Same here, except my urge goes as far as writing to-do list tools (but obviously never actually getting to the point of having something usable). I guess it's easier to blame current solutions for not having {insert essential feature I just came up with that would finally turn me into a productive individual} than actually working with what I have and focusing on what needs to be done.
I wonder if there is some kind of all-encompassing solution (software-based or whatever) that actually manages to conduct you into a so-called "flow state" in some way. I've tried automating things like blocking websites, turning the computer off at certain times and so on, but it always either feels too constraining (which just makes me disable everything after some time) or too "manual" (which I never have the discipline to maintain). And ultimately, it doesn't really make me want to do the task any more than I would otherwise.
I find it helpful to write an ordered list of my to-dos on a piece of paper. Then I plot them on a chart below - usually I do effort for the x axis and urgency for the y axis. Then I chart a path for myself by drawing arrows from one item to the next. I start with the easiest things so that I can knock off the low-hanging fruit and gain momentum.
I find it helpful to decide what order to do everything ahead of time, because then in the moment when I don't know what to do, I just look at the chart and get a clear answer.
The graphing process also helps me evaluate my to-dos more rationally instead of going off of vague feelings. Often I find that a task that feels really difficult actually won't take very much time. That helps me buckle down and do it, since I know I can get it over with quickly.
Making the graph also helps me let go of things that aren't actually important or urgent. I can put them at the tail end of my path and not worry about whether I'm able to get to them or not. It helps me stay disciplined and not fill up my time with them just because they feel easier than the important stuff.
I'm not being facetious, the bottleneck to individual human productivity is usually the human. Over-planning and focusing on tangential problems are frequently just rationalizing away procrastination... "maybe this mountain of work will take less effort with a better organization system" - probably not.
These days I prefer using org-mode for notes, MoSCoW for triaging, and Omnifocus for execution. It took months to become proficient, but now getting in the zone is effortless.
> I'm not being facetious, the bottleneck to individual human productivity is usually the human.
This too, is my realization, after a lot of introspection (and observing other people).
Sadly, I never learned discipline. Given the anxiety issues I'm struggling with since late-teen/early-adulthood, I can see that my average performance is about 10% of my peak performance.
I hear discipline is trainable, but I wasn't able to find something I could execute as an adult. I wish there was a training regimen with benefits that transfer to the rest of one's life (and not just making someone better at executing the training tasks).
Every adult has some discipline, what we often lack is practice. Discipline is not a binary skill, there are levels - at minimum, most adults know not to impulsively buy candy when checking out at a store. Leveling up is just a matter of exercising discipline to ignore greater impulses.
Start by calibrating yourself. Where do you already have discipline? Going to work every day at the same time? Paying bills as soon as they arrive? Or maybe something harder, like cooking healthy meals every other day, going to the gym, or practicing an instrument?
Understand your level, then find something just a little harder. Ideally, it should be a recurring task which you recognize requires discipline (ie something you want to have done, but don't look forward to doing). Find that task, then do it. Keep doing it until you can effortlessly climb over that mental barrier. Then, continue doing it while challenging yourself with something harder.
As someone with ADD, it took a long time for me to become disciplined. I started out by going to the gym every other day, eventually working up to climbing mountains, learning instruments, and becoming one of the most organized people at work (while still being ADD).
It's not easy. Of course not, discipline is the skill of doing hard things despite the difficulty. But if you're looking for "a training regimen with benefits that transfer to the rest of one's life" - this is it. Discipline is a higher-order skill that transfers to learning or doing everything else.
I think the key point here is that a solution that may work for some people is to be disciplined about working with the grain of your mind, instead of against it.
In exercise people often think the harder you work the stronger you'll get. But actually eating, eating at the right times, and resting are just as important.
Discipline is the solution, with the caveat that the mountain of work needs to actually be worth accomplishing. Procrastination is often the mind's way of forcing you to consider your deeper priorities.
I'd say discipline is just one factor. Another one is that many of us do poor thinking. When a task isn't well defined we tend to not do it. "Buy milk" is clear, "implement backup script with rsync" is not. It may sound somewhat concrete but you have to ask yourself a bunch of question in order to have some clarity as to what that actually means. Often we then feel overwhelmed and procrastinate I'd say.
Isn't that a bit like saying eating less is the solution to weight loss. It's true of course but completely useless advice for the majority of people who struggle with lack of discipline.
"The MoSCoW method is a prioritization technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requirement; it is also known as MoSCoW prioritization or MoSCoW analysis.
The term MoSCoW itself is an acronym derived from the first letter of each of four prioritization categories (Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have), with the interstitial Os added to make the word pronounceable. While the Os are usually in lower-case to indicate that they do not stand for anything, the all-capitals MOSCOW is also used." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoSCoW_method
If I execute without a prioritized list, I tend to focus on the fun/easy "could" and "won't" tasks. Creating a MoSCoW list for myself keeps me honest and acts as a forcing function for discipline.
I've tried so many things in the past (Microsoft To-Do, Google Tasks, Google Keep, Trello), but nothing seemed to work or was very distracting. And then I tried org-mode, and I swear by it. It's great and flexible. I've used it to plan projects, complete assignments, and schedule appointments. I also set up sync to two cloud providers, allowing me to view my TODOs in a web browser or my phone in an instant. In addition, the clockin feature of org provides me with quantifiable measures of my productivity. And best of all, there's zero vendor lock-in, since all org files are plain text.
