For me that doesn't work because then I learn that "yeah you say just walking but we both know it will end up in running." What works instead is I promise I will walk. And then I actually only walk even if I feel like running. That way you will trust yourself. If I say "ok i go to the gym 30 mins. just for a quick training." Then even if I'm in the flow at minute 30, I stop and go home. Next time I remember that and I know that if I say 30 it will be 30 and not more, that creates a trust in yourself that you're not trying to trick yourself into doing something you don't want to.

I think the problem you have is that you don't know which 'you' is making the decisions. Let's call the 'tricking' you 'You' and the one you are tricking 'Body-You'. Then here is how the conversation goes:

You: "Time to get up and run."

Body-You: "Oh hell no. I'm tired. Plus we did a good job yesterday. And we have a lot to do today. Also, we don't want to over do it do we?"

You: (sighs) "Fine. Let's at least walk for 30 minutes."

Body-You (sighs): "Ugh. Fine."

10 minutes of walking pass.

Body-You: "This feels great! Let's run."

You: "Okay."

...

First notice that You said, "at least." You is not lying. If, at minute 30, Body-You is like "Ugh, still no," You can capitulate.

Second, notice that it is Body-You that makes the decision to turn it into a run. In your version, Body-You never gets what it wants. Both times You has to control the situation. The first time, to start the run, the second time, to enforce a more-or-less arbitrary contract for the sake of the contract, even though both parties want a new contract.

I feel the same thing Valakas is describing. Which of the "you"'s is remembering the next time, "yeah but 30 minutes that's not how it went last time"?

(also, I don't think body-you would say "we have a lot to do today"?)

Body-You will say anything to get what it wants, including “We don’t have time.” I’m calling it Body-You but, at least for me, it’s really a collection of parts of my mind that are against the action.

As for the “lying”, Body-You knows it is not a lie but doesn’t care. If You believes You is lying, Body-You is more than happy to use that as yet another excuse.

Personally I call these two people the "Planner" and the "Doer". Neither of them start out with bad intentions, but only one of them has to actually do things in the present moment, so resentment can definitely build up between the two.

Feels like higher mind vs primitive mind

https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/fire-light.html

Loong but great read

Tim Urban, the author of waitbutwhy, did a talk about that same topic (pretty much about the same article).

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

Yeah, the key here is to set a minimum, not an absolute. “At least”. That’s what the original poster is missing.

I've read in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear that the solution is to only do that much time and actually just stop right afterwards, even if you want to do more. Therefore, it's at most 30 min rather than at least. This teaches you rigor and in fact motivates you more because now you know it's not actually a trick.

""" The Two-Minute Rule can seem like a trick to some people. You know that the real goal is to do more than just two minutes, so it may feel like you’re trying to fool yourself. Nobody is actually aspiring to read one page or do one push-up or open their notes. And if you know it’s a mental trick, why would you fall for it?

If the Two-Minute Rule feels forced, try this: do it for two minutes and then stop. Go for a run, but you must stop after two minutes. Start meditating, but you must stop after two minutes. Study Arabic, but you must stop after two minutes. It’s not a strategy for starting, it’s the whole thing. Your habit can only last one hundred and twenty seconds.

One of my readers used this strategy to lose over one hundred pounds. In the beginning, he went to the gym each day, but he told himself he wasn’t allowed to stay for more than five minutes. He would go to the gym, exercise for five minutes, and leave as soon as his time was up. After a few weeks, he looked around and thought, “Well, I’m always coming here anyway. I might as well start staying a little longer.” A few years later, the weight was gone. """

From https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating

This is one of the most important empirical "truth" I've heard, now from several prominent people in the field¹.

You are, in effect, prioritizing (self-)discipline over short-term performance, learning or productivity gains.

I would surmise that your bodymind² has in effect realized, learned, that compound effect is the best strategy for long-term results; and/or that systems are better than goals. The invariant requirement of any long-term strategy is enough discipline to execute it.

“Never, ever break promises to yourself.” is the real lesson to learn and never forget. The usual rationale goes like this:

Imagine two people, one who always does what they said they'll do, and another who never does what they said. How do you feel about the first one? Trustworthy? Reliable? Someone you can count on? Now what about the second? Empty-worded? Unreliable? Unworthy of trust? Lazy, big mouth, etc?

Now consider how "you" (the "it", your third eye observing yourself) is going to feel about "you" (the "I", the one who carries all the emotional weight) if you behave like person #2 above?

You need to be able to trust yourself. And this is based on facts, not words, just like how you judge anyone else.

That's why it's important, critical, to pause and ponder before making any promise to yourself: make sure you won't break it, make sure you'll be excellent with your own word. Be person #1, the reliable, the trustworthy, for yourself. Give yourself the facts to back that belief, because words, well, they're empty, and you're the only one who can't lie to you.

[1]: Off the top of my head, you hear it from Stephen Covey in the 7 habits (honesty with yourself), you heard it from Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie well before that, you heard it more recently from Brene Brown (in Daring Greatly and her TED talk on vulnerability and courage). Iirc, don't quote me on these, check twice, but the gist is correct.

[2]: Bodymind = body + mind (no duality), i.e. "all of you", your being, your brain and all the things that connect it to the real world including its own, your entire body

Then get ultimately crushed by the world because actually nobody but you cares about the results if the gain is small. Or you get a pat on the back, that's it.

