Its time I address a problem I have. I don't finish what I start. With
countless projects strewn about my house and in my email and whatnot,
I live my life in mediocrity. Be it blogging, juggling, cycling,
designing webpages, organizing or any of the other projects I do, I
get a feel for how to do it and I lose interest. This translates into
jobs as well. Constantly changing jobs or positions within the same
job, I'm never satisfied.

The reason I bring this to you guys is I'm curious if any of you have
experienced the same problems. If so, how did you conquer it (if you
ever did)? What steps can I take to make sure I actually complete
tasks, go through with what I start, and generally be a responsible
adult. Any book suggestions would also be welcomed. I'm in college and
I fear this lack of dedication will eventually make its way into my
relationships with friends and significant others.

Thanks for your help guys.

-justin

--
Justin Lilly
University of South Carolina
http://www.justinlilly.com

I'm not all that different.  It's taken years of assisted self-analysis
to realize that I am very creative and a big-picture personm, and not
at all detail-oriented.  Therefore, I have loads more great ideas than
I can ever implement myself.  Once you know that and accept that it's
OK to be that way, you can start looking for the kind of work where
that will be an asset.  But you also have to accept that dominant US
culture favors the filers and the finishers.  It was important to me to
see the good aspects to myself, and not see myself as defective.

I am stimulated by working on lots of different things rather than
going long and deeply into one thing, and I also like helping other
people.  So, instead of becoming the traditional type academic
researcher, I also got a library/info services degree.  Now I am paid
to be a know-it-all, and every day brings new challenges as people come
to me to find the stuff they can't find for themselves.  When I have a
problem with persistence, I try to transform it into an adventure:  I'm
Nancy Drew, girl detective, and the mystery can be solved somehow.

So if you can find ways to make following through on things into a
game, it might be easier for you.  When I get stuck with the mess at
home, I put away the dull parts of it (the papers) and invite my best
friends over to help me organize my textile, perfume, and vintage
clothing collections.  I serve food, we'll stop and play games or try
on the hats, and we all have a good time (of course I don't do this all
that often).

Oh, since your in school  - and I made it through 2 master's degrees
and a PhD, so you can be like us and have a satisfying if not
conventional life. I will never be rich, but then that's not my goal.
I have had enough success in life to be secure enough to satisfy
myself.  On the other hand, you will probably never be a conventional
suburbanite.  Worry less about meeting other people's standards, and
think more about how you will be happy - at that point where your
rational mind uses your innate talents and accepts your limitations.

Does this ring any bells?

http://www.addresources.org/article_50_tips_adult_hallowell_ratey.php...

JC

I have a similar problem: I also tend to change jobs once it gets routine.
But fortunately for me this follows a 2 to 3 year cycle which by most HR
managers is viewed as incredibly healthy ;-)

The way I handle this is to make certain to change to a job which requires
me to really digg in to get to know it inside-out and which also allows me
to broaden my scope (and it has to appeal to me as well, or I will not take
it). That keeps me 'interested' enough to ride the current wave until
routine sticks its head around the corner at which time I start looking
around for another wave.

Luckely for me I was up til now always able to do this within the same
company (stretching at first from a pure technical position related to
electronics to currently Business Process Project manager, I can assure you
that is a route few people I know have taken ...).

Persistence would be the key thing here in my opinion, but I think that is
exactly the point you are struggling with. Unfortunately I do not think I am
in a position myself to help you on that ...

Hopefully others will chime in with more concrete suggestions.
Greetz,
Nico.

On 12/1/05, Justin Lilly <justinli...@gmail.com> wrote:

You get bored by doing the same thing? Then do the same thing better,
constantly making your writing better when writing a final report,
etc. Make the same thing into a different thing.

Perhaps you'd like research. When us in that field have figured out
something, the only hard "follow up" we have is writing it up for
publishing (which you often get a nice check for).

What exactly is your field?

