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URI How to motivate yourself to do a thing you don't want to do
entslscheia wrote 11 min ago:
why?
lisbbb wrote 26 min ago:
I bought one of those Concept 2 rowers based on all the hype online. I
absolutely, positively HATED rowing. I did it a lot, but I hated it.
The rower got sold this summer, it's out of my life. I much prefer my
treadmill and I'll probably get a bike at some point. I hated
everything about rowing, though.
danielmarkbruce wrote 54 min ago:
Only doing it once a week is the problem. Good luck making a habit out
of that.
gabrielsroka wrote 1 hour 33 min ago:
Mark Manson recently did a 4-Hour podcast on procrastination
URI [1]: https://youtu.be/b77XuGU52To
wilkommen wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Or maybe, if you don't want to do the thing, that's your true values
showing. If it's your true values showing, then you should consider
listening, and maybe just don't do the thing at all!
photon_garden wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
Also worth considering: just don't do the thing and live with the
consequences. You have to apply this with care, but it's worth having
in the toolbox.
aquafox wrote 1 hour 43 min ago:
Terence Tao uses a trick, I think he calls "structured
procrastination": When there is a thing he doesn't want to do, he
recalls another thing he doesn't want to do more. This way he's
procrastinating on the other thing by doing the not favoured one.
1dom wrote 1 hour 22 min ago:
I think that sounds like productive procrastion, it won an Ig-Nobel
award. As you say, it's basically finding something you don't want to
do even more than the thing you need to do, so you instead
procrastinate productively by doing the needful.
sharpshadow wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
Doing it to distract yourself from the other thing which you want to do
even less.
haunter wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
I need this for language learning
laurent_du wrote 1 hour 53 min ago:
I recently found a weird trick to motivate myself to do things I don't
want to do. Instead of thinking of the outcome of this task (which I
probably don't care much about since I don't want to do it in the first
place), I think about the fact that doing things I don't want to do
makes me better at doing things I don't want to do, which is a
desirable outcome for me. Your mileage may vary.
simpaticoder wrote 2 hours 1 min ago:
Boredom is the key to solving this problem. Exert control over
yourself, do not let yourself do anything other than the task. No
watching videos, no reading of either web sites or books, no checking
the phone, no listening to music. Nothing. Eventually the original task
will be a pleasant relief. Basically you're increasing your interest in
the activity relative to other tasks rather than trying to increase
intrinsic interest in the task.
AnotherGoodName wrote 2 hours 1 min ago:
I do amazingly well in life if i simply remove the 'more desirable
things'. As in i uninstall all games and set some manual routes of
popular sites to 127.0.0.1 for a while.
pipeline_peak wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
Speaking of motivation, maybe provide a hook instead of expecting your
reader to dive head first into your otherwise lukewarm air bike
analogy? Why do so many bloggers seem to think we have an infinite
length attention span to their personal stories?
âThis morning I made an omelette, but I forgot eggs so I had to go to
the grocery store. On my way to the store my mom called and reminded me
of my cousins birthday coming upâ¦â
âNow that youâve read all this, you should be able to sum up the
importance of planning ahead!â
pgspaintbrush wrote 2 hours 9 min ago:
One fun trick for this is to commit to writing a check to a non profit
you dislike / would be embarrassed by if you don't complete your task.
HankStallone wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
Interesting, but I think if I can talk myself out of completing the
task, I'll be able to talk myself out of writing the punishment
check.
daft_pink wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
I find this is what happens to me. I just back burner things that I
donât want to do and do the easy stuff and after a while I just have
a list of all these back burner undoable projects and itâs like the
worst thing ever because then Iâm not motivated to do anything,
because I have to complete all these terrible back burner projects.
clickety_clack wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
Speaking from no expertise but my own decades of living, the only way
to do things you donât want to do is to do them. No excuses, no
procrastination, no unrelated rewards, just do it. Everything else is a
hack based on procrastination, or making you feel good about
procrastination. You have to make a contract with yourself, where there
is no payoff but that the thing gets done, and then do not break that
contract. If you canât make yourself do big things, make yourself do
small things, but do them without fail.
If you do that, you will become a different person.
GeorgeTirebiter wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
Same 'speaking from living' and I want to amplify a spark you
mention: break down the task into smaller pieces; the size of the
piece is how much time you can force yourself to do the task, fully
knowing after 5 minutes (10 minutes, whatever) you'd have done that
mini-piece. This builds success, power, confidence. Then you can
tackle the NEXT piece, etc. Virtuous cycle. ("See, it wasn't THAT
bad...maybe even a little fun!")
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
balfirevic wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
> the only way to do things you donât want to do is to do them
Do you have anything that's not tautological?
brunocalza wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
The idea that you need to motivate yourself to do a thing you don't
want to do is an idea that needs deeper investigation. I've caught
myself trying to do that a bunch of times. Why the hell I think I need
to do this thing in the first place?
I totally get things like I have a job and there's a task that needs to
get done. But what about outside the job life?
tedggh wrote 1 hour 56 min ago:
Fitness is hard because thereâs very little to zero immediate
benefit particularly if you are out of shape. I also think for many
things, particularly those related to lifestyles and behaviors, the
goal is to do it often enough so that it becomes a habit. Most people
probably donât enjoy brushing their teeth, but we also donât
think much about it, we just do it. I feel the same way with running,
I donât think I enjoy it, certainly not all the time like in
winter, but it became a morning routine that is easy to execute.
tedggh wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
Everyone is different, but hereâs my hack that took me from an
overweight, mostly sedentary person to a relatively fit 40 miles per
week runner and 7 days/week weight lifter.
