I was hoping to see one for my personal bugbear: paralysis of choice.
The most common situation for me is to be faced with a list of projects and tasks that are more than I can handle, and doing any one of them means ignoring the others, which are all equally urgent.
I know all the GTD and Pomodoro techniques and everything else, but it's in my head where the problem lies. Once I settle in to one specific task, I can focus and get into the zone to finish it. But that first step—committing to which thing I'll do—is the hardest one. Hours can go by while I'm avoiding the question altogether. I can literally feel the anxiety in my chest whenever I try to pick one and start doing it.
I have suffered from depression for years and it is destroying my life. I read articles like this and think that what they're saying sounds like a great idea, and then proceed to completely ignore it.
I have tried multiple types of antidepressants and found the side effects unbearable. They didn't make me feel happy, they made me feel nothing.
I have tried CBT and regular therapy, both of which have failed because I was unable to motivate myself to actually go.
Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think, but it's hard to change how you think when you don't even feel in control of your own thoughts. No matter how hard I try, I always fall back into the same patterns.
I don't why I'm writing this here. I don't know what else to do.
I've suffered from depression in the past, mostly during my late teenage years and early adulthood. The first thing I will say is that depression and motivation are different for everyone, so you can take this with a huge grain of salt, but here is what helped me:
* Get sunlight — I grew up in Minnesota where if it's sunny in the winter that usually means its too cold for exposed skin outside. When I moved to Santa Fe (300+ sunny days at 7000' elevation) the first winter I was amazed at how much better I felt.
* Get exercise — Find some physical activity you enjoy (preferably outdoors) and do it. This is maybe harder for some than others, but I can't emphasize how important this is to me. I sit 10-12 hours per day in front of a computer, without outdoor activity on a regular basis I would wither.
* Check your diet — Okay, last but most certainly not least, there is more evidence coming out all the time about much diet and gut health can impact mood and psychology. One of the prominent books in this area is The GAPS Diet (http://www.gapsdiet.com), but I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. In short, if you live in America and you just eat what's easy you're probably eating a lot of processed grains that could be altering your health dramatically.
I hope those don't appear as facile answers, but the truth is those things have made a huge difference in my life. It wasn't an overnight thing, I had to grow up a bit, move away from my family, and establish my own life before I really started to feel happy. Best of luck.
I did CBT and ended up going (100% no-show fee can do that) - I'm not sure if it was the method (CBT) that worked, or just having a stranger say "and why is that?" a lot. Basically she did a "Five whys" on my life. It was all so simple, but I couldn't see it.
For me it was low self esteem, but veiled: I consciously knew that I was pretty good at what I did and had my life reasonably in order - I checked all the boxes, so I should be happy. "Just pull yourself together" seemed like reasonable advice, but I just couldn't do it. But subconsciously, I had huge doubts about my self worth. The first step of the solution was to reflect every evening over what I did that day and what went well to reinforce a positive self-image.
I also changed jobs (this was pre-CBT, so not a direct effect, but in retrospect it's all related) from a high uncertainty contracting gig with a promise (ha!) of becoming a start up to a bog standard full time programming gig in a good company. The new job gave me many more chances to get good results and much more time and opportunity to learn stuff and self-improve.
One habit I've taught myself is to pay attention to a certain "jab" in my stomach that I get when something is wrong. I immediately stop what I'm doing and carefully analyse the cause. More often than not, I've seen, heard or read something that plays into a subconscious fear about my self esteem, and by forcing it out into the open and applying reason to it, I can make it go away fairly simply. It's worked wonders for my overall feeling of happiness.
You situation will obviously be different from mine, but your post resonated a lot with me. Feel free to email (see my profile) if you want to continue the conversation in private.
> I read articles ... and then proceed to ... ignore it.
> ...unable to motivate myself to actually go
> don't even feel in control of your own thoughts
> I always fall back into the same patterns.
I'm not a doctor or professional, so take this with a huge grain of salt and get help outside of HN:
Did you consider having adult ADHD? - maybe the inattentive type? Do you have some disciplines where you still able to excel besides having problems with motivation and procrastination everywhere else?
I've lately read an adult ADHD CBT therapy book¹ and I was really surprised how it explained a lot of things in my life.
Depression is a common co-morbidity and while I'm more on the anxiety side your description sounds pretty familiar.
Knowing about these things accepting that I have to attack certain things from a different angle helps me a lot recently, I also don't feel like a stranger in the world anymore - I'm almost 30 years old and I have not much academically to show for in my life.
Maybe it's bullshit and you are better off ignoring it, but from your description I'd considering checking that angle too.