               --Michael

On 12/1/05, Elisabeth <eshield...@yahoo.com> wrote:

--
Michael Langford  --- 404-386-0495
The demon that you can swallow gives
you its power, and the greater life's pain,
the greater life's reply --Joeseph Campbell

Currently I'm majoring in German, but I am also interested in persuing
a dual-degree with the other in Technical Support & Training
Management. The first field is getting a working knowledge of the
German language and culture. As before, it was very fun and exciting
at the beginning because it was new. Now, in my fourth year of it
(with at least another to go), I'm finding it dull and tedious. There
is only so much Modernismus (Modernism) and Dekadenz (similar to
decadence, but a bit more in depth, I think.)

I'm pondering the extra degree because with tech support, the problems
always change. If the problems don't, the people do, which means a
different experience each time. The training aspect prepares you for
relating to businesses their needs for a computer infrastructure.
Basically a Tech Consultant / Staff Trainer. Over the past 10 years or
so that I've had a computer, I've loved it. I haven't necessarily
liked one aspect of it, but I think I love it because there is always
something new to do or new to figure out about it.

I feel like you guys are my own personal psychiatrists but sooo much
cheaper. :-D

-justin

On 12/1/05, Michael Langford <michael.langf...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Justin Lilly
University of South Carolina
http://www.justinlilly.com

Learning German in South-Carolina ? Interesting ...

I 'officially' still work in Germany until end of the year (practically I am
already back in Belgium since early October).
Unfortunately I was always 'abroad' (= all around Europe but where I was the
least was Germany) which means I never had the chance to learn it decently.
But I do understand quite a bit of it (Dutch and German is not that far
away).

On 12/1/05, Justin Lilly <justinli...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greetz,
Nico.

German should be an easy field to adapt to almost anything...  How about
translation?  How about contributing to the German Wikipedia?  How about
technical writing of German manuals?  How about subscribing to Der
Spiegel or some other German language paper to keep up and to push your
German to the limits?

Does the University there have anything like the University of Wisconsin
French Department (or specifically, the "French House" - a dorm for
French majors) does?  What the UW French House does is they have a
weekly dinner (pay on entry) where people of all abilities speak French
amongst one another - sometimes with French films available as well.

Tech Support staff has a high rate of burnout, because of all of the
"firefighting" which goes on.  One problem after another, and it's
always your fault.  As a tech support person, you are the first person
people yell at when their computer "fails"...

Wow, not only am I exactly like that, I was about to post a similar
query ...

I haven't read the other responses, but I will say one thing that has
helped -somewhat- is that I got tested and diagnosed with ADD. I used
to think it was BS, or at least grossly over-diagnosed, but two things
made me consider the possibility.

1) Despite sincerely trying my hardest (and all the usual
books/methodologies), I could not complete a project until it was way
overdue and I had to punt. The end result was always just barely
acceptable, and way below what I knew I was capable of. I love what I
do and consider myself lucky to get to do it, and yet I could not
follow through in any real sense.

2) I stumbled upon a book[1] that presented ADD not as a disorder, but
simply a genetic disposition that makes some of us more suited to
"hunting" though we live in a "farmer" society.

As I said, I got tested (thoroughly) and the diagnosis was conclusive.
A *big* part of benefit for me was that I now had something I could
address, rather than just beating up on myself. I do take medication
and it's been a big help, but it's only a small part of the equation,
and not a magic pill. Exercise and diet are key, and I'm looking into
coaching and/or therapy. GTD helps, but I have to keep it super-simple
and avoid system-tweaking.

This may not be a direction you want to explore ... There is a good
barometer as to whether it might be part of your problem: Have you been
like this your whole life? ADD doesn't come on later ...

Keep us posted ...

[1] Attention Deficit Disorder : A Different Perception by ThomHartmann
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1887424148/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/002-38...

I forgot to mention that one book that really has helped me get
organized is called "Organizing for the Creative Person."  It may be as
much as 10 years old now, but when it was written there was very little
that was not written or designed by neat freaks to try to convert the
rest of us (sometimes referred to as trying to impose left-brain
systems on right-brain people).  Things have gotten somewhat better
now, but I know that putting things neatly away out of sight simply is
never going to work for me, as it does work for many people.

Justin -
Don't beat yourself up about it too much. You're still in school and young
(from what I could tell by your resume). This is the time you should be
jumping around, trying different things. Be proud that you're not one of the
people who has their entire career and life planned out from 8th grade
forward. Don't be in a rush to "figure it out."

