I’d prefer not having to depend on someone because my schedule eventually becomes intertwined with theirs and it leads to all kinds of conflicts and complications. It sucks for me that you found it so effective, because I’m missing out on a potential solution[1].

[1] What has been a temporary solution is vasodilation through garlic-driven TRPA1 activation. Sometimes I get so down I wonder what is the point of life when I’m going to die in about 1600 weeks and me and all of my work is going to be forgotten; I pop in 70 to 120 garlic cloves (very hard to chew, they sting) but it does seem to work (could be placebo although the vasodilation does actually work as I get incredibly horny after). Since garlic is hard to chew I have my eyes on chocolate flavonols (chocamine) that does the same vasodilation effect. Still looking for better alternatives, if I can find them.

> Sometimes I get so down I wonder what is the point of life when I’m going to die in about 1600 weeks and me and all of my work is going to be forgotten; I pop in 70 to 120 garlic cloves (very hard to chew, they sting) but it does seem to work (could be placebo although the vasodilation does actually work as I get incredibly horny after).

That might be the greatest single sentence I have ever read on HN.

You may or may not have one near you, but "open coworking spaces" is how I did it in Paris. It's those big workspaces open to anyone where you rent a place by the day or week, you come in sit at one of the open spot and go at it.

Tons of people looking for the same thing, or open to it for the experience, and after a while it just gets second nature.

I don’t have one nearby (Coimbatore, South India) but I will try working at the mall here, see if the background noise and activity of people milling about can have a similar effect. Bret Victor mentioned working while travelling on trains for a year as a “wandering hobo”, perhaps he has the same trouble as we do and the presence of people helped him focus.

Judging from your experience as well as Bret’s, not working alone seems to be the key factor. I wonder why that is the case, but the mall idea is worth a try, thanks for the inspiration!

You might want to try pairing a portion of the time. I've been pairing part time on a side project and it's going really well. We pair about twice a week on harder work or stuff that involves decisions that aren't really undone. On our own time we then work on more mondaine stuff. It's great because there is always opportunity to be productive of the scheduled don't align, but at the same time you have just enough pressure to keep going while also having the safety net of being able to pair with someone if you get stuck. So there is little opportunity to procrastinate which I usually do when stuck.

It’s not every day that one hears about garlic-induced vasodilation! Did you arrive at 70–120 cloves as your minimum effective dose? Any side effects, digestion-wise for example, from consuming that many at once?

Are you serious???