I’m struggling with closely related problems, mostly related to the ability of managing to do what I decided I’d want to do for long term reason, rather than doing whatever it is that I am doing now.
I’m kinda getting better at forming useful habits related to things that I’d better off be doing every day, but what you ask is related to a lot of different situations.
The three broadest classes of strategies that I found to be effective for myself (and have been proved as effective by research) are:
Pre-commitment tactics and devices.
These are a class of actions you have to manage to do only once to increase the probabilities you’ll do something later. A large part of the difficulty in doing many things you mentioned is that we aren’t really held accountable to do them by anyone, or don’t have strong negative consequences we’ll get if we don’t do them by a certain date. You can increase your chances of success by creating them.
Example for the work: Find a friend who you know will go through with this. Choose the first clear target you have to do to get the job (which can even be the competence and target analysis). Say to your friend that if you haven’t done that target by date x, you’ll give him 50$. It’s important to go with the kind of people you know will actually ask you the money and take them without any hesitation if you fail.
Other strategies are to create sunk costs and to state your goals to people. When I wanted to quit smoking I told everyone I’d do so and they’d had to give me a lot of shit if I ended up smoking again. I also throw away in front of them my cigarettes, lighter and everything related (I hate throwing away things without a reason). It ended up working.
There are many sites and apps that help with this kind of things, so I’d suggest you to search on the web for pre-commitment devices and tactics, also for a better explanation on how they work.
Environmental/circumstances Alterations
Try to manipulate the environment so it will make easier for you to do as you want.
If you have an appointment and fear being late, and you usually are late, you likely start preparing to go out too late. Put an alarm on your phone that will start ringing when you should getting ready.
If you have to work on something and fear being distracted, switch off all distractions that aren’t related to your task. When I was stuck on my thesis and needed a way to get unstuck fast I switched off the modem, the phone, got away from my computer and sit with only pencil and a piece of paper.
I’ve managed to get a friend unstuck about writing a novel to insist on having her go to the local library each day and work there with her laptop.
Again, a google search should provide a lot of ideas related to that.
Celebration
A huge part of what we do or don’t is determined on how we feel about it at the moment we’re supposed to do it or not do it.
Try to find out what you do when you genuinely cheer. Think of what you do when you win a hard boss battle on a game, see your team score, solve a hard question or whatever it is. For me it’s either a smug smile or a whispered “yes!” with a fist motion.
Each time you manage to do something that’s positively related to dependability, do your celebration immediately after you manage to start doing it, and immediately after you finish. (well, assuming you can do so without another person looking at you very oddly. If so do it in your head, visualise it as clear as you can).
If you are alone, do the whole thing, even if you feel silly at first. Your brain decides how you feel about stuff largely by looking at what you do. If you celebrate, you tell your brain what you did is a good thing, and that it has to keep doing that.
The biggest problem with training dependability is that you have to keep doing stuff you don’t like doing. This is a trick to make that stuff somewhat pleasant, so doing it will be a lot easier.
Again, I tried this and it worked pretty fine, though you have to make a habit out of it. Use this also every time you manage to use one of the techniques in the categories I explained above, to further increase efficiency.
All of these things are clutches that help you train dependability. As you do dependable things more and more, the brain will start to change its habits about those kind of things, making it a spontaneous habit that doesn’t have to rely on the clutches (though I’d advice against quitting them completely; procrastinating is a sweet poison and you could easily drift back into it over time).
Fourth personal technique: The Evil Master Plan File
I feel pretty silly explaining it to others, and I can say this works only based on my experience.
I keep a file that has my Master Plan to “take over the world” in it (basically your end goal, what you want to obtain in the real long term).
I go look at it once in a while, to remember what I’m trying to do and sticking with it. I keep it as organised as possible, with partial objectives and the steps I need to do to succeed in these objectives. If I find that a strategy I tried didn’t worked, or I find a better one, I update the master plan with these findings.
I aIso write the priority I assign to these steps, updating on it as I need, and have a section of it where I just take note of useful resources I could investigate later or that I’m using right now.
I find it’s really useful to
1) actually managing to stick through and coordinate with myself on stuff that requires a lot of steps and improving different abilities, avoiding to just drift from a plan to the next as months pass by as I used to do before this and
2) measuring my progresses. I cross every objective and task I succeeded at, and when I feel down and lacking motivation, I go look at it to as reminder I’m still moving forward.
I might occasionally try to gloat and laugh evilly as I work on it. I find super villain mentality to be highly motivating, which is why I refer to as “my Master Plan to take over the world” rather than using a more realistic and precise name. I feel that without the super villain related stuff I wouldn’t find updating and working on it as interesting or amusing, and I’d risk losing track of it.
If you don’t find much amusement in super villain mentality, I’d advice on finding what could work for you and going with it.
Also, on LessWrong there seems to be a lot of material on fighting akrasia, self help and productivity. I’d suggest a search to see what you find, if you didn’t tried that already.