Ultimately you might also find that the end result was totally not worth the effort sunk.

Or worse, there's no way to compare if you gained anything.

There are only relatively few ways that do change life significantly and most of them do not take intense effort or self discipline. (I'd love you to provide examples to the contrary. I know of two: training new skills when they matter and training children and pets.)

> “Then get ultimately crushed by the world because actually nobody but you cares about the results if the gain is small. Or you get a pat on the back, that's it.”

You mean that the world will only care if the gain is big, if I achieve "a lot"? If so, I question:

- Should I condition my happiness to something external that I can't control? (what the world thinks of me, of what I do/did)

- How can I ever be satisfied if I only compare myself to others? There's always someone better than me. Shouldn't I compare myself only to myself, past-me against present-me? Shouldn't I be making gifts to future-me by doing now what will make me happier / better / whatever?

- Why does "nobody care if the gain is small"? Can't a small subset of the world, e.g. people close to me that I know and who know me, care about me as I care about them? Isn't that enough, most days of our lives?

> “Ultimately you might also find that the end result was totally not worth the effort sunk.”

That would be the logical reaction of someone who only cared about the end result, and failed to reach their goal. But what if you care about the journey, the mission, the doing? What if "the effort sunk" was welcome, what if it was pleasure, growth, a good bone to grind for you? What if it made you happy?

Then you would find that the effort is well worth it every single day, because it is its own reward, because there is no further expectation beyond today's step, or because you learned to decorrelate your happiness from the satisfaction of expectations that lie beyond your control, your actions, your thoughts.

> “There are only relatively few ways that do change life significantly...”

Agreed.

> “... and most of them do not take intense effort or self discipline.”

Strongly disagree, with every fiber of memory and experience I can find. You would need to substantiate that, because it's an extraordinary claim... If one puts neither "intense effort" nor "self discipline", very little happens, and certainly not "significant life change". Quite the exact opposite is required for growth IME.

One key to all this is to stop thinking in terms of "goals" and instead design "systems" whose outcome gets you closer to where you want to go. In effect, building a vehicule and giving it a direction (or rather, recognizing that you are a vehicule, and take charge, assume full control). Whenever you put energy into this thing, it goes that way, your way, and you along with it (i.e. personality changes, evolves). Even your happiness, it's not a distant or abstract "goal", it's a very real, very practical system that you design to fit your life, values and aspirations. It produces your happiness whenever activated.

The ultimate goals are superb and never attained. The practical systems are tiny Legos but they work every time, and become huge in time.

And when you die, a "happy life" is often judged by a dumb sum of all moments, of all the little things, little bricks... That's the compound effect we get to see, but only retrospectively, unless we're told about it and we train ourselves to see the world in 4 dimensions, before it becomes too obvious/late.

I guess I'm in the middle. Sometimes "just walking" is actually just walking. Sometimes it turns into running. I have no expectations about where the initial push eventually leads, which makes it easier to take that initial push.

I prefer this approach as it ultimately results in a greater output than forcing myself to stop at some prior agreed point I made with myself but would now prefer to renegotiate.

Huh? You have a weird "relationship" with yourself.

I never did not trust myself anymore if I did more reps than I "promised" myself before.

Would a child ever grow distrust against her parents if she changes her mind and wants to do more dishes than initially asked for and they allow her to do it?

If it were the parent that said "now that you're at it, finish washing the rest of the dishes," then yes, the child would grow distrustful.

So the trick I guess is managing which part of your inner monologue is the child and which is the parent.

I've been experimenting with telling myself "now that I'm at the gym, I'm really enjoying it, I'm really grateful that you dragged me out."

> because then I learn that "yeah you say just walking but we both know it will end up in running."

And this doesn't motivate you? For me it's actually more motivating: I only have to muster enough willpower to start walking, not to run, but I'll end up having a good workout anyway.

That’s only a motivation if you viscerally believe running to be an enjoyable activity. I have found that when starting something new, the most important (and hardest) thing is to stop while I’m still having a good time so that I associate that good feeling with the activity instead of the pain that comes from overdoing it.

I find exercise important, and almost always feel better after doing it, even if the specific activity isn't enjoyable.

The verbal voice in your head is rationalizing. Don’t think. Just do.

(If you want a good resource that synthesizes a bunch of modern psychology research relating to that suggestion into a single, entertaining non-fiction book, see “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow [0]).

[0]: https://psychcentralreviews.com/2016/subliminal-how-your-unc...

This approach is interesting to me as it would have not crossed my mind. I view goals I set myself as a minimum I of what I want to do. Doing more, because I feel like it, is a bonus that I think adds to the feeling of accomplishment. I guess the main difference is that I actually want to do these things and just have to overcome the hurdle of starting while you describe them as "doing something you don't want to".

One of the things about training is that you shouldn't push yourself if you're under the weather or have other stuff going on.

It might be better for your narrative to be that you're only gonna walk and see how you feel.

The grandparent didn't say, "I'll just walk", but rather "I'll at least walk."

Give yourself permission to only walk. That way, if you later feel like running, you can still get that extra benefit as well, without breaking some promise to yourself, and if you just feel like walking the whole time, no problem there, either.

Note that if this relationship of explicitly limited commitments with yourself is preeminent, your goal should be "go out exercising each day" rather than "run 5km each day".

You need to be more truthful with yourself, then! :P

My "I'll just do 10 reps" always comes with an implicit "but I can do more if I feel like it." Then if I'm feeling strong and have another rep or two left, I'm allowed to do them.

