The thing I sometimes wish for most is a 'hard reset'. When I was a lot younger I achieved this just by changing everything - cities, jobs, possessions, relationships. The resultant clear space was intoxicating as there was no 'cruft' of incomplete tasks nagging away at the edges of ether consciousness. As you get older this is virtually impossible or at least very difficult because of the people we share life with. Writing down endless lists can help to declutter the mind and allow focus - this is the core of the GTD strategy. However the things are still not done.

I also have been given rewards for procrastinated tasks, and some of my best work has been done last minute. Yet I recognise that perhaps that work would have been even better with more preparation.

So I'm currently without a great strategy, still getting work done but perhaps failing in other areas where other non-work goals are not necessarily being completed. I think decluttering (physical and mental) is the key but this in itself takes serious effort and can involve anguish (throwing things out and abandoning goals and tasks takes commitment)

Repetitive factory workers probably don't procrastinate near as much because once they learn the job, the decision-making aspect goes way down. Plus, they'll get fired.

Close. We're addicted to all manner of other things that give us that instant dopamine hit. When you ask somebody what do they do when they procrastinate, they rarely say they do something productive[0]. Instead, it's an activity that's designed to trigger that instant high: browsing the web, playing video games, eating, smoking.

My reward system is completely divorced from reality. I get rewards all the time for doing absolutely nothing. It's supposed to be, you do some work, you get a reward. You go fishing, dinner is your reward. You build a treehouse, the satisfaction of a job well done is your reward. But what do you do when you can get 100x the reward just clicking through hacker news?

I'm currently working on resetting my dopamine threshold by limiting my web browsing to 1 hour a day and meditating more. I'll be honest, it's not going well so far.

[0]: some do, but they don't consider their procrastination as a problem.

One thing I've tried to do is do household chores when I feel the procrastination urge. It's still procrastination but at least it's a bit more useful than playing video games.

I'm tempted to start consuming the internet solely through my kindle (again, just the instant fix sites: hn, reddit, facebook). It would slow my consumption way down and I'd only be able to use it when I'm not working. But, I need to find a way to stick to that and not also read HN and Reddit while I'm at the work computer. The only tried and true solution I've found for that is to get an accountability buddy. I tried to do that once in person with co-workers (I offered to give them $20 if they can catch me consuming caffeine), but in the end they were uncomfortable taking my money. The next step is researching those accountability buddy startups, where you give money to an organization you hate if you fail.

Stop masterbating. It's creating a mess of your dopamine reward system and has left you unable to get anything done.

In this situation I'd like to recall Bertrand Russel's great dictum: "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". :) Totally changed how I think about my "procrastinating" time when I read that.

[1] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

Describes me perfectly. :)

For anyone who wants to really understand the disorder (even those who have it and think they have a good grasp on it) Dr. Russell A Barkley, PhD is a great place to start. In particular this video, "Essential Ideas for Parents": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo

If you have ADHD I can't recommend his books enough.

But when it's stuff I don't enjoy or I'm a bit down, it's a totally different ball game.

I also tend to not be concerned about dates far in the future because I secretly believe I can pull a rabbit out of the hat whenever I want and get the 1 month task done in a day, I'm that fucking good. Of course, I'm not.

ADHD is not something to be flippantly tossed around on not being able to do stuff until a deadline, that's just classic procrastination. I know you didn't mean to sound flippant, but you are being flippant and also I don't think it's a good idea to start conflating ADHD with procrastination.

Like yourself, until diagnosed, I would have never considered ADHD a possibility because I would regularly focus intently on a programming project or random wikipedia rabbit hole for hours and hours at a time, often skipping meals and staying up until the early hours of the morning. But it turns out these trances of hyperfocus are typical for many ADHD sufferers. There are different flavors of ADHD. I never experienced the hyperactivity that often leads to diagnosis in children.

Keep in mind that one of the requirements for diagnosis in the DSM is impairment in social, academic or occupational function. In my case, spurts of hyperfocus routinely kept me from maintaining healthy sleep, diet, and hygiene routines, and ADHD also prevented me from doing homework and chores that were uninteresting. Unfortunately, there are precious few people who are able to exclusively focus on whatever engages their fancy at the moment. For me, it was debilitating.

