HackerNews Clone

andai 46 minutes

Great article, especially appreciated the graphs. The idea of "keep adding novelty" is probably what separated my successful long term projects from the unsuccessful ones.

I previously attributed that to having lots of variety and freedom, but the consequence of those factors was indeed novelty.

I want to mention Neil Fiore's excellent book The Now Habit, which is a practical manual on overcoming procrastination. The core thesis is training yourself out of the Victim Mindset, with language like "I have to", and into the Producer Mindset, with language like "I choose to."

What's interesting to me is that this isn't an arbitrary choice. "I have to" is actually a delusion.

Think of the most extreme scenario. Someone has a gun and is "forcing" you to blow up a school. Do you "have to" do it? Or would it be better to say no?

If that freedom holds even in the most extreme scenario... doesn't it always hold?

Sometimes your options are truly terrible, but you always have a choice.

That might sound too philosophical, but I think that's an important distinction to learn to recognize in everyday life.

Because the failure to recognize it is what supports this delusion of "I have to", which seems to be the main cause of procrastination: the resentment and pushing against perceived loss of autonomy.

So my meaning here is that it isn't just more useful to think this way, as some psychological trick, but that it is actually more true as well.

andai 42 minutes

Also the dead bot comment is right about the Unschedule! Another technique from the same book :)

I use that one and have found it provides a massive benefit to mental health, at least for my personality type which tends to be consumed with work.

In the "Unschedule", a.k.a. Guilt-Free Play Time, you deliberately set away time for enjoyable activities. You put them in your calendar. (And then you actually do them!)

This removes a major cause of resentment, "life's all work and no play" which drives that psychological resistance to work.

While I'm at it, I'll mention one more :) The Work of Worrying... for a situation you're avoiding, intentionally go through the worst case scenario, and then realize, actually, I'll still be okay. Even if that terrible situation happens... I'll survive, I'll move on, I'll be okay.