It's about keeping up the habit even with the most half ass effort vs no effort at all.

I’ve not heard of that perspective before however I’m not going to discount what you’re saying because everyone’s psychology is different.

For what it’s worth, most people I know feel pride and a sense of accomplishment if they’ve found motivation to do more than they promised themselves. But as I said, everyone’s psychology is different.

Agreed.

I have found myself paralysed by procrastination at times (normally when whatever project I'm currently on has lost its initial zing).

My strategy has become: Just do one task today, that's all. Doesn't matter how small. Leave the office feeling like you've done something productive.

My thought process then becomes, OK, let's do my one task early then I can browse Reddit/HN/wherever.

And of course, what happens is that that one task gives the ball its initial push, and becomes 2 tasks, or 3, or more.

It doesn't always work, but it helps take the expectations and guilt off yourself, and gives you space to breathe.

I toyed with this feeling. Not to repeat the dopamine theory we see everywhere.. but it feels that most of the web really ends up in the low hanging easy pleasure of our brain, and any moment of struggle will tickle that reflex. And when you ignore/fight it for a second... You (at least I) can sense blood pressure change in my brain and then the thinking side of my head goes back into rhythm again. Thinking is a pleasure too, but it's requires a bit of patience.

Can relate to that ”moment of struggle”. Thinking about stopping the use of any dev tools that don’t have instant feedback, as having to wait a few seconds for something (currently deploying to google app engine mostly) makes me instantly alt-tab to reddit.

I've been finding this browser extension very useful: https://prodtodolist.com/

It will block the time waster websites you configure and will block them for you until you've ticked off the list. It's simple but effective for catching that mindless ctrl+t -> reddit reflex.

I use: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...

This deserves attention as a well-made, easy-to-use and productivity-increasing little tool. Really cool.

Trivial inconveniences are huge. For years, I could not get myself to floss. I had no problem with the brushing habit. So then I tried using those floss-picks instead of the reel. Bam, flossing rate went from about once a month to every other day.

A feeling I know far too well. Anxiety I suppose.

It also works for food crave btw..

It doesn't always work, but at least you've done the one task. That's one thing you can tick off the to-do list, regardless of how productive your day has been otherwise.

As a lifelong realist (= pessimist) this is one of those things I struggle with too.

It reminds me of William McRaven quote: "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed... If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed, will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

I know its not the point of the quote, but I can't believe I'm the only one who feels less comfortable in a made bed. Tightly tucked sheets feel so constricting.

For me, "made bed" just means re-aligning the sheets/blankets/pillows so that nothing is tangled or crumpled up, but never any extra nonfunctional things (no tucking, no tiny decorative cylinder pillows that no one ever uses, etc.)

I don't even understand how anyone would like it.

I hit a really hard wall when trying to learn for school for things I already understood.

It was very frustrating time because knew exactly that I wanna do it. Like I like doing something like it and saw clear benefits doing it.

I tried everything from the procrastinator handbook.

Ritalin helped immediately

Atomic Habits[0] is a great book on this topic.

[0] - https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break-eboo...

> My strategy has become: Just do one task today, that's all. Doesn't matter how small. Leave the office feeling like you've done something productive.

I feel like this is just a way to make yourself feel better about doing basically nothing. Before you implemented this, were you really at risk of spending an entire day doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever?

People ask me why I take cold showers regularly, post to my blog daily, and never miss my burpee-based twice-daily calisthenics over more than a decade (approaching 150,000 cumulative burpees).

Among many reasons, developing the skill to do what I said I would is tremendously valuable. Without these habits, I lacked discipline and thought to avoid tricks, which I thought of as short-term cheats. The habits developed discipline in me and revealed that developing tricks is the way to make habits work.

I have no doubt that the most accomplished people use tricks to do their most valuable activities -- athletes, politicians, business leaders, whatever.

Interesting. Can you elaborate? What kind of tricks?

Things like if I want to run but am feeling lazy, I put on my running shoes and clothes, which means I'll eventually run. To put on the shoes is trivial, but it works to get me on a run, however long.

Before I lift weights, I mop the floor since some of my exercises put me on the ground. Mopping is easy and makes lifting automatic. For some reason, once I mop, I automatically transition to lifting.

Starting my burpees took years of experimenting on what would avoid my standing there intending to start, but not starting. Counting down or up didn't work. What worked was committing to starting on the next breath. Now I pace all my calisthenics by breath.

These are examples of little things I found that if I do them, I do the big things. As far as I can tell, the way to find tricks that work is to keep doing the activity until a trick that works emerges.

The short form of the trick is to fool yourself you've sunk costs enough to not stop.

It is still self deception.

I think his trick is to do what ever he said he would do. So it sounds like holding himself accountable.

I wish I had this written down somewhere, but I don't; perhaps it's well known enough that someone else can correct my mediocre paraphrasing:

A Marine once told a civilian that everyone is programmed to believe their 80% remaining is their 0% remaining, and the courageous work of realizing that limitation is what unlocks the extreme feats that someone so well physically and mentally conditioned can undergo.

I'm not military, don't know anyone military, and have no particular leanings, but I have always been absolutely invigorated by the apparent, quiet force that service members project. It's inspirational even devoid of agenda.

