
Imagine yourself starting, not finishing - shdc
http://shyal.com/blog/a-simple-mind-hack-that-helps-beat-procrastination
======
drawkbox
Similar to the 15 minutes starting trick. If you don't feel like doing it,
just do 15 minutes of it and you can stop. Typically you keep on going and it
starts it up.

Another trick is leave a simple tasks or error (syntax error) in the last
place you were working the previous day/night. You'll jump right back in and
get up and in production mode the next day, easy task to knock out and get
coding.

Sometimes having another fun project that you can work on while
procrastinating or thinking about your main project is helpful to keep in
production mode. Procrastination sometimes is a battle of how to implement
something and you should switch to a prototype mode and try them rather than
overthinking the possible solutions.

Sometimes all those fail and you need something like Rescuetime but that also
makes the blocked sites more desirable.

~~~
losteric
I'm partial to TDD because it's great for that "simple task"/error-fixing
mentality. About 30 minutes before leaving, I make sure I have a couple
failing tests and leave them that way when I leave.

Whenever I get back to work, I can just jump in... any kind of work
interruption benefits the same way.

~~~
nyc4life
This reminds me of a practice Ernest Hemingway supposedly used to maintain his
productivity. He would purposely stop writing for the day when he was in a
state of flow and knew what he would write next, so that it'd be easy to
resume his progress when he came back to his desk the next day:

[http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-
productivity-...](http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-productivity-
with-hemingways.html)

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tedsuo
Good tip, though I always feel a pang of irony when I learn something like
this while procrastinating.

~~~
xiaoma
A good marketer puts the message where those who it can benefit will find it.

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rdlecler1
I've read that you should break up large tasks into their most atomic parts
which are psychologically less overwhelming. So rather than write article, you
might have, research subject (2 hours), brains storm bullet points of
questions, write outline, ... At our company I constantly worry about us being
over ambitious because when we are we don't get things done. Better to start
with a small milestone where everyone can be on the same page, see and enjoy
the result, and move on to the next thing when it's complete.

~~~
colmvp
That's one of the reasons why I like the pomodoro technique. You can always
narrow even the most complex issues into smaller pieces that can be
accomplished in a short sprint.

~~~
bufordsharkley
Agreed. The pomodoro technique asks that no task is more than 7 pomodoros
(sets of 25 minutes of focused work).

With this constraint, what once looked like an overwhelming and nebulous task
now seems manageable and concrete.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
A pattern I'm recently noticing for myself is that even if a task doesn't feel
"overwhelming" or "nebulous" per se, it seems to be easier to motivate myself
to knock out a small task than a large one.

Rinse a dish. Open a letter. Rename a variable. Root cause a bug. Rough out
the skeleton for a feature. Write a unit test. Download an installer. Make a
commit. Email someone.

I'm noting there's a difference between small _tasks_ and _a_ small _task_.
Big TODO lists may not be nebulous - I find them quite handy for ensuring a
complete and thorough job is done, and for project progress tracking - but
they're still big, potentially overwhelming huge things. And if not
overwhelming, something that I'm not going to finish today anyways - it won't
hurt to wait until tomorrow...

Instead of more TODO lists, I should invest in having a TODO item.

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redmaverick
Mindfulness (for 45 mins to 1 hr) helps a lot in combating procrastination.
The catch is that if you are a procrastinator, you will procrastinate on
trying to meditate also.

~~~
fabled_giraffe
Beyond procrastination, for those of us that have trouble focusing, this sort
of thing is no joke.

In 30 seconds, we can go from fully intending to do something that we should
do to better ourselves to reading HN submissions and commenting on them.

~~~
elcapitan
I actually use HN frequently as a tool to concentrate better during work. I
often juggle quite different tasks that I have to solve at work. To flush my
mind and go from one finished thing to some completely unrelated next task, I
jump to HN, read some things, then jump back to what I'm supposed to do. The
important part is to have things actionable and with a definition of when they
are 'done', so that you can close them and do the next task.

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kartickv
A trick is to set yourself multiple tasks that are not exciting, so that you
do at least one. If I tell myself, "I will edit all the photos I have been
taking for almost a decade", I may not get around to it.

So, I tell myself, "I will either edit photos, vacuum the house or read the
iOS Human Interface Guidelines." Then I may bounce from task to task, but I
will finish at least one. After a while, the irritation of leaving a task
half-done drives me to complete the other tasks as well.

~~~
metasean
AKA "Productive Procrastination", a method that has helped many through
history - [http://chronicle.com/article/Productive-
Procrastination/4493...](http://chronicle.com/article/Productive-
Procrastination/44939)

~~~
kartickv
Thanks. I didn't know that term.

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lj3
I prefer the 'dark playground'[0] explanation. It's more useful at
understanding and coming up with different ways of dealing with it when those
listed in the shyal article fail.

[0]: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-
procrastin...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-
procrastinate.html)

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xyzzy4
I completely agree with this. I find the best way to fight procrastination is
to put all my willpower into just doing one task, no matter how small, towards
the goal. That often puts me into a state of mind of doing many more tasks
without needing willpower.

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darawk
I use this trick all the time and it works great for me. Another one that I
like to use is to think about my retrospective feeling about the thing after
having done it. So, in the case of going to the gym, I think about the fact
that _after_ having gone to the gym, i've never regretted going. I've never
come back from the gym and thought "man I wish I didn't just do that".

------
juaidhishu
蛐 出 我們會」但是如果雙方在？這次真的做錯什麼為什麼還不是1女人婦科醫院檢查檢查的

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brudgers
A great tip.

Yet I'm keeping in mind that it isn't doesn't guaranteed to work for me.
Everyone is wired different. I'm fallible and perfectly capable of
misidentifying something as procrastination. I'm uncomfortable with
"procrastination"s connotation of moral failing. One person's procrastination
is another's Just in Time execution.

------
scarlac
Great to-the-point article.

To add from personal experience, a similar method can be applied for daunting
tasks. To give an example: If your todo-list seems overwhelming you may end up
procrastinating or stressing out. The solution can be a variant of what's
described in the article: Write a new list with only 3-5/fewer items and focus
on those.

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mhomde
Anyone have the problem that instead of procrastination you start adding new
features because that's more interesting/challenging than the drudge work that
remains. So you're constantly doing a little drudge work and a little adding
features and you get stuck in a Zeno's paradox of never finishing? :)

~~~
salemh
That's like myself and fiction writing. Easier to transcribe written notes, or
re-read and edit, vs just plowing into new chapters and necessary dialogue
builds, etc.

