Beeminder: +3. Defining goals in a way that works well is difficult.
GTD + 0 It doesn’t seem to be very useful when you don’t have any appointments and things you want to do are more along the lines of “do all the problems in this textbook”
Getting on a somewhat decent sleep schedule + 2. Making my computer automatically turn off at 11 pm combined with putting shades made out of pillow cases on my bedroom lights has helped me go to sleep between 12 and 2 usually, which is much better. This gives me about 4 hours of extra time that otherwise would have been spent on the internet in a wasteful way. Flux (a program that dims/reddens the screen at night) is nowhere near powerful enough.
Journaling about what my goals are +8. It’s difficult to be motivated when I don’t know why I’m doing anything.
Changing how I visualize something so that I’m not thinking about an outcome that produces anxiety +5. I have found thinking about procrastination as anxiety to be much more helpful than thinking about the Equation. While it could be though of anxiety resulting from expectations, I usually frame it in the sense of “what am I afraid of?” Then I can imagine something bad happening. Addressing the actual likelihood of a Bad Scary Thing doesn’t appear to work. Instead what helps is if I change the framework and purposefully just start thinking about some other aspect that is more desirable.
An example is that I don’t want to “call some people” and tell them they need to redo a repair job because it sucks. Once I thought about “I want X fixed!” then calling them and the social barrier seemed less of an issue.
pomodoros +1. I find that I often have difficulty coming back to work after a 5 minute break, and I end up doing 25-15. I had more luck with periods of 50-10. When I don’t feel very excited about the idea of doing something, then they are more useful.
Social commitments −3. These make me feel yucky and I just want to avoid the activity all together.
I feel that there are lots of synergies between these things. A few years ago, I had well defined goals, but no organizational skills and poor habits. I became very unhappy with my inability to accomplish my goals. Once I started getting practice with beeminder, and a number of other things (one being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but I’m not sure how to fit that into akrasia tactics) then I was able to examine my goals again and things fit together much nicer.
Beeminder: +3. Defining goals in a way that works well is difficult.
GTD + 0 It doesn’t seem to be very useful when you don’t have any appointments and things you want to do are more along the lines of “do all the problems in this textbook”
Getting on a somewhat decent sleep schedule + 2. Making my computer automatically turn off at 11 pm combined with putting shades made out of pillow cases on my bedroom lights has helped me go to sleep between 12 and 2 usually, which is much better. This gives me about 4 hours of extra time that otherwise would have been spent on the internet in a wasteful way. Flux (a program that dims/reddens the screen at night) is nowhere near powerful enough.
Journaling about what my goals are +8. It’s difficult to be motivated when I don’t know why I’m doing anything.
Changing how I visualize something so that I’m not thinking about an outcome that produces anxiety +5. I have found thinking about procrastination as anxiety to be much more helpful than thinking about the Equation. While it could be though of anxiety resulting from expectations, I usually frame it in the sense of “what am I afraid of?” Then I can imagine something bad happening. Addressing the actual likelihood of a Bad Scary Thing doesn’t appear to work. Instead what helps is if I change the framework and purposefully just start thinking about some other aspect that is more desirable.
An example is that I don’t want to “call some people” and tell them they need to redo a repair job because it sucks. Once I thought about “I want X fixed!” then calling them and the social barrier seemed less of an issue.
pomodoros +1. I find that I often have difficulty coming back to work after a 5 minute break, and I end up doing 25-15. I had more luck with periods of 50-10. When I don’t feel very excited about the idea of doing something, then they are more useful.
Social commitments −3. These make me feel yucky and I just want to avoid the activity all together.
I feel that there are lots of synergies between these things. A few years ago, I had well defined goals, but no organizational skills and poor habits. I became very unhappy with my inability to accomplish my goals. Once I started getting practice with beeminder, and a number of other things (one being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but I’m not sure how to fit that into akrasia tactics) then I was able to examine my goals again and things fit together much nicer.