I've been there and know what it's like.

--
--------------------
Ryan Irelan
Podcast Free America
"Promoting Podcasting for Everyone"
http://www.podcastfreeamerica.com
ryanire...@gmail.com

I'm exactly the same, and while I'm not sure I'm organised enough to
provide good advice I can tell you what's worked for me to do things.

My brain is a chattering monkey always looking for new things. If I
want to get something done, I have to trick it. Kind of like a donkey
with a carrot on a stick, if I may mix my metaphors.

(a) Pressure. Odd, but it works for me. I've written for a couple of
publications mostly run by my friends, and not only has it helped my
find my one big passion (for now!) nothing will make me knuckle down
like knowing I could disappoint people I care about if I don't.

(b) Distraction. I love writing my essays, I just don't want to start.
I find if I start researching straight away, carry around articles and
books with me and start flicking through them just casually at every
opportunity, my brain doesn't think it's work. It thinks it's doing
what I always do, which is read in cafes, at the gym, in class when I
shouldn't, etcetera. I find it often helps to mix up the location when
you do things. Libraries are death to me because the stillness turns me
into a meerkat peeking over the carrels at the slightest sound.

I hope this makes sense!

Well.............. I might agree, but I did have my career basically
planned out by the time I graduated from High School :-)

However.... Paul Graham had a nice high school graduation graduation
speech ready (but he never go to give it):

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

Paul Graham is the author of "On Lisp" (programming in lisp) and
"Hackers and Painters" (from O'Reilly).

:) I wasn't saying that it is necessarily bad to have something planned,
just that it's not necessarily the right thing to do or the norm. Justin has
a great opportunity to seize his (apparent) natural desire to explore and
try new things and ideas. He should embrace this and not see it as a
problem, but as the catalyst for doing exciting things. I speak from
experience.

-R

On 12/1/05, David Douthitt <ss...@mailbag.com> wrote:

--
--------------------
Ryan Irelan
Podcast Free America
"Promoting Podcasting for Everyone"
http://www.podcastfreeamerica.com
ryanire...@gmail.com

I've struggled against procrastination my whole life and still have to
push myself to finish things. Two things that help me:

1) Begin. I know you don't have this problem so far as starting new
things. But maybe you can use the concept to your advantage and embrace
it in order to actually finish what you start. In other words, make
your project a constant series of beginnings, even "begin to finish".

2) Deadlines. While I hate to wait until the last minute (and I've done
that too many times), I absolutely respond best when I know what my
deadline is. If I don't set a hard deadline based on something real for
my projects, I will never do anything. It gives me a "purpose" which is
sometimes all I'm lacking in order to get it done.

I read another comment here about reading Der Spiegel and it got me
thinking. It might be best for you to find as many different ways to
use your German skills as you can. That way, there's always something
new going on, but it's all rooted in German. Yes, school can be boring,
but life after school is completely up to you and your freedom. So I
was wondering if maybe there are German publications that need
contributing editors or columnists - you'd get to write something new
with each assignment, and nothing is more deadline-driven than
publishing. You can apply the same idea to all kinds of other German
interests - not just publications but also clubs and societies.

Good luck.

I agree completely.  Before I started high school, I was already
thinking "what do I want to do as a profession?"  I've heard too many
stories of people close to college graduation and *still* not knowing.

But college is the place to explore.  Just don't stop considering - and
I'm not sure I'd let a nice talent like fluent German go to waste.

"How do I stop procrastinating?" is one of David Allen's FAQs - and he
admits he doesn't have much of an answer.  I'm expecting "The Now Habit"
any time - and this sounds like an excellent thread to follow up.

I'd like to hear other people's ideas about how *not* to procrastinate.

There is a big difference between waiting until the last minute and
"having a deadline" - the latter is good, the former is procrastination.

There is (without the deadline) - it's called Wikipedia :-)

http://de.wikipedia.org (German)
http://en.wikipedia.org (English)

I have this problem, but I've taken the 'tough love' approach. Like
Paul I force myself to start early and figure out ways to
institutionalize deadlines. That helps a lot.