Hi, from my own experience getting out of depression and then later helping a friend out of it I firmly believe you can get out of depression if you want to.
Wanting to get out of depression is the hard part because you got to be willing to do what is necessary.
You are closer than you think to getting out of depression when you say, "Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think." It is that. You are also right about it being hard and how easy it is to fall back into the same patterns.
He's what I've done and what I got my friend to do: break out of your daily routine.
I know this sounds like advice that isn't that different than what the other commentators have posted but it's because they are partly correct. The missing part is to incrementally break out of your daily routine by incorporating small changes as you go along.
So what do I mean?
Well try walking/driving a different way home even if it takes longer. Go to a different supermarket for food. Listen to a different radio station. Even if you hate a certain genre of music try listening to it and listen to it for longer than what you would normally trial it out for. Go to a different café or restaurant. Eat or cook new food you have never considered trying. If you can, try to do stuff you wouldn't ever 'normally do.'
The trick here is to not overwhelm yourself with too many changes too quickly or to try things that are really hard for you. This way you can actually keep to the incremental changes you are making and you don't fall back into your old patterns.
Keep sticking to these changes as you make them. Soon you will find that they will start to stack and you start to feeling new feelings. As you are going along try to stretch your routine to do ever different things. Don't rush, and don't beat yourself up. If all you can do is one thing then do that until you can do the next thing.
Get help, even if just to call a hotline or discuss once with a doctor. HN is a terrible place to get help. There are people with real expertise who can help you and want to help you, you just need to take the help.
Chronic depression is a lifelong problem, but it can be managed pretty effectively. The combination of CBT and meds is well proven with clinical trials and this does not require faith in the treatment. Just your compliance.
Unfortunately it's still your job to start getting help and comply with treatment one day at a time. Nobody else can fix this for you. Do you have something better to be doing?
The more you think you aren't in control, the more you should be following the guidance of a doctor. If you're totally lost you might need hospitalization. If that sounds bad, then take more responsibility for your own treatment.
Not to be obvious, but have you tried medication? Like a lot of things YMMV but it can help a lot, and also make those other approaches more effective. Hang in there...
You can't fool your feelings. If you're stuck in a ditch, medication or "changing the way you think" (advice from other depressed people) won't help.
You need to surround yourself with people you want to emulate as well as beautiful women 24/7. And don't forget to travel the world. This should activate those dormant parts of your brain and make you real happy.
Some of us, however, need to get rich before this can happen. So if that's the case with you, go make those apps!
I think this is terrible advice. I got much better at motivation over the last year by thinking in exactly the opposite way from what this article recommends. I accepted that I had virtually no willpower, and that I wasn't just going to just magically develop some, and that I didn't need it anyway. Instead I needed to get more skilled at 'coaxing' myself into doing things – at steering my feelings into more constructive areas, and then letting my desires drive my actions. I applied my tiny amount of willpower to this 'steering', rather than trying to use it to drag myself kicking and screaming into doing things, which it clearly is not powerful enough to do. It worked, and I'm much happier. You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests. That's completely unsustainable. Any approach amounting to "just fucking do it" is going to last only as along as that little glimmer of resolve lasts, which is obviously short term. Instead you need to break down the wall between your gut desires and your cerebral strategies, and make those two parts of yourself acknowledge each other and collaborate.
You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests.
And yet every morning, millions of people get up and go to work to do a job they really don't feel like doing. People still do back-breaking work just so they can put food on the table. I'm not saying it's a recipe for happiness but people have been doing stuff they don't enjoy for millennia. And even in present day, only some of us can afford to choose when, where and what to work on.
Just because you can't, doesn't mean other people can't. I had actually realized basically everything they were talking about a few months ago, and since then I have improved my decision making significantly. Depending on your feelings to power you through things is very unreliable.
This is really interesting and I'd like to hear more about your approach. What is your inner monologue like when you're integrating the two opposing forces?
The advice was to actively drain your emotional response. Rather than fight your feeling, work to quiet all of your feelings - be like Spock.
You won't reduce them to nothing, but you will get them under control enough that you can then steer them just as you are saying. Otherwise your aversion feelings are overwhelming and it's impossible to steer as you say.
I have found the Pomodoro Technique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) to be helpful. I can't do it for a whole day, but a short sprint to grind through something is a near, achievable goal. For extended, head-banging frustrations, it's helpful to step away, think about it without the distraction of the screen, and coming back at it with fresh eyes. The time AFK is not to be underestimated: http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html
It's interesting to note that the Pomodoro breaks, at least if you use the 25 minute interval most commonly recommended, fit in well with this recommendation from the Cornell Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group [1]:
Sit to do computer work. Sit using a height-adjustable,
downward titling keyboard tray for the best work posture,
then every 20 minutes stand for 2 minutes AND MOVE. The absolute
time isn’t critical but about every 20-30 minutes take a posture
break and move for a couple of minutes. Simply standing is
insufficient. Movement is important to get blood circulation
through the muscles. And movement is FREE! Research shows that
you don’t need to do vigorous exercise (e.g. jumping jacks)
to get the benefits, just walking around is sufficient.
