend writing yours ideas down. If your thoughts are jumbled - (as
another commenter mentioned) - you might have the developer's equivalent of
"writers's block". Even if you don't release them, it might get you to focus
on it, inspire you to think and excited to get started.

I released my list to inspire myself and others.

------
dec0dedab0de
I don't know the full answer, but try vitamin D. I've been taking 4000 IUs of
D3 in the morning. If you're inside most of the time chances are you're not
getting enough. you might be surprised how much it can boost your mood, and
focus.

And like others said, less weed more exercise.

------
martindale
I view this as akin to Writer's Block, to which the cure is simply to _get
back to writing_. So clearly stated, it seems a daunting task—and yet, there
it is.

Get back to making meaningful things. Start with a single line of code. Build,
ship, build. Learn. Build more. Ship more.

------
adfcm
I have been in the exact same position: Nice big apartment, home office full
of expensive hardware, weed dispensary pass. I'm not going to tell you what to
do, but at some point realized all the drive I had before was just to buy that
stupid lifestyle.

Make sure you are not doing the same.

------
xSwag

        >smoking weed
        >wondering why you can't stay mentally on 
    

[https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=cannabis+depression](https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=cannabis+depression)

------
nsfyn55
Pomodoros! Half the battle is getting started. If I don't know how to start I
type steam of consciousness into a buffer until things start to congeal. Once
your moving it's all downhill.

------
maneesh
are you 'sure you'll find something'? Or is it a matter of literally going to
a gym and signing up right now.

I noticed that what I do on the FIRST DAY i move to a new city makes a huge
difference in what I do for my lifetime of the new city. First day, buy kale,
sign up for a gym? I will be healthy for a while. First day, grab some
mcdonalds? Here comes fatty.

Here's a video I made about exactly this:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLKzSO4KBc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLKzSO4KBc)

~~~
dirtydiego
Good point. You could also say this about first day/weeks on a new job.

------
oliveira12345
I also started with computers and programming at very young age (10yrs), and
with a lot of ilusion.

3 years ago when I was 29, my daily routine was going home after job and be
with computer untill going to sleep. I had periods of gaming, of programming
of discovering-linux, install-and-review the latest open-source inovations,
reading books, etc...

I always had a big passion for computers, BUT 3 years ago I suddenly got to a
point when I realized that computer-time was not satisfying me as much as
before... and although my habbits continued to take me home and be with the
computer, I started noticing more and more that I was missing other things,
like socializing and relating with people in other contexts...

Some months later, I had not really made any real change to my lifestyle, and
was becoming more and more apathic and frustrated with everything (including
my passion with computers)

Then, one day, I took the resolution of stop thinking and inscribe myself in
the first group-activity that I saw... and that is how I got into a class of
martial-arts... It was not easy for me the martial-art, and people where not
very warm at first sight, but everytime I was there, sweating and feeling like
"maybe-I-should-go-home" I remenbered myself the void sensation of being home
alone tired of the computer... and I kept going to classes... some 6 months
later, I started to know better my colleagues of the class, and my skills
improved naturally, and I started to enjoy the classes by themselves and not
as a refuge :)

Even still, somedays I got out of job late, or it was very cold and I skipped
classes but then it I was at home and feeling frustrated by being there alone
with computer, again with that feeling... and that reminded me that I knew I
could change it, with my decisions... And that were important frustrated-
moments, because helped me see that I could make things to feel better, or I
could just not do anything but I would finally feel bad about it...

The martial-art classes have been to me the first intent to change my
lifestyle, but since those early days, it has given me much much more than I
could expect... I made friends, discovered much more interesting persons than
I thought there were, and had great time... some special ocasions just
happened after a class which I almost missed because of staying-at-the-warmy-
home, and I try to not forget those special days because they would not have
happened if I had not _forced_ myself to go to class... that for me meant a
huge personal lesson

I also recommend one of my best-books: "The Magic of Thinking Big" from David
Schwarz... while reading that book I rethinked a lot of my own actitudes and
it helped me be aware of some personal blocks

Hope sharing my experience helps someone :)

------
prezjordan
Lately I've been substituting reddit for reading books. Got myself a Kindle
(if I spent that much I better use it!) Been feeling a lot more productive
from it.

------
brianobush
exercise and make lists.

I love making lists and do so everyday. Mostly they are to do items, but they
have longer term items as well. During exercise I review my lists, usually in
my head. Not only does my mind feel clear through physical exertion, I
sometimes have a new angle on my work (and a renewed passion).

------
arnley
have a family, live a family life

------
dccoolgai
adderall. just keep it in moderation.

------
nickthemagicman
Save up and take a year off.

Just do it.

You need to LIVE.

------
logjam
Stop using cannabis so much.

