How to fight my addiction

[MK_Wizard]

Make a schedule you can keep and learn to commit to it.

[silverraven0]

The problem is I can't seems to gather my motivation to follow the schedule... (maybe I'm just lazy :'v)

[nostalgicroxas]

Suggestions from my college professor:

Write for 15 min every day. Yes. Every day. Eavesdrop on people, or write your train of thought. Just write. Even if all you write is "I was here" or start doodling, that's acceptable.

Now some expanded tips I've taken from my prof to create an education class for a writing marathon (2hrs long):
Round 1: 1 minutes
“Pick up your pen and listen to your train of thought. The goal is to write everything your train of thought is saying: “I'm hungry, I forgot my shoes, I need to get in line for that panel after this, I hope my fish will be fed.” You will be writing for 1 minute, non-stop.”
Round 2: 1 minutes
“This time you're going to start with your pen down on the table in front of you. You'll listen to your train of thought, and wait for something interesting to pop in, pick up your pen and write that thought down, then put the pen back down and wait for the next interesting thought.”
Then you alternate between other things, prompts and no prompts, at varying times. Such as:
Round 3: no prompt, write for 3 minutes.
Round 4: prompt “stolen candy bar”, write for 3 minutes.
Round 5: prompt “lost island”, write for 5 minutes.
Round 6: no prompt, 4 minutes.
Round 7: no prompt, 5 minutes.
Round 8: prompt “favorite snack”, 5 minutes.
Round 9: prompt “flowers in winter”, 3 minutes.

[kimketli]

I researcher who made a really long research in this subject says we should plan to make small amount of work, like minutes. 1 minute, 5 minutes. Not hard, right?
Easier to start if you think you have to draw just for some minutes, instead of hours. But after you start it is actually harder to stop it than continue it. So our lazy ass monkey brain will be tricked to continue the work.
I don't say it will happen every time, so don't be disappointed, just keep focusing on do your work, minimum some minutes long. :>

And my bonus advice: Give yourself presents after an amount of work. For example I forbid coffee from myself. But after a page of drawing, one coffee is allowed. So that is my present. Coffee addiction can be beneficial sometimes (actually it is a really rare when it can be useful if we don't count this situation :DDD )

[Nail]

Accept it. You still a good person.
There was well known soviet psychologist, Vladimir Levi is his name, if I'm not mistaking. SO he wrote a book about lazines - basically, the same thing. So, the book says, its good for you. Laziness protects us from things, we really don't want to do, and keeps us sane.
I have problems with procrastination too, though, and usually it goes like this: I need to finish one thing, but instead I'm comming up with two more ideas. Finally, I'm finishing the thing and soon after realizing, that those two ideas have brought me more result for twice as less hemorrhoids. Also I have too many ideas and it hurts my brain... Fuck!

[ble]

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[Kittosaurus]

While many of you have made excellent suggestions, I think the initial problem (or at least in my experience) is getting out of the bad habit loop.

For example: I'll be watching a youtube video, and think to myself okay, I'm going to start working in 10 minutes when this is done, then I'll get distracted by another video, and say well okay this one is only 5 minutes - I can watch this one too, then I will definitely start working... and the cycle can sometimes go on for hours (until I realize I've spent the entire morning procrastinating).

Logically, I know I should stop after the first video - but for some reason I just can't bring myself to...

I have found that having to be accountable to someone else, at least in the beginning can help you get out of the procrastination loops. So something as simple as telling my boyfriend I am going to start doing the dishes at 5 pm, suddenly makes me accountable and only gives me until 5 to procrastinate.

[mrtoontastic]

Procrastionation.... procrastionation.... procrastionation....

Nah, but for real though, to really get out of procrastination is to work slow. :3 Do little intervals here and there so at least some work is done. Or incorporate what a mentor of mine likes to call... "I don't wanna!"

[punkarsenic]

• give urself a prize for every task u complete! a lil sweet, or a bit of telly, some music. anything that connects doing what you need to do with good things
• pick two or three things to do for the day; when you find yourself pulling away from doing task #1, go do a bit of task #2, until you get bored of that, then flip back to #1 or go to #3. if u multitask like this, even your procrastination is productive
• this can be structured in the 25 minute structure - do task #1 for 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break, then repeat with task #2 and then #3, then flip back. this is supposed to help with focus, although i find that i lose most of my time when switching tasks
• look into apps that can lock your phone for an assigned time! i use flipd, which has a mild mode where i just get a ping if i leave the flipd app, and a severe mode where it hides all potentially distracting apps. even just having mild mode on (with do not disturb) keeps me off my phone
• turn off your computer!!! until you absolutely need it to work, just turn it off - youll find that things like planning and rough drafting that could be done on a computer will actually go a lot faster on paper, and can then be transferred to a digital setting.