Pomodoro saved my butt during my senior year of college. I put off a book report until the last minute and found myself needing to read 5 chapters about medieval Italian republics in 3 hours. I allocated 1 Pomodoro to each chapter, and said that if I hadn't finished the chapter before the end, I would skip to the next one. This forced me to speed read and skip confusing parts (instead of re-reading them 10 times). The report wasn't one of my best, but I wouldn't have finished it at all without the structure I got from Pomodoro.
Posted this a few weeks ago, but workstation popcorn [1] is sort of like pomodoro this on a macro scale throughout the day & has helped me a ton with being more productive & simply getting stuff done.
The magic of this technique is that mechanically and reliably takes impossible tasks and makes them actionable. All that's required, you tell yourself, is 20 freaking minutes. I can do that. Anyone can do that.
What I usually find is that after the first session, I'm engaged enough to keep going. My emotions have caught up, my determination sets in, and now the desire and confidence to complete the task are strong enough that I rarely need to do more pomodoro sessions.
I was just going to comment that I'm using pomodoro as well. Glad I'm not alone. I wrote about the combination of strategies I'm trying to use to kick start a side project and pomodoro is one of them: http://refactoringfactory.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/the-side-...
I second this. Usually I get distracted anyways, so I program 8 hours and get it done in 12 or so. It's harder to use when you have a lot of outside constraints in scheduling (you can't really walk out of class for 5 minutes every 30 minutes), but I use it on weekends and when I have a free-ish schedule.
I guess this is marginally better than your typical motivation article, but not much.
I really want our culture to shift in a direction where it's economically feasible to research nootropics and find ones that are seriously effective.
As far as I know, the last time someone put a serious effort into researching a pharmacological aid to "drive" was in the 60s when selegiline was discovered, and it worked. Selegiline is now used for Parkinson's. After 40 years they also started using it for depression and dementia.
But our society is so averse to transhumanism that not only has that research not been followed up in the last 50 years, but the one drug that does improve motivation is not legally available to non-depressed people with motivation problems.
He came up with it based on reinforcement studies in pigeons. There are more details on the linked page, but basically whilst working you just put a dot on a piece of paper every 6 minutes in the shape of a square, then join all the dots with a line. Something about doing this essentially meaningless thing improves motivation and throughput for me.
What about the super common: "I don't want to work because there's a much more immediate source of dopamine release right here on this page of interesting internet links..."
The problem with adopting a prevention focus is that it doesn't work. Or, rather, it might work when the fear of failure is the only fear at stake, but -- at least for me -- it seldom is. For example, one might have thoughts like "I really need to be doing this, otherwise it might be too late ... hang on, it already might be too late ... I really should check ... but what if it's already too late? I'd feel awful ... no, let's not feel awful, let's check sometime later." Poof, thought gone until next time. When you suffer from GAD or any other psychological disorder involving anxiety, about the only thing you can do is understand your fears and your reactions to them, and take small steps towards reinterpretation. Fighting anxiety with inducing more anxiety is not going to work.
The problem with ignoring your feelings is that it's much easier said than done. Good luck ignoring the urge of turning off the alarm clock when you're not even half-conscious, you feel dizzy, sleepy and have headaches. While in #3 the author advises to "embrace the fact that your willpower is limited," here he seems to forget all about it. In situations like getting up in the morning, techniques involving subconsciousness like [1] are more likely to work.
We are more feeling-driven than we think ourselves to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those feelings are there for a reason, and ignoring them might just not work. Indeed, the author acknowledges that "on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing" and I think when he says "ignore not feeling like doing something," he actually means "_trick_ your mind into starting feeling like doing that."
The problem with using if-then planning is that for some people, it's all too easy to change the decision, even if it's already been done; the unconscious mind keeps re-examining the decision and re-pondering the issue at hand. So when the time comes, you end up re-considering the decision instead of deliberating what to do. That's not exactly the same thing, but it still eats up willpower.
Some of what you say doesn't contradict the author. You might also have an incomplete understanding of some others.
(1) A prevention and a promotion focus are two types of focus people have a disposition to. You can't adopt a prevention focus if you are promotion inclined. Maybe you, personally, work better with tasks requiring a promotion focus.