Check out the video brazzledazzle posted above. You'll learn ADHD is way more nuanced than the popular understanding.

Frankly, the description you have given is very similar to AD/HD, especially the "I'm that fucking good" part. Yes, I know you weren't bragging, but that sense of infallibility and the letdown that invariably follows when your abilities don't manifest ... I'm guessing it sours you to the project you're working on? Can't seem to direct yourself back to it to care again like you did when you were focused on it the first time? Anxious to find something else that's more interesting where you can prove what a rockstar you are? That rush when you pull that rabbit out of the hat, feels good, doesn't it? Dopamine is great, when you do something that creates enough of it that your brain feels rewarded. For many, it doesn't take much. For many people with AD/HD, the last minute YOLO cramming/programming/building/working session is what it takes to feel like we're doing anything worthwhile.

EDIT: I guess that means either you don't have AD/HD, or just something else that inflates your sense of your abilities. Maybe you're just addicted to the rush of the looming deadline? I don't know. I'm not a psychiatrist.

- Lack of awareness or concern for timelines until immediate consequences loom.

- Inability to control focus if not emotionally invested. (So-called hyperfocus is much part of ADHD as is non-focus).

These are both things that would light up an ADHD scoreboard. They're almost direct quotes from the literature, and if you spoke to a group of ADHD people they would recognize them immediately.

People with ADHD have many explanations for "why" they are this way. A lifetime of rationalization does not make it not so. So perhaps talk to an ADHD specialist - it can make a huge difference in your life, and your loved ones.

Ask someone diagnosed in later life, say, over 40, if they would have preferred to not be rationalizing and suffering the consequences over the last 20 to 30 years.

It causes me problems with others as I work/communicate quite differently but I've learned to use it as a strength, as I tend to be really creative and to think out the box easily.

1. understanding how it particularly manifests in (you, if you indeed have it), and 2. developing foundational patterns of action to support repetitive tasks and activities throughout your day.

Talking with someone who has expertise in diagnosing the disorder can be supremely helpful. If nothing else they'll help you narrow further where those effects are stemming from if not AD/HD, and if a diagnosis does make sense, they can help you start to build the structures and patterns in your life that can help alleviate those symptoms.

Driven to Distraction by Hallowell and Ratey was supremely helpful for me in understanding the deficit better and in helping to develop strategies to overcome / shore up some deficiencies in my day-to-day.

You have the time (doesn't feel that way, with all those DUE RIGHT NOW tasks I have that are way more important) to make the appointment (and why can't they just see me today, it probably won't take that long, it's just a questionnaire, right?), drive to the doctor (and deal with all those idiots on the road who clearly can't drive as well as I can, and where did they learn the rules of the road anyway?), wait in the waiting room (didn't I just fill out all this paperwork online like they asked, trying to be efficient? Why am I doing this again? I should tell them there are better ways of doing this! And that guy coughing over there, didn't he learn to cover his mouth? Ugh, figures, reading a trash magazine, probably doesn't know any better) and talk to the doctor (who I should totally tell about the nootropics I've been reading about to see if he knows about them too and can just give me some of those and send me on my way because I've got shit to do, and it ain't gonna do itself, and OH LOOK, THAT SQUIRREL JUST JUMPED TWO FEET IN THE AIR!). It can't hurt.

Note to the reader: the parentheses indicate my own thoughts when I did this years ago. I was told later by others I've met with AD/HD that they had the same exact thoughts, and it helped them to see a doctor. I was also told by others who didn't have AD/HD that I needed to grow up, suck it up, and just do it. To me, that clarifies the difference of someone with AD/HD and someone without. Either you can identify with every single one of those things in parentheses, or you think, "of course we all think some of those things, but we put our big boy pants on and get it done; it doesn't mean you have a deficiency in your neurochemistry, it just means you have to motivate yourself a bit more to get anything done."

Seeing as they were self-imposed, the easiest 'solution' to the resulting 'depression' is just to lift them! Great! Oh, wait, we're back where we started..

I ended up an order of magnitude more miserable and in a very bad financial position for half a year. I can see how it works for people with big tolerance for stress (apparently I'm not one of them), but it's a double-edged sword.