I'm always recommending this book, but it genuinely changed my habits:
"How to Work the Competition Into the Ground (And Have Fun Doing It)"
by John T. Molloy. You can buy it used off Amazon for cheap. The basic
premise is that concentration, work ethic, and so on are not natural,
normal abilities, but special abilities that we can train for, just
like you train to run a marathon. It's been great for me in terms of
getting me to really work, work, work and get things done. For me
anyway, there is real satisfaction in finishing what I start,
especially big projects that I find it hard to work on in an efficient
way.

On 12/2/05, David Douthitt <ss...@mailbag.com> wrote:

I've seen "The Now Habit" recommended in a lot of places, and I
finally bought and read it.  The book seemed written especially for me
-- the "warning signs of procrastination" in the first chapter were
right on target for my problem.

I plan to re-read the book and work out what actions I should take to
overcome and unlearn my procrastination.  As the book points out,
procrastination is learned, and it can be unlearned.

As you may guess from reading this message, I'm a procrastinator who
hasn't quite started to seriously fight the problem.  But I've
started!  :)

--
Robert Lynch
robert.ly...@gmail.com

The corollary to this comes from the excellent howto video, [Time
Management for Anarchists][1].

If you set yourself a deadline, it'll slip.

So, what do you do? Use an _existing_ deadline; someone else's. Decide
that you're going to have that painting done in time for the show in
April, or you're going to have your portfolio ready for that job fair,
or a working software prototype for that conference where all the VC's
will be.

Then work backwards from it and realize how little time you really
have. You'll end up setting intermediary benchmarks as interim
deadlines, because printers take time and you're going to have to fix
one of their fuckups, or you know there's going to be two weeks of
revisions after that first usability test of the paper prototype.

If nothing else, it'll give you a real sense of how much or little
wiggle room you really have, something I find difficult to get a handle
on sometimes.

[1]:
http://nomediakings.org/vidz/time_management_for_anarchists_the_movie...

Cheers,
Josh

Yes, that's how I do it. When I set a deadline for myself, it's not
arbitrary but always based on something else that can't or won't slip.

A great thread. Thanks for starting it, Justin.

As a Piscean airhead whose parents worried about me as a kid, I turned
my distracted self into one that loved focus and getting stuff
accomplished. Like Elisabeth so wonderfully noted, it helped to figure
out early that I couldn't do the more standard approaches to life. So,
in lieu of college, I hitchhiked  around the world for 3 years, getting
odd jobs, finding boats to work on, doing carpentry in South Africa.
Certainly not for everyone, but it was golden to me, and it gave me the
courage to live an unconventional life.

Making a lot of dough did become a big value of mine, so I needed to
learn how to focus and get stuff done, though. Books, classes, and
modeling other people have all helped, but believe it or not, the
biggest change came with tweaking brain chemistry, and for me, that
largely turned out to be what I ate. Similar to what I learned about
lifestyle, I could use not use the conventional US diet. I had to
really make it a study on my own walking Petri dish, to find out what
foods worked for me. We're each different, but I found a much clearer
brain with learning how to eat and cook with more whole foods.

I'm now 49, and all of this that I've mentioned started in my early
twenties. It sounds like you're young, so as others have noted, have
patience for this beautiful path that you are on. Pay attention, and
you'll find your way.

Wow, I'd love to know more about how you've modified your diet. That's
pretty off topic, so feel free to email me offlist.

I have struggled with ADD all my life and at 47, decided to finish my
bachelor's degree and get a master's. I have ben using some of the
techniques in GTD for many years before I'd heard of it, and the
concept that some of the things I did on my own were part of this great
system was very validating!

I am trying desperartely to finish writing several papers before next
Wednesday, one of which is over a week late, and I struggle to manage
everything at the end of every term. I usually end up sick, and
overwhelmed with how defective I feel.

When I'm in the 'real world' after school, I know I won't be writing
papers every week (thank heaven!) but I have just under two years of
grad school left and I am afraid if I don't find a way to work with my
limitations better, I won't finish.

This thread has been VERY helpful. I especially love to hear about
pepole with ADD who are successfully and creatively using the GTD
system to lessen the negative impacts of ADD on their lives.