(2) The technique you mention does not contradict the author. I agree with you though that often tricking your mind into starting something works wonders.
You can't ignore that having a process is tremendous help.
Murakami describes his writing process as an extremely rigid daily routine: he wakes up at 4 a.m. every day and writes for five to six hours, exercises in the early afternoon, and then reads or listens to music before his 9 p.m. bed time. Murakami adds: “I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”
(3) Have you tried writing down your if-then plans? Because there's a huge difference in outcome between saying you will do something and writing down you will do something. Writing makes you commit. It keeps the unconscious mind away from sabotaging your decision.
If you're wondering why 3% of Harvard graduates make ten times more than the remaining 97% combined it's because they didn't just think of their plans but instead wrote them down.
The one thing I find that works with nearly all these is reasonably simple. It may be a broader solution than the Pomodoro Technique but it borrows some of the same focus.
What I do is take a task I am avoiding and come up with a small piece of it I can reasonably do as a goal. It might be a task I can do in 15 minutes. It might be something I might need two hours to do.
I then follow that to completion, and then decide whether to bump the rest of the task of and get started on something else or whether to continue.
Usually for the tasks I feel like I don't have a solid grasp on how to do this helps, but I may still bump part of it down the road. For the tasks I am avoiding for administrative reasons or don't feel like, this gets me started.
An important point though is that the bumped task is less intimidating and smaller than it was when I started, meaning it is less likely to happen again.
Simply ignoring your feelings to get a job done is just a tactic, and IMHO, not a very good one as it is not sustainable. You should always want to do what you are doing; not necessarily in the sense that this is what you would like to be doing for the rest of your life, but in the sense of recognising that this unpleasant task will get you closer to that something you would like to do the rest of your life.
I think the best method to get something done is to first have a clear vision and passion for the bigger picture. Then, understand how this unpleasant task gets you nearer to the goal of that bigger picture that you want. If it does, you won't need to ignore your feelings. On the contrary; your feelings will push you to do it. If it doesn't, there's a good chance you should be doing something else.
All these sound interesting to read but none are really practical when it comes to implementing. To a large part, when things have to happen, somehow circumstances contrive you to accomplish it. These 'techniques' are rarely ground breaking for the true-to-the-spirit procrastinator.
What works without fail is peer pressure or a stinging comment.
Disclaimer : Personal experience, may not be generalizable.
"How to Make Yourself Have Sex When You Just Don't Want To"
"How to Make Yourself Eat Krispy Kremes When You Just Don't Want To"
"How to Make Yourself Love You Children When You Just Don't Want To"
Here's a dirty little secret: You should have an emotional attachment to your work similar to the emotional attachment you have to having sex, eating Krispy Kremes, loving your children, or whatever else is your thing. Others should have to drag you kicking and screaming away from your work.
If you "just don't want to work" then the wrong question to ask is:
"How can I make myself work when I just don't want to?"
The right question is:
"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"
Find the answer to the second question and you will never encounter the first question again.
Well this isn't that hard to answer for a lot of people:
"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"
Because what I don't want to work on pays, and what I do want to work on doesn't make money! If I were independently wealthy, I would have no trouble at all allocating my time to things I find productive and enjoyable to do, and give the results away for free. For example I have a backlog of several projects relating to improving OpenStreetMap data waiting for time to work on them, but I can't think of a way to get paid for doing them. I think the results would be valuable to many people, but it's hard for me personally to capture that value, since improving OSM data is kind of a public good that anyone can use freely (when your work enables a profit-making business based on OSM data, it's not like they pay royalties to all the people who enabled it).
Sometimes you get sick, and you just don't want to eat (even Krispy Kremes), but you know that you have to eat to get better, so you force yourself to eat. This applies analogously with work: sometimes you are burnt out, sometimes you are bone tired, sometimes you fucked something up earlier and now have to do a messy triage, sometimes the most essential thing you could be doing with your expertise is boring scut work that no one else in your company can do... nevertheless, unless you are in a situation where you can just say "Fuck it, I'm going on holiday! See you losers when all of this is sorted out!", you may have to force yourself to work, both to get through the doldrums and also to keep being able to afford to eat.
The problem with your line of thought is no matter how much you love something there are going to be parts you hate. There is a reason it is called work. I love creating software, but I certainly did not love it when I spent a day debugging a tx deadlock in our test harness last week. Did I want to fix it instead of working on something else? Not really, but I did it anyway because it is my job.
That's the reason I've started 10 projects and finished 0 in the last year. I did awesome for the first few weeks starting a project, but then I don't "feel like" finishing.