You don't use the same part of the mind that exercises intellectual understanding in order to gain emotional intelligence. For some, it's like an underused-mental muscle. It grows stronger with practice.

"It's like asking an alcoholic to understand the emotions of why he drinks."

That's a great question to ask!

I guess, if you are like me, the problem is in your head and you are thinking about it all the time - until you achieve the clarity on what exactly to do OR you are forced to start since the time is fast running out. You may be browsing HN, but, the problem solving is happening in your brain as a background thread. ie., some amount of procrastination is required for some of us. But, it is debatable how much of this is necessary.

The idea is that thoughts influence emotion and physical responses, which then influences behaviour, consequentially influencing outcomes.

With procrastination, you will think of a task that you are avoiding. This may create anxiety and a tightening in your stomach. This will then prevent you from taking action. The outcome of that is rationalisation thoughts such as "I've got loads of time on this" or "I'll just do it later", which then eases the emotional and physical responses, leading to you postponing the task and doing something else. This cycle will continue.

By being mindful of these thoughts and recording them, you can then begin to look at rational responses. So, for example, you might say "I'm not good enough" and then craft a written, rational response to it. You continue this until you have an uncertainty, where you can't be sure if it's a rational response. You then create a practical plan of behavioural experiment to test it. This may include doing a small part of the task and seeking feedback to see if you're on the right lines, as an example to not being sure if you have what it takes for the task.

Identifying these cycles and consciously taking steps to elimate them can probably do more than focus on any particular part of the cycle alone.

Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology also includes a good chapter on CBT. The book also includes other findings/techniques in psychology that can help improve mood, motivation, relationships, etc. It also starts out by smacking down the Law of Attraction, which isn't really effective - it's more like an emotional pyramid scheme.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Teach Yourself by Christine Wilding contains some good information too.

Outside of CBT, Man's Search for Meaning, which defines logotherapy, is a damn useful book. Tim LeBon's book also includes information on this.

Instead of that, a popup that asks "what are you supposed to be working on right now?" with a short text input. You type an answer, and carry on procrastinating. Then after 15 minutes, it pops up again and says "Remember, you were working on this: ... Is there a URL where you can find information to help you with it?" Then an input field for a URL where you can put your project domain, or the wikipedia article you need, whatever. After another 15 minutes, "Hey, it's time to start working on x. Go here to get started."

Thoughts?

I've also tried pomodoro. Printing up reminder signs. Talking myself into it. All sorts of things.

If you are avoiding the underlying emotional issue, it works like a bandaid: helps in the short term, doesn't address the root problem.

It was only until I started seriously practicing meditation that things start to move, and not because meditation magically fixes procrastination. Rather, if you are practicing meditation correctly and stripping away self-deceptions, then you will eventually start surfacing up the things that lead to avoiding things that are important or urgent.

And it can go the other way too: people who are busy doing stuff may well also be procrastinating the really big, important issues in their life. Doing things that are urgent but not important becomes another procrastination tool, and helps with the self-deception that "you are doing something about it".

It's also been my experience that trying to face procrastination face on, takes on the quality of the emotions involved.

For example, if you were to attempt to rest your awareness on anxiety, the way you would go about it will be skittish, and avoid it. If you were to attempt to rest your awareness on anger, you will start to get aggressive towards your anger. If you were to attempt to rest your awareness on depression, then you'll get to the point where you say, what's the point in being aware of depression?

I've said it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10144329 ... Emotional intelligence will supercharge your intellect because for most people, their lack of emotional intelligence holds back an otherwise brilliant mind.

I've used some meditation exercises coming from kundalini yoga to tackle other problems, and they have worked wonderfully. Nevertheless, I haven't encountered something like what you're mentioning.

Thanks!

The exercises that will have the most variants are concentration exercises, usually some sort of one-point concentration on a sensory object -- sight, sound, touch, kinesthetics, taste, smell, etc., tangible or untangible in varying forms of abstractions. Journeying methods (where you visualize a space, or say, in Gestalt therapy where you allow fragments of your persona to embody) are variations on concentration techniques. Despite the emotional connotation of the word 'concentration' (which usually mean, some sort of pressure, stress, or force), skill in concentration has more to do with relaxing than stressing.

