The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the urge to start working to finish the unfinished.

Nearing the end of a unproductive day, accept that the day was not productive, start on what you will work on tomorrow, do a little, and stop in the middle.

For me, procrastination always come from a lack of having a digestible plan of attack.

When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out a single next step for your project, one single feature, or one single task in that feature that needs to be done. If you know what your next step in the project is, you'll have this urge to jump back in and do that task.

If you can't find that task, then you need to step back and look at your project from a higher level and analyze it to see if you have a clear picture of what you're trying to achieve.

Try it, it works wonders.

I found this article on Less Wrong to be extremely useful: "How to Beat Procrastination": <http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/>.... The article establishes The Procrastination Equation and outlines some scientifically suggested techniques for increasing Motivation:

                 Expectancy x Value 
  Motivation = -----------------------
                Impulsiveness x Delay

My notes on the article:

  Increase your expectancy of success.
  Increase the task's value (make it more pleasant and rewarding).
  Decrease your impulsiveness.

  Success Spirals:     small successes one after the other
  Vicarious Victory:   watch inspirational things, read books 
  Mental Contrasting:  imagine where you could be vs. where you are now

  Flow:     match the difficult of the task to your ability
  Meaning:  think about what you're doing and make it mean something
  Energy:   sleep, drink water, caffeine, exercise, cold water, music, de-clutter
  Rewards:  reward yourself for success
  Passion:  increase the value of the task

  Commit Now:    commit in advance (tie yourself to the mast)
  Set Goals:     break the ice, then daily goals
  Set Routines:  for instance, exercise every day

I don't understand why some people beat themselves up so much over procrastinating. Sure, it becomes a problem when you can't get anything done because you're so busy procrastinating. But everyone has a day here and there where they just can't be bothered to work on anything. Usually, it's a sign that your brain needs a break. Listen to it! Take a break.

If it happens so often it interferes with your work, you need to address the underlying issues. Do you enjoy what you're doing? Are you stressed out about something outside of work? Your problem procrastinating won't go away until you resolve those issues.

This may not apply to everyone, but I found the thing that consistently removed my procrastination was simply to stop working in isolation. Whether it's going to the office of an employer or renting a desk at a co-working space, being around other people who are being productive worked wonders for me.

I used to think there was some fundamental flaw with my psyche; I would procrastinate quite often and always feel utterly depressed afterwards. Turns out that external motivation and clear delineation between "work space" and "play space" was all I needed. I still work after work pretty often, but usually on other projects. If I just sit around and watch TV or play video games I don't feel badly about it because I know I just put in 8 hours of solid programming, which is something I used to think myself utterly incapable of.

If you're in an environment where watching Hulu all day is acceptable, find an environment where it isn't. I practically guarantee it's all you'll need.

I feel you. I've been procrastinating a project for 3 years already (yes 3 years). I write code maybe half of one day each week. The rest of the time I do as you describe. I'm so ashamed of it I tell no one. Glad to have quite a bit of savings.

I find procrastination is a symptom, not the actual problem.

The very root of the problem is that I'm either faced with something I just don't want to do or can see that the NEXT thing is something I really don't want to face.

It usually means I need to do some introspection.

I have been fighting somewhat winning battle with procrastination and it sums up to a few things, key ones are: - get a good nights sleep, having less then 8 hours of sleep lowers your IQ and therefore doing complex and rewarding work its a catch 22, you go home feeling bad fret go to bed late. - make a plan before you go to sleep for the next day, visualize, conceptualize results in your head - feel the accomplished goal. - when you wake up focus and tell yourself that you trust that you can be reach each one of those goals. goals can be .. being focused and productive and feeling great! - few pushups crunches goes a long way at the beginning of the day. if you feel a bit tired - i take a shot of double espresso before morning excerize, it all falls into place.

Procrastination can be good if it is deliberate, like when you are stuck and you can't move you can deliberately switch focus, take a nap read a book.

My 2c.

I found a way to reduce procrastination, while enjoying some of it. I alternate a procrastinate day with days of non-procrastination.

For one day, I am allowed to watch as many movies as I want, play chess, do whatever useless and enjoyable I might want. Then I would do variable periods without procrastinating. This could be 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month. It depends on your other priorities, work, family, achievements. During those periods, I have blacklisted the things I usually do when procrastinating. When I go back to my procrastination day, I am very happy since it has been a while I have watched a movie, trailer or play chess.