Since I'm releasing nothing... I decided to take on smaller and smaller projects. Instead of making a mobile app, I'm now making a small plugin to release on CodeCanyon.net. I put all the CSS for the demo and the actual plugin in the same file to begin with, and now I don't "feel like" separating the demo's CSS in a separate file because it's frustrating and boring. I'd rather code new things than mess with this stupid CSS on a project that probably won't sell, that took way longer than it should have.
But this time I said I'm not doing any other project until I've finished this one. And now I've done absolutely nothing for 2 weeks(except my part-time job), and procrastinated by watching TV shows and studying Japanese.
As someone who always changes their opinion on "what should I really be working on" - I think I need something more than "asking the right questions." I'm still not sure what that is, but I'm hoping that one day I will find it.
That last part sounds like nonsense... in any given job or career or life there are both good and bad parts. You can't avoid the bad and still do the good.
As one example; I don't like dealing with the marketing / networking aspect of m,y business; but if I didn't do that I'd go out of business.
This is kind of funny as I just started reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahnemann.
In those terms, this article is very much about "type 2" processes, which is conscious and slow monitoring of the more intuitive type 1 processes.
A consequence is that following this advice will result in "ego depletion". By exerting your willpower in one area, you deplete a common store of it, and thus you're more likely to overeat, act lazily, think lazily, etc. in other areas.
I think this probably manifests in people who work too hard getting fat, since they don't want to watch what they eat or exercise (if those things require willpower; for some people may not)
Note that "conscious willpower" is the opposite of a "flow state". And flow is what is necessary to write good software.
Like all things, there has to be a balance. You have to exert your willpower, and all new things involve this pain, but you can also set your life up so it isn't a constant problem.
I said this in another comment, but what works for me is publicly pledging to work for x number of hours on y project or else I give z dollars to some charity.
Where x is normally between 2-10
y is anything
z is normally 10
If you are procrastinating right now, give it a go. Go on twitter or facebook and say if I don't work for 2 hours on Akasha(a project), I will donate $10 to watsi(the charity).
I think when setting goals we hope for some reward in the future, but the brain doesn't value rewards as much as it hate losses(loss aversion). YMMV
What about: I am having so much fun doing other things that I don't care enough about what I should be doing? (or replace 'should' with 'know that would make me happier in the long run and also be better for my family')
what works for me, at least in getting through difficult software grinds is commit to some deadline and a presentation of progress to a friend or better yet several friends at once.
[+] [-] jaysonelliot|12 years ago|reply
The most common situation for me is to be faced with a list of projects and tasks that are more than I can handle, and doing any one of them means ignoring the others, which are all equally urgent.
I know all the GTD and Pomodoro techniques and everything else, but it's in my head where the problem lies. Once I settle in to one specific task, I can focus and get into the zone to finish it. But that first step—committing to which thing I'll do—is the hardest one. Hours can go by while I'm avoiding the question altogether. I can literally feel the anxiety in my chest whenever I try to pick one and start doing it.
[+] [-] asdashopping|12 years ago|reply
I have tried multiple types of antidepressants and found the side effects unbearable. They didn't make me feel happy, they made me feel nothing.
I have tried CBT and regular therapy, both of which have failed because I was unable to motivate myself to actually go.
Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think, but it's hard to change how you think when you don't even feel in control of your own thoughts. No matter how hard I try, I always fall back into the same patterns.
I don't why I'm writing this here. I don't know what else to do.
[+] [-] dasil003|12 years ago|reply
* Get sunlight — I grew up in Minnesota where if it's sunny in the winter that usually means its too cold for exposed skin outside. When I moved to Santa Fe (300+ sunny days at 7000' elevation) the first winter I was amazed at how much better I felt.
* Get exercise — Find some physical activity you enjoy (preferably outdoors) and do it. This is maybe harder for some than others, but I can't emphasize how important this is to me. I sit 10-12 hours per day in front of a computer, without outdoor activity on a regular basis I would wither.
* Check your diet — Okay, last but most certainly not least, there is more evidence coming out all the time about much diet and gut health can impact mood and psychology. One of the prominent books in this area is The GAPS Diet (http://www.gapsdiet.com), but I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. In short, if you live in America and you just eat what's easy you're probably eating a lot of processed grains that could be altering your health dramatically.
I hope those don't appear as facile answers, but the truth is those things have made a huge difference in my life. It wasn't an overnight thing, I had to grow up a bit, move away from my family, and establish my own life before I really started to feel happy. Best of luck.
[+] [-] mseebach|12 years ago|reply
I did CBT and ended up going (100% no-show fee can do that) - I'm not sure if it was the method (CBT) that worked, or just having a stranger say "and why is that?" a lot. Basically she did a "Five whys" on my life. It was all so simple, but I couldn't see it.
