Fighting with Laziness

[Azuruish]

This thread probably for blogs but I'll risk.

Quite often i meet such problem: I got a great idea, I'm working on it (days, weeks, maybe month) and... end... Project is delayed and that laziness doesn't allow me to continue anymore.
It's so frustrates and so disappoints me because i want finish it but i can't even continue.

So... The question is how can i fight against laziness? Or how do you do it? Advice, some tricks would be great.

For now I found only two ways:
1) Make it fast as can until the idea lives inside you.
2) Write a plan and make each point step by step.

[fraggle]

How do you organise your daily work?

[scifista42]

Try making and actually finishing some short projects at first, even if trivial and only to get used to the habit of getting work finished, then gradually increase scope and complexity of projects which you manage to get done before getting bored of them.

[Azuruish]

fraggle said:

How do you organise your daily work?

Well... I have no idea. Never was organized before. Everything what i do is by inspiration.

scifista42 said:

Try making and actually finishing some short projects at first, even if trivial and only to get used to the habit of getting work finished, then gradually increase scope and complexity of projects which you manage to get done before getting bored of them.

bored of them. I guess here is the problem. I can handle with short projects (speedruns or something else) but i want more... As a creating a pixel game.
Exist a way to not get bored of it or this is just personal issue?

[raymoohawk]

i sympathize with you azu, because i have huge laziness problem as well. so far the only thing that helps me is getting some one to monitor me constantly, a solution that is of course very impractical

[fraggle]

Azuruish said:

Well... I have no idea. Never was organized before. Everything what i do is by inspiration.

That's what I thought. I've had similar struggles myself as I'm not naturally organised. Recently I've made some big improvements so I'll describe my method and maybe it'll help you too. It's quite simple and not very complicated so hopefully it won't be hard to follow.

I respond well to deadlines so I basically make every day a deadline. Every morning I make a list of things I will achieve by the end of the day. I write it down on paper (the ritual of physically transcribing onto an actual object instead of just typing it on a computer possibly helps). I cross off each item as I complete it, so by the end of the day everything should be crossed off. If I haven't crossed off something I should at least have some excuse to explain why, or have made some progress.

That's really all there is to it. Just doing that has made a big difference to me in terms of getting things done and keeping on top of things - my work has developed to the level where I have to keep on track of many different things and I was struggling; my old "just work on whatever" approach wasn't working.

I've augmented it since starting to have more structure: I now make weekly goals; most daily goals are working towards weekly goals, and weekly ones are working towards quarterly (3 month) ones. But really, just making a list of stuff I will get done today has been the biggest help.

[plums]

Azuruish said:

Well... I have no idea. Never was organized before. Everything what i do is by inspiration.

Inspiration is fleeting. Dedication gets things done. Fraggle's advice is good. Plan to do things that you want done and do them anyhow, even if you don't feel like it. It's easier said than done, I know, especially at first. Be reasonable in your plans, and if you don't accomplish everything, don't take that as an "out" to go back to doing things without a plan.

fraggle: how hard did you find it to change once you started doing that? How long until it felt comfortable (or at least not completely foreign)?

[fraggle]

plums said:

fraggle: how hard did you find it to change once you started doing that? How long until it felt comfortable (or at least not completely foreign)?

Honestly I don't think I had a stage like that where it felt uncomfortable. To some extent it's something I was already doing, in that I had a "mental list" of stuff I wanted to get done anyway. But the problem with keeping it in your head is that it's really easy to just forget stuff, and it becomes harder the more things you have to keep track of. Also, with that kind of system it's easy to procrastinate - you end up just putting the stuff you don't want to do to the back of your mind.

That's something I still struggle with to some extent (ie. I still find myself putting some things off even now that they're written down), and I think I'm probably going to need to add additional "rules" to my system to deal with this problem. But I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to deal with it yet.

[plums]

Fair enough. I make written lists for myself sometimes, and I find they give me a much stronger sense of accountability than working from a list in my head, or just winging it. Which is good of course, but can also feel oddly stressful sometimes.

[40oz]

In my experience, making a to-do list helps me get things done. It helps especially to break a list into tiny rudimentary parts so it feels you accomplish more on the list.

Lets say your only task today is to do your laundry. instead of putting "do laundry" on your list, make it look something like this:

Do laundry
-seperate clean and dirty clothes into different piles
-seperate dirty clothes into lights and darks
-bring lights to the laundry room
-put lights in the washer
-bring darks to the laundry room
-put lights in the dryer
-put darks in the washer
-fold lights
-put lights in the closet
-put darks in the dryer
-fold darks
-put darks in the closet

that way what seems like a single task is actually a large assortment of menial tasks that are easy to do and show yourself how much progress you're making.