1) Remove friction. I am also an enthusiast cyclist, but gearing up and
getting my bike ready takes time which gives me plenty of opportunities
to reconsider that 50 mile ride in 90F heat. In contrast, getting ready
for a run takes me 5 minutes so thereâs no much time to find excuses.
2) Get it out of the way first time in the morning before breakfast.
Thereâs this extremely positive feeling when you achieve a goal
early. I think it makes the rest of your day feel much easier
particularly at work.
3) The Pareto principle. 80% easy effort and 20% intense/hard. I am not
completely sold on the science but definitely works for me. I donât
get injured often and I recover faster, which allows me to exercise
more often. I guess 70-30 would also work but the idea is the same,
just go easy most of the time, youâll get the same benefits without
being sore or in pain.
4) Once in a while (twice a year for me) sign up for an event, a 10K, a
half iron man, a bike ride, whatever, and tell everyone about it. Some
relatives and friends will held you accountable for it.
5) Find a fitness buddy. Ideally it would be someone you spend lots of
time with, your spouse, sister or roommate. In my case is my fiance.
This also allows for accountability and moral support because you drag
each other on those days you are not feeling like exercising.
6) Track your metrics besides weight. Weight is not the best feedback
for motivation. There better feedback metrics like Vo2max and HRV. Get
a good tracking device thatâs reasonably accurate and easy to use and
provides you good history. I use Apple Watch but other ones like Coros
are good too.
7) Go to bed early. This is the most difficult one for me. Iâm trying
to put away my phone by 9 pm and switch to reading in Kindle, but man
it is hard!
8) Gear. Donât buy shitty gear to try out an activity and see if you
like it. You wonât like it because you are using shitty gear. Invest
in gear that is safe, comfortable and of decent quality. It will make
the experience much better and youâll have more chances of sticking
with it.
balfirevic wrote 1 hour 33 min ago:
> Go to bed early
Why? You have 24 hours in a day no matter when you sleep. How did it
help?
IncreasePosts wrote 51 min ago:
I used to sleep like 2AM-10AM, and something I realized towards the
end of that phase of my life was that it was easier to be
productive at 9AM than it was at 12AM. And coming downstairs and
encountering people who have been awake for 3 hours and are in the
"middle" of their day, having done productive things already, was
fairly demotivating.
__turbobrew__ wrote 1 hour 56 min ago:
> 7) Go to bed early. This is the most difficult one for me. Iâm
trying to put away my phone by 9 pm and switch to reading in Kindle,
but man it is hard!
It is a lot easier to control when you wake up over when you go to
sleep. Set an alarm, always get up when the alarm goes off and
eventually you will be tired earlier at night and fall asleep.
rglover wrote 3 hours 20 min ago:
Don't. Motivation external to the self will always be ephemeral and
fleeting, like a drug (hence the popularity of "motivational" content
on YouTube). If you don't have a genuine desire to do the thing, don't
do it. Not because you can't do it, but because you lack the internal
drive and inspiration to do it (and that may just be right now, not
permanently).
GeorgeTirebiter wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
Yes, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. Sometimes, you MUST do a
task (taxes, take a driving test, etc).
And, yes, the extent that tasks start from intrinsic motivation,
you're ahead of the game. For me, this is making habits (personal
example: eating less). Habit frees you (mostly) of the need for any
sort of 'motivation' - it's just Habit.
bena wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
I guess I motivate myself by realizing that taking care of the problem
early will be easier than later.
By knowing if I donât get this thing done, it doesnât get done.
That for some tasks âwantâ doesnât matter.
siva7 wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
There are millions of articles on the internet about this topic. You
can equally feed Chatgpt the submission title and it will give you
roughly similiar advice. Forget all this crap: See rather a proper
physician and psychologist if you struggle with this problems for a
long time to be checked for various conditions.
GoldenMonkey wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
Avoid thinking of the pain of the task at hand. Imagine and focus on
the reward of these tasks.
Lifting weights... imagine the stronger person you will become.
Studying for that exam.. picture the career you aspire to.
Avoiding that donut... imagine the healthier you.
Habit stacking helps to remind one of the task to do. To avoid the
struggle of doing them, picture the desired outcome.
aeve890 wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
>Avoid thinking of the pain of the task at hand
>Imagine and focus on the reward of these tasks.
IME if you have ADHD those two things are basically the same. Sure,
don't think of the pain, but you could ended up stuck in daydreaming
about the perfect future where you're healthier, stronger, happier,
etc. You can trigger executive dysfunction (mental freeze) either
way.
zahlman wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
> Sure, don't think of the pain, but you could ended up stuck in
daydreaming about the perfect future where you're healthier,
stronger, happier, etc. You can trigger executive dysfunction
(mental freeze) either way.
This seems extremely relatable.
Except instead of "I'm healthier, stronger, happier etc." it's more
like "I've accomplished all the things I've thought of
accomplishing" (each of which seems well within my grasp, if I
could choose).
nextworddev wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
Biggest productivity hack is to just avoid working in fields you
donât feel passionate about. If you donât know what you are
passionate about, then just keep trying things passionately
guhcampos wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
Let's all be honest here.