For me it was low self esteem, but veiled: I consciously knew that I was pretty good at what I did and had my life reasonably in order - I checked all the boxes, so I should be happy. "Just pull yourself together" seemed like reasonable advice, but I just couldn't do it. But subconsciously, I had huge doubts about my self worth. The first step of the solution was to reflect every evening over what I did that day and what went well to reinforce a positive self-image.
I also changed jobs (this was pre-CBT, so not a direct effect, but in retrospect it's all related) from a high uncertainty contracting gig with a promise (ha!) of becoming a start up to a bog standard full time programming gig in a good company. The new job gave me many more chances to get good results and much more time and opportunity to learn stuff and self-improve.
One habit I've taught myself is to pay attention to a certain "jab" in my stomach that I get when something is wrong. I immediately stop what I'm doing and carefully analyse the cause. More often than not, I've seen, heard or read something that plays into a subconscious fear about my self esteem, and by forcing it out into the open and applying reason to it, I can make it go away fairly simply. It's worked wonders for my overall feeling of happiness.
You situation will obviously be different from mine, but your post resonated a lot with me. Feel free to email (see my profile) if you want to continue the conversation in private.
[+] [-] nisa|12 years ago|reply
> ...unable to motivate myself to actually go
> don't even feel in control of your own thoughts
> I always fall back into the same patterns.
I'm not a doctor or professional, so take this with a huge grain of salt and get help outside of HN:
Did you consider having adult ADHD? - maybe the inattentive type? Do you have some disciplines where you still able to excel besides having problems with motivation and procrastination everywhere else?
I've lately read an adult ADHD CBT therapy book¹ and I was really surprised how it explained a lot of things in my life.
Depression is a common co-morbidity and while I'm more on the anxiety side your description sounds pretty familiar.
Knowing about these things accepting that I have to attack certain things from a different angle helps me a lot recently, I also don't feel like a stranger in the world anymore - I'm almost 30 years old and I have not much academically to show for in my life.
Maybe it's bullshit and you are better off ignoring it, but from your description I'd considering checking that angle too.
1: http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=b8e7b20b602fee2b1bdb1b1...
[+] [-] icu|12 years ago|reply
Wanting to get out of depression is the hard part because you got to be willing to do what is necessary.
You are closer than you think to getting out of depression when you say, "Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think." It is that. You are also right about it being hard and how easy it is to fall back into the same patterns.
He's what I've done and what I got my friend to do: break out of your daily routine.
I know this sounds like advice that isn't that different than what the other commentators have posted but it's because they are partly correct. The missing part is to incrementally break out of your daily routine by incorporating small changes as you go along.
So what do I mean?
Well try walking/driving a different way home even if it takes longer. Go to a different supermarket for food. Listen to a different radio station. Even if you hate a certain genre of music try listening to it and listen to it for longer than what you would normally trial it out for. Go to a different café or restaurant. Eat or cook new food you have never considered trying. If you can, try to do stuff you wouldn't ever 'normally do.'
The trick here is to not overwhelm yourself with too many changes too quickly or to try things that are really hard for you. This way you can actually keep to the incremental changes you are making and you don't fall back into your old patterns.
Keep sticking to these changes as you make them. Soon you will find that they will start to stack and you start to feeling new feelings. As you are going along try to stretch your routine to do ever different things. Don't rush, and don't beat yourself up. If all you can do is one thing then do that until you can do the next thing.
All the best and you can make it.
[+] [-] pekk|12 years ago|reply
Chronic depression is a lifelong problem, but it can be managed pretty effectively. The combination of CBT and meds is well proven with clinical trials and this does not require faith in the treatment. Just your compliance.
Unfortunately it's still your job to start getting help and comply with treatment one day at a time. Nobody else can fix this for you. Do you have something better to be doing?
The more you think you aren't in control, the more you should be following the guidance of a doctor. If you're totally lost you might need hospitalization. If that sounds bad, then take more responsibility for your own treatment.
[+] [-] thret|12 years ago|reply
I kind of agree with everyone else though, some exercise and sunlight every day. And time. Change is part of life, it happens eventually.
[+] [-] b1daly|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slowmover|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RivieraKid|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiphopyo|12 years ago|reply
You need to surround yourself with people you want to emulate as well as beautiful women 24/7. And don't forget to travel the world. This should activate those dormant parts of your brain and make you real happy.
Some of us, however, need to get rich before this can happen. So if that's the case with you, go make those apps!
