
'Ugh fields', or why you can’t even bear to think about that task - robertwiblin
https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/ugh-fields-or-why-you-can-t-even-bear-to-think-about-that-task-5941837dac62
======
nullsense
>Most people experience this from time to time.

If you're unlucky enough to be at the tail end of the distribution where basic
tasks make you feel this way every day it's no longer called an 'Ugh Field'
instead it's called the "Wall of Awful"

[https://youtu.be/Uo08uS904Rg](https://youtu.be/Uo08uS904Rg)

One of the absolute best techniques I've found for breaking it is a trick I
learned from DBT called "Improve the moment" where you simply think about what
pleasant sensory experience could you introduce right now to make you feel
better and then you do that quickly. I find if I put on a song or smell the
lemon scented dishwashing liquid or run my hand under warm water it helps me
to get moving on a task. It's not fool proof but it's a good tool to have in
the toolbox.

~~~
echelon
If you're unlucky enough to have ADHD, literally everything except the task
you have arbitrary hyper-focus on is an _ugh_ field. Daily chores and
maintenance like paying bills are _ugh_.

Life is one big maze of _ugh_ , and it's designed by people that don't get us.
It feels inescapable and arbitrary. The only exit seems to be financial
independence.

I often really hate how we're expected to work in this framework.

My hyperfocus is a super-power ([https://vo.codes](https://vo.codes),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs&t=15s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs&t=15s),
and a bunch of other awesome but non-monetizable projects). Too bad I can't
get paid for it.

~~~
tstrimple
My water bill is a week late. I know it's late, I've gotten two emails about
it. I've got plenty of money in my account to pay it right now. It would take
less than five minutes. I still haven't done it.

And the above for most of my other "mundane" responsibilities which aren't
automated yet too.

~~~
takinola
Auto-pay is your friend. I would never pay any bills if I had to do them
manually. My bank also has a feature where you get notified if a bill is
higher than usual so they help you catch if you are being overbilled.

------
sandymcmurray
This is me too.

I have learned, slowly and painfully, that I need to wait 24 hours before
saying yes to any optional assignment. I'm too optimistic about my available
time and wired to be a people pleaser. When I'm asked to help and I recognize
a gap I can fill, I tend to volunteer, even if I'm not the right person for
the job. Days or weeks later, I realize it was the wrong decision then the Ugh
feelings start up in earnest.

It's important for me to realistically assess whether I have the knowledge,
desire, and time to do the task. I'm learning to say no more often than I
would like, and to be less afraid of the consequences of saying no. Promising
to do something I can't or won't do is bad for everyone.

Better to think on the decision and politely say no up front if I don't have
the time or interest or enthusiasm required to get the job done.

~~~
chrisweekly
I can relate. One thing that's helped me has been to remember that saying
"yes" to thing A means saying "no" to many other things B-Z (not to mention
sometimes then being _expected_ to say yes to A again in future). Good luck!

------
Apocryphon
HN has always had productivity articles, but I've noticed some particularly
good procrastination ones in the past few months [0]. I think this is another
excellent addition, one that really examines the problem and goes beyond
"break it into manageable chunks" or "work on it for just ten minutes." For
many, even those standard tactics are not enough, you really need to examine
the most discrete and atomic feelings of discomfort that cause
procrastination.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24170531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24170531)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24039887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24039887)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537317)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360966)

~~~
pimlottc
I think it’s a response to the pandemic. Many people thought they’d be really
productive during the lockdown, only to find that lack of free time was not
necessarily their biggest barrier.

------
ComputerGuru
I cannot upvote this enough. As a single founder of a few different
initiatives, this more than anything else has been the bane of my existence,
exactly as it’s described with low-priority, low-effort but still required
tasks that start off innocuously enough on my todo list but end up, thanks to
not so much procrastination as resource starvation in a highly prioritized and
always full queue, so delayed and as a direct result a thousand times the
psychological burden than they ever deserve to be.

I wish I could just write my own tasks scheduler and flash my brain with the
upgrade. I know, on paper, exactly what I should be doing and when I should do
it; I know that I need a time slot for low priority tasks to empty the queue
and prevent resource starvation; I know that intellectually rewarding tasks
shouldn’t get a VIP pass that lets them short-circuit the line; I know that I
need to give boring management tasks at least some weight on my daily to-do
list as compared to the doing-it-myself tasks; but I just can’t.

~~~
mleonhard
I'm in the same situation. I benefit from telling another person about tasks
that I've been putting off. Would you like to try a regular 5-min "standup"
meeting with me?

------
hlecuanda
That used to be me. I was lucky to be working with friends who noticed these
behaviors and suggested that I should seek proffessional mental health advise.

I ended up being diagnosed with AvPD (Avoidant Personality Disorder, ICD-10-CM
F60.6). I started cognitive behavioral therapy and some prescriptions to
manage anxiety and the related dysthymia (mild depression) that came with
AvPD.

