[static_cast]

Hardcore procrastinator here.

Reading good articles like that won't change anything. That's the bitter truth. At least this is the case for me, and probably some other people on the internet.

I'm nowhere near to have myself in full control again but I'm sick of wasting my days and feeling bad over this.

Willpower for me only works when I'm concentrated.

So there is a concentration problem. Being able to concentrate is also a muscle. I'm having a habit of actively avoiding exercising concentration.

Related to programming it's difficult for me:

A problem in my Code appears? I'm starting to Google solutions instead of trying to get a complete understanding of the problem. I'd fool myself into saying: I would look into this but I don't have the time and nobody will pay me for that. Googling and somehow trying to apply the results often works but it gives you an feeling of being unable to create something on it's own.

Then there is this thought: I would like to do something but there are too much people out there that could it better, so why bother trying?

And Instead of spending the days and nights learning and working on something I'm jumping around switching between problems I never fully understood nor am I able to afford the time to understand them...

So it comes down from willpower to concentration and at the moment I'm believing the cause for a lack of these skills is a lack of structure.

Structure for me is planning, planning in advance. Revisiting your plans and having clear ideas about yourself and the surrounding world. So creating structure requires concentration...

It works like a Circulus vitiosus in both ways. If you are structured for a longer time you're concentration and willpower will go up. If you lack concentration your structure get's weaker and concentration will fall, procrastination will rise.

How to solve this problem? Honest question.

(Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I think it is somewhat relevant to productivity and flow to sort these things out)

[astrofinch]

Set an alarm (on your watch, or whatever) to go off every evening. When it goes off, spend a few hours planning the next day. When you wake up the next day, follow your plan.

Worked great for me. Gradually, my personality changed and I didn't need to do it any more.

[sliverstorm]

A problem in my Code appears? I'm starting to Google solutions instead of trying to get a complete understanding of the problem.

The insidious thing about this is just how effective it is (if you are good at it)

Then there is this thought: I would like to do something but there are too much people out there that could it better, so why bother trying?

I have my own version of this demon. Everything I can think of to do, I know has been done before, and done better. This knowledge, combined with my need to make things that are new or better, is a terrible roadblock to me.

[static_cast]

> The insidious thing about this is just how effective it is (if you are good at it)

Yes, but not if you want to learn something. Then it is disastrous because you skip the "actually solving something" part.

[sliverstorm]

Of course! That's why it's insidious.

[Mz]

How to solve this problem? Honest question.

Honest answer: Consider the possibility that you may have a hidden health issue. Look into that angle. Addressing my own health issues has been the single biggest boost to my productivity, ability to concentrate and ability to stop being a serious hardcore procrastinator. If you simply lack physical energy and ability to concentrate, willpower is not going to overcome it.

Best of luck, whatever the answer turns out to be for you.

[skybrian]

There are two things I've tried that work:

  - programming the router to block all traffic when it's time to go to bed.
  - installing Chrome nanny and blocking social sites in the morning.

I can disable them, but it takes enough effort that I don't. (And I remember that I don't want to.)

These aren't full solutions, but I go to bed earlier and start work earlier.

[wslh]

I am not so pesimistic about youself, probably because I am I and not you :-)

I think hack is a good word for that, but many mental hacks don't work. So here are my suggestions:

- How you work with other person? how about pair programming or pair <something> ? may be being a lonely developer is not the answer.

- How do you imagine a small team that leverage your strengths and take charge of your weaknesses? can you progress in that environment?

[lostmypw]

    Talking about stuff like this is bound to sound esoteric, I think. So
    I want to put this disclaimer upfront that I detest esotericism.

    I can only assume that your problems are similar to mine, so I can
    only suggest what works for me. And that might not completely work out
    for you in the end, but it's worth a try for sure.

    Concentration: The problem of not being able to keep distracting
    thoughts away can be lessened with meditation. I came across this
    suggestion in the book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning [1] and have
    found an excellent CD to listen to called Guided Mindfulness
    Meditation [2] by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

    I tend to try to avoid meditation because for a while I seem to do
    fine and so long as I do fine it just feels like a waste of time for
    me. Time that I could invest reading a book. But eventually I always
    end up having an extreme amount of distracting thoughts to the point
    that I cannot learn anymore. I've now had this problem crop up often
    enough with meditation always helping that I'm now a lot more willing
    to spend the time and meditate. I want to emphasize that for *me* it
    was necessary to get to the dead end and suffer from it to become
    willing to change something. Maybe you can relate.

    Structure: Well well, the way you write it sounds a little bit rigid
    to me. I tightened up imagining all that structure you strive for and
    I'm thinking you should relax a little bit. Or at least I should (and
    do). So maybe we are different in this regard.