[+] [-] callum85|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eaurouge|12 years ago|reply
And yet every morning, millions of people get up and go to work to do a job they really don't feel like doing. People still do back-breaking work just so they can put food on the table. I'm not saying it's a recipe for happiness but people have been doing stuff they don't enjoy for millennia. And even in present day, only some of us can afford to choose when, where and what to work on.
[+] [-] Grokit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skunkworks|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crucialfelix|12 years ago|reply
You won't reduce them to nothing, but you will get them under control enough that you can then steer them just as you are saying. Otherwise your aversion feelings are overwhelming and it's impossible to steer as you say.
Your steering technique is good. I like it.
[+] [-] angkec|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Uehreka|12 years ago|reply
I used the focus booster app for OS X, I highly recommend it: http://www.focusboosterapp.com/
[+] [-] joelrunyon|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://impossiblehq.com/workstation-popcorn
[+] [-] desigooner|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toddmorey|12 years ago|reply
What I usually find is that after the first session, I'm engaged enough to keep going. My emotions have caught up, my determination sets in, and now the desire and confidence to complete the task are strong enough that I rarely need to do more pomodoro sessions.
[+] [-] ninjakeyboard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rtpg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistercow|12 years ago|reply
I really want our culture to shift in a direction where it's economically feasible to research nootropics and find ones that are seriously effective.
As far as I know, the last time someone put a serious effort into researching a pharmacological aid to "drive" was in the 60s when selegiline was discovered, and it worked. Selegiline is now used for Parkinson's. After 40 years they also started using it for depression and dementia.
But our society is so averse to transhumanism that not only has that research not been followed up in the last 50 years, but the one drug that does improve motivation is not legally available to non-depressed people with motivation problems.
[+] [-] sheff|12 years ago|reply
He came up with it based on reinforcement studies in pigeons. There are more details on the linked page, but basically whilst working you just put a dot on a piece of paper every 6 minutes in the shape of a square, then join all the dots with a line. Something about doing this essentially meaningless thing improves motivation and throughput for me.
[+] [-] habitue|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathell|12 years ago|reply
The problem with adopting a prevention focus is that it doesn't work. Or, rather, it might work when the fear of failure is the only fear at stake, but -- at least for me -- it seldom is. For example, one might have thoughts like "I really need to be doing this, otherwise it might be too late ... hang on, it already might be too late ... I really should check ... but what if it's already too late? I'd feel awful ... no, let's not feel awful, let's check sometime later." Poof, thought gone until next time. When you suffer from GAD or any other psychological disorder involving anxiety, about the only thing you can do is understand your fears and your reactions to them, and take small steps towards reinterpretation. Fighting anxiety with inducing more anxiety is not going to work.
The problem with ignoring your feelings is that it's much easier said than done. Good luck ignoring the urge of turning off the alarm clock when you're not even half-conscious, you feel dizzy, sleepy and have headaches. While in #3 the author advises to "embrace the fact that your willpower is limited," here he seems to forget all about it. In situations like getting up in the morning, techniques involving subconsciousness like [1] are more likely to work.
We are more feeling-driven than we think ourselves to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those feelings are there for a reason, and ignoring them might just not work. Indeed, the author acknowledges that "on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing" and I think when he says "ignore not feeling like doing something," he actually means "_trick_ your mind into starting feeling like doing that."
The problem with using if-then planning is that for some people, it's all too easy to change the decision, even if it's already been done; the unconscious mind keeps re-examining the decision and re-pondering the issue at hand. So when the time comes, you end up re-considering the decision instead of deliberating what to do. That's not exactly the same thing, but it still eats up willpower.
[1]: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right...
[+] [-] read|12 years ago|reply
(1) A prevention and a promotion focus are two types of focus people have a disposition to. You can't adopt a prevention focus if you are promotion inclined. Maybe you, personally, work better with tasks requiring a promotion focus.
(2) The technique you mention does not contradict the author. I agree with you though that often tricking your mind into starting something works wonders.
You can't ignore that having a process is tremendous help.
Murakami describes his writing process as an extremely rigid daily routine: he wakes up at 4 a.m. every day and writes for five to six hours, exercises in the early afternoon, and then reads or listens to music before his 9 p.m. bed time. Murakami adds: “I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”
(3) Have you tried writing down your if-then plans? Because there's a huge difference in outcome between saying you will do something and writing down you will do something. Writing makes you commit. It keeps the unconscious mind away from sabotaging your decision.
If you're wondering why 3% of Harvard graduates make ten times more than the remaining 97% combined it's because they didn't just think of their plans but instead wrote them down.
http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/why-3-of-harvard-...