Speaking of work, I should probably get off HN now :)
Eventually I just stop staring at whatever list but instead, off the top of my head, jot down what seems to be important on a piece of paper since crossing it off physically gives a lot more satisfaction.
Anything else just goes into hundreds of notes in Apple Notes that I review every week. (After having tried every app under the sun, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a sucker for native integration).
For me, it's when I open my .emacs file and start working on my personal TODO items. The last time I ended up writing some elisp functions to make adding code comments/documentation easier and to auto-generate project layouts and source code skeleton files.
Yup, hacking on emacs is my procrastination method of choice. It is enough a part of my daily life that I can convince myself that writing a function to generate org mode links from epub files will genuinely make me more productive down the line.
Thing is, it does. I am a very distractible person, but using a combination of Org mode's recurring tasks and clocking has helped me get many long-time tasks that I'd normally just procrastinate away done. And all those little bit of configuration and scripting has indeed made me if not more productive per se, more efficient in using Emacs and Org to be more productive at least, and that is no little thing at all.
As a person that grew up with standard western schooling, video games, and sports, and to some extent simply because I'm human, I'm trained to have these well-defines lines of when I accomplish something, which set off the reward centres of my brain. I have attempted to exploit this in regards to my to-do-lists to increase my productivity:
- The to-do-list is no longer just there to make sure I remember to do things - it is its own reward for doing things. Often I will add something to my to do list when I am already about to start it - and need no reminder - just so I can check it off when I'm done. Occasionally I have even added something after I've finished doing it, just for the psychological reward.
- I break things down into smaller parts to make it seem like a larger number of accomplishments than it otherwise would be. For example, today I need to make two similar online purchases - I could have easily put "Buy A and B" as one item, but instead I put "Buy A" and "Buy B". Of course, one has to draw the line somewhere, or we would end up with "get out of bed" "walk towards the door" "open the door" on our lists, and checking off tasks would mean nothing. Use your judgement.
- I put "Work on my coding project" on there, even tho I'll be unlikely to have much time for it. This means, in order to avoid having a single outstanding item at the end of the day, I will at least do some work on it, keeping it fresh in my mind, keeping me in the habit, and inching me towards completing it - and preventing me from outright procrastinating it until tomorrow. Even if it's five minutes work.
These are of course silly psychological tricks that directly accomplish nothing, made even stranger by the fact that I'm using them on myself. Of course, one could say the same about drugs, but nobody would argue that caffeine or amphetamine never give you a genuine boost just because you don't strictly need them. And, I feel that it works.
Now here's the challenge - stop the structured procrastination of writing this comment and go do the things on my to-do-list.
Hmm... should I add "write a comment about to-do-lists" to my to do list...?
Insightful for sure.
I should start using this exact same method, but my problem is to fragment activities in smaller ones, which I find hard and sometimes even too much time consuming.
I've realized that I spend most of time focusing on the second most important task I need to accomplish at any given moment. And since most of my work has been handed to me by other people, most of them think I'm amazingly efficient and end up exceedingly happy with the timeliness of my work, all but the one who is currently waiting for their high priority request.
I've found that the secret to this is to find someone who's the sort of obnoxious person who always has a "high priority" dumb request, and to make sure you're helpful enough that you'll always get that request, which you can safely ignore for the rest of the day knowing that you'll draw their ire but the fact that you solved it at all means they'll keep coming back.
It is both terrifying and comical at the same time.
This made it click for me about why the most productive times I have are also the busiest ones. I thought it was due to "inertia". That is, if you don't stop rolling, it'll be easier to roll. This theory has been contradicted by the fact that it still really is quite easy to stop rolling very shortly after busy times pass.
I had noticed this effect before, but only now after reading about it I'm completely aware of it. I wonder how that came to be part of the human psychology.
> I thought it was due to "inertia". That is, if you don't stop rolling, it'll be easier to roll.
This is a very common idea, and also potentially somewhat dangerous. A lot of people chase the inertia with ever increasing workloads and burn out. I have come close to that multiple times.
For some reason, I thought I was the only person who couldn't motivate themselves without this sort of structured procrastination. It's clearly more common than I thought!
I'm going to guess and say he was just borrowing a current, in-the-news hashtag and applying it to this situation. In other words, he was just joking around.
I think the minimalist approach could be a companion to this style behavior augmentation.
Rather than adding things that could be done, I only add tasks that have to be done. Overtime, my "bandwidth" for tasks I don't like doing become much greater and, in some cases, I begin to enjoy them.
Adding accountability around the tasks helps a lot (in my experience) as well. I frequently use my guilt as a way to motivate me.
Ex:
- If you don't write these tests, your co-worker will assume you don't know how.
- If you don't clean your room, your guests will think you're a slob.
Admittedly, it leads to sort of a masochist style of thinking; however, that's my brain by nature.
related: trying to trade bitcoin made me structure my activities a lot more. I hated trading, but it put negative pressure on itself leading to better use of time.