~~~
meritt
Oh come on. If it's not wasting time smoking weed, it's wasting time browsing
reddit, drinking, playing video games, sleeping, going out partying, etc. He
needs a mental kickstart to get back on track otherwise he'll replace one vice
with another.

~~~
onli
Sometimes. But for some people, cannabis totally kills every motivation. I saw
it a few times, people loosing every motivation to do anything, and it
correlated with cannabis overuse.

And cannabis makes you unmotivated. It has an effect on you even on the next
day (at least with a bit of bad luck), which can kill even then any
motivation. It is one of the worst things you could do if you have problems to
motivate yourself to do stuff.

Edit: Maybe I should tell a bit about that.

Take that one guy who lived with me. He lived in the USA for years, had to
leave not too soon ago because of visa stuff. Had aspirations of becoming a
fashion designer, music producer, had a good paying job as a photograph -
never fully graped how much of his high reaching goals were hot air, but at
least he could show some stuff he tried to do, he met people for it, and so
on. Quite successful with woman, by the way, being a cool and good lucking guy
from america.

He had a bit of waiting time before his next step, a design study course on a
university, which sounded not too bad. But he started to smoke weed every day.
That was a slow process - first, it was occasionally, which was fine and
helped with the music, then it got more and more.

He got one small job (starbucks) to fill the time. Before, his day was being
at home doing stuff. Now, it was either working, smoking weed and doing
nothing, or if not working that day, smoking weed and doing nothing. Nothing
got done, the deadline for the university came and went (not quite - a small
effort a few days before based on old stuff, didn't work though). If he did
catch himself after that, he at least lost a year.

Another guy I knew started with weed, became fully apathic, didn't visit the
university anymore, started dealing, taking more drugs - and well, more I
don't know, as the contact by then was nonexistent. But before it was sad to
see as well, how one quite nice guy became an apathic being not able to buy
toilet paper when it's about to go out.

I for sure stay away from that stuff since seeing that.

------
michaelochurch
The good news is that you're still "on" 10% of your time. For some people,
that's zero. Also, the fact that your interests and motivations have changed
(i.e. you don't like to message randoms anymore) is nothing bad. That just
happens as you get older. You start to appreciate quality and detest
quantity/complexity. At least, that's how you'll be if you're like me (but I'm
a curmudgeon at the relatively young age of 30).

Stop smoking the pot. It isn't good for you. The amotivational effect is real.
It doesn't happen to everyone, but I think most frequent pot users have lost
quite a bit of their sharpness. Maybe 70%? Some people can take ridiculous
amounts of drugs and keep their sharpness and motivation, but it doesn't sound
like you're one of them. Sorry.

Stop feeling "depressed for wasting another day". You went to your job,
performed well, and got paid, right? Then you didn't waste a day. You shot
par. You did what you needed to do. There are a lot of people out there for
whom par is a struggle. Make good choices (start working out, look for a
better job, stop using drugs if you can't handle them) and the birdies will
come-- infrequently at first, with more over time. It won't happen quickly,
just like you didn't lose motivation quickly.

The one self-help schema to which I subscribe is the Principle of Moderate
Change. Too small a change will not get past the threshold of day-to-day noise
and you'll make no real progress. Too big a change will exhaust you or be
short-lived. Change one thing to a moderate degree. Pot you can probably give
up outright. Reddit is harder. Internet addiction is nasty for the same reason
food addiction is so hard for people to kick-- it's something you have to do,
it's a good thing, and the problem is too much. That, I've realized, is why
it's so hard for overweight people to stop "abusing" food: their problem
"drug" is something that they need (in somewhat lesser amounts) every day. For
Internet addiction, the Moderate Change might be to limit Reddit to specific
hours, or just to mandate periodic breaks and reflection (like the Pomodoro
technique). Time-wasting produces its own (worthless) flow state, which is why
I think that internet addiction issues are mostly anxiety disorders. It's
useful to find a way to stick to something that'll help you break that time-
waste flow.