    I do think you should lay back a bit and think about what really
    interests you deep down in your heart. I assume you've been working
    too much on hopelessly boring stuff, because with that I can relate
    again. I've been working a little bit on a little server in erlang but
    somehow at some point I couldn't bring myself to working further on
    it. Well I could, but all the time I felt something was wrong.

    As I'm happy to learn interesting programming languages and have heard
    all the hype about lisp for so long (I'm looking at you, pg) I finally
    gave in and started reading Practical Common Lisp [3] and now
    Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming [4] and what can I
    say. I see now that what disappoints me in erlang but also in other
    languages is having forced upon me one paradigm and/or a rigid set of
    rules. In the case of erlang that might be perfectly fine as the
    language can make certain guarantees that way. I've realized though
    that I would much rather enjoy the lisp-ish freedom while molding a
    solution. So this is my story of disappointment and fresh wind.

    One quick addition in the end: In an xkcd comic [5] there is a
    description of a solution (see the alt-text of the image) that delays
    access to certain websites (like reddit, hn for me) but does not block
    them completely. It just delays the access (-- more discussion on the
    xkcd blog [6]). This serves the purpose of destroying the notion of
    instant reward these stupid little bits of new information might give
    you, however irrelevant they may be. I've found this to be helpful for
    me because sometimes in the past I've procrastinated the hell out of
    the day. I got fed up with repeatedly spending hours with unproductive
    stuff and feeling sorry for the time in the end. See the pattern? I
    needed to run into this problem several times before I decided that I
    have to change something. I don't want to make some point here. I just
    find this pattern interesting.

    What I have done is I have taken an existing little chrome extension
    called delaybot which by default only delays for rand(1.5) seconds and
    changed the delay to 30 secs. This has worked wonders in the
    beginning. I say in the beginning because I've now disabled the
    extension as it is getting in my way now. No, this is not the
    procrastinator disabling a helpful little tool. :-) I've found that
    since I've picked up meditation again I didn't run into this problem
    anymore anyways. I also tend to just bookmark away a lot of actually
    interesting discussions to read them later, which of course I never
    do. I do this bookmarking and closing of tabs because I tend to
    accumulate too many tabs easily otherwise.

    Not all is great though, the article made me realise that I'm a little
    bit too hard with myself when I'm excerting will-power. I try to go
    through the mentioned lisp books fast (as there are more to come
    still) and at some point I notice that I can't bring myself to read a
    lot more at that point. To me this looks similar to the cookie
    experiment where a group of people is less productive after excerting
    will power in a previous task.

    So, to conclude: Even if not all is roses I can say with certainty
    that meditation is the single most helpful tool to increase my
    productivity. It changes me from being helpless to being more in
    control of what I'd like to do with my time.

    Regarding your lack of passion: Man, search your feelings. If you find
    something that really interests you, you probably wouldn't think much
    about what other people could do better than you. That AI book [4] I'm
    reading? It features ancient techniques at the point where I am right
    now but it's still a great read and I'm learning a heck of a
    lot. That's what keeps me going. Also, lisp.

    Phew, that was long.
    I would love to hear feedback. :-)

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Thinking-Learning-Refactor-P...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Guided-Mindfulness-Meditation-Jon-Kaba...

[3] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Artificial-Intelligence-Prog...

[5] http://xkcd.com/862/

[6] http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/18/distraction-affliction-corre...

EDIT: I've changed the formatting because it renders with long lines otherwise.

[maigret]

Sorry to answer on the most superficial aspect and last line of your post... But I wonder why PG's site is so thin in width, making it extremely well readable, while HN uses the whole screen width? I consider the whole screen text use a UI anti pattern.

[lostmypw]

I can only speculate. :-) Maybe restricting the width to improve readability would yield suboptimal results in heavily nested threads. One might find out by manipulating the corresponding css attribute. Doesn't chrome or firefox support this out of the box?

So this is the width of the paragraphs. I think it would still be useful if you could disable the automatic line breaking to provide your own formatting. I think there is a middle ground between the two regarding readability.

EDIT: Of course you can disable the automatic line breaking as I've done exactly this by indenting the whole post with 4 spaces, except for the links. But that also changes the font to the monospace family.

[static_cast]

Thanks for your great reply. I've looked into mediation and I should start now doing it. Nice to hear that it helps you.

I really guess I have to look after my feelings. Something went wrong along the way and now I'm struggling.

[jamesteow]

I suffer the same thing.

I wonder if it's just finding the right project to code.

[hammock]

Nothing wrong with googling solutions to code...or is there?

[static_cast]

No I think there isn't. It is effective and often there is probably no other even mildly realistic way to solve some problem in time (e.g. a bug that is reported in the software bug-tracker)

I missed to make a concise point with that (concentration anyone?) It's more like 'Googling for a solution' became my default behaviour in most parts of my life. Be it education, food, advice... I think this is dangerous at least for me.