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Comment on Ask HN: Does procrastination advice help you?

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There are precisely two realizations that helped me beat procrastination, but I know that these won't be helpful in every situation:

- Totally keep motivation out of the equation. Depend fully on routine. Give yourself time to think before you commit to something. Totally reject it if you don't deem it worthy of doing. Once you make the decision, carve out slots in your calendar/text file for that task only. If it's something long term, make a habit of it, and do it even if you don't want to.

- Reading two chapters of a book is better than reading no chapters of a book. You are two chapters' knowledge worth wiser than yourself when you didn't start the book. Implementing two features in the your side project app leaves you more competent than when you didn't start at all. Realize this. Don't think about finishing, end results at all. Just start.

These don't guarantee you finish something. But these ensures that you start. Not finishing things is another problem, but that's not what the OP has asked.

Does not work for ADHD people, we can’t keep routines :( I have to remind myself to brush my teeth every day.

We might be shite at routine, but technology isn't!

Nothing wrong with having "brush teeth" as a daily task in Todoist or whatever flavour of todo app you click with! :)

The "Due" app on iOS is particularly nice for these sort of routine tasks - it'll keep notifying you every x minutes until you tell it you've done it

Yes, I am doing this with Reminders app.

Do mean that you forget? Or don't want to?

I am ignorant of these things. Please let me know.

I forget (like most of things that do not have some immediate reward attached; so I have to engineer the reward somehow).

Thanks.

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