Organization/Productivity For People Who Have Organization/Productivity-Shaped Damage

Because sometimes you just have to get things done.

The thing about most existing organization/productivity/etc. tools are that they use a very self-helpy "Do This And Your Life Will Be Awesome" attitude, because that seems to make normal people feel motivated. This is great for everyone except for those of us who already had pre-existing executive function issues. Many of us were subjected to repeated productivity-talk when we were younger, so now most of the productivity literature doesn't work anymore since we have an allergic reaction to the associated attitude. So that's why I started this thread.

Some things that have already come up in the Skype chat include:

Goal-setting. It is very important to set realistic goals/goals that are actually reachable for you; this is why a lot of productivity stuff like GTD doesn't work for me unmodified. See Two Corollaries to Growth Mindset for some important caveats about How Not To Set Goals. If you can internalize that there are ways to set goals that make them intrinsically reachable given your own abilities, then it is much easier to expect yourself to achieve them. If that still doesn't seem feasible, you may want to set your goals in terms of "try" - "work on X for 15 minutes per day for a while", or "make a small amount of progress towards [goal] every day (even if it consists entirely of picking up and trashing a single candy wrapper)".

"You only have to do X amount of task" - breaking something up into small things and then only asking yourself to do a small fraction so it seems less overwhelming, like "wash X number of dishes", "don't pick up entire room, just need to pick up 5 things around room/fill a small grocery bag with trash/clean out this small section", "I don't actually need to write the essay, I just need to sit in front of my word processor and outline the arguments in two body paragraphs", and/or "I don't need to make a particularly great food, I just need to eat, even if it's empty calories". This is helpful because it reduces the activation energy needed to start doing a thing, and then once you have momentum you can sometimes end up doing more of the thing until you're finished.

Pomodoros. These are named after tomatoes because the mental image of lining tomatoes up on a shelf is cute, as far as I can tell. The actual method is that you set a timer for alternating 25 minutes work/5 minutes break, then do about 4-6 of those in a row before taking a longer break. (If you have focus issues you can modify them to 20/10, or even 15/5.) As a bonus, you can measure your productivity not by how much you got done, but by how much time of focused structured work you completed, which can help with above goal-setting point.

Changing your medium. I have issues with writing down appointment dates in a calendar, but I have much less of a problem with writing them down as to-dos in Habitica, because Habitica is not shaped like a calendar. You may prefer things like corkboards, squares-you-can-velcro-onto-backgrounds, telling the goals to someone else, or even "I will put my goals down in this internet chat and then check back in when I'm done with them".

 

Hey so, I decided "where else should I post my problem but here?" It's productivity-shaped so why not. Fair warning: it is a rather stupid problem when it comes to degree of severity but it is making me anxious pretty much constantly.

So. I go to class 4 days a week. Most of the time in the day I have off. I have optional homework which I never do, I don't really need to study at all, except for a few days before exams, and my only required homework is lab reports and I HATE them with a passion.

On the other hand I'm subscribed to a lot of Youtube channels. I like keeping up with everything. After a ton of filtering, it ends up adding to about 150-200 videos a week. I have a list of stuff I want to do and it's preventing me from doing other stuff I want to do and it's all mixed together and I don't know where it stops being fun and starts being work.

The thing is, my parents rightly see it as "not doing stuff" because I'm always at my computer and not taking on any real responsibilities. I've lost count of how many "Eric, life isn't free and you can't just shun your responsibilities" talks I've gotten.

I spent the entire weekend catching up on 70 videos I had missed and it was exhausting.

I need help.

ALSO, thing I recently noticed: I got Habitica as a way to help me do stuff? And 2 things: 1) all my positives and to-dos are Youtube video-related, which means they never end up getting done, and 2) I've just been using it as a scare tactic to not lose my streak, like "hey, friendly reminder that you're gonna lose everything you worked so hard to build if you don't stand up this instant and go brush your teeth :)" so that's probably breaking a world record for unhealthiest use of Habitica.

Anyway. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

1) Why do you feel like you are obligated to watch the Youtube videos? What kind of videos are they?

2) Find a way to combine Youtube videos with other things you need to be doing anyway. For example, I have a bodyweight exercises routine that I know well enough that I can do it mostly from memory with only an occasional reference to the pose sheet. So I watch Let's Plays while doing that. In another example, I put on educational or fun Youtube videos while washing the dishes. You can also use the bar that shows how long a video has been running to help you time how long you need to be brushing your teeth.

3) Can you set the videos to 1.25x/1.5x/2x speed? I know that some let's-players I know speak slowly enough that I can turn them up to 1.5 without losing any of the meaning, and up to 2x in boring bits.

 

1) There's all kinds of stuff, from Let's Plays to vlogs to educational videos like SciShow to other fun stuff... and I watch them for different reasons. But most of all I feel like I need to watch them to enjoy being in the group of followers.

Most of them I genuinely enjoy. Some of them I'm interested in watching for other reasons, like to keep up with what's happening with people I follow. And a few others I feel like I'm betraying either myself or the creator by not watching them. I'm still learning to let go of this last group.

2) The problem here is I'm not doing anything else I need to do. I already do all that stuff. Listen to podcasts while I walk my dog, watch videos on the bus... there was a time when I watched videos in the gym but now I don't go to the gym anymore. I spend pretty much all my non-school time doing something "productive" with my videos and podcasts and the only timesink I can think of is Tumblr and Kintsugi.

3) I don’t really want to. It would make me enjoy them less, honestly.

Sorry, all I'm doing is knocking down ideas. Do you want me to chat with you on Skype so I can explain it better?

 

Ok this may be deeply unhelpful but here goes.

Like I have said before, I relate bc this used to happen to me every summer (I say used to bc the last two summers I've been busy, not bc I found the solution). And for me at least I think it's a mix of loneliness and generally feeling bad about stuff.

And the problem I ran into is that I didn't really have anything else to do if I didn't treat podcasts/books as a goal I had to work towards, so letting go of the things was scary, and trying to think of a different goal to have was overwhelming. plus I tend to be very avoidant, so everything else that I could do that I came up with was lonely and unhelpful. I don't know if that's similar to your experience?

So in my experience a way to make letting go of the things easier is to find some way to fulfill the same needs in a more efficient way

I think something that could be helpful would be to find a social hobby? Like in person social, something that doesn't require a ton of work for very little socializing reward, like a class in the gym or sth (I mean a class at the gym sounds like work, but being around people is instant socializing bonus for me *shrugs*). (Fakeedit: I found a list https://m.reddit.com/r/GetSuave/comments/2y5e37/social_hobbies_make_your_life_more_interesting/ ) or socializing with college people. Although it sounds like you can't/don't want to do that? Is there a reason why?

And probably I would delete youtube stuff from habitica, it doesn't sound like you have trouble wanting to do it, so I don't think it needs to be there xd

The scare tactic thing sounds like the intended use, can you explain?


.......sorry if this is all way off the mark

 

No, that's not what's happening with me. My problem is more "whenever I think I might enjoy a thing I NOW HAVE TO DO THE THING"

And as for the Habitica stuff, how it works is weird. There's positive and negative habits, stuff to do each day, and a general "to do list". I put it there to have at least something that pushes me towards being more "productive", do you see what I mean? It's supposed to be a fun game that makes you feel good about doing stuff and I'm turning it around and making it make me feel bad about not doing stuff with no good feelings coming from it.

 

Oh ok, can't say I'm familiar with that problem

Yeah sorry, that's fair