The fact that I can go about my life without procastination and anxiety is a
testament to the correct diagnosis and accurate dosing that my Psychiatrist
prescribed. Before actually seeking pro advise, I tried self-help, willpower,
spirituality, you name it. Things were getting worse and fast. I was very
lucky to be around people who cared about me and acted on their concerns.

¿Best product of health science ever? It's a blue pill and it's active
ingredient is Clonazepam.

~~~
dri_ft
Can you explain? I'm used to seeing people talk about ADD/ADHD with relation
to struggling with productivity/procrastination/attention (naturally), but I
am surprised to see you link it to a personality disorder.

I know a little about avoidant personality disorder thanks to some reading I
did a while ago on the basis of self-diagnosing with schizoid PD/avoidant PD
(depending on exactly how finely one wishes to split that particularly hair),
so you don't have to explain that half to me.

------
gitpusher
Wow, this hit close to home. It's refreshing to know that this happens to
other people as well!

~~~
air7
Same. On a meta-note, it's amazing how many times I rediscover that unpleasant
parts of my psyche are not unique to me, and still I'm under the illusion that
my hardships are mine alone.

------
ncmncm
The Ugh field must be a close relative of the SEP field: "somebody else's
problem". As Douglas Adams noted, it's the closest thing to invisibility
possible in this universe.

------
shannifin
I've had this for the past couple months working on the GUI for a web app; it
all just feels like "ugh". The back end is where all the magic is, the front
end is boring. If I could afford to hire someone, I wouldn't think twice.

In the past, I've found streaming on Twitch helped a lot with "ugh" GUI dev.
It reframed the activity; the main task was actually to stream, and I felt
rewarded when people commented or followed me. (Also learned from people more
experienced.)

I can't stream my current project, but I suspect somehow reframing the
activity in a similar manner will help. I just need to think of a way to do
that...

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the comments here!

------
drinkwell
_' And pity poor PhD students whose entire programs seem designed to make
their life one enormous Ugh Field.'_

This is uncomfortably on point for me. I'm mildly dyslexic and suffer with
mild anxiety issues. Currently I'm trying to write up my PhD thesis and the
whole process has got to the point where it is fairly unbearable. The problem
is I'm the person that will probably be let down the most if I don't complete.
I'm a part time student, requesting my third extension, and have now
accumulated 10 years worth of 'ugh'. It's embarrassing.

------
p1mrx
I've found that it's harder to get stuff done when sitting alone in a box for
6 months, and the (non)completion of tasks has no bearing on whether I'll
continue sitting alone in a box.

~~~
ep103
yeah, this is burnout. I feel like I burn out much faster when working alone
day after day.

------
torotonnato
I’m relieved this phenomenon is widespread enough to have a name, giving names
to things is really a underestimated power.

One technique I use to cope with this mental state: do complain, but only
after you started doing that terrible job.

------
beervirus
This happens to me sometimes with a work project. Typically the only way I can
break the logjam is to just pull an all nighter, refuse to go to bed until
it’s done.

~~~
alonmower
Same, though I wish I could be better at avoiding these

------
viburnum
Telling myself I only have to do it for five minutes and then I can quit is
usually enough to get me started. Never actually have to quit. Another
approach is to take three steps back and think about how to change your life
so these tasks are never your problem anymore.

------
rjkennedy98
Some of the advice in this article is really on point. I particularly liked
this one:

> If you think about it calmly, you may well find that the task actually isn’t
> as important as it has come to feel. The person you imagine is disgusted by
> your failure may only be 2/10 annoyed, or perhaps not even have noticed.

And to add to this, if that person wants to de-prioritize it, let them do so.
I've had an 'ugh field' trying to finish a data migration and my manager
offered to put it back in the backlog because he could see I was struggling
with it. I resisted for 3 straight sprints, but finally said OK yesterday. I
felt an enormous sigh of relief.

------
tetha
I know these tasks all to well.

Another good strategy I've found is to break it into small actionable pieces
and do one of them. Like, don't have a task "Clean the entire place", that's
big and scary. Clean up the sink and create a reminder to do it again next
week.

Don't build the entire dumb thing at once. Add in a necessary config value.
Then think further and add another.

Slow, steady, methodical, habit enabling progress isn't flashy, but powerful.