I use Vyvanse.
task331 wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
After several years of trying to come up with the perfect way to keep
motivation up, I have found there is no such thing.
The only thing that matters for me nowadays is this: before I start the
task, I admit to myself that it is going to be hard, but I am doing it
anyways, so why do it like its a drag? It's pointless and it's a waste
of energy.
task331 wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
Also, I have found that if I don't open myself up to the hard task at
hand before I start, a lot of things can happen that deviates myself
from doing the task in its optimal form. For example, I can come up
with excuses for not doing the task right now, or I can invent other
work that is 'more important', or find something to blame while I do
the task so I can cope with its difficulty, etc.
There is a myriad of things that can be invented to avoid or cope
with the pain, but if I am going through this anyway, there is no
reason whatsoever to make it more painful that it will already be.
gmac wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
See also:
URI [1]: https://www.structuredprocrastination.com/
coffeecoders wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
I find it interesting how a lot of this advice overlaps with the same
tricks we use in software engineering to tackle big problems. Breaking
things into smaller chunks or even gamifying with streaks is basically
the human version of agile sprints.
Sleep, diet, and stress are like "system dependencies".
trjordan wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
Everybody is different, but the biggest reason I struggle with this
right now is the pace of modern life.
Doing hard things is hard, and that means I won't be thinking about the
other stuff I have to do. I'm more apt to miss a text from my family
when I'm running or writing a document than when I'm vibe coding,
because the effort is all-encompassing. Subconsciously, that's
stressful, so I steer away from it.
Habits help here, because with enough repetition, I learn that it's OK
to disappear for an hour to do the thing. But the real issue is getting
the meta-organization of my life right enough that I'm not scared to
shut down my ambient executive function for that hour. This shows up as
both "I'm too busy to do the hard thing" and "I'm too tired to do the
hard thing."
Slowing down isn't the answer, but it's been pretty transformative to
notice that that's what I'm worried about.
nicbou wrote 40 min ago:
I agree. There's always so much to do just to stay on top of things.
Everything from writing to people down to watering plants and
updating software.
Last summer I went to a festival, and for a week I was unreachable,
had no working phone, and had no chores. I could eat by showing my
bracelet. I didn't even have the time. It was blissful.
jraph wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
Do something quick and crappy. And let your perfectionism fix it.
And... here you are gotten started!
It can be a single word or a instruction that crashes your program at
the location that needs to be worked on.
Leave a syntax error for getting started quick tomorrow.
Write down what needs to be done before it leaves your head (but don't
make it perfectly structured and clean, a few words on a paper on your
desk will do).
edit: For instance, you'd possibly want to fix the missing "n" in this
comment. Make this feeling a tool against your procrastination.
edit2: ah, and get the hell out of HN, too.
siliconc0w wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
For more intellectual endeavors I find if I'm avoiding working on
something it can be because I'm being lazy or just don't like the
category of work but often it is a good sign it's not quite the right
activity for the moment. It may not be well defined enough, or the
highest priority, or doubting it is likely to yield the outcome I want.
Time of day matters too, in the morning I feel like doing different
things than in the afternoon. I can push through and "just do it" if I
have to but often it's worth listening to this feeling and picking a
task I am motivated to do instead.
everyone wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
Do what u wanna do.
Don't do what u don't wanna do.
..
Or at least try, doing otherwise is crazy right?
jraph wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
If only.
nachox999 wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
"just DO IT!!!"
-Shia LaBeouf
RyanOD wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
Oddly, I sort of agree. Many times I've put something off for days,
but then once I finally get myself over the hump and get working on
it, I actually get focused and sort of enjoy the challenge. It's
weird, but it's the not the task that is the problem...it's just
getting started.
SoftTalker wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
That's what it really boils down to.
incomingpain wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
I just spent a couple weeks hyperfocused on solo building a whole new
python project from scratch. Motivation is a skill that needs to be
trained.
It's a bit counter intuitive, and while your environment needs to be
conducive to work. Among the other factors, you dont just gain
motivation by having a clean desk.
Arch-TK wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
I can do the things that are hard to start but fine to continue. But
sometimes you have a very long slog which is hard to start and hard to
continue and hard to finish. That's where the difficulty lies.
hbarka wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
I understand that these heuristics are completely different for people
with ADHD.
Also the role of dopamine cycles has a big effect on proactiveness.
csr86 wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
If I remember correctly, a YT video from Andrew Hubermann, talks about
rewards and that you should avoid excessive rewards.
It can make the actual work even more painful, because your mind is too
focused on the reward, instead of trying to enjoy the hard work itself.
xyzzy9563 wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
The way that works best for me is a 2-step approach:
1. Think about the ultimate goal and why you want to do it. If there
isn't a compelling reason, there is no reason to do it, especially if
there is short-term pain or annoyance.
2. Take at least one small action towards it per day. This often puts
you in the mindset to do more things.
nashashmi wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
> As you near the end, you can even push yourself a little to wrap it
up and get it off your plate.
As a person with ADHD, this struck me. I have an easy time continuing
something. But an impossible time starting and finishing something.
Obviously I am not mentally healthy. But who is this person who is
mentally healthy? And what am I missing to being the same way?