Kundalini yoga is interesting because you'd have to distinguish between Kundalini Yoga (tm) (the specific lineage of Kundalini yoga promoted by a genius in marketing) and kundalini yoga (the class of practices or yoga designed to awaken shakti and kickstart the Kundalini process). I don't know the details of your practice, but I wouldn't doubt that you would find them helpful. If you are arousing energy, then you will start surfacing up buried emotions, memories, habits, etc. and a complete system will also include methods on dealing with it. If nothing else, there is simply "sitting through it", and that is where it intersects the mindfulness practices like vipassana or insight.

Does this help?

I'd say I've practiced kundalini yoga, since the Kundalini process definitely started. Nevertheless, I'm wondering who is the marketing expert now.

The first is suggesting that that wondering or doubt can be an entry point to explore something buried. You might surface up all kinds of interesting things.

The second is this: when Shakti pierces the 4th chakra and/or the hrit padma (below it) ... you'll gain a kind of "compass". From there on out, you'll always have a way of checking which path to go. It might mean staying with kundalini yoga, it might not be.

The journey getting to the center involves piercing through the 2nd ganthri, learning to surrender. It will be like peeling an onion. You'll cry. A lot. And you'll know it is worth it.

Whatever way you are choosing, you won't "miss out". Some paths are shorter -- and more intense -- than others. That "compass" is guiding you whether you are aware of it's influence or not, more so if you are re-affirming your dedication to the discipline. You take any path to it's ultimate end, and they all come to the same ultimate end.

In my experience, the feelings that arise leading up to the practice time were exactly the feelings that arise leading to procrastination. One day, I found myself putzing around, avoiding the cushion, and knew that the practice has already started.

What worked for me were a number of small things:

(1) Dedicating a space for practice. When I first started, I dropped a cushion right next to my bed so I would trip over it when I woke up and trip over it when I slept. Formally dedicating a space, even if it is a small corner, helps a lot when you are first trying to establish a discipline.

(2) Dedicating a time. When I first started out, I was a night owl. I still am; but a lot of the night owl thing comes from -- you guessed it -- procrastinating on sleep. So I formally dedicated the time right before bed for practice; that, no matter how late, how tired, how fuzzy I was, I was going to sit before I crawled into bed. (A year or two in, I naturally shifted to a morning practice; by then, I feel off if I didn't practice something each day).

(3) Gamification worked well for me, though beware going to the extreme. Eventually, one of the things you start stripping away from your mind is responding to the reward/punishment triggers. I used a streak calendar. I took page from Kickstarter. I knew that I have a tendency to go overboard in excitement and then try to do as much the next day, fail, feel ashamed/guilty about failing, and the dropping off from the practice. So I would have three levels of practice:

The nominal practice time. In the beginning that was 5 minutes. I might not be able to do 10, or 20, but how hard it is to do "just" 5 minutes right before bed?

Stretch goals: if I went further, I'd consider it a stretch goal. Completely optional. In other words, the next day, the practice goal still resets to my nominal goal. If it happens I reach that stretch goal, then that's ok, but it's ok if I didn't. (If you practice correctly, you would know that there are a lot of things that arises from waiting to achieve stretch goals -- anxiety, shame, guilt, etc. the usual suspects).

Token effort: over time (months), I started ratcheting up my nominal practice to longer and longer lengths of time. I tend to do it when I'm regularly hitting stretch goals effortlessly. However, I left room to be lazy. I allowed myself a "token effort", the absolute minimum I can do. It's set around 5 minutes. (These days, "token effort" has more to do with the quality of my mindfulness rather than length of time). I knew early on that, just like stretch goals, some days ... my mind is tricking me into persuading me into skipping for the day, and I counter with "well, why not just do a token effort". Then when I do it, end up going past the token effort and it turns into a regular sit length.

(4) Other side of gamification -- social cues. (Ever read a book called "The Talent Code"? If Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion of "10,000" hours of practice, "The Talent Code" speaks about how to get there). In the Buddhist tradition, this would be the sangha, that is, fellow like-minded people also on this journey, although they might not be traveling the same path. Opensit.com is a great example. You log your time there and people help each other stay with the sit, as well as comment on when difficulties start arising.