[HorrorMovieRei]

Man, I feel ya. To me it's a vicious cycle: I have an idea, start a project, lose interest, have a new idea, start a project, lose interest, etc...
I have, like, 6 projects on queue right now. That's why I stick mostly to spritting, it's the only thing I can usually finish without losing interest.

[june gloom]

40oz said:

In my experience, making a to-do list helps me get things done. It helps especially to break a list into tiny rudimentary parts so it feels you accomplish more on the list.

Lets say your only task today is to do your laundry. instead of putting "do laundry" on your list, make it look something like this:

Do laundry
-seperate clean and dirty clothes into different piles
-seperate dirty clothes into lights and darks
-bring lights to the laundry room
-put lights in the washer
-bring darks to the laundry room
-put lights in the dryer
-put darks in the washer
-fold lights
-put lights in the closet
-put darks in the dryer
-fold darks
-put darks in the closet

that way what seems like a single task is actually a large assortment of menial tasks that are easy to do and show yourself how much progress you're making.

I tried this, but it actually makes it worse, because instead of one task, now I have 10 and I can't be bothered.

[Stygian]

I'm having this exact problem at the moment. I excel at stretching two hours of progress out over an eight hour period or longer. After a few days to weeks, I start to have second thoughts and just give up. Part of it's lack of self esteem and the other part is lack of organizational skills and distractibility.

I know that when you are at a computer it's easy to have multiple tabs open in a browser and constantly be switching between them. If that's an issue for you, try AdBlock. Everything I've read about multitasking says that the human brain sucks at doing more than one thing at once, so to be more productive, work on exactly one thing at a time for an hour and then take a short break. Rinse and repeat, gradually increasing the amount of time that you work kind of like how somebody training for a marathon alternates between running and walking until, eventually, they can run the whole distance without stopping. The breaks are important (especially sleep). People in general are more creative about solving their problems when given time to just kind of sit and brainstorm about nothing in particular.

For the self-esteem part (assuming you struggle with that), find something you can make progress on that's very mindless and simple like lifting weights or running or something of that nature. Physical activity is good for basically every part of your body and brain anyway, so it kills two birds with one stone.

I like fraggle's short-term deadline idea. I was toying with the idea of weekly deadlines, but I like the idea of being able to say "I accomplished something" every day.

Also, as a rule of thumb, projects take about 1.5x longer than your expect them to take and 2.0x longer if you are dealing with unfamiliar material, so don't be disappointed if things seem to be going slow.

[Kontra Kommando]

Azuruish said:

This thread probably for blogs but I'll risk.

Quite often i meet such problem: I got a great idea, I'm working on it (days, weeks, maybe month) and... end... Project is delayed and that laziness doesn't allow me to continue anymore.
It's so frustrates and so disappoints me because i want finish it but i can't even continue.

So... The question is how can i fight against laziness? Or how do you do it? Advice, some tricks would be great.

For now I found only two ways:
1) Make it fast as can until the idea lives inside you.
2) Write a plan and make each point step by step.

I procrastinate sometimes, when it comes to working on stuff like my doom projects. Nevertheless, when I get back into it, I usually come at it with a brand new perspective, and innovative ideas. I find that moments of brilliance can be hobbled by just grinding through something. Discipline is massively important, but breaking to deliberate is essential to realizing a truly nuanced work.

[deadwolves]

For me the first step is the toughest but the rest gets easier. Once you get into something, it's easier to stick with it. I hate tidying my apartment, but once I start I will spend hours doing all my chores.

With some of my personal projects, I hate going back to them sometimes because it puts me off that it's going to take a lot of time. What I don't get at that moment is that they are a lot of fun to do and finish, and that's why I spent so much time in the first place! Like with any job, 50% is just showing up.

[Kontra Kommando]

I also like to also keep a regular calendar on my desk, where I write in due dates in the boxes. You just need to pretend that not meeting those dates is not an option at all.

[Azuruish]

deadwolves said:

<...> but once I start I will <...>

Aha... Just a 'start' action is the most hardest you know.

[joe-ilya]

I think of how I'll regret of not doing something in the future and get convinced that I should do it. Only works on important stuff.

[fraggle]

Stygian said:

I like fraggle's short-term deadline idea. I was toying with the idea of weekly deadlines, but I like the idea of being able to say "I accomplished something" every day.

To be clear, I do both - the daily goals derive from the weekly ones. Part of it is the fact it's a deadline, but it's also just useful for the focus it brings. If I ever get off track and ask "oh, what was I supposed to be working on?" it's easy to just refer to the list. Also, it's sometimes easy to find new things and start working on them, especially if there's something I'm trying to avoid doing. Making a list means that I've consciously committed to doing certain things that day; doing other things comes at a cost.