djcb comments on Celebrate Trivial Impetuses - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Alicorn 24 July 2009 10:36PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (41)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: djcb 25 July 2009 09:25:53AM *  3 points [-]

So you are after some tips? A google search for 'fight procrastination' will get you many.

Anyway, a simple one that works for me is simply to have a to-do list, and the trivial impetus is the joy I find in ticking off an item. The impetus is so strong that I would sometimes almost add an unlisted item did I already finished, just to be able to tick it off.

Another one is to specify some time (say, Sunday evening) where all your inboxes (physical ones, e-mail etc.) should be empty and dealt with -- that means, things are answered, bills are paid and so on. Full-blown GTD may not be necessary, but just keeping all your inboxes organized like that is very useful. And of course, make clearing-inboxes a off-tickable item in your to-do list.

Note: Dan Ariely describes (and did) some of the interesting research in the way the presentation of foods determine how much people like them.