We all know someone who says to themselves on New Year’s Day that they’re going to stop their bad habits and replace them with good ones, but after a week or less they give up, and well, I was that kind of person.
I even said to myself that maybe my friends and family were right, I was a good-for-nothing or even a lazy bum who wasn’t capable of doing anything in his life.
I tried everything:
-To-do list
-Do a little each day
-positive thinking
-Carrot/Baton
-Ultra discipline
-do challenges with friends if you fail you lose money
-Parkinson’s law etc…
all that only works in the short term never in the long term i was so desperate that i read a lot of books and watched a lot of youtube videos about procrastination i asked for help from people close to me but even they were lost and unable to stop procrastinating
and reading the author’s ebook completely changed my life
I really hope that the author’s work will enable you to put an end to this infernal cycle of many dreams shattered because of this inaction, this feeling of discomfort that has made us put off, if not never, projects that really mattered to us.
I’ve tried everything as specified, spending my time looking for all sorts of methods or bizarre techniques, none of which worked. Every day was a battle. I had to change techniques each time. To tell you, it even got to the point where just getting out of bed was a struggle.
There’s a larger observation to be made here, especially since some people will not resonate with the idea that “life is a game.”
It’s the power of adopting metaphors that you personally find meaningful.
A Duke University study recently showed how powerful adopting metaphors can be for memory:
Nothing new here, actually. Nietzsche taught this technique and lifted it from the ancient Greeks.
Diogenes would perhaps frown on it, but even that dude had his metaphors. Or is written-up in such a way that we take meaning from him at both the literal and metaphorical level.
Yes, the phrase “seeing life as a game” is a bit too controversial, especially in our time when people come up with absurd things like living in a virtual reality, being in a dream, etc. But the goal was mainly to detach from desires.
The author was mainly inspired by the Eightfold Path and Stoicism. For you, this is not new according to what you tell me about Nietzsche or Diogenes, especially since I find Nietzsche difficult to understand and see him more as a philosopher for adolescents with a shonen manga spirit.
In all the videos and books, and even on this forum, I haven’t seen anyone talk about this method, which means no one had thought of it. Whenever I saw a discussion about procrastination, it was always useless methods like the 2-minute rule, eliminating distractions, setting a countdown timer, etc. Things that did not solve the problem, which was entirely emotional. Something was needed to regulate emotions instead of using external solutions when the problem was internal.
Otherwise, thank you for the link, it’s interesting.
It just sounds like Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which many people have talked about.
What is the difference between CBT and this?
Additionally, have you actually achieved no procrastination, regardless of the task difficulty, enjoyment and duration on a consistent basis, for several months?
The difference is simple: letting go and impermanence. It’s about not expecting a feeling or logical reasoning to make us feel good enough to act. The method helps you understand that internal discourse or negative emotions are not harmful. As explained in the ebook, rationality has its limits because certain thoughts are connected, leading to an infinite loop of reasoning. Ultimately, at certain moments, we don’t always feel the benefits. That’s why the second step, letting go, is important. Meditation is crucial to internalize this, so you can feel that all things, good or bad, come to an end, and you should not cling to them; otherwise, you will suffer.
This method helped me a lot, and I still use it, but I also needed to remove things that were consuming my life, like video games and endlessly browsing websites—a continuous loop of distractions. So, I used autosuggestion, or the Coué method if you prefer. I made a point of mentally telling myself, “I am not a gamer.” For sports, for example, I would say, “I am an athlete.” I repeated this to myself every day, more than 20 times, and even more when certain urges, like playing, appeared. I kept repeating to myself, “I am not a gamer,” and after three days, I no longer wanted to play. It’s been three months now, and I haven’t touched it since.
I’m not a fan of starting small and gradually increasing intensity. I belong to the school of thought where I jump straight into intensive work. Of course, if I push myself too hard on the first day, I know I won’t want to continue the next day. So, I start my mornings with exercise and meditation to reduce my perception of pain. I use interval training, alternating between short work sessions and moderate breaks, like 15 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. Over time, I adjusted the duration of work and breaks as I got used to the discomfort.
For me, it was totally a matter of working on projects for just one hour a day. You progress too slowly that way. I would work from 8 AM to 3 PM each day, always adjusting with short work sessions and medium breaks, increasing or decreasing based on my fatigue level. The same goes for running. For example, my goal was to run for an hour, so I would split it up into intervals like 3 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking until I reached an hour. That’s it.
The problem with our times is that we don’t get bored enough to be alone with our thoughts. If you allow yourself to be bored at least a little and use the method, you’ll be able to beat procrastination.
The problem with procrastination is that there isn’t a single approach to overcoming it. Different things may work for some people and not for others. From what you’re telling me, you need to be in motion to be able to complete a task. It’s like doing a different task before starting the main one. Your problem is more related to dopamine. The best approach is to plan your actions in advance and avoid easy dopamine that will drain you and ultimately make you not want to do anything. I invite you to watch Andrew Huberman’s video on dopamine.
If you also use autosuggestion to eliminate the bad habits that drain your dopamine, you can solve your problem.
A bit of a misunderstanding. I don’t need to be in motion, In order to do a task. After planning it and intending to do it I also need to actually send signals to my muscles rather than just waiting for it to happen.
That can mean, using my hand to move my mouse onto the next page.
Huberman’s video has never helped me personally, but initially made the problem worse. It gave me the perception that by doing something I would magically move from intention and plan to execution. In reality I need to actually do this movement itself.
Scheduling, breaking tasks up and taking breaks periodically throughout has however helped me.
Eager to hear back from you to see how it worked or not for you, otherwise, I have another method which is almost similar, called the Tipi/Nerti method
I have wondered to what extent a breakthrough is entirely predicated upon the “thing” one encounters at that time, or whether there is something about one’s brain being ready and receptive to a big change. Sometimes I suspect that the thing is secondary to the readiness for change, a metaphorical breaking of the dam that has been building up for a long time beneath the surface.
Looks interesting and promising. Can you tell me how this process went for you? Were you initially skeptical about this kind of technique? Did you experience the emotion of liberation as described in the manual? What problem was relevant for you that day and were you able to solve it in 1-7 days? The author assures that this is not clickbait and it can change your life. I will try it myself and if possible, I will write about my results here.
It would also be interesting to learn more about the Tipi/Nerti method that you mentioned.
When I tried the method, I didn’t manage to experience the benefits immediately. It took a good amount of time, like 20-30 minutes at first. Sometimes, when I went outside, I would mentally create a list of pros and cons, and suddenly, I felt at peace. Even my body language changed, and I started walking very slowly. But there’s a problem with the first method. As mentioned in the PDF, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, to reach that level of peace, you need to do the exercise for a good while, around 20-30 minutes, which can vary. So, the best approach is the second method. You simply put yourself in meditation mode, close your eyes to calm your mind, or even wait a bit for your brain to recover from fatigue. Then, you count from 5 to 1 and start your task. However, you shouldn’t rely solely on the method. You need to change your environment, remove your phone or any other object/thing that gives you instant gratification, like sugar, junk food, video games, social media, etc. You need to structure your life with to-do lists; otherwise, your brain will allow itself to do what it wants, and what we want is to avoid giving it choices. The second method is the most powerful, but unfortunately, if you’re imbalanced in terms of dopamine, it’s very hard to find pleasure in a task. You’ll have to do it even if you don’t feel like it. Try doing a dopamine detox for 24-72 hours, but only do what’s on your to-do list and nothing else.
And if you can’t do it, try a full dopamine detox where you allow yourself to be completely bored.