At the End of a Procrastinated Day

The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the <i>urge</i> to start working to finish the unfinished.<p>Nearing the end of a unproductive day, accept that the day was not productive, start on what you will work on tomorrow, do a little, and stop in the middle.

For me, procrastination <i>always</i> come from a lack of having a digestible plan of attack.<p>When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out a <i>single</i> next step for your project, one single feature, or one single task in that feature that needs to be done. If you know what your next step in the project is, you'll have this urge to jump back in and do that task.<p>If you can't find that task, then you need to step back and look at your project from a higher level and analyze it to see if you have a clear picture of what you're trying to achieve.<p>Try it, it works wonders.

I found this article on Less Wrong to be extremely useful: "How to Beat Procrastination": &#60;<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/&#62;" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/&#62...</a>. The article establishes The Procrastination Equation and outlines some scientifically suggested techniques for increasing Motivation:<p><pre><code> Expectancy x Value Motivation = ----------------------- Impulsiveness x Delay </code></pre> My notes on the article:<p><pre><code> Increase your expectancy of success. Increase the task's value (make it more pleasant and rewarding). Decrease your impulsiveness. Success Spirals: small successes one after the other Vicarious Victory: watch inspirational things, read books Mental Contrasting: imagine where you could be vs. where you are now Flow: match the difficult of the task to your ability Meaning: think about what you're doing and make it mean something Energy: sleep, drink water, caffeine, exercise, cold water, music, de-clutter Rewards: reward yourself for success Passion: increase the value of the task Commit Now: commit in advance (tie yourself to the mast) Set Goals: break the ice, then daily goals Set Routines: for instance, exercise every day</code></pre>

I don't understand why some people beat themselves up so much over procrastinating. Sure, it becomes a problem when you can't get anything done because you're so busy procrastinating. But everyone has a day here and there where they just can't be bothered to work on anything. Usually, it's a sign that your brain needs a break. Listen to it! Take a break.<p>If it happens so often it interferes with your work, you need to address the underlying issues. Do you enjoy what you're doing? Are you stressed out about something outside of work? Your problem procrastinating won't go away until you resolve those issues.

This may not apply to everyone, but I found the thing that consistently removed my procrastination was simply to stop working in isolation. Whether it's going to the office of an employer or renting a desk at a co-working space, being around other people who are being productive worked wonders for me.<p>I used to think there was some fundamental flaw with my psyche; I would procrastinate quite often and always feel utterly depressed afterwards. Turns out that external motivation and clear delineation between "work space" and "play space" was all I needed. I still work <i>after</i> work pretty often, but usually on other projects. If I just sit around and watch TV or play video games I don't feel badly about it because I know I just put in 8 hours of solid programming, which is something I used to think myself utterly incapable of.<p>If you're in an environment where watching Hulu all day is acceptable, find an environment where it isn't. I practically guarantee it's all you'll need.

I feel you. I've been procrastinating a project for 3 years already (yes 3 years). I write code maybe half of one day each week. The rest of the time I do as you describe. I'm so ashamed of it I tell no one. Glad to have quite a bit of savings.

I find procrastination is a symptom, not the actual problem.<p>The very root of the problem is that I'm either faced with something I just don't want to do or can see that the NEXT thing is something I really don't want to face.<p>It usually means I need to do some introspection.

I have been fighting somewhat winning battle with procrastination and it sums up to a few things, key ones are: - get a good nights sleep, having less then 8 hours of sleep lowers your IQ and therefore doing complex and rewarding work its a catch 22, you go home feeling bad fret go to bed late. - make a plan before you go to sleep for the next day, visualize, conceptualize results in your head - feel the accomplished goal. - when you wake up focus and tell yourself that you trust that you can be reach each one of those goals. goals can be .. being focused and productive and feeling great! - few pushups crunches goes a long way at the beginning of the day. if you feel a bit tired - i take a shot of double espresso before morning excerize, it all falls into place.<p>Procrastination can be good if it is deliberate, like when you are stuck and you can't move you can deliberately switch focus, take a nap read a book.<p>My 2c.

I found a way to reduce procrastination, while enjoying some of it. I alternate a procrastinate day with days of non-procrastination.<p>For one day, I am allowed to watch as many movies as I want, play chess, do whatever useless and enjoyable I might want. Then I would do variable periods without procrastinating. This could be 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month. It depends on your other priorities, work, family, achievements. During those periods, I have blacklisted the things I usually do when procrastinating. When I go back to my procrastination day, I am very happy since it has been a while I have watched a movie, trailer or play chess.<p>This is very similar to some drug-addiction techniques, and I found it worked for me very well. If you feel bad and haven't tried that yet, try that and let me know how it went.

