The technique should work even if you find yourself thinking about the task at other times; it just might not work as well, because of the effect that jimrandmoh mentioned about reminders reducing your inclination to do something. A variation of the workaround I mentioned for dealing with others works to mitigate the effect of self-reminders, though—don’t just tell yourself ‘not right now’, tell yourself ‘not right now, but at [time/event]’.
I can’t say much about how to disable involuntary self-reminders altogether, unfortunately. I don’t experience them, and if I ever did, it was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten both that I did and how I stopped. I have, however, read in several different places that using a reliable reminder system (whether one like I’m suggesting, or something more formal like a written or typed list, or whatever) tends to make them eventually stop happening without any particular effort, as the relevant brain-bits learn that the reliable system is in fact reliable, which seems quite plausible to me.
The technique should work even if you find yourself thinking about the task at other times; it just might not work as well, because of the effect that jimrandmoh mentioned about reminders reducing your inclination to do something. A variation of the workaround I mentioned for dealing with others works to mitigate the effect of self-reminders, though—don’t just tell yourself ‘not right now’, tell yourself ‘not right now, but at [time/event]’.
I can’t say much about how to disable involuntary self-reminders altogether, unfortunately. I don’t experience them, and if I ever did, it was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten both that I did and how I stopped. I have, however, read in several different places that using a reliable reminder system (whether one like I’m suggesting, or something more formal like a written or typed list, or whatever) tends to make them eventually stop happening without any particular effort, as the relevant brain-bits learn that the reliable system is in fact reliable, which seems quite plausible to me.