I think it boils down to being yelled at and penalized and being unable
to handle this feedback well enough. I donât know exactly what I am
fearing here. It will be an exploration.
> you are both pleased with yourself and a little annoyed that it took
you so long to deal with.
I am never pleased at the end of a project. I am blame full why I could
not do it before.
WalterSear wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
What you are missing is that estimates of ADHD heritability vary
between 60 and 90%.
There's a lots of one can do to overcome and accommodate it, but one
of the first steps is to approach neurotypical productivity advice
with substantial skepticism: they aren't fighting the fight we are;
don't even know that our fight exists.
thomastjeffery wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
I have spent my entire life frustrated with the reality that none of
this advice actually works for me. This is because motivation was never
my problem to begin with: my problem is "executive dysfunction", which
is very counterproductively titled ADHD.
xyzzy9563 wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
Well think of this: if you knew there was $100 million in a dufflebag
of gold at the bottom of a pond, would you learn how to put on scuba
gear and retrieve it?
Perhaps you don't have compelling enough reasons to do things.
doubled112 wrote 3 hours 21 min ago:
I do need a compelling reason to do something. I can't figure out
how all these people get through what they do without wanting to
jump out their office windows, to be honest.
Is it fun/interesting? Can I make it fun/interesting? Does it
make me or save me money so I can do something fun/interesting?
If the answer is no to all of these questions, I'm going to have a
bad time. Unfortunately, I'm that simple. I've gotten better at
number two over the years, though.
Scuba diving sounds fun. I'd probably do it for less.
thomastjeffery wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
Learn how? Almost definitely.
Actually do it? That's a lot less certain than you would expect.
I would probably start. Since this hypothetical is a pretty simple
one-off, I might even manage to generate enough executive
functioning to follow through.
What I can tell you for certain is that I am still very excited to
work on a custom keyboard project that I started 4 years ago. I
have all the parts and equipment readily available at home, and
plenty of free time. I have not worked on it at all over the past 4
years.
bobcorponoi wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
I have a similar issue, I can find motivation to start something
but then it spirals into other things.
For $100 million I would probably just learn to put on the scuba
gear but for instance my mind would go to "I should make my own
scuba gear". So for a personal project I start on something and
decide I need something else, so then I want to make a tool to help
me make that thing and so on. I think it's probably related to a
shorter attention span so I'm working on that.
cjbarber wrote 4 hours 47 min ago:
My observation is it's an equation between:
1) reward/incentive/expected good feelings
2) effort/displeasure of doing the thing and the result
One way to increase #1 is to make it more socially involved. If you're
working on a project solitarily, start going to events and talking
about it with people, or write about it online. Humans are massively
socially motivated.
For #2, one way to address this is with emotional processing. Often
something is unpleasant because it reminds of something we didn't like
from the past. So really digesting those emotions can allow the
expected displeasure to fade because we kind of integrate it into our
brains/bodies. But the key for this is that it has to be emotional
processing, not intellectual processing.
BolexNOLA wrote 4 hours 34 min ago:
Donât forget 3) consequences for not doing it
idiotsecant wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
Yes, in my experience the social part of this is not so much the
carrot, but the stick. If I don't do this thing, I will look lazy
to this person or this person will be disappointed or
inconvenienced, etc.
Probably not a healthy outlook!
semiinfinitely wrote 4 hours 49 min ago:
> The only way I can convince myself to do it is by finding a suitably
engaging show I can distract myself with on my phone while I huff and
puff.
> Combine the task with something you enjoy. You know what makes
cleaning out the garage a lot better? Some good tunes.
This motivational advice is deeply misguided. These are very clear
examples of "dopamine stacking". The idea is that by combining a
stimulating activity (eg watching show/music) with a
motivation-requiring activity (eg working out/cleaning) you can get an
initial boost in motivation to accomplish the hard task. It works
(initially) because the stimulating task (show/music) is giving you a
dopamine increase which feels like motivation to complete the hard
task. The problem is that if you repeat this behavior with any
consistency, your dopamine system quickly adjusts the high
activity-combo level of dopamine as a new baseline. Soon not even the
dopamine you get from the combination is sufficient to motivate you to
accomplish the task. At this point people often seek another short
lived dopamine-increasing stimulus to combine into the mix.
You can see this pattern in people who exercise only with some
combination of pre-workout, caffeine, music, phone scrolling.
The off-ramp is learning how to derive dopamine (aka "motivation") from
the actual activity itself.
further reading:
1.
URI [1]: https://youtu.be/PhBQ4riwDj4?si=n-afP-Rj_k7qfATz
Llamamoe wrote 41 min ago:
Person with severe ADHD here. At least for me, it also helps because
many hard activities are not stimulating enough for the effort they
require, and persisting through understimulation is HARD.
layman51 wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
I generally agree. Some of the things I don't want to do are actually
pretty complex and require my full attention so I wouldn't be able to
listen to a podcast or music with lyrics. Maybe I'm in a weird
situation that requires some kind of shift. On the other hand, I am
sure I can do 30 minutes on an "assaultbike" without having to
distract myself with a TV show.
saghm wrote 3 hours 22 min ago:
I'd also worry that the association of a fun activity with one you
don't like can reduce the amount of fun from the first activity even
when you stop doing them together. This is obviously not a scientific
experiment, but I always struggled to wake up in the morning even
with alarms (which I've since improved at with better understanding
of some specific sleep conditions I have), and in an attempt to try
to make it less annoying, I tried a couple times over the years to
pick a song I liked as an alarm phone rather than a typical alarm
sound. It never helped make waking up any easier, but it completely
ruined both of the songs I tried for me in the short term, and even
now years later I don't really enjoy them nearly as much as I used
to. Hearing the opening notes of either of them just reminds me of
the annoyance I felt waking up years ago.
multjoy wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
Iâve got colleagues who have to grade CASM (scrolling through
images and classifying them as category A, B, C etc.
This can take literally days and the first thing they are told is
donât listen to music they enjoy while doing it, because they
will never again be able to listen to that music.
Capricorn2481 wrote 3 hours 23 min ago:
Firstly, Huberman has turned into a hack, and this video is a great
example of his drift into "just trust me bro" pop science. Secondly,
> You can see this pattern in people who exercise only with some
combination of pre-workout, caffeine, music, phone scrolling
Where do you see this pattern? I would wager nowhere, even if it
sounds like it "could" happen. I've worked out with a lot of people.
I listen to music while working out, as do many people. I would enjoy
working out less without it. But I'm not in some Dopamine spiral
where I need to stack more stuff on top just to keep working out.
I've been doing it for years.
I've noticed a lot of health influencers like Huberman, who need to
make content frequently, have been honing in on gut-feeling
conclusions derived from novice science facts you can expect anyone
to know about. He casts a wide net with a Psychology Today level
concept, and he builds an audience of people that can't separate the
lazy conclusions he makes from the objectively true but elementary
facts he bases them on.
Look at the comments, where people are accusing each other of being
dopamine hijacked because they eat and read at the same time. Give me
a break. Your reward system is not a fragile thing that is easily
broken. The actual causes of dopamine hijacking are things like
spending all day playing video games, not having a coffee before
working out.
Melatonic wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
Seriously - always thought the guy was one step up from a grifter.
His education has little to do with what he talks about and of
course like many he has something also to sell
RankingMember wrote 3 hours 13 min ago:
It's a cruel cycle with YouTubers- they run out of stuff to
say/stuff they can authoritatively talk about, but are basically
forced to continue coming up with more content in order to stay
relevant and keep their income going.
mynameisash wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
I really enjoyed Veritasium for a while, but it seems like he's
fallen into this trap. Click-baity, cookie-cutter videos.
On the other hand, while I didn't follow Tom Scott particularly
closely, I always enjoyed his stuff, and when I learned that he
called it quits, I was legitimately happy for him AND his
followers -- better to quit while you're ahead than to wear out
your welcome.
bubblyworld wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
Your reward system is a fragile thing that is easily broken. Just
look around you next time you go anywhere. We live in a society of
smart phone addicts. That said, the examples OP gave of tunes while
exercising seem pretty benign compared to superstimuli like social
media or drugs...
IncreasePosts wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
> who need to make content frequently
I think this is a major issue with so much of the "creator
community". When you make this thing your job, you can't just not
show up to work for a few months at a time. But, if your content is
"information regurgitation", like reading health studies and
reporting them to your audience, is there really enough out there
to make it a full time job? Doubtful. So, you'll end up either
rehashing yourself over and over (your viewers will get bored and
leave), or start going to the fringes of your field where there is
far less basis for your statements than what originally brought
your audience in.
tgv wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
So, where does the evidence come from? I don't buy the explanation,
and I can't find any article published by Huberman on dopamine.
bubblyworld wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
I think people use "dopamine" in quite a loose sense to refer to
reward centres in the brain and habit formation, not literally the
hormone (though it's related). You might have better luck digging
around those topics.
nerdponx wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
I don't think listening to or watching something entertaining while
doing something unpleasant or boring or uncomfortable is an example
of dopamine stacking. It's just a distraction technique that helps
you take your mind off the aspects of it that you don't want to think
about or be aware of.
Listening to music or a podcast while you work or exercise is a
completely normal, non-dopamine stacking, thing to do. In the past,
before radio and recorded music, people daydreamed or sang to
accomplish the same goal.
pessimizer wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
Daydreaming and singing to yourself is not entertaining. It's just
something that an unstimulated brain does. To get to that
destimulated place is the object imo - where what you're doing is
so habitual that every step seems like a breath, and you only
notice the ones you miss.
I remember before I learned the basics of cooking how hard
everything was, and how much I had to concentrate. These days I'll
spend 20 minutes cooking something, plate it and go to the
bathroom, and have forgotten what I cooked before seeing it again.
I remember when I was learning Spanish, and every successful
paragraph I read merited a celebration, and now I sometimes can't
remember whether something I read was in Spanish or English an hour
after I've read it.
My biggest improvement in writing came after I stopped listening to
music while doing it. Get it over with, then listen to music. Once
you get into the habit, it's like taking a nap not having a party.
I remember a factory I worked at in my 20s where I got up to doing
76 hour weeks with no days off because I was so good at what I was
doing, I entered a timeless place. There was no time to get bored
in. I'm sure I might have hummed, but I wouldn't remember. I
certainly wasn't thinking about anything important; those machines
could have ripped my hands off.
kaashif wrote 2 hours 2 min ago:
I think singing is fun.
I've never worked 76 hour weeks though.
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote 2 hours 10 min ago:
>Daydreaming and singing to yourself is not entertaining.
This is such a case study of a HN comment.
djtango wrote 1 hour 53 min ago:
Not to take away from your meta comment but there's something
to be said about the mind originating content from a place of
wandering versus having content blasted at you from an external
source.
johnfn wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
Really, deeply misguided? It's "deeply misguided" to listen to music
while coding? I find that hard to believe.
IncreasePosts wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
You probably like music and coding, and friends and food, and
singing and hiking. OP was talking about blending activities you
like with activities you don't like, as a way of getting you to do
the thing you don't like.
idle_zealot wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
> The off-ramp is learning how to derive dopamine (aka "motivation")
from the actual activity itself
So, just start liking the things you don't like? Sure, ideally that's
the solution you want, but it's not exactly actionable advice.
nradov wrote 1 hour 22 min ago:
If you want actionable advice, forget about motivation and stick to
discipline instead.
alfons_foobar wrote 20 min ago:
This 100%
mordnis wrote 41 min ago:
I feel that way as well. When I'm thinking about what I like and
dislike, it just makes me procrastinate and feel miserable. Life
is much more enjoyable when I think about duties I have and how
to fulfill them.
macNchz wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
People are adaptable. Likes and dislikes and comfort zones are all
malleable. I never liked working out in the slightest. Never stuck
to any sort of "gym routine" more than a few days. Did most of the
Couch to 5k program in college but never kept running. Just...never
liked it. I had lots of friends in high school and college who ran
Cross Country, and was always a bit baffled about the appeal. It
seemed terrible, honestly.
When my friend randomly suggested that we try a very ambitious
hiking route, I knew it would absolutely suck if I didn't train for
it. I got a gym membership and told myself I'd at the very least
set foot in the gym 7 days a week for the first few weeks, just to
build the habit of going. I was motivated to make sure I didn't
slack off and ruin the hike for the group by being undertrained. A
few months of that and the hike went great.
When we got back, though, I found it felt weird to not go to the
gym in the mornings before work (as a decidedly NON-morning person
my friends and family looked at me like I'd grown a second head
when they heard me say I was working out before work). I started
running outside on days the gym was crowded, and it felt good! In
the nearly eight years since then, there have been only a handful
of weeks where I didn't go for a runâI genuinely really enjoy it,
no motivational tricks required.
somethingsome wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
My 2 cents :
I make it a game or I find beauty in it.
As a more concrete example, as soon as you learn to enjoy learning
as an activity, it becomes fun, whatever you are studying. So you
only need to learn to have fun while learning. Start with simple
things, make it a game, find beauty in what you are learning.
fapjacks wrote 3 hours 0 min ago:
Yeah, the ancient stoics made a whole philosophy about it.
SoftTalker wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
The "treat yourself to a donut" suggestion got me. Sure, eat a donut,
completely negating the caloric burn of the 30 minutes of aerobics
you're motivating/rewarding yourself for.
stronglikedan wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
that not how it works. that's not how any of this works.
the aerobics build up muscle that will always be burning calories
by merely existing. a donut here and there won't make a negligible
difference, as long as the weekly aerobic activity level is
maintained.
oe wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Muscles donât burn that much calories, only like 13
kcal/kg/day. So if I suddenly gained 10 kg of muscle, I could
theoretically burn half a donut per day. Plus the extra calories
spent moving those 10 kg of muscle around. But itâs not a free
meal.
watwut wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
Men with a lot of muscles in fact can and have to eat more to
maintain their weight then men with less muscles.
That extra food in fact does include cakes and treats.
paulpauper wrote 3 hours 21 min ago:
Agree 100%. The data on this is pretty depressing. There isn't
much you can do but eat less. Even huge bodybuilders quickly
get fat when they go off season. All that muscle evidently
doesn't work enough to offset the appetite.
Gaining 20lbs of muscle, which would be quite a visual change,
would only burn about an extra candy bar.
lisbbb wrote 25 min ago:
When I was mountain biking heavily I could eat whatever. You
just need a Huuuuuge amount of cardio, haha.
paulpauper wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Meh..not as much as you hope or expect. There is a popular
channel on youtube @ErikTheElectric who does these huge food
challenges, but also tons of cardio like marathons and 100-mile
bike rides, to try to offset it. He weighs 170. At his height I
weigh 15 lbs less, simply from eating less despite doing much
less cardio than him. The body is very good at increasing its
efficiency in response to exercise. You will be working your ass
off doing cardio, but the weight just not budging much beyond
water fluctuations. Many people report this. They will do
20-thousand steps and stop losing weight after a few days.
As for muscle, a pound only burns 11 calories/day. You'd have to
gain 20 lbs of muscle, basically become a bodybuilder, just to
offset a KitKat. The math is pretty depressing.
nradov wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
That's a common misunderstanding but efficiency doesn't
actually change much based on exercise. You can verify this
with metabolic tests that measure inhaled and exhaled gases.
ravloony wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
In my experience, full body sports (krav maga in my case) are
the exception here. It's super easy to stay lean if you eat
normally and do this kind of thing.
My explanation for this is that the body adapts very well to
using a single set of muscles because it expects to have to do
it for a long time, like when hunting or gathering, but full
body means you are fighting for your life.
I think this is also why lifting heavy works so well too.
(I have no credentials or training in this area, just my own
xp, so treat this as wild speculation of course.)
zanellato19 wrote 3 hours 35 min ago:
Eeeh. Exercise doesn't spend enough energy for high calories
foods to be worth it. If you want to lose weight that is. A donut
is a lot of exercise and muscle building leads to a small but not
sufficient calorie spend. The majority of calorie spend still
comes from the organs and general body maintenance
paulpauper wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
Yes, the literature on this bad. It's even worse than that.
Metabolic adaptation means you may think you burned 400 kcal
with a long run according to the tracking app, but maybe your
body, on net, only burns 100-200 kcal, so this throws off the
math.
nradov wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
Now you're just making things up. On any training plan, a
long run would be a minimum of 6 mi / 10 km. No adult is
going burn less than 400 kcal over that distance, it isn't
physiologically possible. And any metabolic adaptation will
only be a few percent at most: running economy only improves
slightly with training.
sitzkrieg wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
endurance athletes are laughing
zanellato19 wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
Athletes are not the same as normal people, who have 1h or so
a day to exercise.
You can't outrun a bad diet is a common saying around my
parts.
paulpauper wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
plenty of endurance athletes are pudgy, not lean at all .
Usain Bolt is leaner than many endurance athletes. Training
for endurance and being lean are different. Some runners get
a nice toned body, but this far from the norm.
reducesuffering wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
> Exercise doesn't spend enough energy for high calories foods
to be worth it. If you want to lose weight that is.
Tell that to all the lean 150 pound / 68kg runners stuffing
their faces with high calorie foods all the time.
senko wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
You're replying to a person saying "exercise doesn't spend
enough energy [...] if you want to lose weight" by
referencing "lean 68kg runners".
Do you think they want to lose weight?
zanellato19 wrote 3 hours 16 min ago:
_Athletes_ are completely different from the normal people
looking to exercise. Can you spend 4 hours of your day
exercising?
nradov wrote 1 hour 9 min ago:
Even most professional endurance athletes rarely hit 28
hours per week of actual training time. That would be like
a peak week in a training plan before tapering leading up
to a race.
Melatonic wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
If most people really wanted to I think they could. Split
it into multiple blocks
paulpauper wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
If you are single and short commute, it is doable. People
spend hours watching TV, looking at phone.
zanellato19 wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
I don't think it's reasonable. That becomes basically the
only thing to do outside of work. Highly unlikely at the
very least.
Nifty3929 wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
I'll disagree slightly, though clearly you are correct that if your
goal is to offset calories, then eating a donut negates the
benefits of the exercise activity.
My disagreement is that I think exercise should not primarily be
about calories - it should be about fitness. And almost all of the
fitness gains from exercise persist even if you replace the
calories with a donut.
Exercising for 30min and then relacing those spent calories with
donuts is FAR better than not exercising and forgoing those extra
calories.
Melatonic wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
Exactly - and on top of that being super extra lean (for vanity
purposes) is often actually detrimental to real world performance
anyways. There's a balance to everything.
Of course this assumes that in addition to the single donut the
rest of your diet is decent - if you're eating shit all day then
you are asking for an injury
IncreasePosts wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
You'll still have improved cardiovascular fitness even if you
aren't losing weight.
Any ways, a lot of studies have shown your body has a variety of
methods that attempt to counteract excess calories burned, like
reduction in non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
watters wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
For plenty of already-in-shape people, the calories expended during
the exercise are largely incidental, with the goal of exercise
being to enhance or maintain some other property of their physical
capacity.
emil-lp wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
> further reading: youtube
shermantanktop wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
turn on subtitles, i guess?
siva7 wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
it's more about the source, not the format
piker wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
I personally draw inspiration from John Carmack. I've understood his
approach to be basically just stare at your problem and ignore
everything else until you make a little bit of progress. The answer is
there.
jimbokun wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
I think this only works if you have difficult and interesting
problems to work on.
dysoco wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
Not to say he's unproductive, because he's a beast, but I don't think
he's a good example. Carmack got to work on really cool things which
he loved (games) most of which were in his own company so he also had
a stake on that.
Afterwards he had money to work on other stuff he was passionate
about (rockets, VR, etc.) in his own terms.
It's much harder to draw motivation to meaningless work.
IncreasePosts wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
Carmack also has an insane net worth and has the freedom to pick and
choose the problems he stares at, and set the time tables for a
solution. I wouldn't suggest this method if you're some random
mid-level programmer.
emil-lp wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
This is the Procrastination version of Feynman's problem solving
technique.
Write down the problem. Think really hard. Write down the solution.
bobcorponoi wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
That's interesting, I'll have to look into that and give it a try.
Seems like a good way to build back up your attention span as well.
geeB wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
That is by far the best approach⦠if you can do it. If your mind
already works that way, you might not appreciate how much of a
superpower you have.
terabytest wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
Sounds like a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. My main issue is to
even get myself to sit and stare at the work to be done. It has been
really frustrating seeing the lengths I go to, consciously or
unconsciously, to procrastinate.
marginalia_nu wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
I think it's mostly about accepting that you are the one in
control. The problem of "getting yourself to do something" is
poorly formulated, as though some other person was in charge of
your actions that you have to convince to do what you want.