How I kicked the same problem:<p>Spend a day procrastinating. Contemplate how unpleasantly wasteful it was (even if it felt superficially 'fun' at the time.)<p>Spend time being productive. Contemplate how I enjoyed doing it, and how I enjoyed <i>having done it</i>.<p>Consider the contrast between a day spent (in my case) learning C++ versus a day messing around on Reddit.<p>I don't have to make an effort any more. After my allotted procrastination time is up, I lose interest, and start to feel drawn towards my studies. It's like an internal productivity timer that automatically dampens my enthusiasm for wasteful activities and makes me keen to return to my books. I guess this is what it feels like to be hypnotized into disliking chocolate and into preferring healthier snacks.

Here's a realization that scared me to death that I don't procrastinate any more: The whole life only exists in the current moment. The reason being that the past doesn't exist any more, and the future has yet to come into existence. Hence all my life exists only in the current moment.<p>This leads to the conclusion that if I procrastinate for even a bit moment, I'm wasting away all my life. This is the most scary conclusion I've ever had and it works wonders to drag me back to work.

I think procrastinating is one of the most obvious symptoms of low EQ. You are just to emotional, you feel extremely unmotivated because you do not want to do what you need to do(studying etc). You just can not overcome your emotions and you do what ever your emotions want you to do, which is procrastinating and feeling better for this moment of time.<p>Emotions do not care about what you will feel in the future, they just care about what you feel right now. Procrastinating makes people happy. It is some type of addiction. You just can not ignore your emotions, and you do what makes you happy right now which is procrastinating.

As some say, procrastination may be a symptom not an actual problem I think the less "tools" you have to procrastinate with the better. My top recommendation that I think has helped me become more productive within the past month is deleting all bookmarks and apps involving Reddit. Yes, it is just one site and you can easily replace it with another time filler but it is easy to get lost on that site for quite some time each day. Replace "Reddit time" with work and you can gain back some time to complete tasks each day. It's working for me and I don't really miss it.

I'm with the "it's ok to procrastinate sometimes" camp. Lot's of exercise plans include a "junk day" where you're allowing yourself to eat whatever you want without guilt. The reason is because it's good to reward yourself with something you like, and because it's near impossible to continue at something forever without little breaks.<p>From the sounds of it, maybe your "junk day" breaks aren't regular enough to keep you balanced, and you've reached an overloaded point.<p>Take regular breaks, don't feel guilty, and your net productivity will benefit.

My trick is mindful meditation, even two or three minutes is often enough to get me back on track.

my tactic: if you are burned out on coding, stop and do something else positive:<p>* go for a run * do an errand that has to be done anyway * balance your checkbook<p>This gets your mind on something else which is probably the problem - we aren't meant to stare at a screen doing exactly the same things over and over for 8 hours.<p>And remember, you are not alone in this. No depression allowed - you are not weak, you are human.

You know how sometimes you are reading a book and then at some point you realize that you have no idea what the last few paragraphs were about. There was a study that traced this sudden loss of comprehension to the first word that didn't make sense. Anything between that word and the current position was read, but not understood.<p>I am guessing the procrastination is similar. I would be working and it all would be flowing along, but then I would hit a problem. Something stupid, like having several variable names 5 characters each, and needing another variable, but not being able to find a 5 char name for it. And that's it. I will just keep idling here.<p>The remedy in both cases is to realize there was an unknown word or a stumbling block, explicitly identify it and work around it. This really works, though YMMV.

&#62; I've still no clue why humans procastrinate.<p>I've still no clue why people consider doing stuff so important.

Just start. Usually the problem is that you unnecessarily look up to your tasks. You think it's boring, difficult, or you don't know where to start. Just start. Once you start, you get into a positive flow and become motivated to finish it.

&#62; I've still no clue why humans procastrinate<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_humans_procrastinate_and_how_can_it_be_beat/c31rsxx" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_hum...</a>

I have this exact same problem and I just have to get started. I don't start because I know a task is going to be a lot of work but that work will go away if I just get started. It's difficult and I think all coders deal with it.

&#62; I've still no clue why humans procrastinate.<p>I do - it's a sign you need a rest and a sign you've been doing too much of the same and some variety is required. Take a day off, do something different, get some fresh input.

Check out the excellent book "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now" by Burka and Yuen. I discovered it via a HN comment and figure I should repay the favor.

I can't believe that this has been up 8 hours without any mention of Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" (<a href="http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/</a>)<p>This lays bare the root of procrastination. It is also provides forceful, direct ways for dealing with it. I don't know a single person who has read it and not taken something positive away.<p>And it's a really quick read. I went through it in an evening.

Procrastination shouldn't just suck, it should be unacceptable. Don't tolerate it. No excuses. Not even if it's "just today".<p>Close everything! Ask yourself why you're not enjoying your work today. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, do something about it. Either finish it, so you can move on to something you enjoy. If that's not the case, talk to someone about how boring your stuff is and <i>fix</i> this problem.<p>DON'T ACCEPT PROCRASTINATION!

