Stop postponing things by embracing the mess

The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you&#x27;ll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me.<p>I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.<p>Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I&#x27;d tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn&#x27;t stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who&#x27;s just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.<p>A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.<p>I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there&#x27;s some advice buried in it.

My first couple of weeks at Bridgewater I was diagnosed with a fear of failure - deep reluctance to set off on a journey unless I could see the entire path through to the other side.<p>I thought that was a good way to be actually (keeps you safe from doomed endeavors) but obviously keeps you from progressing on things where the only way to figure out the path is to walk it.<p>In retrospect it’s a form of anxiety. If you assume the world is against you and dangerous then setting into an ambiguous space is probabilistically negative. If you have faith that things work out for the best, it lets you set out on such a path easier.<p>I think this isn’t just me. We tend to procrastinate in the absence of “perfection “ because we perceive some sort of danger &#x2F; downside for ourselves from that imperfection. Whereas the better way to think is with the end in mind: what outcome do I really care about? Does this messy step X make that outcome a bit more likely? If yes then you do it with excitement.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;from?site=deprocrastination.co">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;from?site=deprocrastination.co</a><p>Interesting that pretty much all submissions on the first page of results from this domain is both by the same user and broadly seems to be about the same overarching theme of procrastination.<p>Is OP the author of the site?<p>(OP also posts links to other sites, so not saying OP is doing anything wrong though.)

I&#x27;m not comfortable taking advice on &quot;deprocrastination&quot; from someone who made procrastination their career (or side gig?), except for the advice &quot;if you find yourself procrastinating, quit your job and make what you&#x27;d rather do your job&quot;. But that rarely pays the bills .

All these advice on productivity ultimately seem to wanna turn you into some sort of assembly line robot, achieve maximum productivity, produce!<p>Well funk that, in the end what matters is persistence. You don&#x27;t need to work 12 hours per day, heck don&#x27;t even need to work 8 ;) ;) ;) I mean like everyone knows the productivity window is at best a couple hours. But those couple hours add up and in the end somehow stuff gets done, tasks get completed, company carries on.<p>And on my own side projects I&#x27;m applying the same philosophy. Ideally a little bit from time to time (not even every day coze it starts to look too much like work). And if it happens that I start working and some interruption comes along, so be it, there will be another day. I don&#x27;t have to ship tomorrow as long as I finish eventually. Over the years this has added up to quite a bit of accomplishments.<p>So one word: persistence.

I also suggest to add a physical signal on your typical life accessories like phone or watch.<p>E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into &quot;day-dreaming&quot;.<p>Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let&#x27;s keep it for its mnemonic value).

Great ideas. I believe that dealing with a messy ambient or situations is a nice skill to develop, some people can&#x27;t handle it at all.<p>With time, you&#x27;ll start to appreciate the imperfections, the fact that you can&#x27;t absolutely focus for a task because people are sending you messages, will have a smaller impact on your emotions and your overall focus will improve.<p>Having the goal of having absolute uninterrupted time and the stars aligning so you can just do what you need is the root of all procrastination, doing something 10% is better than 0%.<p>I&#x27;m a perfectionist and as soon as I&#x27;ve started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.<p>You also don&#x27;t need to worry, you can&#x27;t unlearn being a perfectionist, but indeed, you need a few things or moments of your day to unleash that &quot;perfection&#x27; energy, it just doesn&#x27;t need to be everytime.

Spot on argument.<p>Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn&#x27;t finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.<p>Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.

I like to think about discipline in terms of habits, either built in a perfect environment or real and messy, as described in the article. The perfect ones are what we aim to achieve, but they are flimsy because once we are in a different environment, the habits disappear. The latter are much more prone to changes but harder to initialize.

There is also the idea that the common thing is more important than the extraordinary. Common everyday tasks should be higher priority than the extraordinary tasks.

I was suffering from procrastination last 3 years. The reason was 1) burnout. 2) some biological health issues I did not know about. Once I fixed that it went away. No philosophy was needed. So no, no amount of incantations will help, if you are biologically unwell.

In my experience the best way to solve procrastination, provided you have a tangible goal, is to do at least one small thing towards it per day. This will often (but not necessarily) put you in the mindset to do more things.

Seems like a new-age con reformulated for the HN crowd.

How many of you have checked other media while reading this content or thread?

I wonder if anyone had success by handing control of their life to a higher power…like ChatGPT.<p>I wonder if you could prompt it to be a vicious task master boss who demands regular status updates and can adequately shame you.

This site is bizarre.<p>If you look at their stuff on addiction, they have no grounding in current theory. And by current theory, that&#x27;s from science to religious ideas like prayer, nothing they talk about matches anything in the world from hard numbers to mysticism. They also have no explanation why they break with all the current theories or where their theories come from.<p>By now they are a HN institution, but I&#x27;d be very wary following their advice if you medically depend on it working.<p>deprocrastination.co is like a surreal movie, I think I like it, but I&#x27;m glad sites like these are not everywhere, like Scientology, fun because it&#x27;s different. OP you should also create a new religion and run a site, you&#x27;d be good I think. That&#x27;s not facetious-ism, but you&#x27;d have to be morally ok with it.<p>[edit] As an example of what I&#x27;m saying related to this article - &quot;Imperfect action &gt; perfect nothing&quot; has no real meaning. It&#x27;s simplified to &quot;action &gt; nothing&quot;<p>What would be meaningful is &quot;wrong action &gt; perfect nothing&quot; or &quot;action &gt; planning&quot;<p>But as you can see HN eats up stuff like &quot;Imperfect action &gt; perfect nothing&quot; It&#x27;s good writing.