If you seriously want to establish a practice, my suggestion is to start at the basic: just getting yourself on the cushion consistently every day. Focus on the process, not the results. No one will ever give you a gold star for attaining enlightenment (seriously, no one will give you a gold star for attaining enlightenment). There are interesting states you can reach in meditation, but if you cling to those states and you're not aware that you are clinging to those states, you're not really practicing impeccably, are you? (You could also cling to the process, turn it into an empty ritual, but for most people, the issue usually lies in getting started).

Hope that helps.

Lately, I've been seriously thinking about writing a book, "Accelerating Your Spiritual Growth" with stuff like this in the early chapters. So I'm glad this info is useful to folks.

I'm familiar with the notion of the 10,000 hrs benchmark popularised by Malcolm Gladwell but haven't heard of The Talent Code. Thanks for that as well!

Regarding writing your book - you should do that and let us know when you do. I'll definitely be interested.

Probably needs a categorization so it knows what type of response to output.

Also, would avoid linking to wikipedia as it's a procrastinator's heaven with various tangentially interesting articles.

For example, let's say I'm working on a paper and while writing, I encounter a latex problem that I want fixed so I go off and look it up on stackoverflow (instead of making a note that I need to fix this later). Ideally I'd go right back to working on my paper after solving the issue. Unless I can't solve it and have to do more digging and on and on. Until I'm interrupted by someone/ something and when I get back to the task at hand I don't even know what I was working on and why.

So I thought that it would be nice to have something like a stack trace of things I'm doing. I'd be able to see where I left off and more importantly how and why I got there. But I'm not sure that a stack is the right data structure for this, and if not, what else to use. Also, I can't imagine how to build something like this in a way that I'd actually use it, because it would probably require too much typing/ other overhead.

[0] : http://www.hanselman.com/blog/YakShavingDefinedIllGetThatDon...

It also had a back off that was configurable. There were times when I was doing actually productive research that the constant questioning was annoying, especially intrawebsite. So you could delay the next request for N minutes based on a configuration.

Other sites were white listed. They were low volume, low distraction or high value like google.com.

In the end I destroyed because it felt like another failure. No one wanted it. So I took that as a personal rejection. It could just be that I did a poor job of marketing it. I might try making it again, but for Safari since I've recently changed.

I'll raise you, unfinished home improvement project, and the lawn.

Maybe inspirational videos/audios?

A Jedi Shia LaBeouf popping up and saying "yesterday you said tomorrow, so just dooo it!" seems like it would work :-)

Procrastination is protecting yourself from feeling the upcoming revolting disgust these activities can bring. You avoid feeling it, like you avoid touching a hot plate, that's why the disgust never shows. Only when somebody forces you to do it anyway.

The (scientifically tested) theory for this is called Anstrengungsvermeidung (german for "effort/stress avoidance") and isn't widely adopted.

Like I said, the theory isn't widely adopted. When there's material available in english, I'll post it.

Emotions change as they are 'processed' and as new observations are made. That sounds like a 'logical' process to me. It's just hard to turn such processes into processes involving words (at least for me!).

Geometric, visual thinking is often as invaluable as logical, verbal thinking in mathematics. I believe that emotional thinking (some uses of the word 'thought' render that phrase paradoxical) is valuable in many human undertakings, too. I admire those who can swiftly translate emotions into words and back again. It is a form of power just barely beyond my grasp.

Emotion is a constant stream of something real that emerges from within. We proceed to express them with thought, dance, music, etc. Without them we would have very little to express or digest. Most thought and contemplation can be traced to an emotion that we had or that isn't going away. eg. Hunger begs for the experience of ingestion and we naturally obsess about obtaining food while we are hungry. But reasoning with hunger doesn't work, etc etc. just some food for thought ;)

The processing of emotions are simple: experience it when it arises, allow it to do it's thing, and allow it to pass. There isn't a need to comment on it, though it is possible to gain some interesting insights by observing them.

I've found that most of the time, people don't want to know what you are feeling. They want to know that you are feeling what they are feeling. The most crudest form of that is mirroring techniques, but that's actually not necessary and can be detrimental. It's a bandaid because the person is ignorant or unskilled in healing.

