Stop Procrastinating by “Clearing to Neutral”

A variant (I think) of this idea that I've been using for years: when I stop coding, I jot down what I was doing, whatever problems I was dealing with, and what I felt my next steps were going to be in a little Emacs buffer.<p>It would probably be even smarter of me to take 20 seconds to figure out exactly the right set of Emacs tabs/frames to keep open alongside them, so when it was time to start up again, I'd get sucked right in.

Nice hypothesis, but where's the lab result?<p>I highly encourage people to think skeptically and scientific as well using the self quantitative approach to self improvement, even when they're certain when their theory is right.<p>For example, I am measuring blood pressure, steps count, weight, blood sugar level, awake and sleep time everyday. I also just recently concluded that walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight or very subtle one.<p><a href="http://kibabase.com/articles/self-quantification#intervention-1---walking-10k-steps" rel="nofollow">http://kibabase.com/articles/self-quantification#interventio...</a><p>In the future, when I finish my analysis, other people might decide to replicate my experiment or comes up with their own conclusion based on the data I gathered.<p>Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me. I like the idea of having a clean desk or clean environment though. The ugly environment in my house doesn't appears to deter me from getting things done, though.

This article got me thinking about places in my life where there's friction. My computer stands out as a huge source of friction. I already try to close unnecessary windows/tabs, but after reading this, I realized that, because I use it for so many different habits, my desktop fails as a friction free starting point for work.<p>So I've identified a few ways I use my computer and I'm setting up a user account for each one:<p><pre><code> * coding in Ruby * coding in Java for work * blogs and email (and hacker news) * personal and household maintenance </code></pre> This way I can tune each desktop to the appropriate kind of work. I can eliminate clutter in the dock. I can leave the appropriate windows open without it distracting me when it's time to do something else.<p>If it goes well, I'll try to write it up in a blog post.

I think a lot of this applies to me, I have a bad habit of leaving windows open for things I am not actively working on even though I know this can really bog me down mentally. However, while I think there is a lot of value in clearing your workspace to remove friction, someone also gave me some really good advice to help with getting started in the morning that is a little bit contradictory. The advice is to leave something partially finished that you can easily get right back into it when you get back to work. Sometimes the act of starting something new can be too much to overcome first thing in the morning, and then you get sidetracked. If you leave something ready to go that you can easily do, it can help you get into work mode immediately.

Any tennis player knows this, always recenter. I think somehow the idea of automated garbage collection got to some of us programmers.

I've found the best way for me to jump into something is to leave vim open to the very project I'm on--even if I'm midtask. I wouldn't want to close all the windows, as that would make it harder to start the next day.

These seem to be all points for the ADHD/OCD set, which does not include everyone. Clutter doesn't bother me, not in my sink, not on my desk, not on my desktop. I can't work, because I have too many things in my home that are more fun than work.

I'm a big fan of Asian Efficiency, I read a similar article years ago (maybe it's the same one?). Clearing to neutral has definitely given me positive results.

Fancy name for the lesson "cleanup after yourself" I'm trying to teach my son. But still a good idea that I will try to make use of in my own life.

If you don't want to <i>ahem</i> procrastinate, then don't put a picture of slave leia up on your wall.

I'll clean to neutral just after I've done something I'd rather do.

It scares me a bit how close these pictures are to reality.

The effectiveness of these mind games tends to be fleeting.<p>Nike nailed it: Just do it.

This article is completely ignorant of scientific research into how procrastination actually happens.