------
sasaf5
This reminds me of the way Donald Knuth prioritizes his tasks. He wakes up in
the morning and tackles his TODO list starting from the "Ugh"iest task.

~~~
b0rsuk
This reminds me of the book "Eat That Frog" by Brian Tracy, which recommends
doing the least pleasant but important task in the morning. His rationale is
that it 1) makes you stop thinking about the dreaded task because it's finally
done 2) gives you a boost of satisfaction.

------
luord
Great read. This puts a name (sort of) to something I've been struggling with
for a long time. Knowing that it's common actually does help a lot, and I'll
start having that, and the rest of the advice, in mind more often.

------
ep103
I've adopted the following strategy for Ugh work. I would love to hear other
people's suggestions, because while I have found that the below algorithm
works, any improvement would be greatly helpful.

1 - Is the Ugh work so small, that if I just power through it, it can be done
in ~15 minutes? If so, give yourself an hour break or so, then just slam your
head into that wall. 15 minutes is hardly any time at all.

Otherwise, follow the general below pattern:

2 - Document out the task. Figure out exactly that needs to be done. Most
procrastination research I've seen, and personal experience validates, that
just documenting out the task moves it from the theoretical (and easier to
procrastinate) to something more tangible (and therefore less likely to be
avoided / less scary).

3 - Break the task out into small, concrete components. The smaller the
components, the better. (procrastination research also strongly suggests this,
as small concrete tasks are easier to visualize just doing and getting done,
and feel less scary than big unknown problems).

4 - Out of all of those tasks you just broke out, can we throw any in the
trash and ignore them? Once this became an "ugh" task, we stopped trying to
solve this task perfectly. At this point, we just want completion, because
this is holding up something more important (otherwise, why are we doing it at
all?).

5 - Out of all those tasks you just broke out, are all of them ugh tasks? Or
are some of them neutral / easy? Often, just breaking things out into small
tasks gets rid of the ugh factor, because now you can handle it in pieces. Its
the combination of trying to do all the pieces at once that gives it an "ugh"
factor (for example, doing all of the chores on a Sunday can be an Ugh. But
having a list of chores I need to do in the next few days, and just do one or
two now? Not bad at all, provided I never have to look at the entire list and
get overwhelmed again, and can just pluck one from the top and feel good about
my progress). Either way, do the easy / neutral ones left.

6 - At this point, hopefully, the Ugh task is now just a fraction of the size
it once was. If we're under 15 minutes, just brute force it, and have some ice
cream / whiskey / outdoor time as a reward.

7 - If the remaining ugh task still exists, or is atomic, estimate the amount
of time it is going to take you. 10X that estimate. That is now the amount of
time you must dedicate to that task, in order to get through it sanely and
happily.

It was going to take you ~1-2 hours to look up that financial data that you
really hate standardizing in excel? Great, that's what YOUR ENTIRE SATURDAY is
now dedicated to. Take breaks, play video games, do other things. Because in
reality, you're going to work for 15 minutes, then take a break for an hour,
then work for 30 minutes, then go to the store for 2 hours, then work for 20
minutes, then cook dinner, etc, etc, etc.

An Ugh task with an estimate of 1 hour is usually an annoying task with an
estimate of 10 hours (9 of which are positive, happy activities).

~~~
apineda
I love this but then the thought of breaking down a task becomes a challenge
and a task in itself to be broken down. Turtles...

~~~
bscphil
I've seen people on Twitter claim that the experience you are describing (and
I also experience) is actually ADHD, but I haven't been to (or asked) a
professional psychiatrist to confirm this.

~~~
stack_underflow
Personal anecdote/experience: this was usually the problem I would have too.
The overwhelming emotional response/dread/stress would short-circuit my
ability to think logically and just divide and conquer my tasks. Ended up
being diagnosed with ADHD...

I haven't gotten around to trying medication as I recently lost my job in the
US and had to move back to Canada but I have noticed that once I was diagnosed
and able to put a label on the many behaviours I would/still do exhibit, I'm
better able to take a step back and not fall as deep into the pit of despair
and continue to make progress.

edit: I should also add, that in my case, the issue wasn't really that I
wasn't capable of breaking down the tasks, rather, actually executing on doing
so and progressing on those subtasks. What I realized was that I would end up
picturing the time investment of the sum of all those subtasks, and any other
child tasks those subtasks would end up forking off and then dread having to
answer to someone as to why those things were going to take longer than
expected. I've noticed that after losing my job and just working on personal
projects, the dread aspect almost entirely dissapeared (now it's just boring
tasks that I resist doing). But any deep work relating to my personal projects
- I'm okay with new things popping up unexpectedly which end up taking me on a
2-3 day detour of extra work.

------
ralphstodomingo
I've had some recent success at confronting these incidents by finding some
secondary purpose or source of fun in the activity.

For example, there's a company-wide report I'm in charge of curating every
week. I've been doing it for the last 37 weeks or so, and have started to
become dreadful to finish. Took me an upwards of 2 hours every week to
accomplish. It deals with people's submissions and cleaning them up, and
checking for erroneous entries, so only a fraction of the whole report can be
automated.

Until 3 weeks ago, I started considering timing myself doing the thing, and
making note of what improvements I could do to speed up my next run. Within 3
weeks, I reduced the overall time for that task by around 75%, as it just
takes me around 30 minutes now. This last run I did today I think I carved out
more than 10 minutes of my previous run.

------
renewiltord
You can beat this with amphetamines and deadline fear. You can also beat it
with CBT-style self-reorganization but if you find yourself stuck and you have
gotten to the part where you identify the problem but are unable to solve it,
use amphetamines and apply some close up deadline terror.

~~~
mrspeaker
Really? I feel like I'd just skip the task completely... does that approach
actually "get it done"? (seriously asking!)

~~~
renewiltord
Hey, everyone's different. Works for me.

------
cpcallen
I am flinching while reading the article because it makes me think about the
specific examples in my own mind. I'm not even sure I can finish reading the
link; it is just too uncomfortable.

Guess I'll have to find a different displacement activity now.

------
gfody
> Just recognising and labelling the Ugh Field phenomenon can make it less
> bad, because it’s an accurate systemic explanation for what’s going on,
> rather than a misleading personal one like “I’m hopeless and never get
> things done”.

great this does seem helpful

> If Ugh Fields are a constant issue for you, it might be best to try tackling
> those underlying [mental] health and well-being issues first

It started out strong categorizing a sort of mental rut but then goes and
blames it on underlying mental health issues? Not even anything specific just
woolly depression/anxiety/etc. - not helpful in the least!

------
clktmr
Glad the author mentioned taxes, which are definitely my 'ugh field'. However
I already pay a professional to do most of the work, but it doesn't help.

~~~
Finnucane
If doing taxes is not in your ugh field, there is something wrong with you. I
don't even especially object to paying taxes, I think it's necessary. But the
process is awful.

~~~
teach
I'd disagree that filing taxes is "awful".

For most of my adult life, it only took me one hour per year to do my taxes.
Form 1040-EZ, filled out on paper.

~~~
hinkley
If you have been doing a 1040EZ “most of your adult life”, you probably need a
financial planner.

~~~
teach
On a teacher's salary? Not likely.

~~~
capableweb
I'm not a US resident so don't know if it's true or not, but the page for the
1040-EZ form says to not use it since 2018, so hopefully you're using
something else now :)

> For Tax Year 2018 and later, you will no longer use Form 1040-EZ, but
> instead use the Form 1040 or Form 1040-SR

[https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-ez](https://www.irs.gov/forms-
pubs/about-form-1040-ez)

------
paraschopra
The way I deal with essential ugh work is to schedule it at a time when I’m
most likely to be energetic and productive - which is morning time usually.
But I do make sure I don’t stack too many ugh work in a day and that my day
has at least one enjoyable work that I can look forward to after I’m done with
ugh work.

------
fizixer
'Grading homeworks and exams'. I'm sorry the only way I could get over it is
by leaving academia.

~~~
s17n
Did you try getting drunk?

~~~
fizixer
Good point. I didn't.

I would've done it if it had occurred to me, given my desperation with my
research workload.

And it's pretty clear to me that instruction in a research university is a
really bad sideshow that very few take seriously. (but then I could go on for
hours about the broken academic system ...)

------
CodeWriter23
My wife’s expedient solution, she says “It’s work, just do it”.

~~~
DiabloD3
People like that are somewhat ignorant of the day to day struggles of people
surviving in the mundane reality that is the modern world, and how people are
not interchangeable cogs in the machine of productivity.

That isn't a solution, its a dismissal.

~~~
bscphil
To be fair to OP's wife, this is probably intended to be something that works
_for her_ , but not necessarily for you or me.

------
aaron695
Two ideas

1\. Tell someone else.

2\. Just start it, something really small, you can 100% then stop after doing
it with a reward, but you are allowed to continue if you want.

~~~
dmoo
Re 2. My technique is to do the easiest part first, somehow moving from
pending to in progress helps.

------
zanecraw
Good read. I never knew this existed, but now I can put a name to what i've
been feeling.

------
MithrilTuxedo
As a backend Java developer working on projects built using Maven, I'm still
trying to overcome this with the tool our regression team chose to standardize
on for integration and regression testing: SOAP-UI.

------
royletron
My 'ugh field' right now is making a staging environment for a Wordpress blog
that has been left untouched for quite a few years. Anyone raise me?

~~~
hrishios
Mine is a glucose tracking app that I made for my girlfriend. I did all the
reverse engineering of the CGM, electronics, design and coding and published
it so she can use it.

Except it hit a bug a few weeks ago and the "ugh" of setting up the dev
environment with frontend tooling, Gradle and android just to fix it has left
me procrastinating forever.

------
Igelau
> all the normal literature on overcoming procrastination

Enough for weeks, months, years of reading... and plenty of other people
reading it to argue about it with!

------
raindropm
'Ugh fields'

This will be my next go-to word when facing with, um, Ugh fields.

