Let me second the OP and recommend Neil Fiore's book "The Now Habit".
There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as:
The Unschedule
* a weekly calendar of committed recreational activities and breaks, meals, etc
* productive periods of work are recorded after they are accomplished
* encourages starting earlier on projects once you see
how much time is already committed
* 30 minute chunks of productive work - too small to be intimidating
Leverage Reverse psychology:
* do not work more than 20 hours a week on this project
* do not work more than 5 hours a day on this project
* you must play or exercise at least one hour per day
* you must take at least one day a week off from any work
* do only 30 minute chunks without reward / break
* work for an imperfect, human, first effort
* start small
Builds up an unconscious desire to work more and play less
Schedule only:
* previously committed time - meals, sleep, meetings
* free time, recreation, leisure reading
* socializing
* exercise
* routine events - commuting, classes, appointments
* Fill in periods of productive work only after completing
a 30-minute chunk
* take credit only for 30 minutes of uninterrupted work
* reward each chunk with a break or a change to a more enjoyable task
* track the number of productive hours by day and week.
* always have at least one full day of recreation or enjoyable tasks
* before recreation, take time for one 30-minute chunk of project work
* focus on starting
* think small
* keep starting, finishing will take care of itself
* never stop when you are blocked or at the end of a section;
push through a block or start a new section before stopping
Benefits:
* realistic timekeeping
* avoid feeling overwhelmed
* allows you to experience success
* deadlines are self-imposed
* new-found free time
I also recommend another book (by another psychologist): "The Procrastination Equation" by Piers Steel.
The second book is partly at odds with the first, so I leave it to you to see which better describes what you observe.
Summary of The Procrastination Equation:
Perfectionism does not lead to procrastination - this is well studied. It may be that they are thought to be linked because of the cases where there is this discrepancy in behavior.
Procrastination is a result of impulsiveness. Self-control and delaying gratification are key to controlling procrastination.
Procrastinators suffer from
* weak impulse control
* lack of persistence
* lack of work discipline
* lack of time management skill
* inability to work methodically
Motivation can be modeled by
* (expectancy * value) / (impulsiveness * delay)
* The numerator is Expected Utility Theory in economics
* Expectancy is the perceived likelihood of reward or success
* Value is the perceived value of the reward
* Delay is the perceived delay in receiving the reward
* Impulsiveness is the tendency to (irrationally) pursue immediate reward instead
Expectancy - optimism, expectation of success
* too much pessimism causes procrastination -
low expectation of success keeps us from starting
* too much optimism causes procrastination -
unrealistic ease of success causes delay of starting until the last moment
techniques for improving optimism:
* success spirals - progressive series of successes build
confidence (e.g. earning scout badges). regularly
stretching your limits is important to teach yourself
confidence in your ability to tackle something difficult
* vicarious victory - relating to someone’s success story,
finding inspiration in books, movies, inspirational speakers,
joining a group of inspirational people
* wish fulfillment - visualization of success and contrasting with
where you are now. Visualization that only focuses on the goal may
drain motivation to complete the necessary steps.
As you visualize attaining the goal and then contrasting the current
situation, maintain your optimism so that you can translate this
visualization into a plan of action.
* Plan for the worst, hope for the best - develop strategies to recover
from falling back into old habits. Anticipate temptations and find ways
to counter them.
Thank you for this. It's easy to think you'll have something similar in your head, but actually seeing it makes it harder to ignore.
My procastination is usually due to a stupid case of OCD. I say it's stupid, because I can see how blatantly counter-productive it is... and yet, it's still there.
I keep my OCD down to "mild" levels by purposely flinging my socks as soon as I come home. This, in a way, breaks the cycle of "can't get down to do this because everything isn't perfectly clean". Ordinarily, something becomes a source of discontent that keeps me from getting things done and the best way (that works for me, YMMV) is a hot shower after a bit of excercise, LOTS of coffee followed by soothing music. "Soothing" in my context is usually Testament or Slayer, but you get the idea.
I also make it harder on myself to get distracted by turning off the ringer on my phone or taking out the battery to make Twitter et al. harder to get to (I don't remember my Twitter password, so I'd have to go into my "mega-list-of-all-passwords" text file which is PGP encrypted).
So I've found that exactly one thing helps me focus on work -- boredom. I am definitely not OCD, but I still find that I can't just work on something at any time for any length of time. I have to be in the right mood.
I'd also add that procrastination and perfectionism is something I've seen a lot of, and which has always struck me as particularly insidious. I managed to finish my PhD by 26, but the reason is because I was comfortable with turning it in imperfect (and expected to do so from 24 on, after initial grad student optimism was burned out of me). I've had friends who spent years on a thesis past when it was done by any sane definition of the word just because they wanted it to be perfect. And since "perfect" was unattainable they spent all their time playing video games instead.
Last, I have spent over a decade carefully cultivating a mentality of not attaching myself to the outcomes of my projects but instead focus on enjoying the process. If I don't enjoy the process, the product is sort of irrelevant (at least for long periods). If I do enjoy the process, the product will be the best I can do. I'm currently running two startups, working part time at a third, teach karate, and am at least nominally pursuing romantic and social relationships. I often find myself using the mantra "it will turn out how it turns out" to help myself sleep on anxiety ridden nights. I also more formally say "I release <foo>" when I find that I am dwelling on something in meditation and visualize myself no longer being emotionally attached to that thing. Particularly helpful for tentative romantic relationships. Worry there seems to be cause inevitable failure.
Dunno if that helps anyone, but it helped me a ton.