There is a Sanskrit word called "dukkha" that doesn't have an easy English cognate. The closest would be "existential anguish", something that lies underneath every single experience.

There is a particular way of opening yourself up to someone else's dukkha that I've found extremely effective. It's at that point, you forget about yourself ("this isn't about you"), and you drop all your psychological armoring, shielding, interpretations, etc. When I am mindful enough to remember to do that, people tend to walk away feeling better, even if I never say anything. Just listen.

Being able to do that requires meditation, and you first start with observing emotions as they come and go. It does not end there. At some point, you directly experience the insight that your self is an illusion, that this existential misery underlies everything and you cannot escape, and that the ground of being is emptiness. It's at that point you can listen to the dukkha.

- Schedule the activity

- When the time comes, you'll probably try to think of ways to put it off - ohh the great internal debate: to do, or to punt. Tell yourself that you might as well get started while you rethink your position.

You'll find that you only need to be motivated for about five minutes before you're cruising right along! =)

This is especially evident in relationships when we put off "difficult conversations." It's not that we don't want to have the conversation (typically we rationally accept the "need" to have it). It's that we fear it probably will not go well. So we procrastinate until the odds are in our favor, either because the effort to achieve the desired outcome has decreased (waiting), or because our total available effort has increased (resting). This is a rational response and strategy toward achieving goals.

The problem of course becomes when the outcome is not something directly within our control, such that there is potentially no amount of energy or time that will make success possible. In these cases, we must "make your own fate" as many say. Or, to put it another way, one must gain leverage over the outcome by changing one's relationship to it.

Thus, the best way to overcome procrastination is to focus on setting outcomes you have control over (e.g., studying for a test vs getting an A), which creates a positive feedback loop since your goals are regularly achieved and thus rationally worthy of additional future effort.

This is also a circuitous way of defining momentum and it's importance stemming from a default to action.

In psychology, it's been shown empirically to be better to praise children for their efforts and actions than praising with identifying language (e.g., "that was a smart thing you did" instead of "you're so smart"). As stated above, this sets a rational positive feedback loop in favor of "smart" actions over behavior, which may include inaction, that successfully perpetuate a "smart" identity.

Speaking of which, I have some writing to do… See you in 5.

As I learned more and more psychology it became obvious how to win over it. I created a mastermind with other entrepreneurs and it helped enormously First, everybody has this "problem". Second, you help other people and you help yourself.

Now I can make amazing things in very small amounts of time, and spend a lot of time reading-writting things that interest me, or stay with my family.

Basically what happens is that the human beings are flexible enough to do things no animal could do. But it comes at a price, no natural things require immense amounts of effort to do, even if trivial.

For example, most men could spend all day long hunting or fishing without problem, even if it is hard, rich people do that when they are free to do whatever they can. But plowing the earth or writing a book or programming are totally different.

When you do non natural things, odds are your body responds badly. For example, programming all day means you don't exercise your inertial system. If you sit all day, your lymphatic system suffers a lot. There are hundreds of things like this. You don't see any of this, you only know that you try to work and your body says NO!! You try to force it, but the situation worsens and your body will tell you NO WAY even stronger.

My cofounder died in his twenties by cancer trying to work harder. He forced himself so much into work that he got weaker and weaker before getting cancer. No sleep, no exercise, bad food. We know today that eating well, exercise and sleep is essential for your immune system.

Anyone that offers you an easy solution, he is BS. It requires effort and time to learn how to control yourself, but it is probably the best investment you could do in your entire life.

Probably the best practical book on the issue is "the Now Habit". I prefer the audiobook. Wake up Productive from Eben Pagan is great too.

A great book if you want more exploration of the emotional roots of procrastination is Burka and Yuen's "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738211702 ). It's not a 'quick fix' type book, but I found it helpful.

Is it not consistent with the scientific narrative that procrastination, being a universal behavior, must have been developed evolutionarily for some benefit? It is a pretty sophisticated behavior after all (as the article even describes). So isn't it naive to assume it is a problem to be solved? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but shouldn't the early work be in trying to understand the full effects of procrastination on lifestyle and future fitness so that we actually get to a place where we can make judgements about it?

TL;DR: These guys are totally amateur hour.

I can share the results later here if anyone is interested!

