Less social media, do not disturb, lots to try, not much works.
It turns out, the answer for me is “wait for some over-greedy buffoons to destroy your time wasting social media sites”.
If anything, the fact that Lemmy has turned out to be so great has been a real detriment in my life. I was really hoping to get some stuff done after leaving reddit behind, and yet here I am again. :)
One of the side effects of practicing meditation is procrastination pretty much went away completely.
Do you remember how long it took for you to see results?
Hello friend,
Most people see results after they establish and stick with a meditation routine. If you need help, Kurzgesagt has a useful video on establishing habits and routines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75d_29QWELk
Here’s a simple meditation technique to start, which requires no special equipment, reading/training, etc. All you need is to sit or stand in a comfortable position that does not make you feel sleepy. The technique is counting breaths and it is the first step for many different meditation traditions.
Your goal is to count your own breaths from 1-10 in your mind without losing count. This is a repetitive exercise like gym reps, but your goal is to NOT ZONE OUT. Your target is 10: breathe in and count ‘1’ in your mind, breathe out and count ‘2’… breathe in again and count ‘3’, breathe out and count ‘4’. If you lose track of your count, you just reset to ‘1’ and start again.
At the beginning, you will lose track of your count a lot. Some people take a week or more to successfully complete the first set, much less multiple sets in a row. Our minds naturally wander. Sometimes you don’t even realize you lost count until you think, “Wait, what breath am I on?” That is okay… that is the point! If you keep practicing this technique you will begin to train your mind to focus and not wander, which is a major step to conquering procrastination. Once you develop this simple form of mental self-control you will be able to demonstrate other forms of self-control.
Let me know if you want to chat more about it!
Wow, so much information, thank you.
Does it matter? Seems like you have the time with all your procrastinating. Just try it for month.
Yeah it does matter. If I will be trying this I have something new to do for procrastination. So if it does not help against my other procrastination I will be off worse.
I don’t remember. I started mainly to help with anxiety, and looking back I’m able to see all of the other positive effects it had.
My recommendation on conquering procrastination is to take small steps. Try to get a small win each day by not procrastinating on ONE small thing. Then celebrate that win and build on it instead of focusing on the negatives and other things you blew off.
How? And do you have tips on starting it?
There are plenty different types of meditation that you can look into.
To start, try to sit for just a minute or two, lightly close your eyes, and slowly count your breaths in and out without trying to control your breathing. Each time your mind wanders, bring it back to your breath.
I try to be abrupt. So I’ll be sat down for an hour, chastising myself every 5 minutes for not doing something productive, then one of those times, halfway through the thought I just kind of internally shout at myself to GET UP.
Put what I’m holding down, stand up, do one thing. If I can carry on going and do more-great. If not at least I did one thing.
I take my ADHD meds and put on some breakcore
There are a couple of types of procrastination for me.
There is the productive kind, where I’m idling away while pondering a blog post or a plot point in my writing.
And the unproductive kind. The kind where I just don’t wanna.
What I do is force myself to move. Set a timer for a couple minutes and do a simple task.
This usually helps me get into the flow.
I start by cleaning something. It can be something small, like getting the clutter off my desk, but something where I can have very immediate seeable progress. That can usually get the productivity ball rolling.
I need to read a book for a flying exam, do you think cleaning first would still be a good option?
I have found if you focus cleaning on the area you need to use for the task at hand, when you’re don’t cleaning you’re left with a pleasant space to work without the distractions of clutter.
I don’t fight it any more. If I’m procrastinating, there’s a reason. Rather than trying to force myself to do something I don’t want to, I try to see what the underlying reason is and deal with that. Not a cure-all, but it helps
Lists. Lists. Lists. And then you make a rule that you check something off a list every day before indulging in games or whatever.
