
Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself? Don't you get tired of? - patrick111
(written from throwaway account)<p>I don't know what is happened to me but I got f#cking lazy. I procrastinate all the day. My subliminal brain thinks that he so smart is, that he can do everything on last minute. But I can't command him that it's not fu#$ing true!<p>Actually yes I'm smart, I made a great startup, I automated it and it makes five figure monthly profit. But it doesn't make sense. After being successful I lost my motivation. I look to back one year ago to myself, working non-stop for my startup, so passionate about it that sometimes forgot to sleep.<p>I know that I can do some innovate thing but my daily routine looks so:<p>Sleep, wake up, check facebook on my ipad in bed 30 minutes, stand up and sit in front of iMac check twitter, check HN, check Reddit. Read newsfeed on facebook, answers emails, write a status on facebook or tweet something Then eat breakfast. This takes 3-4 hours. After that check everyting again. chat with friends, reply to facebook, twitter, hn, reddit comments. Read some wikipedia articles. Read some book about freemasonry. Watch a movie. Eat something. My wife comes from work. talk to her. Watch a tv show with her. And it's already 23.00. "Honey, don't you come sleep with me?" - "No! I must check HN and write something, I'll be back in 10 mins" I it takes 2-3 hours checking, replying, commenting on HN, Facebook, Twitter etc. And I have too many things to do. But my brain doesn't care.<p>Why the heck this happens all the time to me? How do you motivate yourself to work, to concentrate? What should I do?
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zeynalov
Here is my motivation stuff:

A Reddit comment on being a producer not consumer: ---

“I make sure to start every day as a producer, not a consumer. When you get
up, you may start with a good routine like showering and eating, but as soon
as you find yourself with some free time you probably get that urge to check
Reddit, open that game you were playing, see what you’re missing on Facebook,
etc.

Put all of this off until “later”. Start your first free moments of the day
with thoughts of what you really want to do; those long-term things you’re
working on, or even the basic stuff you need to do today, like cooking,
getting ready for exercise, etc.

This keeps you from falling into the needy consumer mindset. That mindset
where you find yourself endlessly surfing Reddit, Facebook, etc. trying to
fill a void in yourself, trying to find out what you’re missing, but never
feeling satisfied.

When you’ve started your day with doing awesome (not necessarily difficult)
things for yourself, these distractions start to feel like a waste of time.
You check Facebook just to make sure you’re not missing anything important
directed at you, but scrolling down and reading random stuff in your feed
feels like stepping out into the Disneyland parking lot to listen to what’s
playing on the car radio – a complete waste of time compared to what you’re
really doing today.”

 __*

Quotes: ---

\- “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
- Goethe

\- “Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.” - Voltaire

\- “Live the life you've dreamed” - Henry David Thoreau

\- "I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and
live the rest of your life as a champion.' " - Muhammad Ali

\- “What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” - Goethe

\- “Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or
take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the telly and
treat life as if it goes on forever.” - Phillip Adams

\- “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” - Einstein

\- If you Complete what you have started, I call this success. Muhammed
Bozdag.

 __*

This video: ---

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAJhosbWiM>

~~~
klaut
wanted to watch the video, but being in UK i am not allowed due to some
copyright issues. too bad :(

~~~
zeynalov
try this -
[https://www.distinctbypass.info/browse.php?u=Oi8vd3d3LnlvdXR...](https://www.distinctbypass.info/browse.php?u=Oi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9R0hBSmhvc2JXaU0%3D&b=13&f=norefer)

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kappaknight
You actually sound pretty normal. I find I go through the same, alternating
pattern roughly every quarter. I'll have 3 months of all nighters and forgo
food and sleep without issues. Once a certain level of success is obtained, my
brain and body decides to relax and not let me do anything unless it's an
emergency. Sometimes this last for weeks, sometimes months. But I totally get
what you're saying.

For me, inspiration and motivation are tied to my procrastination. I tend to
come up with the best ideas and do my best work when hanging off the edge of
the cliff.

In addition to working out (as philip has suggested), I would find a way to
either hide or invest your monthly income so you don't have access to it. If
you only had to live off of $4500 a month instead of $15,000+ a month, you
will get your head back into the game.

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geoffw8
You my friend need a good old friendly slap in the mush. Because otherwise,
you will never be successful. Its as simple as that.