This is very similar to some drug-addiction techniques, and I found it worked for me very well. If you feel bad and haven't tried that yet, try that and let me know how it went.

How I kicked the same problem:

Spend a day procrastinating. Contemplate how unpleasantly wasteful it was (even if it felt superficially 'fun' at the time.)

Spend time being productive. Contemplate how I enjoyed doing it, and how I enjoyed having done it.

Consider the contrast between a day spent (in my case) learning C++ versus a day messing around on Reddit.

I don't have to make an effort any more. After my allotted procrastination time is up, I lose interest, and start to feel drawn towards my studies. It's like an internal productivity timer that automatically dampens my enthusiasm for wasteful activities and makes me keen to return to my books. I guess this is what it feels like to be hypnotized into disliking chocolate and into preferring healthier snacks.

Here's a realization that scared me to death that I don't procrastinate any more: The whole life only exists in the current moment. The reason being that the past doesn't exist any more, and the future has yet to come into existence. Hence all my life exists only in the current moment.

This leads to the conclusion that if I procrastinate for even a bit moment, I'm wasting away all my life. This is the most scary conclusion I've ever had and it works wonders to drag me back to work.

I think procrastinating is one of the most obvious symptoms of low EQ. You are just to emotional, you feel extremely unmotivated because you do not want to do what you need to do(studying etc). You just can not overcome your emotions and you do what ever your emotions want you to do, which is procrastinating and feeling better for this moment of time.

Emotions do not care about what you will feel in the future, they just care about what you feel right now. Procrastinating makes people happy. It is some type of addiction. You just can not ignore your emotions, and you do what makes you happy right now which is procrastinating.

As some say, procrastination may be a symptom not an actual problem I think the less "tools" you have to procrastinate with the better. My top recommendation that I think has helped me become more productive within the past month is deleting all bookmarks and apps involving Reddit. Yes, it is just one site and you can easily replace it with another time filler but it is easy to get lost on that site for quite some time each day. Replace "Reddit time" with work and you can gain back some time to complete tasks each day. It's working for me and I don't really miss it.

I'm with the "it's ok to procrastinate sometimes" camp. Lot's of exercise plans include a "junk day" where you're allowing yourself to eat whatever you want without guilt. The reason is because it's good to reward yourself with something you like, and because it's near impossible to continue at something forever without little breaks.

From the sounds of it, maybe your "junk day" breaks aren't regular enough to keep you balanced, and you've reached an overloaded point.

Take regular breaks, don't feel guilty, and your net productivity will benefit.

My trick is mindful meditation, even two or three minutes is often enough to get me back on track.

my tactic: if you are burned out on coding, stop and do something else positive:

* go for a run * do an errand that has to be done anyway * balance your checkbook

This gets your mind on something else which is probably the problem - we aren't meant to stare at a screen doing exactly the same things over and over for 8 hours.

And remember, you are not alone in this. No depression allowed - you are not weak, you are human.

You know how sometimes you are reading a book and then at some point you realize that you have no idea what the last few paragraphs were about. There was a study that traced this sudden loss of comprehension to the first word that didn't make sense. Anything between that word and the current position was read, but not understood.

I am guessing the procrastination is similar. I would be working and it all would be flowing along, but then I would hit a problem. Something stupid, like having several variable names 5 characters each, and needing another variable, but not being able to find a 5 char name for it. And that's it. I will just keep idling here.

The remedy in both cases is to realize there was an unknown word or a stumbling block, explicitly identify it and work around it. This really works, though YMMV.

> I've still no clue why humans procastrinate.

I've still no clue why people consider doing stuff so important.

Just start. Usually the problem is that you unnecessarily look up to your tasks. You think it's boring, difficult, or you don't know where to start. Just start. Once you start, you get into a positive flow and become motivated to finish it.

> I've still no clue why humans procastrinate

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_hum...

I have this exact same problem and I just have to get started. I don't start because I know a task is going to be a lot of work but that work will go away if I just get started. It's difficult and I think all coders deal with it.

> I've still no clue why humans procrastinate.

I do - it's a sign you need a rest and a sign you've been doing too much of the same and some variety is required. Take a day off, do something different, get some fresh input.

Check out the excellent book "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now" by Burka and Yuen. I discovered it via a HN comment and figure I should repay the favor.