> everyone is programmed to believe their 80% remaining is their 0% remaining

Of course. When I do my reps in the gym, I know I could do more if someone put a gun to my head. I stop because I don't want to hurt myself, not because I cannot do anymore. When I feel sleepy in the evening, I am fully aware that I could go 48 more hours without sleep if I really needed to. But would it be a good idea? No, it would not be.

And even if we ignore obvious health risk of pushing yourself to the limit, in general, I would rather be more comfortable than more productive. There are always things to be done, so why stress about doing a little bit more?

> not because I cannot do anymore.

Then it sounds like you don't actually believe you're at 0% remaining. What your parent is saying, and what I've observed myself, is that most people really believe they physically cannot (say) run any further.

> most people really believe they physically cannot (say) run

Do they? I would expect that when you "physically cannot run", it means you are collapsed in a pile on the ground unable to stand or move. People might say things like "I cannot run another step", but that is not the same as actually believing it. That said, unless you are very fit and very young, it might not be a good idea to get yourself to the point where you actually cannot run anymore. Unless there is a tiger chasing you or something.

I have fallen over on the ground after 20 miles of running in both legs my quads and hamstrings were cramping. I got up and ran another 10 miles. Didn't have any choice, either run 5 miles back to the check-in table or 10 miles to finish the race.

A cramp is not being at your limits. A good stretch and your ready to continue.

This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKWWRS9CpTY is being at your limits. But I'm willing to bet that a tiger would make her body remember that maaaybe there is actually (a lot) more energy left to keep going.

Was there a tiger? :)

Without getting philosophical about the definition of "belief," the point I took away was that people have a hell of a lot more left than they normally admit to themselves, even when the bar is merely "I'd be injured" rather than "I literally cannot." This may be more true for cardio than weights.

Usually that %80 left at their %0 left is done with fairly horrendous form, which leads to injury. Try putting perfect form on that condition and most would fail soon after.

In general people have way more capacity than they believe. Our worlds are built around immediate, short term gratification. I find that doing something everyday that's uncomfortable helps me stay out of the short term gratification trap. Getting up early when the alarm goes off, exercising, intermittent fasting, BJJ, are all things that at times are hard and uncomfortable, but they are a constant reminder of the capacity that we as humans have to excel.

If getting up early means not getting a full night of sleep isn't that unhealthy? Not sure that should be encouraged

You just end up getting tired and going to bed early that night. If you can make yourself do it, it’s a lot more effective to fix sleep schedules by pulling instead of pushing.

This is the Goggin's 40% rule https://www.google.com/search?q=goggins+40%25

It's primarily because in the military you get used to the ideas that you are in big trouble if you are not on time and also that you cannot fail (failure may mean death). That plus the quiet confidence you gain in yourself and others helps add some of that extra sauce.

Sometimes I have a really hard time to start working on some tasks and I think it is linked to anxiety and stress, not mere laziness. As long as there are no big expectations (like when exercising), I have usually no procrastination issues.

Sometimes I'm kicking myself that I should really start work on this now, and it doesn't work, and I get more and more anxious.

Upon reflection (sometimes I get to that point sooner, sometimes later) the problem is usually that the task is too vaguely defined to start working on it.

Very apropos for me as I went to the doctor yesterday for increased anxiety about getting stuff done.

I was promoted to a team lead position in Autumn of 2019. Things went well, if hectic and stressful, for the first couple of months. But the slower period in December really did a number on my motivation and focus, and my anxiety kicked in big time.

Now I have a huge problem doing actual work, and so often get distracted into spending hours on technical, interesting tasks that aren't work related. It doesn't help that I have a million different interesting projects that I'd like to mess around with.

And the work to-do list gets longer, and longer. And my anxiety gets worse and worse.

I hope you find a solution to your issues. Good luck!

Yes! Exactly! I had a issue that I wasn't sure how to start, and didn't understand too well, and it was killing my productivity.

I ended up just doing something, anything, even if it's wrong. Then I could correct it and do it properly. But sitting there fretting about it being hard and vague wasn't making any progress

I’ve dealt with this as well, particularly with programming. At least with programming, what I usually wind up doing is raising an issue on Github about the feature I’m trying to implement or the bug I’m trying to solve. It helps me actually start working, keep track of my thoughts, and define the problem well enough that I can ultimately begin working on it.

With other things, usually it’s best to run to google, or send an email to your boss or professor, or just pull out a notepad and start jotting things down. Sometimes it also helps to take a quick break - exercise, take a shower, etc - and then come back.

Although the irony is that I’m typing this comment out as a form of procrastination when I should be pulling out my laptop to do some remote work...

Totally. And I find it already helps tremendously to think and come up with the first/next action to start working. Sometimes, I need the first two, but any more again ends up in procrastination land. Unless the entire plan just crystallizes like that, in which case it was probably something else holding me back.

Anxiety is an emotion that you feel when you expect something bad to happen in the future.

Anxiety can be measured, your body segregates hormones in order to change the state of your entire body in order to prepare for this danger.

Unfortunately danger for primitive humans are different than current society dangers. It usually prepares you either for a fight or a flight (running away as fast as possible).

If you get too anxious for example fighting for your life or your children, you can break your bones and don't feel pain.

But this natural response is of no help if you feel that you will lose your job, or break your relationship...

In fact some work can't be done at all under these hormones influence, like intellectual work. Your body prepares you for action, not for reflexion.

