Re:Dear procrastinator
by kevinstubbs on Monday August 15, 2011 @06:02PM
(#2888919)
Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
Re:Dear procrastinator
by silverbax88 on Monday August 15, 2011 @09:45PM
(#2889454)
One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step.
Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
how often do you procrastinate on making the list? by the time you've started making the list, you weren't going to procrastinate any longer anyway.
Re:Dear procrastinator
by silverbax88 on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @01:13PM
(#2891985)
it turns out, never. Making a list is one of the things we, or at least I, do as 'busy work' to avoid real work. In this case, it turns out that once we have a detailed step-by-step course to resolution, hard tasks suddenly seem quite easy.
Re:Dear procrastinator
by jodrellblank on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @08:32AM
(#2890880)
That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting...
That doesn't sound like a well examined state; go looking for why you fear "not knowing what to do", there's bound to be one or many things hiding behind that description.
We must push ourselves if we want to improve. We must ask ourselves the hard questions. I have often called this 'throwing myself to the wolves' when I embark on a new endeavor...I know it will be hard. I know I will fail, badly. I know the established community will tear into me. But I will push myself and keep fighting and eventually, what was once hard will become easy.