Definitely a different sort of procrastination.

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juaidhishu
ไวๆวหยไ ไยๆย ไยฟวๆหา แสฟยไ

------
juaidhishu
國 一個新人的喜悅？就——但 ऐआजच७ःतकेख

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elcapitan
I liked the comparison with walking the solid board over high ground. This is
something I actually use quite literally to fight my (light) vertigo. The
other trick (maybe more important in that situation) is to avoid switching
back and forth between looking at what's close and what's far away, because
that's the part that irritates my sense of balance and then creates the
vertigo effect. Not mixing up close and far away makes actually even more
sense than the 'first step' metaphor in what the article is trying to say.

------
freekh
I seriously caught myself thinking: ok, sure... will try this... tomorrow! :)

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cpplinuxdude
Yet another article to beat procrastination. I like the idea of rewiring the
limbic system though.

~~~
Numberwang
I've saved up a long list of them into a big project that I will definitely
tackle one day. Definitely.

I just need to sort out the definitions and overlapping boundaries with
habits, tasks and projects and what I should be documenting and not
documenting, and how I should keep a record in terms of time-stamps and how to
structure my information.

One day I will definitely do something.

------
juaidhishu
ᏚᎤ ᎠᏆᎬ ᏓᎾᏓ

------
juaidhishu
ज्ञऑअ

------
Hoasi
> to beat procrastination, a simple trick is to imagine starting the task as
> opposed to finishing it

You could also just start the task, basically accomplishing the same thing.
Skip the imagining part if it is a distraction.

~~~
a_small_island
Akin to telling a depressed person to "stop being depressed."

~~~
Hoasi
Not quite. Granted, the act of starting to work on a task requires some
effort. But assuming a procrastinator's task is within reach, it is in the
realm his or her capabilities. The point is that if starting is the hardest
part, you might as well start right away since you'll have to anyway. The
earlier you start the less you'll suffer later. Starting right away could save
yourself from having regrets. Like rushing a job, missing a deadline, doing a
poorer job etc. Whereas you might not be able to control depression on your
own with a single action or decision.

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nu2ycombinator
On similar topic, following video is very informational and entertaining.
Especially last part the life calendar. Sometimes this life calendar motivates
me procrastinate the procrastination :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU&feature=youtu.be).

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jyriand
Once you know this trick it's pretty easy trick yourself out of this trick.
What has helped me is just preparing for the task, for example, getting up
from the couch and cleaning up my desk, arranging my paper and pencil for
notes etc.

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jasonkostempski
With that title and URL I though it was going to be a thinly veiled attempt at
the Shia LaBeouf equivelant of a Rickroll. The message turned out to be pretty
much the same.

~~~
dang
It's actually not that bad as far as baity self-help posts go. We changed the
title to the weird trick, uh, mind hack. I think that helps a fair bit.

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codezero
I say this on most threads about procrastination, but it's important to
remember that chronic procrastination can be an indication of anxiety, not
just a temporary state of mind. If you suffer from this kind of anxiety and
not just a moment of distraction, you should see a professional, they really
can help fix things long term and improve your quality of life.

~~~
ralfd
I have to do laundry this weekend, and it is a very easy task: I just have to
gather my cloth, go into the basement, put them in the machine and after two
hours hang them up to dry. I don't fear the task. It is not giving me anxiety.
I still read reddit and hacker news instead of doing it.

~~~
shubb
I can see what this guy means because i basically procrastinated myself out of
a degree once.

Sitting down to do study my worst subjects reminded me of how much less I knew
than I needed to - so I procrastinated by studying my best ones instead.

That was definitely an anxiety thing, and some well time counseling might have
been life changing. It's a different thing to your laundry though, which is
probably more about wanting to keep doing reddit than wanting not do
laundry...

~~~
codezero
Time management counseling helped me a lot. The laundry example is a small one
but often all those small things build up into a larger issue that consumes
you, so it's worth treating those as important as any, unless it's just that
one thing :)

~~~
mattfrommars
Along the line, what will a professional say?

~~~
codezero
Depends on the person you see and your particular issues.

For me I did a lot of time management exercises like making an inventory of
where I spent time in any given week and then planning the next week and
seeing if I met my planned goals. That exercise is also good at showing you
how much free time you actually have.

For me I often avoided starting tasks because I wouldn't have enough time to
finish it before something else required my attention. Planning in advance
shows that I usually do have the time, and if I didn't, I could plan to work
on things in the slots where I did.

There are a lot of things they could say though, for me my ADD and poor
behaviors when I was younger meant I needed a few things rebooted :)

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nu2ycombinator
"tldr: to beat procrastination, a simple trick is to imagine starting the task
as opposed to finishing it"

\- Isn't mean not to plan ahead of what do, which means not able to finish the
task effectively. Of course it is better than postponing the task.

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reustle
TLDR: Imagine yourself starting, not finishing.