On my last contract, working with very competent people, I got struck with one of the biggest procrastination wave I ever experienced. Thanks to a bit of introspection and awesome support from the team, I Realized this was just anxiety due to the imposter syndrome.

Realizing that really helped.

There's a name for that phenomenon, the Wall of Awful:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg

Absolutely loved this (and the second part)

I've faced that issue. Not totally solved it. I found some help in a YouTube channel on ADHD in a couple of videos from "How to ADHD" titled "wall of awful." That gave some good ideas to make it past that point and start.

I damaged my shin bones because I was running too much too soon and currently taking 2 months break. Side note, I used to run 20k every week, then stopped.

Be careful of the problem on the opposite side of the spectrum: your body might not be able to keep up with your motivation.

Couch to 5k (a.k.a. C25K) is a popular way to build up slowly and steadily.

Once you're up to running 5k three times a week (which is roughly where the plan leaves you) you can limit both volume and max distance increases to 10% per week.

I used to run 5-6 times a week with a usual volume of 50k/week so adding in another 1-2 gentle 5k recovery jogs to do a minimum of 5k every day wouldn't be difficult at all. But that's an entirely different prospect to just going out and trying to run 5k every day (although some people do exactly this and get away with it) with minimal existing running fitness or conditioning.

In my (totally unprofessional) opinion, C25K progresses too quickly for most people. It think the "None to Run" variant is better (and emphasizes that repeating weeks is normal, and even expected)

Agreed. I joined the military out of HS and got hurt in a car accident. Nothing serious but enough to keep my from PT-ing for a little. They had me do something like C25K as part of rehab -- lots of run a lap, walk a lap, repeat x 10, with increasing amounts of running as I progressed. Worked okay, got back to reasonably fit in a couple of months.

Few years later I'm a softbody IT guy looking to shape up, and decided to follow the reddit C25K sub -- it killed my shins. Bad splints, had to cut out running for a while. I got there eventually but I think 60 minutes of biking or eliptical + leg workouts did more for me than the C25K (as written) did.

None to Run looks great! The slower the progression the better for beginning runners in my (also totally unprofessional) opinion too.

As a general comment, shin splints is the classic beginners too-much-too-soon running injury. Experienced runners get a whole range of other injuries, but rarely shin splints. The only time is after they take a break and try and come back too quickly (notice the pattern).

Yep, with running as an absolute beginner, you really want to start slowly, both in terms of tempo and in terms of distance. The key is regularity and persistence.

By running slowly a lot, your body has time to learn how to run efficiently and safely simply by trial and error. By not overdoing it, you give your body time to recover from any errors made during the "trials", without injury.

Incidentally, lot of slow running is also a great way to build up base endurance, so it is not wasted time, and you will "recoup the investment" later, when you start running longer distances.

Shin splints suck, though. Even experienced runners get them from time to time. Probably best to switch it up a bit, include swimming or bicycle instead of some runs every now and then.

To quote an amazing motivator, Jocko Willink, "Good". Now you have more time to do cycling or strength train or some other exercise instead of running.

Here's the video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdTMDpizis8

So you can break other parts of your body next? :)

That's a fascinating idea, our bodies may not be able to keep up with our motivation. I've been pondering a lot about how our minds can live in a fantasyland of imagination that can hold long runs of time never being put to the test. Physical reality is the great check and test for many things.

I had to stop playing basketball with the guys when my knee couldn't keep up with my joy of playing.

Not even giving up for the next X intervals isn't the same as continue even if it hurts.

You should always consider starting again tomorrow, if it hurts.

You don't have to conquer the world in a day. This is a long fight. One needs to rest, recover and try again.

I think this could do more with your running form and listening to your body than your will that kept you going. It might be worth checking out your form with a running coach. Either way, wishing you a speedy recovery.

You can absolutely injure yourself by running too much, even with perfect form, and before you would notice anything is wrong while "listening to your body".

Yeah, people say "listen to your body" like this is simply a settled issue and all you have to do is make a decision to be more responsible. Researchers have barely even begun to properly unpack variations in interoception or RSI susceptibility, let alone the interactions between them.

I think you missed the point. Regardless of if their form was good or bad they ran through the pain. Shin splints and pantar faciticus are really bad to do that with as the recovery takes forever and you just can't do anything during it related to that area.

I think your getting downvoted as you answered x when they were discussing y.

It’s so amazing how making it easy to get started is basically priming your brain to complete the task.

I’ve gotten fit by hanging up a chin-up bar on a spare door frame. When I had a trainer, I was always amazed at what I could accomplish - even on days when I swore I felt dead in the morning - just by getting there and starting. I’ve gotten good at coding by keeping my IDEs of choice in the taskbar and working on small tasks during downtime. I study better and more often when I leave out my notebooks and calculator.

The lower you set the barrier to entry, for a given activity, the better a chance you give yourself to actually complete that activity later.

> The lower you set the barrier to entry, for a given activity, the better a chance you give yourself to actually complete that activity later.

Indeed, same reason why some people sleep with their gym shorts on so they are already dressed for exercise in the morning.

I have never in my life regretted working out, but I regularly regret not working out. It is so weird to me that, despite hundreds of trials of this dynamic, by brain still hasn't totally internalized this lesson and I end up having to tell myself "dog it if you want to, just show up", then proceed to have a great time.