I’m struggling with closely related problems, mostly related to the ability of managing to do what I decided I’d want to do for long term reason, rather than doing whatever it is that I am doing now.
I’m kinda getting better at forming useful habits related to things that I’d better off be doing every day, but what you ask is related to a lot of different situations.
The three broadest classes of strategies that I found to be effective for myself (and have been proved as effective by research) are:
Pre-commitment tactics and devices.
These are a class of actions you have to manage to do only once to increase the probabilities you’ll do something later. A large part of the difficulty in doing many things you mentioned is that we aren’t really held accountable to do them by anyone, or don’t have strong negative consequences we’ll get if we don’t do them by a certain date. You can increase your chances of success by creating them.
Example for the work: Find a friend who you know will go through with this. Choose the first clear target you have to do to get the job (which can even be the competence and target analysis). Say to your friend that if you haven’t done that target by date x, you’ll give him 50$. It’s important to go with the kind of people you know will actually ask you the money and take them without any hesitation if you fail.
Other strategies are to create sunk costs and to state your goals to people. When I wanted to quit smoking I told everyone I’d do so and they’d had to give me a lot of shit if I ended up smoking again. I also throw away in front of them my cigarettes, lighter and everything related (I hate throwing away things without a reason). It ended up working.
There are many sites and apps that help with this kind of things, so I’d suggest you to search on the web for pre-commitment devices and tactics, also for a better explanation on how they work.
Environmental/circumstances Alterations
Try to manipulate the environment so it will make easier for you to do as you want.
If you have an appointment and fear being late, and you usually are late, you likely start preparing to go out too late. Put an alarm on your phone that will start ringing when you should getting ready.
If you have to work on something and fear being distracted, switch off all distractions that aren’t related to your task. When I was stuck on my thesis and needed a way to get unstuck fast I switched off the modem, the phone, got away from my computer and sit with only pencil and a piece of paper.
I’ve managed to get a friend unstuck about writing a novel to insist on having her go to the local library each day and work there with her laptop.
Again, a google search should provide a lot of ideas related to that.
Celebration
A huge part of what we do or don’t is determined on how we feel about it at the moment we’re supposed to do it or not do it.
Try to find out what you do when you genuinely cheer. Think of what you do when you win a hard boss battle on a game, see your team score, solve a hard question or whatever it is. For me it’s either a smug smile or a whispered “yes!” with a fist motion.
Each time you manage to do something that’s positively related to dependability, do your celebration immediately after you manage to start doing it, and immediately after you finish. (well, assuming you can do so without another person looking at you very oddly. If so do it in your head, visualise it as clear as you can).
If you are alone, do the whole thing, even if you feel silly at first. Your brain decides how you feel about stuff largely by looking at what you do. If you celebrate, you tell your brain what you did is a good thing, and that it has to keep doing that.
The biggest problem with training dependability is that you have to keep doing stuff you don’t like doing. This is a trick to make that stuff somewhat pleasant, so doing it will be a lot easier.
Again, I tried this and it worked pretty fine, though you have to make a habit out of it. Use this also every time you manage to use one of the techniques in the categories I explained above, to further increase efficiency.
https://ideas.ted.com/how-you-can-use-the-power-of-celebration-to-make-new-habits-stick/
All of these things are clutches that help you train dependability. As you do dependable things more and more, the brain will start to change its habits about those kind of things, making it a spontaneous habit that doesn’t have to rely on the clutches (though I’d advice against quitting them completely; procrastinating is a sweet poison and you could easily drift back into it over time).
Fourth personal technique: The Evil Master Plan File
I feel pretty silly explaining it to others, and I can say this works only based on my experience.
I keep a file that has my Master Plan to “take over the world” in it (basically your end goal, what you want to obtain in the real long term).
I go look at it once in a while, to remember what I’m trying to do and sticking with it. I keep it as organised as possible, with partial objectives and the steps I need to do to succeed in these objectives. If I find that a strategy I tried didn’t worked, or I find a better one, I update the master plan with these findings.
I aIso write the priority I assign to these steps, updating on it as I need, and have a section of it where I just take note of useful resources I could investigate later or that I’m using right now.
I find it’s really useful to
1) actually managing to stick through and coordinate with myself on stuff that requires a lot of steps and improving different abilities, avoiding to just drift from a plan to the next as months pass by as I used to do before this and
2) measuring my progresses. I cross every objective and task I succeeded at, and when I feel down and lacking motivation, I go look at it to as reminder I’m still moving forward.
I might occasionally try to gloat and laugh evilly as I work on it. I find super villain mentality to be highly motivating, which is why I refer to as “my Master Plan to take over the world” rather than using a more realistic and precise name. I feel that without the super villain related stuff I wouldn’t find updating and working on it as interesting or amusing, and I’d risk losing track of it.
If you don’t find much amusement in super villain mentality, I’d advice on finding what could work for you and going with it.
Also, on LessWrong there seems to be a lot of material on fighting akrasia, self help and productivity. I’d suggest a search to see what you find, if you didn’t tried that already.