I can't believe that this has been up 8 hours without any mention of Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" (http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/)

This lays bare the root of procrastination. It is also provides forceful, direct ways for dealing with it. I don't know a single person who has read it and not taken something positive away.

And it's a really quick read. I went through it in an evening.

Procrastination shouldn't just suck, it should be unacceptable. Don't tolerate it. No excuses. Not even if it's "just today".

Close everything! Ask yourself why you're not enjoying your work today. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, do something about it. Either finish it, so you can move on to something you enjoy. If that's not the case, talk to someone about how boring your stuff is and fix this problem.

DON'T ACCEPT PROCRASTINATION!

Since monday my home internet hasn't been working. Was told by tech support to call them if it didn't work two hours after rebooting it.

My internet is important to me (and using an iPad with 3g wasn't a great solution). The tech call wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes. I had the time.

Yet I procrastinated making the call. I might have made it, but the connection started working today so I didn't.

The plan was simple. Pick up the phone. Dial the number.

Yet I didn't.

Not really sure why.

Heck I don't have any clean socks. I could easily pick the used one up from my bed, put them in my laundry bag and put them in the machine. Yet I don't. It is not like I don't know how or that I like not wearing socks.

So yeah the plan of attack is one thing, maybe it helps somebody, but it is far from enough.

This sounds a lot like the advice given in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on how to overcome writer's block. In the book, the narrator is teaching a writing course, and a student says she doesn't know what to write about. So he suggests that she pick a building, but not just a building, start with a single brick and describe that, then the next one and so on. She ends up writing voluminously.

This advice of breaking down the problem to its smallest domain of attack has been around for a long time.

I agree. Procrastination is caused by a lack of vision.

Here are some painless quick-wins:

1. Make a list of things you would like to accomplish the following day BEFORE you go to bed. Prioritize it. Then close your eyes and visualize the next day. Start from the moment you wake up. Wakeup -> Bathroom -> Coffee -> Get Dressed -> Check email -> Commits to GitHub -> etc... Visualize everything. Watch the following day like a movie in your head. Do it every night.

When you wake up you'll know exactly what to do. You'll feel focused and ready to make things happen for yourself.

2. Set goals. Make plans. What would you like to achieve in day? One week? One month? How about in the next 10 minutes? I'm sure there is something you have been putting off that you could accomplish in 10 min. Just work hard for the next 10 minutes.

Start now. Right now. Ok, Go. 10 minutes. That's it.

3. Oh, you are still reading? Well, watch these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1WC6hNTONg (procrastination) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi_zx40B9S4 (vision)

> If you know what your next step in the project is, you'll have this urge to jump back in and do that task.

For me it is the next interesting and possibly rewarding step. Just simply knowing what's do be done next doesn't cut it for me when I perceive it as a dull task. Even if I know it can be done in a few minutes I tend to avoid even starting to work on it. I have lots of these little boring things piling up for weeks and I know I'm going to have to finish them one day or another, but for the time being I'm here on HN, following work-related links on twitter, exploring stuff or answering stackoverflow questions.

What works for me is finding something interesting, even way outside of the scope of the project. Anything that could make me start to work with the project I should be working on. From there, as soon as I catch the flow, I usually can go to fixing bugs and doing the tasks I have avoided doing for days. I spit code like mad, close a dozen of tickets in an hour, fix things only I knew were broken, doing these final touches here and there. And suddenly even these annoying things start to be highly rewarding, because finishing any of them - and most of them take very little time and effort to complete - makes me feel I've accomplished something and started to dig out of the hole I dug myself in.

Then the work day is over, or a distraction comes, I go to a meeting etc, and the next five minute task turns into countless hours of procrastination, followed by finding that itch to scratch which puts me back on the track again.

tl;dr: I have to buid elaborate scenarios to lure me into doing anything tangentially related to the project (but funny/rewarding/explorative) from where I can move to the real, but somehow boring tasks.

Yes, for me this also seems to be the case. Most of my procrastination results from not having scoped out my task load. I overestimate how much work I have to do, get anxious, then engage in various activities to quell the anxiousness in the short term.

Lately what works best is to clean my room, do the dishes, do laundry, etc. – anything productive and meditative – and when I've had a minor success and calmed down, I find it easier to confront my TODO.txt + .reminders and sort everything out.