Ask HN: How do I see something through to completion?

[Damnednation]

I'm a serial procrastinator.

I have a ~/code folder with about 70 projects, none of which could be classed as finished. I pay for GitHub private repos, of which I have about 30 - again, none finished.

I have a SaaS half-built, with a friend using it (it's a form backend as-a-Service thing) along with a monitoring tool and other bits. I'm unfit, can't stop smoking and getting lazier. I feel like I need a big reset, but every time I try that I fail quickly, and each time it's harder to get back up.

I know if I could dedicate all my being in to focusing on getting fit and buckling down for the remainder of 2018, I could come out in great shape with a published online business - I'm capable of both and I've been very fit before, and made money from side-projects with others (I tend to finish more with someone else working on it) - but I just can't make myself do it. Exercise, meditating, stoicism, good routines, healthy eating - I constantly try one or the other and quickly forget about it.

I'm almost 30 and it's really messing with my head, as I remember being 17 in a bedroom writing Visual Basic apps for money, running PHP and Photoshop tutorial blogs and lots of other stuff - now I can't even get a super simple SaaS out there, despite paying for the VPS and domain for a year now.

I can't go on like this.

[DoreenMichele]

I'm unfit, can't stop smoking and getting lazier.

Smoking has brain chemistry implications. Some people do it to self medicate for depression.

There's research out there. You can also talk to a professional.

You need to fix you first. Work on your health.

[oldmancoyote]

I have ADHD and it certainly sounds like you might as well. I have struggled with what I call the "sustained effort" issue for some time and believe that the only thing that will work is seeing a coach several times a week.

Here I run into another problem associated with ADHD: procrastination. There are multiple popular approaches to beating procrastination. There is a fellow at Stanford that advocates defining the very first action necessary and setting some event as a trigger for initiating it. Once you are started continuing is much easier. It sort of works for me.

I do hope this helps.

Good luck

[Witeshadow → oldmancoyote]

Can you share more on the Stanford fellow and adhd?

[vonseel]

Hey, we sound really similar. Do you have a history of ADHD?