I'm not "incredibly" smart. Top 5% sure, but there are people on here who have accomplished way more than me by my age and are way way smarter than me when it comes to programming.
One of the smartest people I've met online is a kid who is 18 now and built an entire OS, compiler etc all in Javascript just because he could. He routinely builds new languages and compilers for himself just to get better.
I really envy that kind of passion. I know in 10 years he'll probably have invented the next Ruby on Rails etc. But at the same time, I don't necessarily want to be the best programmer. I think I'm more inclined to be the best "product person" which at the end of the day still means programming, just with more of a business aspect.
I used my salary as a way of getting people more hooked into this thread. If I was sitting on my couch all day doing nothing, I think I would have gotten less replies.
By showing that I'm actually out there working on this and that I truly want to do better, I believed I could generate more of a discussion from people that have been in similar positions and want to help me.
I feel like I could have written this a few months ago. I tried something similar but then fell right back in my normal routine.
Not saying it won't work for you. I've just become very doubtful of all the "self help" methods as it's rare that I find long term evidence that it has changed people's lives permanently. I read on average, 1-2 self help books every week, I think they've helped me with certain areas of my life but overall it hasn't fixed the root problem.
> I tried something similar but then fell right back in my normal routine.
Yeah, happens to me all the time. :(
> 1-2 self help books every week
Give "Feeling Good" a try then, I don't read as much books as you do, but I think "FG" is a cut above the other books I've read. With the exception of "When panic attacks(also by D. Burns). While it was only somewhat useful for procrastination, I found this book extremely useful for other problems. The main thing about this book is cognitive techniques, if you apply them(AND read the book) then you gain 10x more value than by just reading the book.
And if you do find the book useful, you may find CBT therapist(which was already suggested in this discussion). A friend of mine did so recently, and she is much better now(though she was clinically depressed).
I saw a school psych when I was in college and all it really did was piss me off.
The guy spent 30 minutes asking me these types of questions except even more generic and then afterwards said "Yep, you have ADD".
I hardly talked about myself and the way he phrased the questions made it super easy to say yes to all of them. He wrote me a prescription and I never got it filled because of how little I felt he actually had done. I've taken all kinds of ADD medicine from friends, etc but somehow getting a prescription from what seemed like a bullshit therapy session made me stop taking ADD drugs altogether.
If you read some of my other comments, when I take adderall, ritalin, daytrana etc I end up just being more focused in my procrastination. It's like my brain says, "I know what you're doing drug, and I'm going to fuck with you"
The meds are not magical at all: they just help you be less distracted.
If you have been procrastinating for years and have a regular routine and numerous personal habits built around procrastination, those don't go away when you take a pill. All the meds do is make you more present, which would understandably make you more conscious of those routines and habits. That might not be fun -- but it is the first step in changing the habits.
Have you talked to anyone besides the school psych? If it is ADHD (and sorry to hear they half-assed your assessment), then meds are only part of the solution. Regular exercise, a more structured routine, eliminating distractions, finding a partner who supports you, etc. are also important.
You can learn more on your own via books or trial-and-error, or by finding a clinician who can be like a coach to help you figure out what works best for you. The book I listed above talks about all the non-med things you could be doing: one of the authors has ADHD but doesn't find meds helpful for him, so he uses a number of lifestyle changes and natural alternatives instead. Also, the authors have a specialized clinic outside of Boston, and there are other centers like this around, with people far more competent than the school psych who can spend the time to help figure this out.
That you took a bunch of meds doesn't mean you took the ones right for your particular condition. That you spoke to one psych who seemed a disinterested quack doesn't mean all doctors are.
The human brain is very complicated, executive function is one of its highest and most complicated tasks. Fixing it with Pill Powerball doesn't seem likely to me.
That you felt you were fighting the drug may suggest you have other issues to work out. Which really isn't surprising. If you've got serious ADD / ADHD, the hookup between events and your feelings / reactions to those events has been seriously impaired. Which means that all the internal mechanisms for monitoring and managing your emotional state, and the mechanisms for monitoring your relationships with other people and their reactions to your behavior, were seriously fucked up. Which your emotional development to date has been working with a distant echo of good information about how you and other people react to stuff.
That doesn't mean you have these conditions. It does mean you are improperly excluding the possibility.
Think about why that may be. Why might your brain fight a drug that might be helpful? Are you embarrassed by the possibility you have such a condition? Worried you'll be dependent on a drug? Well, too bad. If that's what's going on, that's what's going on, and running from it won't get you anywhere but right where you are.
I take a pill every day so I can think. I hate needing that pill. Well, boo-hoo for me. Again, I don't know whether you have this condition or not. But you certainly have a deep problem, and fixing it is going to take a long hard look in the mirror, and probably admitting some shit that you really don't want to hear. If you're batting away plausible explanations with responses like this, you aren't going to figure this out.
I usually am at the office for 80+ hours a week. It could be burn out, but even when I reduce down to 40 hours I basically cut everything I accomplish in half. Somehow my brain realizes what I'm doing and I procrastinate just as much.
I have realized some other effects from burnout, but I think this procrastination issue is something different entirely
I'm surprised by that, but obviously you know you better than I do. Burnout takes a long time to recover from.
If you get nothing else from my remarks, at least consider the possibility that the real problem isn't procrastination, it's that you're too hard on yourself.
I don't agree with that. I have programmers that come in and do a solid days work every single day. It might not be the best code, but I see them working on it all day long.
It sucks because even though I'm accomplishing as much work as they are, I can only do it for a few hours a day. I'm envious of their focus and ability to actually get shit done. If it wasn't for them, I probably would be fired. Although....even then, everyone else at this company loves me so much that I don't think they could fire me.
You're envious because you imagine that you could exceed them by a factor of three if you could focus like they do, but there's no real reason to believe that. Your peers with focus weren't like you, they didn't have a procrastination "problem" to conquer.
The real world is not logic-driven. You admit you wouldn't be fired because of your personality. Well, guess what: that's what keeps a lot of people employed. All you're getting for your high expectations of yourself is unnecessary pain.
Nobody complains about their coworkers being procrastinators. They complain about their coworkers not getting shit done. You're getting shit done, so they have nothing to complain about. Even better, they actually like you!
Your only real problem is that you aren't happy. There's no reason to assume being productive will make you happy, apart from freedom from the guilt. This should be liberating, because there are lots more solutions to the guilt problem than procrastination, and they're a lot less like snake oil.
I'm nowhere near that! Look at Ryan Holiday, he was the director of marketing at American Apparel at fucking 20.