I have this OCD tendency to clean up my place before I can sit down to work on my projects, by the time I am done with it all, I am hungry, so I cook then there are the dishes...after everything's done, I feel mentally drained even though all I did was physical activity. I am similarly OCD about working out. All of this coupled with errands and family and social obligations, the desire to please everybody (do something special for birthdays, anniversaries, help out, never saying no)...makes it very difficult to work. Usually, on weekends, it is Sunday evening before I have taken care of everything and am in a good position to work on my projects.
I wonder, is there any website, community or maybe even webservice with book annotations, clear and brief? I think it wouldn't be a big exaggeration to say I'd prefer a quality brief for at least 80% of books I read.
I've read a few self-help books. The problem with many of them is that they try to fix things on the surface level. I have not read "The Now Habit", though. From the summary, it seems to have a lot of good strategies. However, although good strategies may help you break out of bad habbits, they may sometimes be sustaining underlying problems.
I've always had a strong connection between my ego and my achievements. When I got employed by a company with extremely talented people, I developed chronic stress. It's been a serious problem for me for a few years. Lots of procrastination, my health has suffered, and my general life quality has suffered.
What has made a tremendous difference for me, is to develop metacognition. If you are aware of what's going on in your head, you can aim your focus where you want it to be. Over time, old habits will fade.
Most of us think thoughts and feelings are reality. But they're not. They are just events inside us. They're not dangerous. Yet, we often believe they are life threatening. So we react. Strongly.
The first step is to understand that thoughts, the voice in your head, is just that: A voice in your head. It doesn't tell the truth: it tells scary stories, to keep you safe from sable tooth tigers (or the modern equivalents). Since you want to stay alive, it's best to be on the safe side, so this radio broadcasts 80% bad news all day long.
That radio used to take most of my focus. It was very loud. By learning to treat it as background noise(1), I can now better focus on other things. As a result, many problems in my life have just started to fade away, without me actively working on them. Including procrastination.
Also, learning to be aware of feelings (detectable by bodily sensations), and letting them stay without fueling them with thoughts (e.g. "I don't want to feel like this", "this is bad", or "why me!?"), or conciously (or unconsiously) trying to get rid of them, reduces stress levels a lot. Feelings left alone often disappear by themselves within a minute or so. In contrast, if you fuel them with thoughts, or try to get rid of them, they tend to get stronger and may stick around for a long time.
I would recommend looking into ACT. E.g. check out this video by Russ Harris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQTvFdbjlxw . Also, his book, "The Happiness Trap"[1], is well worth reading. This may be all you need.
Before discovering Russ Harris, I developed my awareness of thoughts, as well as my mental flexibility, by doing attention training[2]. For more on this, I would recommend "Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression"[3] by Adrain Wells. (Beware, it is quite heavy, written for psychologists. Don't mind the "Anxiety and Depression" part of the title.)
Furthermore, mindfulness and meditation is good. Just be aware that these are very fashionable nowdays, and there are lots of misunderstandings out there. For example, many mistake them to be about relaxing. Also, getting into meditation and mindfulness may be extremely hard if you're not ready for it, so starting with ACT may be a good idea. To understand (vipassana) meditation, I like this description: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2rd/understanding_vipassana_meditati...
Another good book that covers a lot of the above material, but from a Buddhist perspective, is "Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change"[4] by Pema Chodron. I find it helpful to get different perspectives on these things.
Beware: If you suffer from serious mental illness, or have had traumas, you should be very careful experimenting with this by yourself. I would recommend seeing a psychologist first, preferrably one who is up-to-date on Metacognitive theraphy, ACT and/or mindfulness. Be aware though, that many have an academic interest in these topics, but do not have personal experience, so the concepts are not well integrated in them, making it harder for them to teach it.
Also: It is important to acknowledge that procrastination is something that everybody do from time to time. It's part of life, and unless it's chronic, we shouldn't make it into a big problem.
Another thing: Our brains did not evolve to solve abstract problems for 8+ hours a day. They evolved to solve small, practical problems in everyday life. We learn from early childhood to work hard, to concentrate, to get good grades. Less focus is on the importance of listening to the signals that the body sends us, e.g. about taking breaks. It is perfectly fine to feel tired, to feel like not doing anything. It's important to rest.
So instead finding something you would like to do, we must commit to exercises, motivation(discipline), regulations, restrictions in hope that reward will outweigh something we really do not want commit to.
I find it hard to agree with this post. If you are willing to work 40 hrs a week you will receive 40hr/week pay from your employer. If you dont commit (via http://news.ycombinator.com posts) SOMEONE ELSE WILL. Do not fool yourself out of a startup salary, and learn Lisp! (if you have the time!) (There are shortcuts to learning Lisp, but all of these shortcuts are not worth the saved time you spent learning Lisp) (Even if its a dead language, you learned it) (Peace)
Is this a bot in development? Comment history is awfully strange, always linking to http://news.ycombinator.com, suggesting it is a placeholder for later links.
... Maybe I just need my morning coffee... or internetdude313 is high as a kite, with a crush on lisp.
Probably a Markov chain bot written by a Lisp enthusiast. No doubt the bot itself is currently learning Lisp and becoming self aware. Hopefully it will run out of parentheses before it takes over the world.
There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as:
The Unschedule
Leverage Reverse psychology: Builds up an unconscious desire to work more and play lessSchedule only:
Benefits: I also recommend another book (by another psychologist): "The Procrastination Equation" by Piers Steel.The second book is partly at odds with the first, so I leave it to you to see which better describes what you observe.
Summary of The Procrastination Equation:
Perfectionism does not lead to procrastination - this is well studied. It may be that they are thought to be linked because of the cases where there is this discrepancy in behavior. Procrastination is a result of impulsiveness. Self-control and delaying gratification are key to controlling procrastination.
Procrastinators suffer from
Motivation can be modeled by Expectancy - optimism, expectation of success techniques for improving optimism: