Chronic extreme procrastination issues

[Fowo]

From time to time (once-twice/year) out of nowhere I just stop doing literally anything for 1-3 weeks. It's not depressive or anything, it's just periods of time of extreme procrastination where I can't seem to force myself to do anything productive (basic house chores included). I'm a pretty analitic person and I know very well that it's terrible for me and prevents me from progressing with my life. Still, I'm basically unable to start being productive in any capacity until my resentement about the situation finally grows to a degree the monkey part of my brain can't ignore anymore. Currently just finished another of those periods and just realized I skipped 2 weeks worth of Muay Thai training sessions that I've been attending for few months.

Additionally, I was a smart kid at school so never learned how to learn - just never actually had to spend time to sit down and learn, unless it was 20 new words for language lessons which would take me an hour a day before exam. This makes it extremly hard to get my ass and work on obtaining skills required for me to move on with my career (game developement), not even mentioning basic house chores such as cleaning dishes or cooking, since my brain sees that as extremly tiring and unpleasant. Once I do finally start, if the specific area I'm learning about isn't really really exciting for me, I very quickly start yawning and feeling sleepy like I haven't slept in a week. Even the things I'm excited about get dull after some time.

I tried all the tricks including extreme amounts of caffeine, still though the longest streak of actually learning/practicing my career skills was a month and a half of "at least 9h/week" rule working. Creating a habit didn't work. After that I quickly fell back into the "come on, do something fun now and you'll get back to this tomorrow". 'Just do it' sounds great and all but if you force yourself to 'just do it' few times and then see yourself evade thinking about that phrase for next few weeks like you're Max Holloway in his Kattar fight. Trying to change these to a positive thing in my mind did not work, same with rewards systems. I even tried to consult a therapist but he'd just talk that it may come from some kind of fear. Yeah, no sh*t, a fear of working hard, getting tired and not being relaxed, that's what procrastination is and that's I told you I want to change here.

Ironically, outside of those chronic periods of time my life ain't bad. It aint great either, but I earn enough to rent my own place at 24, can afford technology toys, uber eats and some activities including Tinder dates (although ngl recently made decision to look for a relationship and cut contact with all of my fwbs), going out with mates. My social circle is smaller than I'd like but I'm nowhere near feeling alone and depressed. It's just that I know this procrastination issue is stopping me from changing my career position to the ones with perspective as well as getting a healthy ambitious mindset - so far I am ambitious but unable to do the work part that APPARENTLY is important in getting to your goal.

So, anyone here who dealt with procrastination issues to this degree and managed to pull themselves out of it?

 

[Dr.Suave]

Cant say I have been in your position. If I didnt show up at work for 1 week I would get fired.

Im sorry a therapist didnt help. Try a Life Coach. If rewards didnt work try punishments.

 

[Fowo]

Cant say I have been in your position. If I didnt show up at work for 1 week I would get fired.

Yeah im working from home majority of time so I suppose this might also be a certain factor that supports not doing anything

Try a Life Coach. If rewards didnt work try punishments.

Mate if I wanna get scammed there are more pleasurable ways than a dude screaming at me "FEEL THE POWER WITHIN YOU"

 

[Kotaix]

I most definitely can relate to this. Have I conquered it? No. But I'm getting better.

I know that living alone and not really having anyone to keep you accountable is a big contributing factor.

Another question only you can answer is how quickly do you turn to outlets that provide instant gratification or distraction? How can you minimize those?

If you're being honest, is your worldview nihilistic?

 

[Mike32ct]

Willpower is a finite resource.

I get up early most days. (Earlier than I need to.) If I have a very productive morning, even if my afternoon is so so, I end the day with a W rather than an L.

If I sleep later and plan to work later to “compensate,” it usually doesn’t happen. The day is usually wasted. The only way to “redeem” myself is an early start the next day.

TLDR: Starting early to fight your procrastination right away is going on the offensive. If you start later, you are on the back foot or defensive because now you are carrying some guilt because of the wasted morning hours (on top of the tasks themselves).

 

[Gamisch]

Procrastination is a deadly disease.

Tell yourself tgat that every day. Its not as innocent as it looks. As you say, its almost always someone who is actually quite talented, but his ARROGANCE makes him believe he'll "get away with it", because he probably did got away with it several times.

-make to do lists
-find a punishment/reward system that's realistic and you'll follow through.
-see if there are deeper issues.
-you either self sabotage or grow. Procrastinators (like me) believe there's a sweet spot,a middleground. Theres NOT. You either swim or drown, and waiting for the last moment to fix shyte =slowly drowing.

 

[Fowo]

I know that living alone and not really having anyone to keep you accountable is a big contributing factor.

Yeah certainly, I can quite easily say that the situation got worse since I broke up with my ex at the begginning of the year. At least then I did actually have to clean my house since she (or later some tinder girl when I was still reaping being single) is coming.

Another question only you can answer is how quickly do you turn to outlets that provide instant gratification or distraction? How can you minimize those?

If you're being honest, is your worldview nihilistic?

Ironicly, I always have to be doing something, even if it's not something I necesairly enjoy at the moment. So games, youtube, singing (hobby of mine) - all of those are easily available. First 2 of these often I don't even really feel like doing, it's just my brain choosing them as the most available way to put my focus on something. There's always something my brain will find, I'll even resent to doomscrolling despite not being big on social media. And again, I'll get free of that and then return to those ****ty habits after 6 months.

I'm far from nihilism, I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle between stoicism and hedoism (sounds weird as these are so apart but it's basically a mix of these 2 in different areas of life, emotionally I'm def closer to stoicism except the issue of the thread, although in that philosophy you should strive to reduce emotional positivity more than I do for sure, I find humour in even **** things happening to me).

 

[Fowo]

TLDR: Starting early to fight your procrastination right away is going on the offensive. If you start later, you are on the back foot or defensive because now you are carrying some guilt because of the wasted morning hours (on top of the tasks themselves).

This might be a pretty decent idea that I haven't really tried in recent months. As mentioned earlier I work from home majority of the days so I'm used to going to sleep at 2am (aka the hour I'm writing at right now lol) and getting up at 9 with "hey everyone" message being sent from my phone before I even get out of bed. I could probably do that and combine it with loads of caffeine since its still morning and it won't prevent me from sleeping well later. Food for thoughs, sounds like a thing thats worth trying out and seeing if it helps longterm.
Thanks!

 

[Fowo]

Procrastination is a deadly disease.
Tell yourself tgat that every day. Its not as innocent as it looks. As you say, its almost always someone who is actually quite talented, but his ARROGANCE makes him believe he'll "get away with it", because he probably did got away with it several times.

The bad part is I know how sh*t it is, I'm lucky to know people from very different backgrounds and at different stages of life. I know tons of successful people and those who are at 40 or more and don't do nothing, earning below my country's median.
I wouldn't say it's arrogance necessairly (I've always been trying my ego in restrains and look at things aka my value as it really is). But with the idea of "you'll work it out, just as you have in the past" - yeah that's a strong agree from me, there were loads of situations in the past where I wasn't prepared for what was was required of me but I'd slide through thanks to luck or some kind of ability to improvise. Reality is that's not how it's going to work, now the tough part is convincing my whole brain about it and not just the logical part.

-make to do lists
-find a punishment/reward system that's realistic and you'll follow through.
-see if there are deeper issues.

I'd love to say these things worked out for me, but they did not. Man, my willpower is just tragic in life.
It's actually a little odd how much contrast there is with this vs my willpower with women. Not so long I was rather casually dating this SEA girl who was 100% in my type - tiny, sporty, decent tits and darker skin colour. Sex was, maybe not the best I've ever had, but still top notch. And truth be told I'm maybe max a 7 with around 5-6 kilos too much, average girls I'd be getting from Tinder were ~6-7. She was a solid 9 lookswise, maybe even 9,5 on a good day.
And still despite that I very easily said "I won't be seeing you again" because she was slightly disrespectful towards me (and probably men in general) in few areas. Despite knowing that I won't be getting a girl who was this physically perfect for me for most likely a looong time, and this being mostly casual (it's not like I was looking at this as a red flag for relationship), I still with no problem stopped the whole thing with no regrets.
Yet when it comes to vaccuming house, reducing amounts of coke 0 I'm drinking or putting my ass up to the desk for some learning I'm like a 5 years old kiddo who was forced to sit in front of a chocolate cookie for an entire day - no control.
Yeah idk man, I don't wanna act like a pu55y and cry for pity, I despise that. These are simply the facts that I keep failing to change and while I'm not desperate yet, I certainly would prefer to improve before I do get there

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Comfort is incendiary to all forms of value in this life, I used to watch my parents constantly chase after comfort, I watched them accrue more and more while enjoying life less and less, now they've got themselves into a home that was worth 1 mill 2 years ago and is now worth like 850k, they put retirement money into this, jumped from a house worth 450k to that, it's sad. Now it's set to likely be lost in a wild fire so they don't even have a chance for it to recover in value.

Comfort is the most destructive force you can flirt with as a man, I can keep this force at bay and suffer through anything until there is a woman consistently in my life, I used to just use a flip phone, I probably still would had I not had a girlfriend when I upgraded, "Its 2020 and you have a flip phone?!"

Now I understand suffering is the currency of happiness, bring on the pain baby

 

[Fowo]

Do you really need to keep up Muay Thai training if its primary use was for getting women on Tinder (be honest)?

Mate, I started training it AFTER I already had (I think at the time) 3 fwbs. I started to train it because

• I liked combat sports but tried Taekwondo in the past and there was too much time spent on kata vs actually training kicks/punches
• I hadn't picked up any sport in some time and wanted to improve my conditioning (I really don't like running too)
• self defence skills are always good
• I always had a low tolerance for physical pain and a lot of that is in the head so decided to force-change that

No offence but how do you pick up women with your Muay Thai skills, you open up the meeting with an elbow to the face and a thigh kick? Believe or not, I don't do everything in my life to impress girls, I simply like stuff. It's just that even the stuff I like might get hard to do when it requires some kind of effort - an old hobby of mine which is singing also requires decent amount of work once you get into the details

 

[Fowo]

Relax. It was just a suggestion. If you're slipping into bad procrastination and feeling guilt over ti, there's probably something in your routine that's no longer relevant to your current interests.

I'm chill no worries, now reading my reply I admit it does sound a little heated but that was not my intention.

Yeah I'm not sure tbh since those procrastinations of mine happen irrelevently from me being interested or not in what I'm to do. So I'm not exactly sure I can use your point in my situation.

For now, I got back to sports and dating as well as finally cleaned (almost) my entire apartement. Also trying to adjust my sleeping hours as suggested earlier, although dating makes it kinda hard to go to bed early (while also helping with regular focus on keeping house clean and constant hygene, so it's a double edged sword in a way). Imma focus on this for now and small things such as actually cleaning all the dishes right after using them etc. Plan is to do all of those basic everyday stuff untill I don't really have to force myself to do that anymore and to build up everyday-life willpower. After that gonna move to being productive in my free time so learning and such while also following a slow tempo in increasing intensity.
So basically, the plan for now is to embrace sad reality about the scale of those issues and play the long game

 

[manfrombelow]

I can relate deeply to this OP. Let me know when you've found a solution for yourself.

 

[Fowo]

Are you ADHD?

Whether you are or aren't, you should be looking at dopamine pathways and learning to develop dopamine feedback loops. Reducing dopamine inducing activities like p*rn, social media, video games, TV, etc. can help with this a lot.

No ADHD.

Yeah I'm aware of that and it's certainly a part of the issue. Still it's one thing to know theory and actually do it and the execution is where I'm struggling. I don't really watch that much of porn nowdays knowing how bad it is for the brain, not exactly a problem with social media either (I mostly follow sports news and new releases from bands I'm following).

About games it's more complicated as it's something I'm heavily interested in and, as mentioned earlier, I actually work in game developement. Still, despite worrying in the past if it's possible I'm actually addicted and not aware of that I have noticed that if I have stuff to do I don't feel the urge to run to my computer for a gaming session or anything that could be actually considered addiction - just a hobby that's fun and tightly related to what I'm doing at work (aka game design).
So at this point it would be an incredibly odd decision to stop myself from playing games at all considering that I actually gain work experience to a degree by playing and analyzing them. On the other hand, again, it's also an easily available distraction.
Basically a mess lol.
Hence my current decision to not worry so much about that right now and as my plan progresses simply focusing on reducing how susceptible I am to delaying work I have to do by playing games

 

[Blacksheep]

Make some research on gluten and how it affects your body/brain (ADHD, Anxiety, depression). If you are consuming it, it might be a good idea to remove it from your diet and observe how will you feel after 15/30 days off.

I've been working hard on improving my vitality, focus, and energy levels recently. This is what I know so far that makes a real difference in that.

• Alcohol (this **** is the worst legal drug and can fck your potential in life). I don't even have to say about smoking or any other drug.
• Sleep (there is a bunch of studies showing how proper sleep is crucial for energy, motivation and even for preventing diseases. If you don't sleep well, you should work on that soon).
  • I also like to use isochronic tones for Deep sleep.
  • Also, I do nasal cleaning before sleep, cause my nose gets blocked easily, and breathing well improves my sleep quality.
• D vitamin. Just get some sun.
• Walking. Simple and very effective exercise.
• B12 vitamin. When I found out it was low and started to supplement it, I noticed a good improvement.
• Caffeine. If you are sensitive, try drinking only yerba mate, green tea, or beverages with low amounts of caffeine. Also cycle it so you don't build tolerance. 2 days in, 2 days off | 1 week in and off (anything that works for you).
• Sugar. If you can avoid it, do it. Has some negative effects similar to gluten.

But I could bet that cutting off gluten and sugar for a while would be the best thing based on what you described. Whenever I ate those things, it took me 4 days to get motivation, focus, and energy back. And no kind of stimulant help that much.

Hope it helps.

EDIT:

Just to add. There are some theories that too much social media affects dopamine system and can lead to procrastination, lack of focus and ADHD symptoms. It's a good idea to reduce it, but I think it's not the main solution. Working on the base issue might be more effective and it can give you more energy to do other complementary stuffs like cutting or reducing social media.

 

[Fowo]

Make some research on gluten and how it affects your body/brain (ADHD, Anxiety, depression). If you are consuming it, it might be a good idea to remove it from your diet and observe how will you feel after 15/30 days off.

I've been working hard on improving my vitality, focus, and energy levels recently. This is what I know so far that makes a real difference in that.

• Alcohol (this **** is the worst legal drug and can fck your potential in life). I don't even have to say about smoking or any other drug.
• Sleep (there is a bunch of studies showing how proper sleep is crucial for energy, motivation and even for preventing diseases. If you don't sleep well, you should work on that soon).
  • I also like to use isochronic tones for Deep sleep.
  • Also, I do nasal cleaning before sleep, cause my nose gets blocked easily, and breathing well improves my sleep quality.
• D vitamin. Just get some sun.
• Walking. Simple and very effective exercise.
• B12 vitamin. When I found out it was low and started to supplement it, I noticed a good improvement.
• Caffeine. If you are sensitive, try drinking only yerba mate, green tea, or beverages with low amounts of caffeine. Also cycle it so you don't build tolerance. 2 days in, 2 days off | 1 week in and off (anything that works for you).
• Sugar. If you can avoid it, do it. Has some negative effects similar to gluten.

But I could bet that cutting off gluten and sugar for a while would be the best thing based on what you described. Whenever I ate those things, it took me 4 days to get motivation, focus, and energy back. And no kind of stimulant help that much.

Hope it helps.

EDIT:

Just to add. There are some theories that too much social media affects dopamine system and can lead to procrastination, lack of focus and ADHD symptoms. It's a good idea to reduce it, but I think it's not the main solution. Working on the base issue might be more effective and it can give you more energy to do other complementary stuffs like cutting or reducing social media.

• Little gluten in my diet (I actually love chicken breast and rice)
• I don't drink a lot, especially since I started training again (since the start of June I drank anything alcoholic a total of 5 or 6 times)
• I usually get between 6,5-7,5 hours of sleep (hard for me to go over 7,5, never slept particulairly long)
• I suppliment my vitamins (especially D6 during winter, not that sunny during that time here in Poland) as well as some iron and magnesium
• Yerba we get here is really strong, I used to drink it but over time stopped enjoying the taste of it. Nowdays there are days I dont consume any caffeine and some where I drink a bottle of coke 0 and eat 1 or 2 caffeine pills (200mg each) to get that rush. During winter I'll drink coffee instead of taking pills, too hot now to do that. Overall if I do use caffeine on that day I resort to doing that on the mornings and never do it after 5pm as it starts making it harder to fall sleep (6h of halflife meaning after 12h there's still quater of caffeine in your system yada yada, I read about this in the past)
• No sugar either! I'm still 5-7kg overweight as mentioned earlier but mostly from simply eating too much. It's also something I'm trying to change at the moment, but conditioning is my priority over looks rn.
• Walking is probably something I could and should change, right now the weather is consistently over 32C (thats over 90F) so that'll have to wait though until September or even October.
• Social media, as also mentioned earlier, is not a problem. The only time I'll resort to doomscrolling is during those rare periods, not in everyday life. I'm only using it for ~30mins-1h a day for tracking bands I listen to, sports news and talking to girls if I'm currently in the dating pool.
• I'm not sure if you're nudging in this direction but actually tried Keto in the past and it's not for me, the urge to eat some carbs that I usually don't even like was too great after almost 2 months of keeping at it.

Has to be said, I greatly appreciate the effort and your time my people! Didn't expect so many constructive tips and comments, even if some of them are things that (from my personal pov) don't really apply or work that well for me

 

[BillyPilgrim]

OP i don't know if anyone has mentioned Existentialism yet but it might be worth looking into. This could be your soul telling you there's something missing in your life.

 

[Fowo]

So, first 1-2 weeks of actively focusing on building up life willpower are behind me. Let's sum up how's the plan going:

• Started going to bed much earlier than before (from 2-2:30am managed to move myself to midnight and for now will continue moving to 11pm).
• Everyday I take at least 30min walk. Doesn't matter what hour (did go out at midnight or 1am few times because of temperatures), goal is to keep at it everyday or at least every 2 days.
• Cleaning house at least once per week is going well although I keep doing "ill do the dishes later" bs. Imma try to clean them more often and slowly get to doing that immidietly after using them.
• Sports: didn't do anything this week. I'll be going for a trip abroad with my friends and I ended up being the guy from planning out everything since they can't do anything themselves apparently.
• Spent 5h each day of this week just researching some stuff for that trip. Certainly it stands out that I did the work, procrastination did not appear. Perhaps because of time constraint to figure it out? Not sure if putting artificial time constrains on myself will work but might be worth trying to do that in different areas of my life
• The therapist I saw that one time did recommend me to read on "ifs model" and maybe use that for a self-therapy, still havent done that despite that session being like 3 weeks ago at this point. Should get my ass to it finally.
• Decided to do ~36h fast (counting from the last meal, started yesterday at 6pm). I've done some fasting before (one 5 days long fast) and I remember that as a mediumto hard level test of willpower (yes im hungry but **** that ill drink more water, focus on other stuff you dumb ****) as well as helpful in controlling hunger for some time after it's finished.

So, about the fasting part. Currently seriously considering fasting once per week for 24-36h on weekend if I'm not going out or going for a Muay Thai class or some other sports. Important to note, as I mentioned previously I have some (but not a lot) muscle and about 6-7 kg of fat I need to get rid of. Considering how my main focus now is stamina and not building up posture this is really holding me back.
I prob wouldn't recommend fasting when you're bulking as, while insulin pros still can help, you'd have to compensate for those calories on other day. For me I don't necessairly plan on changing my diet rn, just introducing this for one day where I don't consume anything other than water. I have done intermidiate fasting before but haven't really noticed much difference and I usually eat 2 big meals per day so they were very often within those magic 8 hours anyway.
And, despite the fact fasts should be done with water and maybe some salts to compensate for potassium and stuff, I find it super hard to lay off Coke zero. It shouldn't kill the fast but that's not the point. Either way trying to limit it to 1:1 with water. Hey, baby steps and all