Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

Re:Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing not... by samuell on Saturday February 14, 2015 @06:33AM (#9049402)

Yes, and in my recent experience, following the "pomodoro technique", aka "timeboxing", where you work in 25 minute sprints, with a timer set, and focus on ONE, WRITTEN DOWN task for these 25 minutes, whereafter you take a few minutes break, possibly reconsider if you continue with the same task for the next 25 minutes or choose something else, and then continue.

This can help in this paralyzed kind of state, since it is harder to keep distractions away (and keep 100% focused on one task) for 25 minutes, than for a whole day ... and in those few minutes in between, you are allowed to distract yourself for a very short time.

This worked for me like nothing else.

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Re:Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing not... by ghubbard on Saturday February 14, 2015 @10:05AM (#9049800)

And to help yourself remember to do your pomodoros, you can use a tool like Beeminder[0], which can track and show you your progress towards your goal as well as act as a commitment device[1] to keep you working on goals over time.

[0] https://www.beeminder.com/ [1] http://blog.beeminder.com/akrasia/

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Re:Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing not... by morninj on Saturday February 14, 2015 @12:35PM (#9050158)

But how will I remember to use Beeminder?

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Re:Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing not... by Styrke on Saturday February 14, 2015 @03:59PM (#9050773)

Having money on the line often helps, but otherwise they have zeno polling[1].

[1] http://blog.beeminder.com/zeno/

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