I regret running all the time. There are wild swings in the difficulty of doing the same run depending on weather, hours of sleep, time of day, what I’ve eaten, and apparently just random chance. Digestive system tends to be unhappy early in the morning, and the times I ignored its warnings and went out anyway were the most physically uncomfortable I’ve ever been.

The lifestyle discipline required to make running consistently tolerable is overall a good thing. But on days when I know conditions are going to make it miserable, I don’t go. I’m not in it for competitive greatness, I’m out there for an enjoyable and sustainable habit.

In 2014, I ran 5km every morning. 356 days. I hated every single one of these runs. I did get better at it, but I did not end up enjoying it. Certainly was never "feeling amazing".

Eventually dropped the habbit. Now spending more time in the Gym and on the Bike.

First, I'm not saying this would've helped you (I don't know), it's just a story and perhaps someone who is like me gets inspiration from it :)

If I hadn't created three excellent mix tapes (that I still use to this day!) when I started running 10y ago, I might have ended up in your boat. I didn't care much for the running, but having a burn out meant I shouldn't be on the computer as much, and I didn't know what to do with the time. In the beginning I was having fun with how far into the mix I could get before running out of breath (I didn't sprint or anything, just no physical condition to speak of), and adding to the mix as I got further. At some point I decided perhaps I needed another mix with alternating running and walking parts[0]. I adjusted the BPM to my natural running gait. Added a little intro for when I leave the house to when I'm on the street. Everything was chosen with the idea that I wouldn't get bored during running, so it was a sequence of the "best", most uplifting, powerful parts of each track, each lasting about a minute (or 128 beats maybe). Between runs I kept optimizing the mixes for a while, improving the splice points and crossovers etc. Unfortunately I lost the original Ableton project files to a fire. Thankfully I had shared the mixes to friends, who could at least provide me with the mp3 renders.

One day I'm going to add a fourth mix :) But I don't use pirated software any more, and not being a professional musician I can't really justify the cost of buying Ableton (or Bitwig, which at least runs on Linux). Unfortunately I've found no other free (or cheap) software that comes close to the ease with which you can simply splice and beat-match audio clips. Or just navigating and zooming a large audio file. Audacity is there when you really need something done, but it's hardly a smooth workflow.

[0] it's as if psytrance and psydub were made for this, one is exactly half the BPM of the other!

I think there's a big difference between pushing through occasional lulls, and never wanting to do something ever.

You clearly fell into the latter camp.

I read a book called 80/20 running, that pointed out that most of us run most of our runs too fast. It made a huge difference in my training, to run at (say) 60% of my pace most of the time instead of 90% as most of us do. I felt better, I enjoyed it more, it created less anxiety to start a run, I recovered faster, and I could log more miles per week.

I feel when you push yourself too hard it will make you look less forward to your next workout. Best to end on a good/interesting note similar to how TV episodes do - making you want to come back for more.

I competed nationally in track and field for 7 years & did not enjoy a single training session during that time.

I'll go ahead and fire off a recommendation to find a muay thai gym that has dedicated conditioning classes and some cool people. I wish I would have discovered it 10 years earlier when I started running cross country.

Running, for me, was the Runescape of sports. Very grindy, with very little room for me to use my mind.

Try running further.

At 5k your body is only just about warmed up - I never really enjoy a run until after the 5k mark, it gets easier after that point

There is a company dedicated to tricking (voluntary and conscious) people from procrastination to actual sport, see https://www.squadeasy.com/

The main idea is to leverage the brain's sensitivity to cooperative team goals or competitive goals, plus some gamification. And it works!

Disclaimer: the main founder is my brother, I was involved in the very first steps of the project, and I'm currently on a freelance mission with the company. And the team is looking for a freelance or a permanent Typescript coder in Paris.

Then tell your brother that they need to work on cheaters because my company uses Squadeasy and every year it's just a disgraceful experience.

I know it's tough, especially when a giant like Strava that gamifies the hell out of sport barely does anything, but for the sake of giving an example, a cheater from my company basically took a tcx from someones marathon and uploaded every other day with shifted timestamps. I know it because they used Strava and with summit I saw the gpx from their workouts and the lat/long data was always identical. Also from averaging like 10k a week, he shot up to 200k, magically.

At least I managed to get some people's points revoked because they tagged each other on Strava for every workout even if only one/two of them were actually working out.

Now if I couldn't stalk on them on Strava there's absolutely no transparency on Squadeasy and I wouldn't have been able to point anything out to the team. These guys for sure are setting their profile private next year to prevent people from calling them out (since they did mid competition last year, actually).

> Typescript

So frontend, it certainly needs work too. If there's any work foreseen in backend, especially crushing cheaters, let me know.

Thanks for reporting. Yes, detecting cheat is one of those numerous cat-and-mouse games. Whatever you do to detect, will deter more cheaters yet with diminishing returns.

Squadeasy already deals with a number of scenarios, though not exactly this one. Thank you for your concise yet insightful report. I keep these ideas: cheating with multiple uploads of time-shifted TCX, transparency in third party trackers helped.

I just opened an issue in the internal tracking system with your text and a few lines. The team will notice it tomorrow morning (it's 10:30pm here in Paris), yet we have quite a backlog already so don't hold your breath.

To answer your last sentence and Typescript, the freelancer or new hire will be working on both front (user profile web-app) and back (bugfix, toolset migration, API evolution). Any contact welcome.

I love your passion for crushing cheaters.

