Have you considered abandoning the project? No, really. It seems like a bad sign that you didn’t say “I want to work.” Why is this project important enough that you’re willing to force yourself to enjoy it even if you currently don’t?
(When I have trouble working, it usually takes the form “I have trouble starting to work without using something like Beeminder + Pomodoros, but once I start working I have no problem continuing.” But it sounds like your problem may be worse than that, and if it is, I’m not convinced tricking yourself into enjoying it more is the best solution.)
I could work as little as I need to pay for necessities and internet. Since “internet” seems to include everything I could ever possibly want, this would work great for me. However, I’m not the only one I care about. I need to be productive, because if I don’t donate as much as I can to the best charity I can find, hundreds of innocents will die.
Also, this project is somewhat of a lower limit. Insomuch as there is anything productive I want to do, I want to do it. If I can’t manage to do it, I can’t be productive.
It seems like a bad sign that you didn’t say “I want to work.”
I didn’t say that because, for the most part, I don’t want to work. I would like to like to work, though. It would help me accomplish my goals in life, and, unlike if I did it with sheer willpower, it wouldn’t come at the expense of my own happiness. Making myself like to work isn’t trivial. It’s not the sort of thing most people consider as something that you could do. However, I’ve seen guides on here for things like becoming bisexual and learning to enjoy polyamory, which seems much more impressive.
When I have trouble working, it usually takes the form “I have trouble starting to work without using something like Beeminder + Pomodoros, but once I start working I have no problem continuing.”
If it’s clear what I need to do, and I don’t run into unforseen problems, then this is how it is. Often, I have no trouble working for an hour or so until I run into such a roadblock. Sometimes, I’m not sure what to do and I can’t even start.
I’m not convinced tricking yourself into enjoying it more is the best solution.
Why not? If I enjoyed it more, I would have less trouble working on it. It’s not like it’s not something that can be enjoyed. People have fun working on productive things all the time. I’ve had fun working on productive things. It’s just that it never seems to last very long.
I need to be productive, because if I don’t donate as much as I can to the best charity I can find, hundreds of innocents will die.
Ah. We have a motivation!
Do you expect that completing this project will get you money to donate immediately? Or is it one step in a long process that will someday result in doing paid work for money, so you can someday donate money and save lives? If it’s the latter, it’s easy for me to understand why you’re frustrated. You’re (faced with the prospect of) putting all this effort into something and getting (what feels like) absolutely nothing for it. Of course you’re having trouble wanting to do it!
If it’s clear what I need to do, and I don’t run into unforseen problems, then this is how it is. Often, I have no trouble working for an hour or so until I run into such a roadblock. Sometimes, I’m not sure what to do and I can’t even start.
Sounds like you’re taking on a difficult project, then, or at least one that’s difficult for you. Doing an activity that requires creativity, such as writing or programming, tends to be much harder than doing something you can reduce to a series of habits. Solving a cubic equation symbolically is easy if you can look up the cubic formula, but deriving the formula on your own is nearly impossible. When I’ve had writer’s block, standard advice such as “write an outline” is useless, because if I could have written an outline, I wouldn’t have been stuck in the first place. The hard part of writing isn’t what happens when a writer is typing, it’s what happens while a writer is staring at a blank screen “doing nothing”.
Anyway, the best productivity/motivation hack I can offer is this:
Don’t work alone.
Get yourself a partner and work together with that person. If you get stuck, maybe your partner won’t be, and you’ll probably get much less frustrated with the work itself. You’ll also keep each other on track, too. This can backfire if you start fighting with your partner, but overall I find myself becoming much more capable of doing things when I’m doing them with someone else.
I suspect working with someone only works when the someone you work with is goal driven by a goal that matters at least a little bit to you. I have no one who shares my goals enough to both 1) want to work alongside me 2) be among those whom I’d have working alongside, if given a chance.
BTW my goals can 90% be achieved alone in the sense of without a partner, but not in the sense of without a motivational human driving force.
Personally, an asexuality hack would impress me the most. But I think that may be beyond possibility, barring drugs. :)
Sometimes, I’m not sure what to do and I can’t even start.
The trick is just to start anyway, unless this is prohibitively expensive; things start falling into place after enough steady work on a single problem. I like this saying to remind me of this:
Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
—“the cult of done manifesto” (here)
It’s like ‘the fact that you haven’t yet started’ is a looming tyrant that you have to overthrow, and once you have, you can only then begin genuinely THINKING. It’s like that often for me. But I have found that with practice this effect is reduced.
I suspect, about the bissexuality hack, that just going there and kissing a non bearded guy works faster, and only if that doesn’t do the trick one should start using slowmotion behaviorism.
Totally, Now if only there were an analogous method to go from bi to asexual.