Here's the survey: https://generic.typeform.com/to/j3EiUF

Good point. Just imagine and assume that this cure is the most effective cure available w/a success rate of 100% without knowing further details.

Another technique mentioned was breaking tasks up into hour blocks with rewards. This sounds like Pomodoro technique. I tried that on multiple occasions and it never worked. The timer and breaks distract me and interrupt whatever flow I might have been lucky enough to get into. I've never worked with anyone that has continued to use this technique. Rewards in-general work, but I'd just have a reward when done with a task and have smaller tasks.

Here are other techniques that really work: (1) Find work you like to do and that you are good at, and find an environment where you excel. If you can't, then try to reduce stress through music, taking brief walks, etc. (2) Sleep more. (3) Lose weight in a healthy sustainable way. (4) Get exercise regularly. (5) Take care of your physical and mental health. (6) While at work, write down one thing you need to do. Finish it before doing anything else, unless there is an emergency you should assist with. Repeat.

However, it does not help with my procrastination (hence posting this message...)

To stop procrastinating:

- Stop doing things that are painful. Do other things instead.

- Improve your pain tolerance by becoming stronger, better rested, etc.

(Disclaimer: haven't read the article yet.)

That's procrastinating!

There's some usefulness to that comment. Sometimes, procrastination can let the mind(including subconscious) figure out all consequences of an action. In other words, "Don't do any thing hasty." sometimes is the best plan? I know by procrastinating on certain legal/business decisions, I saved a lot of money/time. The more I thought about the problem/opportunity, the more I saw its flaws, and pitfalls of acting too quick. (No I didn't read the article, just the comments. I find myself going right to the comments on some topics. I wonder if other HN's do the same? I imagine it must tick off the website who wrote the original article?)

Sometimes those things actually help to calm my brain and I can formulate a work plan without being faced with a keyboard.

Another thing that works for me (and I'm saying this for me only; know thyself and all that) is smoking a little bit of weed. Not to get hammered, but just enough that it calms my brain a bit. It seems to help me relax, sit down and get into (and stay on) a task like nothing else.

Additionally I ask about your demographics—maybe there are some correlations between procrastination and demography.

https://generic.typeform.com/to/plFSop

Would be very nice if you participate and I can share the aggregated result later if of any interest!

This is quite important. Let us know how they've done in a year. I have been through times of extreme productivity and, well, the opposite in much shorter time spans. The difference being partially down to self-confidence, being aware of the reality of the results of the work and a mastery of stress levels. 'The opposite' happens when stress and the resultant bad decision making creeps in. To me it's the external factors in one's life that mean that any single person can be both a procrastinator and an extremely productive '100x' person in the same year, month, week. When stressed or 'temporally myopic' (as per the article) no amount of tools, widgets, hosts files or GTD schemes will work. They are all too easy to disable, workaround and ignore. The solution can not be quick-fixed, imho.

I've tried a lot of things myself over the decade-plus of working from home, currently even having my machine announce new Pomodoro sprints every 25 minutes (+5 minutes for break) to try to enforce a working atmosphere. It has an effect in that it at least generates the atmosphere, but it can have the opposite effect if external factors have already primed me for procrastination. Those factors can be tiredness, everyday life issues, being overworked, underworked, distracted etc. Any of which cause me to frequently ignore the espeak announcements. The cronjob that launches Anki every day gets equally ignored during these periods and they tend to start to bake in a habit of ignoring the automated reminders and thus the good habits for longer than I might have done without them.

All of which leads me to believe that self-motivation and constant reflective thought of one's current and future situation (all with a confident and optimistic outlook) are the only ways to maintain a level of productivity approaching constant. Understanding that there isn't a quick-fix, that effort must be exerted, anxieties must be overcome. Learning to cope with life's external factors so that they don't push your work off course. Those kinds of things seem like the real solutions to procrastination. And they are great personal challenges for many, myself included.

The irony of the length of my post on this subject is not lost on me, but then I have had a productive morning and this is my lunch break (sweet, sweet excuses...).

The article itself is at http://www.invent-journal.com/article/S2214-7829(15)00024-X/...

Not necessarily: https://www.reddit.com/r/INTP/comments/29ui2d/why_are_intps_...