Very correct! I love the thought. We have to replace the lazy tasks into the active ones by telling our brain just "one more time". And I have realized that whenever I tell myself to do something which requires getting out of bed and be active, the thought is itself exhausting. But ones you do that you feel amazing and your day just go right! You just have to push yourself for that one time again and again.

This is a technique often employed to help people suffering from anxiety, you can always break something down into smaller tasks and eventually you'll get to a point where the task feels doable.

Also basically programming in a nutshell.

Doable does not mean fun or worth doing.

(There are other effective ways to exercise and keep healthy than running. Find one that you find fun.)

But equally something being fun or worth doing doesn't mean you won't procrastinate doing it. Cleaning the house, for example, is definitely worth doing but many people procrastinate doing it, and it's actually a really good time to apply this technique:

You don't have to clean the whole house, you can just clean one room. You don't have to clean an entire room, you can just clean a bookcase. You don't have to clean the entire bookcase, you can just clean one shelf. You don't have to clean the entire shelf, you can just put one thing back in it's place. You don't even have to put it back, just go over and pick it up. ...

You can keep on going if none of those seem doable, right down to something like wiggling your big toe, but most people would probably at the very least find putting a single thing back doable.

And I've used an example of something that is worth doing but most people don't find fun, but there are plenty of examples of things that are both fun and worth doing that people still procrastinate (probably mostly occurs in mental health sufferers, but that was the entire point of my original comment).

This HN post expressed a similar strategy in a bit more detail, based on the 'Tiny Habits' approach by Stanford researcher BJ Fogg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21920556

I like the idea and I'm glad it works for some people but I tried it and often I would get out the door with all my running gear on and then turn back around and give up. Something about thinking about it like this made it easier to give up.

I recently started mountainbiking, and I often excert myself way too much to the point of having to get off the bike and just resting. After watching the tedx talk "How "normal people" can train like the worlds best endurance athletes" I made it a thing to go out on the bike and _be slow_. Just go as slow as possible up the hills instead of almost collapsing.

Now I feel like going out almost all the time instead of thinking "ooh, wow I was sooo tired the last time I was on the trail!". Made it much much easier to keep a routine of getting out regularly. Also my pace is much more even, and actually not much slower in total on my "slow" runs, since I never have to stop and rest.

Yeah, people forget that we are animals too.

We get as conditioned as Pavlov dogs. If every time you get out mountainbiking you suffer, you create an anchor mountainbiking = suffering.

if you do it a lot, it gets reinforced a lot, and your body subcounciously will oppose it.

Learned helplessness is a particularly insidious form of this. What's fascinating is that in the studies, some animals never get it, they just keep fighting it. I wonder if that trait can be tapped in to, I doubt it' an all-or-nothing parameter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

This is why I advise gym newbies to quit and go home while they're feeling pumped, and not to stay so long that they feel exhausted and cranky. It's more important to create the positive subconscious association with the gym.

Well, you didn't do it.

I mean you did not start the activity. This trick works only when you have already started the activity.

I suggest that next time you become serious about it: There is no way you could let yourself not doing the minimum activity BUT you can leave after you have done your minimum.

For example: Your minimum activity is going out and running for a minute. You do it, period.

Your mind will try to put excuses, like "I don't have time", but because the activity is minimal you don't have to think about that, you spend less time doing it than thinking about it.

Another suggestion: Only complete minimal activities first, and feel good about it,until you get used to going out each day.

Going out for running just minute over 30 days is much much better than running kilometers one day, being exhausted, feeling pain( and guilt) the next.

After 30 days you will have established a routine. It becomes harder not going out each day than staying home.

Thanks for the practical tips!

I should've expanded on my original comment a little more. I'm currently on a run streak of 130 consecutive days, including a motorcycle crash and international long haul flights.

One of the most frustrating things is I have no idea why I have managed it this time but not before.

The other failure mode I have is procrastinating leading up to the activity. Yesterday I woke up at 6am with the intention of going for a run like I had managed to do for the past 2 weeks. After much procrastination I finally managed to go at 3pm.

I think I've been quite successful over the years in doing exercise but the lack of insight into my habits and motivation is maddening....

That sounds like me. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get the time from wearing normal clothes to running to having showered and wearing normal clothes again, down to less than 2 hours if it just includes 25 minutes of running. Trying to do the "just one minute" approach when you don't feel like running, still becomes a "just 1h36" problem. Or indeed sometimes, quite randomly, worse.

PS: Now , After you have already run for a minute, it will sound ridiculous not doing one more.

The important thing is establishing the routine. Do not try too hard. If you do you will create pain and condition your body against it.

> PS: Now , After you have already run for a minute, it will sound ridiculous not doing one more.

Unless you don't work like that. Maybe I'm weird, but if I promised myself "just one minute" and I trick myself into doing more minutes, I'm going to remember that next time I'll tell myself "just one minute". I might say "just one minute and then see how you feel". But again, there shouldn't be anything ridiculous about it if I just do one minute, because who is being ridiculous next time they say "just one minute" ?

This is a good reason to break your tasks up into smaller chunks too. One more thing checked of the list is easier when its something like "add a button" and not "implement entire feature".

Just one more line of code always leads to me leaving work at 20:30 :/

If you can pull it off and restrain yourself, there is this trick of leaving one easy bug (or task) open, to get a nice start of the next day. You could start looking out for that task or bug half an hour before quits, maybe?

