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1. I might have when I was initially going through a ream of behaviorists, but I'd be lying if I said I recalled, this was around/after 3rd grade. 2. In large part, reminders. Notes, lists, alarms (calendar/phone alarms for _everything_, watering plants to finishing work shit), behaviorally trained prompts, anything to disrupt the "mental feedback loops" where I can find myself "unconciously" falling into something like tearing at my fingernails, reading HN, playing video games, or really any of the infinite things I'll come up with to not do what I should be doing. e.g. even right now writing this, I'm being pinged to go back to reading PRs: after years of having automated browser alerts going "hey you shouldn't spend time in this video game/on hn, it's been 20 minutes and you have nothing to show." my brain has picked that up and is able to do it on its own. I found that hard blocking didn't work since I'd just find ways around it, but if I can remind myself this is something I _want_ in any way from pragmatism (mortgage) or emotional (getting wife nice things) whereas the games/Hn are actually _unwanted_ (despite what the dopamine might say) it's easier to force myself to focus on something I don't want, even in bursts. (getting myself to internalize and BELIEVE those facts took years and I still fight with sometimes when willpower is low.) This was a bit of a ramble, and I'd be remiss to mention that the motivation to use the prompts would be missing without the philosophical context I assign to the things I do. (Disclaimer: I recognize not all people can use this technique, I simply use the fact that I have strong long-term motivations against my bad short-term focus) I mentioned it in passing (mortgage, wife, etc) but really finding things I _WANT_ and using my brain's likelihood to fixate on those, especially in periods of distraction, I can tie those things back to what I SHOULD be doing and create a virtuous cycle. Contrivedly: Distracted looking out a window at garden. Fuck, I can't afford this garden if I don't go back to coding. (Dang, this HN post is getting long. Better get back to work so I don't work late today and can spend time with the wife when she gets home :) ) |