[Nail]

Reading this... I have problems with my English too.

[lil-sea-salt]

It's kind of a thing you build up over time. Initially try to focus for 25 minute intervals, try the pomodoro method. Then you can build up to 40 minute intervals. Then a couple hours at a time.

[darkone4587]

Make procrastination work for you.

[skicoak]

Not shooting on anyone but I've often found the suggestions for solving procrastination kinda silly.

Spend additional time, that you're already not doing, to get organized?
Give yourself a treat AFTER? Just gonna do the treat now, do the work later.

Not saying I got the answers, but a functioning procrastinator will just put off the solutions as quickly as the actual work.

[Kittosaurus]

Not saying I got the answers, but a functioning procrastinator will just put off the solutions as quickly as the actual work.

Thank you! Yes I think this is the biggest struggle for procrastinators! I am actually quite productive once I get to work - it's the getting to work part that a lot of this advice tends to just skip over

Spend additional time, that you're already not doing, to get organized?Give yourself a treat AFTER? Just gonna do the treat now, do the work later.

Agreed! Surprisingly I am pretty good at planning... planning is not the problem.. execution is the problem! And 100 % on the treat yourself now thing!

[jamontoast98]

Van Gogh once said “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint”.
Ask yourself why you procrastinate. If you are not doing something that's your brain saying "It's not worth my time".

People actually procrastinate more because of high expectations of themselves than laziness. Your brain goes:
"My expectations are high" -> "I'm not good enough" -> "It's not worth my time" -> "I'll procrastinate"
I dunno. It's different for different people. You just gotta fight that battle. I have a saying that goes "better to lose 100 times than win just once." People are like "you sure you got that right?" but I think it is.

So fight that battle, even if it turns out crap. You can learn and improve on crap. You can't improve on nothing at all.

Humans are all losers. Some are just better at losing than others. The best artists/writers that you look up to. They're the most colossal losers of all. They're so experienced at losing, so fine tuned that they make it look good. There are no winners in this world. Just insanely good losers.

That being said procrastination isn't always bad! If you can catch yourself procrastinating that's always a good start.

[graveweaver]

I fixed my artistic procrastination by always signing up for big events in school, so I would effectively procrastinate on doing the big events by drawing.

Whee.

[Nail]

I just remembered that I actually have a practical advice. It's a thing, I call The Next Easiest Thing Rule and it works quiet good for me. So, if there's something, you 've been procrastinating to do - do the easiest thing about it first. Like if it's writing a novel - just write down the name, or create a file, or simply take a pen. You can stop right after that and abandon it as it is right at that moment. But also you can choose to do the next easiest thing about it, like write a sentance, or save the file or buy a new pen, because the old one is old and good for nothing.
Just do the next easiest thing and feel free to leave at any moment. There's no many tricks that actually work for me, but this one does quiet often.

[silverraven0]

Actually what skicoak said is right. I have no will to start it and keep on stalling... And then it's already midnight. Hurrah. <- me everyday.

[Jenny-Toons]

What motivates me is the fear of missing a deadline. That's for anything. Because, let's be honest -- if it doesn't get done, what happens next? Will you just never finish your story? Will you fail that paper? Will you miss that interview?

The key to breaking out of procrastination for me is the consequences. Can I afford to put this off to the side or should I kick my ass into gear and work now?

Also -- it really comes down to how much you want this to happen. Since you're talking in terms of creating, ask yourself this: do you really want to finish your work? Do you want this to be done? Do you actually like working on this?

Sometimes, we procrastinate because we're loosing interest. So, I'd suggest to go back to the drawing board and evaluate: do you like working on this project? Why or why not? And if you find yourself not liking it, what are the parts that are getting boring?

[nostalgicroxas]

That's actually been me for the past 2 years. One thing that's helped oddly enough is just letting myself procrastinate. I'll fill my time watching alllll the youtube I want, all the sit-coms, play all the games, and eventually I get bored and the desire to create something instead of consume beats me up until I do create something. It's a very odd thing. It's gotten better (my procrastination) by allowing myself to do the no brain cells required stuff and not thinking about creating, and I have a task assigned to me by a friend to do gratitude journaling - LAME as that sounds, it's helped.
I have learned that I loathe creating anything while someone else is around me. I end up waiting until the other person falls asleep, which results in me taking 20-60min to unwind from them, and then 2 or so hours of creativity will happen - sometimes. Sometimes I plan to and just watch Cinema Sins until 4am.