Thanks so much for starting this thread. Anyone with ADD wishing to
continue corresponding about GTD and ADD is welcome to contact me at
amber at rockergirl dot net.

    Steve Pavlina wrote a nice little series on self-discipline at
    http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/self-discipline/

--
Karl

I know this thread has gone off into discussion of ADD. I turned 30
last January and this year has been a pretty rough one for me, for
various reasons not worth going into. But it ultimately resulted in a
major depression and I stopped wanting to do _anything_. Painting,
music, going out, all really started to feel worthless. And I knew that
wasn't the right feeling to be having. In various conversations with a
few friends (the few I could still be around), the topic of medication
and therapy and the like kept coming up. I'd avoided these for years,
always thinking "tomorrow, I'm REALLY going to focus"... "this weekend,
I'm REALLY going to clean the apartment" and that all that I needed to
do was just stand up, be a man, be strong, fight through it, and it'd
be OK.

But it's been like this for 30 years. I have a very intelligent,
intuitive, and creative mind, and this year I really started to feel
like I had completely wasted it. And I still just couldn't get things
going. Now, on major tasks, like moving to a new apartment and office
and bringing home a dog, I was often able to apply GTD (to the point
where I had stopped reading) techniques and had some success. The
success wasn't sustained. About the only place where I'd managed to
remain productive was work - and even there I could slip in some
off-days where nothing got done (too distracted over menial things,
unable to focus on the task at hand). Fortunately my office and home
are on the same block (small company with friends) and I'd usually be
able to make up for those off days and get my results delivered.
However, some tasks were still taking way too long, especially
self-managed ones.

It was a strange struggle - I'd be trying to switch between my web
browser and email, or editor, or whatever, and I'd almost compulsively
have to check two or three web pages, even though I had checked them
just a few seconds before when last I switched. Logically, I knew that
I didn't need to do it. But it was impossible to resist.

Outside of work, things were far worse. Weekends would come and go and
absolutely nothing would get done. The apartment remained messy.
Creative output had dropped to zero. And often, I'd be doing the same
idle clicking around on the same handful of web sites instead of
getting anything done. I'd think "I should resume reading GTD and
really try again" or "I just need to make a list of everything I want
to do in the next few months and start processing it," but I'd always
respond with "after this show; commercial break; this evening;
tomorrow; after I waste the afternoon looking for absolutely nothing at
all;... next weekend - for real, we'll do it!"

A friend of mine would tell me that she'd spent all weekend working on
a painting. I couldn't even open a new box of supplies that I had
ordered (an order which had taken me a long time to place!). I'd say
"I'm jealous. I can't even open this box of supplies!" and she'd say "I
couldn't even do it if it weren't for the pills."

And finally the message got through to me that hey - maybe my brain
does need a little more help. Now that our small company has health
insurance, I decided to start seeing a therapist because the depression
was out of control at that point. I had little patience for the dog. I
couldn't be around friends. I just kept hitting new lows. In our first
session she recommended a psychiatrist, one that she really liked. She
said that he spent a lot of time working with you to find out what - if
anything - you needed. I have a big distrust of the "medicate
everything away" society that I sometimes see America becoming, so I
liked what she said about him. I decided that it was time for a new
approach. I had been battling with this mind and moods for most of my
life and while I've done a lot of great things, there were problems
that just weren't going away (and some were indeed getting worse).

It took me a couple of months to get in (not my fault! I made the
appointment early, he's just heavily booked). During that time I
noticed that one of the things that came up constantly in therapy was
just how bad I felt about my lack of dedication to many of my projects
- most of which I had dropped (some just as they were starting to be
successful).

When I met with the psychiatrist, we spent a long time rambling and
talking about many things - from day to day little things like dogs to
personal things and family history. The initial impressions toward the
end of our meeting was that we could try dealing with either depression
or ADHD.

I had suspected ADD/ADHD for a long time, but only loosely. It's one of
those things that is perceived, perhaps justly, as being over-diagnosed
and over-medicated. I never wanted to really suspect I really had it -
again, I kept thinking that I could overcome it all on my own. "Yeah, I
have I hard time focusing - I just need to try harder!" (of course,
that would lead to me thinking more about focusing than being attentive
to the conversation at hand).