This confused conviction is the real problem. There is no other
you to convince. The same you that you are bargaining with to do
the thing is the same you that's doing the bargaining. You can at
any moment just do it.
zanellato19 wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
That's really nice but not really true. There is another you that
you need to convince to do boring stuff. That's our own body
fighting against doing that stuff. Will is a finite resource.
koakuma-chan wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
I used to work a non tech office job, one day it became so
unbearable, I was literally falling asleep and was no longer able
to bring myself to do the job at all, because of how much mental
effort was required for even the smallest things. I stood up and
quit.
SoftTalker wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
I once had a job where I would sit in my car in the parking lot
for 30 minutes every morning just mustering the will to walk into
the office.
idiotsecant wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Been there. Man, that's a rough place to be.
siva7 wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
You're not alone.
ljlolel wrote 4 hours 11 min ago:
What was the job?
koakuma-chan wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
Data entry
RangerScience wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
Whatâd you do after that?
koakuma-chan wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
Endured condemnation from others while simultaneously looking
for a proper tech job, took me 8 months to find.
ImPrajyoth wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
You need Drive to get things done. Motivational can only make you start
them.
mallowdram wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
"How words are post-hoc arbitrary retrofits to actual neural thoughts"
A self-help guide about language wholly distinct from thought.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote 4 hours 11 min ago:
I have participated in a company-wide meeting not that long ago and
as a corporate veteran of sorts, I have never heard such a high
amount of new corporate friendly neologisms in such a short amount of
time. Corporate bingo would have been over 3 minutes flat. There is a
part of me that is amused, because people saying those words clearly
did not believe them ( delivery was very flat ), but it does make me
question the future of our language.
My initial pet theory was that is going to be more uniform as a
result, but now... I am not so certain.
mallowdram wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
I began in animation and shifted to gaming in 2001 where we
encountered - against our stated goals of delivery - an audience
rejecting both words and narratives (they thanked us yet we weren't
at all going for this).
So a small team of us stuck together since and we've been
unraveling, decrypting how that initial audience craving might work
out as a next language.
In retrospect it now seems obvious, how the path led here, but then
in 2001, it was a complete mystery.
amelius wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
We can learn from people who go to church every Sunday.
ebiester wrote 4 hours 53 min ago:
I think that's a bit misinformed. Churchgoers get connection to
community and most active churchgoers have positive emotional
connections to times associated with church.
Now, those who go out of obligation and have negative experiences may
agree with you, but church services are some of what I miss most from
leaving the religion.
thomastjeffery wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
As someone who used to be in the latter group, I wouldn't call it
motivation. More like habitual compliance.
I have many complaints specific to my experience of dragging myself
to church, but the experience itself was incredibly neutral.
Y_Y wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
Why would you do a thing you didn't ultimately want to do though?
task331 wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
At the end of the day I don't think there is such a thing. If you do
I think deep down you want to do it, otherwise you wouldn't.
nachox999 wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
how to do something when your mind wanna do it because it's rational
but your emotions don't because it's painful
what_was_it wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
Yes! This is the real question.
I wrote about this (as a tangent, but anyway) recently. [1] TL;DR
"akrasia", procrastination etc. are all forms of ambivalence that are
not nearly as "psychological" and individual as usually presented.
The nausea is in the world itself.
URI [1]: https://asemic-horizon.com/2025/07/28/julian/
giancarlostoro wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
This isn't that they don't want to do it, they do, but they don't
want the effort involved.
atoav wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
Many reasons. Maybe not doing that thing will be bad inthe long run.
Maybe you want the fruit of doing that thing, but cannot enjoy doing
it right now, etc.
A popular example would be sports if you're not very fit. You would
obviously have tangible health benefits if you did it, you may look
more attractive, you may have more energy both physically and
mentally. But since you're a couch potatoe sports is demanding,
exhausting and sucks. Would you do more sports it would suck less or
you might even find it enjoyable, but you don't and that's where you
are.
This puts you in the weird spot of wanting a thing but not wanting to
do what would get you there, even if the reasons you don't want to do
it would vanish if you did it.
You can only really overcome this mentally, e.g. by priming yourself
in certain ways, or by creating situations where you don't have a
choice, because others rely on you, etc.
jon-wood wrote 4 hours 55 min ago:
Regrettably I need money in order to eat food.
task331 wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
so you do want to do it right, because you want to eat
__turbobrew__ wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
Necessity. I donât want to do my taxes every year and I need to
force myself to just sit down and do it.
giancarlostoro wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
Or someone else will force you to sit down for questioning ;)
__turbobrew__ wrote 1 hour 49 min ago:
Yes, there are a number of things in this life where people with
guns show up to your house if you donât do it.
plemer wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
I read this as: how you can motivate yourself to do something you're
currently not motivated to do but "ultimately" believe is worth
doing.
actionfromafar wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
So you don't become weak and overweight, for instance.
thomastjeffery wrote 4 hours 31 min ago:
I find "not weak and overweight" to be the least compelling way to
frame it.
There are a lot of positive implications that become obvious when
you say you want to be strong and lightweight. While "not weak" is
a passive character judgement, "strong" is a constantly available
opportunity.
Y_Y wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
If I hadn't wanted to avoid diet and exercise more than I wanted to
not be weak and overweight then we wouldn't be here.
stuartjohnson12 wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
Who am I but the average weighted sum of my future preferences?
Why should the temporal dimension of my preferences allow them to
suppress other preferences?
willahmad wrote 5 hours 15 min ago:
"I will read it after this 15 min short video"
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