[asdfman123]

My tricks for beating procrastination are:

1) Give yourself permission to do bad work.

If you're stuck, just start writing whatever junk is in your head. Make it hilariously bad! Write like a total idiot.

But often that alone is enough to unstick you. Having very rough work is infinitely better than staring at a blank page.

2) Procrastinate "a little bit"

Rebrand some procrastination as manageable short breaks, stop beating yourself up, and take control back from your rebellious subconscious. That way, you're working with yourself, not against it.

3) Always be asking yourself, "What's the smallest thing I can do RIGHT now?" and doing it.

E.g. you might not know how to write a full paper, but you can write down all your random ideas on a sheet of paper. Do that. Then once you're done with that, the next step might be writing an outline. Then, expanding each outline into a short paragraph...

But don't think that far ahead, just do the smallest thing now!

[jdironman]

I feel like this also applies to software development. I have a friend, who is a perfectionist. they're really smart! a lot smarter than me actually. with that being said total output and progress towards a goal we both share is higher on my end because I'm as they put it "more industrious". I don't say this as a brag, but more people have different struggles to get started and different motivations. I'm not motivated by the big picture, I'm motivated by the challenge in front of me. others might be motivated by the big picture and not the smaller challenges. either way, I think recognizing that fact, and your motivation, alone is a step in the right direction.

[Jerrrry]

How do you know you're not in a local minima?

the whole one digs can be deepened similar to Zeno's Paradox by procrastinating a little bit with bad small distractions allowing time to exponentiate small problems into untractable ones.

It is a little reductionary, almost akin to telling depressed people to have a slightly better today than the day before; not necessarily wrong but just rephrasing the problem.

It is correct, but only by definition.

[asdfman123]

You should also have another loop in your head, along with the one asking "what's the smallest thing I can do right now," asking "what's the most important and daunting thing that needs to be done right now."

That actually reveals another procrastination tip I forgot to mention: do the hardest stuff first. "Eat the frog" is what I tell myself.

Also, that's not quite how Zeno's paradox works.