As for depression.. The stories I heard about side effects from meds,
how long they took to kick in (if they worked at all), etc, made me
never really want to be diagnosed for that.

I decided to try dealing with the ADHD. I just knew that the dumb
little distractions that plagued me during the work week and the
inability to start *anything* outside of work were signs of trouble. It
felt like it was taking a lot of effort to get through a lot of basic
tasks. And while GTD or other attempts at organizing lists / actions /
plans did help me at least remember things that I needed to do, it felt
like it was taking two or three times the effort to get through that
list if I ever started at all (or often, I'd just get about 1/3 done
and then go off and be distracted by something else). I felt that if
this could indeed be helped - if many of the little mental misfirings
could be quieted - I could start getting things done again. I could put
in a days work that I'd be proud of, not one that would make me go
"crap, I could have done more today but spent too much time doing ...".
And if I could get those things under control, I'd probably start
feeling a lot better about myself and my life again.

It's only been about two weeks since I started taking the medication
(Adderol). But I have gotten so much done. My inboxes are clean. My
apartment is clean. Work is great - the only days that feel sortof-bad
are the ones where my project proved harder than I thought it would be
and I didn't get as far as I'd like; and even those days I can say to
myself "yeah, but I worked all day, even through the hard thinking, and
didn't waste time doing ...". I think I finally have a GTD workflow
that's working for me instead of a half-attempt based on reading less
than half a book. I've painted. I've gotten masters or special
collections sent off to people I've owed for a long time. I've got a
nice list of "someday/maybe" tasks to draw from when I need something
new, and I *finally* am starting to see the real benefits of this whole
GTD system.

It's just been a big help having those distracting impulses quieted.
They're not gone completely, but it seems like I can more easily just
say "no, I need to get this done" instead of responding to the "yes, I
should check that web page." I feel more responsible for my actions -
that if I didn't get something done that I needed to that I had a good
reason. I have an easier time closing my 'open loops' and feeling
confident in my systems. I feel that perhaps I can just waste a
saturday away and do nothing because I earned it by working hard all
week, and knowing that I have a good plan in place to still get things
done on Sunday.

I realize now what others have been telling me - sometimes therapy
and/or medication actually work. And now I find myself saying the same
things I head constantly from them: if you *really* really think that
it's taking too much effort to get or stay involved with things you
need to do, seeking professional help could actually help!

Finally, another thing to do is just to start recognizing the sort of
task that you may pick up because it sounds interesting but you're
pretty sure you won't finish. Start finishing up projects or just
filing them or throwing them away. The best thing I did recently (after
starting the medication) was to start reading the GTD book again, and
focusing hard on chapters 5-7. Chapter 5 is "Collection: Corralling
your stuff" and at the end it suggested getting a piece of paper and
just writing EVERYTHING down that was in mind of things to do, helped
by a list of triggers to help me think of what to write down. Than I
read chapters 6 and 7 before I even dealt with that list. Chapter 6 was
"Processing: Getting 'In' to Empty" and Chapter 7 was "Organizing:
Setting Up the Right Buckets". I did this over thanksgiving weekend.
When I started reading GTD earlier this year, I'd become too eager and
tended to start doing things mentioned without really reading enough to
understand them. So this weekend, with the perceived help of Adderol, I
decided (at the books suggestion) to really read and think through the
processing and organizing chapters before acting on them. That helped
tremendously. And I do feel like I've been able to deal with a lot of
the projects that I did have strewn about and abandoned and boy do I
feel a lot better. The ones worth keeping are in my GTD actions and
planning system, some are active, most are 'someday/maybe', and I'm
actually using that list now when I'm looking for new things to do. It
really does help to have a trusted list of things you've thought about
doing, just as much as it helps to keep a trusted list of things you
are doing. Now when I'm sitting home wondering what to do, I've got a
great pair of lists to turn to and go "oh yeah! I need to remaster
that!" or "oh yeah, I need to pay that" or "oh yeah, I should be
studying that!" and I can do it. Between the Adderol and just finally
closing all of the open ...

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