How to overcome resistance to work

Some great suggestions here, but I find the best method for me is to just crank some music, down a couple swigs of coffee and dive in. About 95% of the time the issue isn't about getting stuck partway through, or approaching the problem wrong, it's about getting through the first ten minutes of work. Resistance crumbles after that and motivation and focus kick in to full gear.

I quit my job 6 months ago to travel and learn programming. And the greatest personal frustration has been staying productive in a work-from-anywhere, no-boss environment.<p>What I've realized is that discipline is not only about buckling down, but also about using mental hacks such as the ones listed in this article. Its also been helpful to realize that transitioning productivity from a cubicle to a self-directed path is difficult. It has also been the biggest surprise.

This is great advice for overcoming procrastination and I use it daily. It has significantly improved the way that I work. I think I learned of the trick from GTD, or possibly Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. A TODO list by itself isn't helpful for me -- in fact, in can increase my procrastination by seeing a giant list of tasks because it's just so overwhelming.<p>What has worked is coupling the task with the next immediate action. Depending on the level of procrastination, this next immediate action does not have to be a grand vision. It is often as simplistic as "open the lid to your laptop", then, "open a text editor", then "think of the file you need to edit", then "type hello world three times" (just to get me to start writing __something__). Passing that initial hurdle usually gets me to the desired state of flow.<p>Similarly, I now have the following written at the top of my TODO list at all times: "Direct the Rider. Motivate the Elephant. Shape the Path." This psychology comes from Switch by Dan Heath and Chip Heath, and it's hugely impacted my outlook on work, especially as a researcher.

This reminded me of those long sales pages with an email list signup box at the bottom. This is what I got from the article. Break it down into small tasks. Work out what the next easiest actionable task is, like say "Opening an application". Set yourself a time limit on the task. Discover and remove any internal resistance you may have. Use you new found insight now. Maybe on this link to download our to-do list software.<p>Don't get me wrong the advice will no doubt help some of us, most likely more then the software would.

The technique recommended in the article is similar to Kaizen, the method that Toyota implemented in the 50's to overcome quality and productivity problems. It's the practice of using continuous small incremental changes to lead to larger improvements. It also happens to be a great way to overcome many psychological hurdles.

Social media bar floating <i>above</i> the article's text on my Android phone.<p>I cannot remember just how many articles I did not read because of this. Guessing one word per line lowers my reading enjoyment.

I still find the ticking of a pomodoro timer to be the best way to make me start cranking out work. There's just something about tik tik tik tik that springs me into action.

Step 1:<p>Realize that if you don't work, you'll fucking starve.<p>Step 2:<p>Close HN.<p>Step 3:<p>Work like fucking crazy, to put as much distance between yourself and starvation as you possibly can.

I wish a psychologist research all the suggestions and laid out the effectiveness of each approach.<p>For now, I guess we goes with "whatever works for me".

I think non-monetary reward is important issue here. Trying to focus not only on smallest but most pleasurable thing if when the result is there is important. It helps to reduce friction to get yourself to get momentum going. Pomodoro is a great way to keep the momentum. Having a realistic checklist with some cool and some less cool things to accomplish for the day has done wonders form my productivity as well.<p>Remember you've got to treat yourself well while doing work and work will treat you well in return.

My approach is horribly more complicated and involves a set of two TODO lists. The first is my immediate list, and always has 12 items on it (4 harder ones and 8 faster tasks). 3 tasks (1 hard and 2 fast) are always marked as current works in progress. 3 more are listed as next up. The next six I choose freely from to promote when I complete a task.<p>Then I have my mid-range to-do. Tasks usually stay here for days to weeks (my short-term I get unhappy when something is there for more than a few days). Items here are coded with a * for a bigger item and a % for an item I think I can do quickly. The % are moved to my short-term list in chronological order (with some exceptions) while the * ones are moved in based on what I think i can tackle next.<p>This gives me some variety and some freedom to jump around between tasks and stay productive. I have ADD so thats a good thing. It also lets me set goals that I can usually meet and procrastinate constructively. More than once I have had tasks I really had resistance to starting become trivial after thinking about it for a day or two. But yea part of that is breaking the task down, thinking about it, maybe making a couple abortive attempts to complete it.......

Holy hell I'm reading this instead of working. What has my life come to.

Programmer here, I usually start to procrastinate when I find something difficult/too tedious to do. Whenever something like this happens, I find that taking my dog out for a 20 minute walk really refreshes me up and motivates me to do the task!

NB/offtopic: this page design is <i>horrible</i>.<p>On mobile, there's a "social sidebar" which hovers <i>over</i> the text, as others have noted, to the left side of the page, obscuring the first word or so of each line, in a manner that it cannot be dismissed.<p>Reading with NoScript enabled on Iceweasel, the text is squeezed into a narrow 2-3 character column to the far right of the page.<p>My solution is to disable stylesheets and read the page unstyled.<p>Distractions such as this take a great deal away from actually being able to <i>access</i> content.

Get started at any cost.<p>You are ready.<p>Build it wrong, but <i>build it</i>.<p>Don't work too long, it's harder to get started next time if you flogged yourself into the ground last time. Pavlov rang and told me so.

When I set to do a task for a few minutes in order to trick myself into working all day, it never works because I already know what I'm doing and why, and the trick fails. I have been struggling with this for a long time, and I, too, have discovered that the method that works best is to suck it up and just start working.

"resistance to work" usually means that you don't have any passion for that work, and that you shouldn't be doing it. if you're running a business you should think of outsourcing any task that you don't want to do, unless it's mission critical.