(BTW an inbetween way re: sexuality might be to imagine yourself in that situation, in detail—make a detailed fantasy going into everything that could happen, deliberately forcing yourself to let the whole thing pan out before you let yourself switch to another train of thought. I’ve used this to mitigate excessive aversion and excessive attraction in the past.)
Have you considered abandoning the project? No, really. It seems like a bad sign that you didn’t say “I want to work.” Why is this project important enough that you’re willing to force yourself to enjoy it even if you currently don’t?
(When I have trouble working, it usually takes the form “I have trouble starting to work without using something like Beeminder + Pomodoros, but once I start working I have no problem continuing.” But it sounds like your problem may be worse than that, and if it is, I’m not convinced tricking yourself into enjoying it more is the best solution.)
I could work as little as I need to pay for necessities and internet. Since “internet” seems to include everything I could ever possibly want, this would work great for me. However, I’m not the only one I care about. I need to be productive, because if I don’t donate as much as I can to the best charity I can find, hundreds of innocents will die.
Also, this project is somewhat of a lower limit. Insomuch as there is anything productive I want to do, I want to do it. If I can’t manage to do it, I can’t be productive.
I didn’t say that because, for the most part, I don’t want to work. I would like to like to work, though. It would help me accomplish my goals in life, and, unlike if I did it with sheer willpower, it wouldn’t come at the expense of my own happiness. Making myself like to work isn’t trivial. It’s not the sort of thing most people consider as something that you could do. However, I’ve seen guides on here for things like becoming bisexual and learning to enjoy polyamory, which seems much more impressive.
If it’s clear what I need to do, and I don’t run into unforseen problems, then this is how it is. Often, I have no trouble working for an hour or so until I run into such a roadblock. Sometimes, I’m not sure what to do and I can’t even start.
Why not? If I enjoyed it more, I would have less trouble working on it. It’s not like it’s not something that can be enjoyed. People have fun working on productive things all the time. I’ve had fun working on productive things. It’s just that it never seems to last very long.
Ah. We have a motivation!
Do you expect that completing this project will get you money to donate immediately? Or is it one step in a long process that will someday result in doing paid work for money, so you can someday donate money and save lives? If it’s the latter, it’s easy for me to understand why you’re frustrated. You’re (faced with the prospect of) putting all this effort into something and getting (what feels like) absolutely nothing for it. Of course you’re having trouble wanting to do it!
Sounds like you’re taking on a difficult project, then, or at least one that’s difficult for you. Doing an activity that requires creativity, such as writing or programming, tends to be much harder than doing something you can reduce to a series of habits. Solving a cubic equation symbolically is easy if you can look up the cubic formula, but deriving the formula on your own is nearly impossible. When I’ve had writer’s block, standard advice such as “write an outline” is useless, because if I could have written an outline, I wouldn’t have been stuck in the first place. The hard part of writing isn’t what happens when a writer is typing, it’s what happens while a writer is staring at a blank screen “doing nothing”.
Anyway, the best productivity/motivation hack I can offer is this:
Don’t work alone.
Get yourself a partner and work together with that person. If you get stuck, maybe your partner won’t be, and you’ll probably get much less frustrated with the work itself. You’ll also keep each other on track, too. This can backfire if you start fighting with your partner, but overall I find myself becoming much more capable of doing things when I’m doing them with someone else.
I suspect working with someone only works when the someone you work with is goal driven by a goal that matters at least a little bit to you. I have no one who shares my goals enough to both 1) want to work alongside me 2) be among those whom I’d have working alongside, if given a chance.
BTW my goals can 90% be achieved alone in the sense of without a partner, but not in the sense of without a motivational human driving force.
It does? You mean http://lesswrong.com/lw/453/procedural_knowledge_gaps/3i49 and http://lesswrong.com/lw/79x/polyhacking/ ?
Personally, an asexuality hack would impress me the most. But I think that may be beyond possibility, barring drugs. :)
The trick is just to start anyway, unless this is prohibitively expensive; things start falling into place after enough steady work on a single problem. I like this saying to remind me of this:
It’s like ‘the fact that you haven’t yet started’ is a looming tyrant that you have to overthrow, and once you have, you can only then begin genuinely THINKING. It’s like that often for me. But I have found that with practice this effect is reduced.
I suspect, about the bissexuality hack, that just going there and kissing a non bearded guy works faster, and only if that doesn’t do the trick one should start using slowmotion behaviorism.
Totally, Now if only there were an analogous method to go from bi to asexual.
(BTW an inbetween way re: sexuality might be to imagine yourself in that situation, in detail—make a detailed fantasy going into everything that could happen, deliberately forcing yourself to let the whole thing pan out before you let yourself switch to another train of thought. I’ve used this to mitigate excessive aversion and excessive attraction in the past.)
The most wellknown and effective asexuality hack is to hack your balls off.