Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mklepaczewski 1215 days ago
For procrastination - body doubling. It's very effective, easy to test, and works immediately. After an hour, you will know whether it works for you or not. You don't need to read a book or train for it; you don't get better at it. If you procrastinate a lot, this is the first method I would suggest.

I don't know if I have ADHD, but I'm definitely a chronic, severe procrastinator. I've been looking for a method to overcome it for 20 years. Finally, I tried body doubling, and it was like magic: suddenly, I became productive. I immediately made a drastic decision to hire someone to sit with me every day. I was a software developer, so going from 2-3h billable hours to 6-7h/day was well worth the expense. I hired a stay-at-home dad, and we connected every morning to work together (well, I was working, he played games and watched Netflix ;-)

Now, disclosure and shameless plug. Body doubling was such a life changer for me that I co-founded https://workmode.net/ - basically body doubling as a service for chronic procrastinators. It's tailored to people who need it for work (basically full-time body doubling). If you want to give it a try - we have 1-click demo session.

For acute (non-chronic), mild procrastinators, Focusmate might be a good choice too.

For other methods, I recommend reading https://solvingprocrastination.com/

1 comments

I encourage you to go through the diagnosis process. There is much more to the disorder than just procrastination but it's easy to miss some of the more subtle differences and assume everyone experiences the world the same way you do.

For example, after being diagnosed and doing some therapy and self-education, I realized that I interrupt people because I have shorter working memory. Now I have some steps I take to mitigate interrupting behavior (although I'm not perfect).

Also, if you're running a business targeted at people with ADHD, don't you think it's worthwhile to know if you think and experience the world in the same way as your customers?

While a lot of people with ADHD tend to procrastinate, the issue is not limited to them and affects other groups of people as well. Even people that seem highly organized and productive tend procrastinate in some aspects of their lives.

As for the diagnosis - I already talked with psychologist about it, and yes, I'm going to go through the process. My son went through diagnosis of autism recently, and it also ticked a lot of boxes.