[+] [-] einhverfr|12 years ago|reply
What I do is take a task I am avoiding and come up with a small piece of it I can reasonably do as a goal. It might be a task I can do in 15 minutes. It might be something I might need two hours to do.
I then follow that to completion, and then decide whether to bump the rest of the task of and get started on something else or whether to continue.
Usually for the tasks I feel like I don't have a solid grasp on how to do this helps, but I may still bump part of it down the road. For the tasks I am avoiding for administrative reasons or don't feel like, this gets me started.
An important point though is that the bumped task is less intimidating and smaller than it was when I started, meaning it is less likely to happen again.
[+] [-] nothiggs|12 years ago|reply
I think the best method to get something done is to first have a clear vision and passion for the bigger picture. Then, understand how this unpleasant task gets you nearer to the goal of that bigger picture that you want. If it does, you won't need to ignore your feelings. On the contrary; your feelings will push you to do it. If it doesn't, there's a good chance you should be doing something else.
[+] [-] enscr|12 years ago|reply
What works without fail is peer pressure or a stinging comment.
Disclaimer : Personal experience, may not be generalizable.
[+] [-] edw519|12 years ago|reply
"How to Make Yourself Have Sex When You Just Don't Want To"
"How to Make Yourself Eat Krispy Kremes When You Just Don't Want To"
"How to Make Yourself Love You Children When You Just Don't Want To"
Here's a dirty little secret: You should have an emotional attachment to your work similar to the emotional attachment you have to having sex, eating Krispy Kremes, loving your children, or whatever else is your thing. Others should have to drag you kicking and screaming away from your work.
If you "just don't want to work" then the wrong question to ask is:
"How can I make myself work when I just don't want to?"
The right question is:
"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"
Find the answer to the second question and you will never encounter the first question again.
[+] [-] _delirium|12 years ago|reply
"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"
Because what I don't want to work on pays, and what I do want to work on doesn't make money! If I were independently wealthy, I would have no trouble at all allocating my time to things I find productive and enjoyable to do, and give the results away for free. For example I have a backlog of several projects relating to improving OpenStreetMap data waiting for time to work on them, but I can't think of a way to get paid for doing them. I think the results would be valuable to many people, but it's hard for me personally to capture that value, since improving OSM data is kind of a public good that anyone can use freely (when your work enables a profit-making business based on OSM data, it's not like they pay royalties to all the people who enabled it).
[+] [-] flaviusb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] super-serial|12 years ago|reply
Since I'm releasing nothing... I decided to take on smaller and smaller projects. Instead of making a mobile app, I'm now making a small plugin to release on CodeCanyon.net. I put all the CSS for the demo and the actual plugin in the same file to begin with, and now I don't "feel like" separating the demo's CSS in a separate file because it's frustrating and boring. I'd rather code new things than mess with this stupid CSS on a project that probably won't sell, that took way longer than it should have.
But this time I said I'm not doing any other project until I've finished this one. And now I've done absolutely nothing for 2 weeks(except my part-time job), and procrastinated by watching TV shows and studying Japanese.
As someone who always changes their opinion on "what should I really be working on" - I think I need something more than "asking the right questions." I'm still not sure what that is, but I'm hoping that one day I will find it.
[+] [-] reboog711|12 years ago|reply
As one example; I don't like dealing with the marketing / networking aspect of m,y business; but if I didn't do that I'd go out of business.
[+] [-] plcancel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chubot|12 years ago|reply
In those terms, this article is very much about "type 2" processes, which is conscious and slow monitoring of the more intuitive type 1 processes.
A consequence is that following this advice will result in "ego depletion". By exerting your willpower in one area, you deplete a common store of it, and thus you're more likely to overeat, act lazily, think lazily, etc. in other areas.
I think this probably manifests in people who work too hard getting fat, since they don't want to watch what they eat or exercise (if those things require willpower; for some people may not)
Note that "conscious willpower" is the opposite of a "flow state". And flow is what is necessary to write good software.
Like all things, there has to be a balance. You have to exert your willpower, and all new things involve this pain, but you can also set your life up so it isn't a constant problem.
[+] [-] chegra|12 years ago|reply
Where x is normally between 2-10
y is anything
z is normally 10
If you are procrastinating right now, give it a go. Go on twitter or facebook and say if I don't work for 2 hours on Akasha(a project), I will donate $10 to watsi(the charity).
I think when setting goals we hope for some reward in the future, but the brain doesn't value rewards as much as it hate losses(loss aversion). YMMV
[+] [-] legohead|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datawander|12 years ago|reply
Though I will comment and say I do like the one about "just show up" rather than waiting for being in the mood.
[+] [-] jaibot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seeingfurther|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leeoniya|12 years ago|reply