
Stop Procrastinating by “Clearing to Neutral” - mattraibert
http://updates.lifehacker.com/post/34850636076/stop-procrastinating-by-clearing-to-neutral
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tptacek
A variant (I think) of this idea that I've been using for years: when I stop
coding, I jot down what I was doing, whatever problems I was dealing with, and
what I felt my next steps were going to be in a little Emacs buffer.

It would probably be even smarter of me to take 20 seconds to figure out
exactly the right set of Emacs tabs/frames to keep open alongside them, so
when it was time to start up again, I'd get sucked right in.

~~~
CamperBob2
A related trick I find valuable is to do the exact opposite of what the
article suggests. _Never finish anything_ at the end of your workday. Leave
yourself a small mess to clean up, or some simple and finite wrapup task that
you can afford to postpone. Bonus points if it's going to be fun or
interesting to work on.

The idea being, it'll be much easier to get back into the groove the next day
if you aren't confronted with the proverbial empty screen or blank sheet of
paper the minute you walk in the door.

After you spend 30 minutes wrapping up the work from yesterday, you will
already be in the zone, and it'll be easier to move ahead to the next big
thing on your list.

~~~
Gorgias
This is a trick Hemingway used when writing.

"The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what
will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always
stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until
you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it
all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will
kill it and your brain will be tired before you start."

I often create fun little mini-projects for myself to do and store them for
later. I find that completing a small and fun project motivates me to work on
whatever actual task I should be working on.

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kiba
Nice hypothesis, but where's the lab result?

I highly encourage people to think skeptically and scientific as well using
the self quantitative approach to self improvement, even when they're certain
when their theory is right.

For example, I am measuring blood pressure, steps count, weight, blood sugar
level, awake and sleep time everyday. I also just recently concluded that
walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight or very subtle one.

[http://kibabase.com/articles/self-
quantification#interventio...](http://kibabase.com/articles/self-
quantification#intervention-1---walking-10k-steps)

In the future, when I finish my analysis, other people might decide to
replicate my experiment or comes up with their own conclusion based on the
data I gathered.

Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me. I
like the idea of having a clean desk or clean environment though. The ugly
environment in my house doesn't appears to deter me from getting things done,
though.

~~~
larsberg
> walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight

If you're going to change and track something to test its correlation to
weight, please consider calorie intake instead.

10k steps is really not going to burn many calories (my marathon running
friends use the "1 mile = 100 calories" rule of thumb). Additionally, many
people starting cardio see an increase in appetite and if they are not already
used to carefully controlling their food intake, end up _gaining_ weight.

Having known many people who have made the 50 lbs. fat loss goal you're
looking at (and having cut 25 lbs. myself), a major diet change is likely the
only thing that'll get you there. If you continue to take in enough food to
sustain yourself at ~200 lbs, nothing short of training like Michael Phelps
will get you down to ~150 lbs.

~~~
barking
I thought that until someone explained to me that the 100 calorie figure
includes ALL the calories burned during the time the run takes. If you run 10
miles in 1 hour that's about 1000 calories. But lying on your back burns up
100 calories per hour. So running only accounts for 900 or 90 per mile. and
also the number of cals burned is proportional to your weight to some extent.

EDITED to correct some bad arithmetic :(

~~~
jedbrown
On the flipside, exercise increases your metabolism during the rest of the
day, typically more than offsetting your math. This effect is well-correlated
with exercise _intensity_. Also, 100 calories/mile at 6 minute/mile pace is
quite efficient unless you are very light (e.g., 140 lbs).

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mattraibert
This article got me thinking about places in my life where there's friction.
My computer stands out as a huge source of friction. I already try to close
unnecessary windows/tabs, but after reading this, I realized that, because I
use it for so many different habits, my desktop fails as a friction free
starting point for work.

So I've identified a few ways I use my computer and I'm setting up a user
account for each one:

    
    
      * coding in Ruby
      * coding in Java for work
      * blogs and email (and hacker news)
      * personal and household maintenance
    

This way I can tune each desktop to the appropriate kind of work. I can
eliminate clutter in the dock. I can leave the appropriate windows open
without it distracting me when it's time to do something else.

If it goes well, I'll try to write it up in a blog post.

~~~
scott_s
A less radical approach is to use multiple screens/desktops, but all under one
account. Under OSX, they're called "Spaces," and I can't remember what the
Linux term is. I'm not sure if Windows has them.

~~~
gknoy
I used VirtuaWin for about five years in Windows, it works excellently. Not as
perfect as the ones in Linux, but close.

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sarah2079
I think a lot of this applies to me, I have a bad habit of leaving windows
open for things I am not actively working on even though I know this can
really bog me down mentally. However, while I think there is a lot of value in
clearing your workspace to remove friction, someone also gave me some really
good advice to help with getting started in the morning that is a little bit
contradictory. The advice is to leave something partially finished that you
can easily get right back into it when you get back to work. Sometimes the act
of starting something new can be too much to overcome first thing in the
morning, and then you get sidetracked. If you leave something ready to go that
you can easily do, it can help you get into work mode immediately.

~~~
Evbn
Just do a code review in the morning to warm up, instead of hurriedly
finishing yesterday's work and then tossing it aside to start something new.

~~~
sarah2079
The idea is to leave something fun but approachable ready to go to make it
easy to get into work mode. I don't enjoy code review very much, so for me
trying to do this first would be a recipe for procrastination.

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agumonkey
Any tennis player knows this, always recenter. I think somehow the idea of
automated garbage collection got to some of us programmers.

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kailden
I've found the best way for me to jump into something is to leave vim open to
the very project I'm on--even if I'm midtask. I wouldn't want to close all the
windows, as that would make it harder to start the next day.

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gathly
These seem to be all points for the ADHD/OCD set, which does not include
everyone. Clutter doesn't bother me, not in my sink, not on my desk, not on my
desktop. I can't work, because I have too many things in my home that are more
fun than work.

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shakeel_mohamed
I'm a big fan of Asian Efficiency, I read a similar article years ago (maybe
it's the same one?). Clearing to neutral has definitely given me positive
results.

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taybin
Fancy name for the lesson "cleanup after yourself" I'm trying to teach my son.
But still a good idea that I will try to make use of in my own life.

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jiggy2011
If you don't want to _ahem_ procrastinate, then don't put a picture of slave
leia up on your wall.

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Angostura
I'll clean to neutral just after I've done something I'd rather do.

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3rd3
It scares me a bit how close these pictures are to reality.

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kjhughes
The effectiveness of these mind games tends to be fleeting.

Nike nailed it: Just do it.

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Evbn
This article is completely ignorant of scientific research into how
procrastination actually happens.

~~~
aw3c2
I'd be interested, could you share some papers/articles?