You know, I think its a manifestation of anxiousness about the work. Haven't figured out why this happens but I've seen that it is easier to overcome when I'm 1. working on a passion project 2. Working in a group.<p>Passion project point is really interesting because this implies that all other projects have something my(our?) subconscious is not quite comfortable with...but what is this??<p>Is it that I'm scared to attempt this new project for the fear of failure? Or is it that I'm too comfortable with it and therefore don't think its worth my time? Or is it because doing(attempting) this project will take me down an unknown route?<p>Ah!! So many possibilities...but I'm slowly learning to overcome this. One thing that works for me on a bad day: First think about the big picture of what needs to be done and how to go about it (sequentially) - I find this provides me with a <i>time perception</i> of the project, that I can visualize what steps are involved in completing this project. Then just start the project! Just start it without thinking anymore and pretty soon its been 2 hours and you're almost done with phase 1!

I find that procrastination, at least in my personal case, is strongly correlated to the amount of work I have pending. I tend to procrastinate when I a light work load. I find that I can focus on task when there is a heavy load. Well, at least now days, back when I was a student it was quite a different story and I guess I changed because of that experience.

At the beginning of the day when I'm lying in bed, after looking at my calendar and reading the morning email when I get up, I picture myself going through my whole day in my mind. Whenever I get stuck in the middle of the day, I take some time to let my right brain image stream through the rest of my current task, which usually gets me back on track.

Something that helps when acknowledging I´m procrastinating is to fast forward to the future and think: How will I feel after I´ve wasted a perfectly good day doing nothing, when the day before I told myself I was so going to do all of those things?<p>Getting myself out of the present, in a nutshell.

It's extremely important to be working on the right thing. That's why some things just don't feel like work.<p><a href="http://www.humblepied.com/jessica-hische/" rel="nofollow">http://www.humblepied.com/jessica-hische/</a><p>I find Jessica's perspective refreshing. I try to end almost every talk I give by quoting her.

Reading that was pretty eery since I just ate a banana, got a glass of water from the kitchen, have Chrome open with 20 tabs (including, obviously, Hacker News) and have a Pomodoro Android app within reach. The only thing that snapped me out of it was that my app was free.

A very sad post. Even sadder when to know it represents my exact thoughts... most of the time.

Procrastination is also because of a tired mind. I get spaced out after a long/hectic week and lose a day or two without realizing. Then I just work on something else which dosent need too much brain-work [read: blogging]

Relevant: <a href="http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/job-fails-monday-thru-friday-not-a-lot-of-takers-strangely-enough.gif" rel="nofollow">http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/job-fails-monday...</a>

I don't get why stories like this make it to the first page of HN. Seriously.

Finally a post that talk about procrastination without giving advice away.<p>Because really, I've read them all. I'm pretty sure I could do a PHD about procrastination. The thing is, I would never start it.

This question: Why do humans procrastinate, and how can it be beat? prompted an excellent reply from Sneering.<p>"People overestimate the value of the reward if the reward is imminent, and increasingly discount the value of the reward, the further away it is in time."<p>Worth a read if are interested in neuroeconomics [who knew?].<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_humans_procrastinate_and_how_can_it_be_beat/c31rsxx" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_hum...</a>

It's pretty simple:<p>When you procrastinate your day away, at the end of the day you feel like a shit.<p>When you work hard and deliver, at the end of the day you feel like a boss.<p>I'm going to keep feeling like a boss :)

At least one post I've read here on HN while ‘procrastinating’ influenced my life quite significantly (in a measurable way). More than pretty much any number of hours spent working instead would. That made me reconsider my classification of activities as useful and useless. What matters more is probably willingness to take action or something along these lines (haven't thought this through yet).

Lot of posts about procrastination past days here on HN. This confirms my feeling that this is a real and widespread issue. Even for startuppers.<p>[On topic shameless plug] This is why I'm building asaclock (<a href="http://www.asaclock.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.asaclock.com</a>), an anti-procrastination web community for startup single founders and people working on side projects.

One partial solution for me: Buy a netbook that won't run any of my favorite games. Work on this netbook, from a location that has no internet access, if necessary.<p>If you need internet access to do your work, go to a public location (say, Starbucks) where you'd be embarrassed to be caught Youtubing.

I'm procrastinating reading the comments to this post.

Tales of mere existence - Procrastination<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMFWpKofSg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMFWpKofSg</a>

I find that writing things down on paper in a divide-and-conquer fashion really help in battling procrastination.

I'm having one of those days today and I need help! The while week has been that way. It sucks. I know much of my procrastination is due to burnout. I totally burned myself out and now I need to recover. But sometimes recovery isn't an option when you've got deadlines to meet. Sometimes you've got no choice. So now it's off to try to force myself to finish and hope to God I end up with just enough time to take a long enough break to recover.