James Clear calls this the 2 minute rule: https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating, I too find it super helpful.

Sometimes when you feel the worst when starting, your performance is best. And professional athletes have documented the reverse, ca. a fresh pitcher getting knocked out in the 1st.

I did this last summer. Simply walking early to get some bread. It quickly turned into an automatic alarm clock, gave me a good 30 min of "warm up" walking that also let my brain coast while watching the woods. You come back both refreshed and all warmed up blood wise. It was very very beneficial altogether.

If it wasn't for the wrong job I took next and winter killing the morning sun I'd still be doing this. Actually now that spring is here, I feel the need. The need for .. walk.

> A few times, particularly today, I felt lazy and run down, but I got out of bed anyway and told myself that I'll at least walk

This is also used with people who suffer from some kind of limb paralysis. You first start to tell them to wiggle the extremity of their finger (or toe). Then part of the of the finger. Then the whole finger. And so on.

Basically the concept is the make every single effort leading to the end result as effortless and frictionless as possible.

I wish that worked for me. I get up, don't feel like exercising. Do it anyway, 5-6 mins in say "fuck this" and stop.

Looks like most of use discover this rule one way or the other. I had a simple rule, where I would try not to give up for the smallest period of time I could hold on to a thing.

Often that is like the next 5 minutes. Like I just tell myself, we are not trying to do this the whole year or even years. Just the next 1 hour, and then tomorrow we will try again.

This helps me get to the gym every morning at 6am. I go every morning, even if I don't plan on working out and just stretching. The simple 8 minute walk to the gym is the main blocker, so once this step is done it's easy to start working out anyway.

I used to be sceptical that the concept of overtraining was a thing, but it definitely is. Just saying that running every day consistently might not necessarily be good for you in the long run. Listen to your body.

Agreed, "listen to your body." is really important advice. I've been running every day without exception for 1252 days now, and there have been really slow, really short (2k) runs whenever I felt my body needed a bit more leeway for recovery. It takes some practice and it's not for everyone, but daily/streak running can be transformative (and was/is for me).

When people started talking about running every day, the first thing that came to mind was Ron Hill:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/20...

A 5km run is probably between 30-45min activity. If you run at a medium pace, I don't think that would be an issue.

If run as fast as you can, I agree that you should take breaks.

Depends on what your body is telling you. If your kneed are killing you half way through you might want to stop and take a break for a few days.

Or change shoes - my knees constantly hurt whenever I ran until I switched to more barefoot style shoes.

Really transformed running for me. It went from something I was terrible at, which hurt and I hated, to something I merely hated.

Crucially, when you tell yourself "at least walk" or "at least one more X" you have to allow yourself to sometimes just walk and not have it have to turn into a secret run.

Just waking up at the same time every day and kickstarting yourself (practically no matter what time you end up going to bed) seems to work absolute wonders.

This. And, for most people the bed time naturally fixes itself.

This is one of the strategies covered in the book "Power of Habit". Highly recommend that book.

Just saying with running you might want to take at least a day if not two off for your knees to recover.

Without knowing the op’s condition (so take this with a grain of salt), I’d advise against running 5km each & every day as it could wear out your knees, specially running on harder terrain (as most do).

For amateur practitioners it’s good to alternate different activities so that certain muscles get to recover.

Agree but the point was to try a light version of the challenge and you may get the determination to do the full version. Sure, running or any high impact sport can do damage to joints.

Do you have some evidence to back that claim? I run long distances, and whilst I have been given repeated advice of this nature, I have never seen any actual evidence that this is a problem?

https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/prevalence-of-knee-pain-in... - evidence of reduced risk.

However the thing is the group is self selecting, people who experience joint problems stop running or do not run ultramarathons. (Ex-runners in this study did not in general stop because of joint problems.)

Ultimately, the activity seems safe from standpoint of miles ran.

This indeed works. It is to in my experience the only way out of the mess.

Fitness routines and work are not the same thing. The former is IMHO pretty much a pointless waste of time (nothing bad will happen if you skip one day) and work usually just needs to be done eventually or there are serious consequences. The former thus needs self deception, while the latter just requires realization/visualization of its necessity and of the dire consequences.

> Fitness routines and work are not the same thing. The former is IMHO pretty much a pointless waste of time

> lazyjones

Ya'll gonna take fitness advice from the lazy guy?

Wow, that's some low effort post... I'm not lazy and I exercise when I need to wait/kill time or when I feel like it (e.g. I run instead of walking somewhere), I don't wastefully allocate extra time for it.

Your argument is a bit contradictory: I can skip one day of work just like I can skip 1 workout ("nothing bad will happen").

However, I am pretty sure there are dire/severe consequences to not maintaining your physical health over time [1], just like there are if you do not perform at work.

1 - https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/about-physical-activity...

If nothing happens when you skip one day of work, perhaps you should work less or be fired. In important jobs, not working stalls processes and sometimes even endangers lives.

This feels like grasping at straws here: How do you handle acute illness? Do you just "push through" and potentially get your coworkers sick, all while cranking out sub-par work?

Further, should I be fired or reduce my schedule if I am hospitalized after a car-accident, or require a surgical intervention like the one I 'skipped' 7 days of work to have done?

...The logic of your argument just really doesn't compute, but I may just be missing something.

> How do you handle acute illness?

Hopefully, you accept the negative impact on your work as reasonable under the circumstances.

If there is none, why do you "work"?