I have severe severe ADHD.

There is only one way out of procrastination for me.

Rules. Rituals. "OCD" like rules. These rules are born out of personal pain, trauma and disappointment with myself. Stupid Rules that I must follow even when it doesn't make any sense to follow. Inviolable rules. Unbreakable rules.

Here is how a rule is born. Be natural and live your life without any rules. Whenever you screwup and feel a deep emotional sense of failure you create a permanent rule that lasts for ever as long as you live. The beauty about this approach is that the Pareto principle kicks in. 90% of your screw-ups come from 10% of causes. As you start integrating rules into your life your life becomes dramatically better. Your mind doesn't care about intentions. It understands intentions but it bypasses them. Your mind doesn't care about rules that you import from other people. It doesn't care about rules that are not deeply connected to your personal experience. If you find yourself violating rules repeatedly you must discard them for they are not for you at this stage of your life.

There is only one key insight regarding procrastination for me.

Procrastination only occurs when there is something else more important that is in a "live" state in the background. Procrastination is like the branch of a tree. The trunk is the main task.

If you get rid of the trunk the branch cannot exist. This was the key insight for me.

The only reason you are browsing HN or Reddit or Facebook is because you have something else in the other tabs that you are not doing actively.

For example: You need to work on your PhD thesis. You have it open in one tab. This gives your mind the permission to procrastinate via HN/FB or watch motivational videos without feeling guilty.

So, if you install a tab limiter and limit yourself to one tab or two tabs where the second tab is for listening to music, you will be forced to close the "work" tab. Now you won't enjoy reading HN or FB anymore because you are consciously not "working" on anything else.

Coming back to RULES.

I frequently run out of gas and then I panic and reach the gas station just in the nick of time. I find this very annoying. I hate the feeling of the anxiety because it is self inflicted.

The rule that I created is that I must always (regardless of the circumstance) as soon as the fuel reaches below 20%. I have to get it to 100%. There are no exceptions.

After I created this rule, I never ever ever encountered a situation where I was running out of gas.

For a normal person this seems very unimportant and ridiculous. And it is. But for me I feel great joy and happiness because I know I avoided so much personal pain and anxiety just with this one simple rule.

Coming back to conquering procrastination.

The way my mind works is that it will at any moment ALWAYS choose the most interesting option of the available options automatically. And I don't really have any control over my mind. I can't tell it to focus any more than you can you tell a husky or a raccoon or a wild monkey how to behave properly. This is something you need to respect and understand.

Strangely, my mind follows rules without any issue. These rules must be formed out of personal experience and must come from deep within and must be acceptable to my mind ahead of time.

This is what I do. I create a ritual that combines two different things: This ritual is unbreakable and it can't be reasoned away. I follow this ritual even when it doesn't make any sense. Especially if it doesn't make any sense because the alternative is this: I will lose my job/friends/social support/money and will end up on the street or worse.

So, the choice is really between: a) Following the ritual and choosing life b) Self Destruction or Death.

1. Rules + 2. Cutting off the Tree Trunk == Life.

So here is how I create my work ritual.

There are only two major sources of distraction: 1. Phone 2. Internet. 3. (minor) chatter inside my head.

Step 1. Setup constraints.

I use the Forest App/Flora App to disable my phone for 2 to 3 hours.

I use the tab limiter to limit myself to a max of 2 tabs. One for the main task and the second one to LISTEN to Youtube music.

Step 2. Rules that are acceptable to my mind.

These are the Rules.
a. I can choose to work on the main task.
b. I can choose to not do the main task and do nothing.
c. I can choose to not do the main task and listen to music.
d. I cannot browse on multiple tabs. If I do want to browse HN, I can do so but not within the 2 to 3 hour time window.
e. There are no restrictions. I can read HN all day. I can watch Netflix all day. I can only not do them in this particular time window.

Because I already decided these rules in advance ahead of time and these rules are born out of personal pain my mind accepts it. Another reason it accepts it is because it is cognizant of the fact that these rules have worked well in the past and I am building a new track record of success. Past success breeds more self confidence regarding future success.

Coming back to the most interesting option theory. My mind always chooses the most interesting option out of available options.

So, lets say I want to do my taxes today. This is work. Which means it triggers ritual in my mind. I don't work without a ritual and that's the rule.

I create a 2 hour major window which contains the above mentioned rules. Because the option to browse HN/FB is not there my mind has a choice of choosing between doing nothing or doing taxes. Doing taxes is very boring but only when compared to reading HN. Once my mind realizes that the only options are doing nothing or doing taxes it will choose doing taxes delightfully.

And here is one final key: The 2 to 3 hour window seems big but 2 to 3 hours passes by quickly like a few mins. And when you realize you are getting things done you will be filled with happiness, joy and accomplishment because you KNOW how miserable you felt when you procrastinated on things and achieved nothing.

The 2 to 3 hour window is a major window. And within this major window you have minor Pomodoros. You spend 5 mins creating a precise 30 mins action plan and you start your pomodoro. Even if you are distracted it is fine but how will you get distracted and by what? Your phone is disabled and you only have 1 tab. You will be distracted by your internal chatter which is an issue but you will be massively more productive and much happier when you compare yourself to your past self.

This HN Story was posted 11 hours ago. I am only posting a response now. Why? I was working within a Time Window of 5 hours that blocked out my use of HN.

If you struggle with ADHD or procrastination I urge to try creating rules and see how your life changes for the better. I seems very stupid and obvious but it worked really well for me.