Over with the harshness, I know what you mean. I used to be self employed and
at times I found it tough, I'll use an analogy. I used to set my alarm, and
snooze for about 30 minutes, now I snooze once and I'm out of bed within 5
minutes. The hardest part of starting your day is getting your arse out of
bed.

I would recommend two things:

1) Create a trivial task that just "gets you started". Maybe thats making a
list, reading a industry report. Is it lack of inspiration thats failing to
get you going in the morning?

2) Make sure what your doing is right. I have a saying, if something doesn't
feel right, something is usually wrong. What I mean by that is, if I feel
something is too hard, or making me feel uneasy or - say - I'm not motivated,
its probably the sign of something bigger. Maybe I'm working on the wrong
thing?

Additionally, I'm 22. My qualification to write this comment is I am
incredibly motivated, I do a 10 hour day at another startup, then I work on my
own site which is just finishing. I'd guess your about the same? Actually, I
just read, you've a wife, I'd pin you as older in that case.

You know what, being a senior yourself, scrap all of what I said. You just
need a slap in the mush ;)

If you've excited, holiday. Relax. Do what you gotta do. There's a great
saying about procrastination and I forget who said it but its something along
the lines of "time worried about procrastination is time wasted, if your going
to procrastinate, enjoy it".

Best of luck man, maybe you should consider getting a hotdesk or something,
too.

Enjoy your day!

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pwhelan
In my experience, it just means that your habits have become that which you
don't want them to be.

Look into creating a morning routine that gets you to working on something so
when you wake up you get out of bed and start something, anything. Start
making breakfast (this can be easier if you have the coffee pot on a timer so
it is ready upon waking), pound some water & a banana before going for a run,
do hygiene and get dressed -- any of these make a good starting point.
Finally, getting out of the house/apt to a workspace can really help the focus
as well -- I dream about working on my startup all day at work but when I get
home I frequently fall into the traps you've discussed unless I go to a place
specifically to work.

As a redditor you might want to look at /r/getMotivated.

Finally, the biggest thing for me has been realizing that "just start" is
really, really helpful. If I can just make myself start on something for 5min
then I can easily work on it for 5 hours but that initial resistance is by far
the worst of my barriers.

Good luck.

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tstegart
I've learned to just let my phases happen. I'll go weeks with amazing
productivity and then just hit a wall and all I want to do is game or read. So
as much as possible I try and get it out of my system. I find that trying to
force myself to do work actually has the opposite effect. I sit there and
procrastinate and get mad at myself. Its much more fun to clear out my work
and just say, I'm going to game for three days straight. I get the same amount
of work done either way and enjoy life a lot more. However, if you need to
interrupt your procrastination, I suggest travel. Get out of your routine, go
away for the weekend with no electronic devices. Its amazing how much more
motivated you are when you come back.

~~~
dangeur
The suggestion to change your setting is definitely a good one. If you can
find way to change setting which also removes distractions it definitely
helps. I find that just grabbing my netbook and going somewhere else to just
focus on working really helps me.

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castlerobot
Maybe you're just burnt out from all the time you spent working on it last
year. Since it seems pretty low maintenance right now, try taking an extended
break from it totally. When you go back to it, you may feel differently and
more motivated to work.

Sometimes procrastination is a sign that you're unhappy with how things are
going. Maybe you miss the thrill of creating something new and challenging
yourself. Maybe try recapturing some of that excitement by pushing yourself
and your startup further. Try growing it more, make it better, try out a new
crazy idea. It could help you ignite that passion again.

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philip1209
Try exercising. Honestly.

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ecaroth
Find something outside the internet that motivates you, where if you start
slacking or become lazy at it you see the results immediately. For me that was
martial arts, learning how to eat/live healthy, and working out.

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mannicken
I just work on things that are interesting and tolerate things that are not
interesting to work on things that are interesting. Makes sense? :)

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tolitius
don't think anybody can really help you here, but things to try that come to
mind..

    
    
        * have kids
        * have friends that you can touch
        * have an affair
        * travel
        .. ...
        * put "127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com" in your "/etc/hosts"

~~~
itsprofitbaron
I wouldn't recommend the affair one but, I'm replying to this because
regarding the last one:

    
    
      put "127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com" in your "/etc/hosts"
    

You don't even need to do that if you don't want to completely ban yourself
from HN (especially as this site runs on several domains) you can just edit
the "noprocast" to "yes" and edit the maxvisit: and minaway: times from the
standard 20minutes and 180minutes to help you to be more productive and stop
procrastinating.

