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kilobug comments on Anti-akrasia tool: like stickK.com for data nerds - LessWrong
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Nice idea, but to me that's not the real problem. My main problem is not about doing something once I decided I want to do it (on that part I'm quite ok, far from perfect, but ok), but about choosing what to do.
There are so many things I want to do, and so few time, that it's very common to me to "freeze" on a typical sunday morning, when I've the whole day to do something, but have to decide what to do. I often switch from one task to another not finishing any, or spend lots of time choosing what to do, or just decide to go with something fast so it doesn't prevent me from doing something else later on the day (and I end up not doing much of the "big" tasks). It happens both in my "hobby time", and, to lesser extends since the options are more limited and the deadlines stronger, in my work.
Does anyone have a similar problem ? And have tips on to overcome that problem ?
Make differently coloured bands corresponding to each task. you're only allowed to work on the task if you're wearing the correctly coloured band. The bands are placed far away from where you do the tasks or in a box with a complicated lock or something like that. You chose which band to wear first using dice.
I went to a preschool that used this method!
That's odd, I just made it up on the spot.
Well, they mostly did it as activity-rationing. You had to have a certain wrist band on to go outside, and every so often you had to change wristbands, that sort of thing. So different purpose, similar system.
This reminds me of Jerry's Map.
While I was hoping for something Seinfeld related and hilarious, that was still interesting.
Wait, that can happen?
Assuming you have a good idea what tasks you want to do in total, just automate it. Try to delegate away as many day-to-day decisions as you can.
I extended my todo scripts for that exact purpose. I track how much time I spend on each task and how much time I should spend, based on a relative weight. (As in, this task is 2x as important as this and so on. I estimate my weights by starting with 200 usable hours per month and then distribute them among all tasks, using the assigned hours as a weight.) The script then checks if "time spent on task this week" is close to the relative time it should receive, according to the total time I've worked so far, and sorts all tasks based on their deficit. I then just do whatever project is furthest behind for as long as I can concentrate, let the script pick the next one and so on.
Advantages: I never have to make any decision except when choosing the initial projects. (This happens rarely and is no problem.) No individual project ever gets ignored. I don't have to bother with timeboxes, I just work for at least ~15 minutes (I have an automated alarm for that) and then continue until I get bored / tired. I only have to personally check and maximize one variable - total time worked per day. It's as simple as "make this number go up".
Works pretty well so far.
Here are my everything-looks-like-a-nail tips!
I know the Sunday morning problem you're talking about but stepping back slightly from the particular Sunday morning you can probably identify what things are getting short shrift, or vice versa (the Sunday morning paralysis leads to just surfing the web half the day). If you can identify a few instances of akrasia then I think Beeminder can very much provide that guidance in choosing what to do: focus on whichever yellow brick road you're in greatest danger of driving off of. (Or if you're highly akratic, do whatever thing Beeminder is forcing you to do Right Now because you're skating the edge of your yellow brick road.)