r/productivity

I'm stuck in this negative cycle and I don't know what to so. I've been trying to get my life together for years now and I had many attempts but I wasn't able to. Now I'm 23 and I'm so far behind I have no choice but to do things. But I just can't get over the grief of not having taking more action in the past. It makes me want to give up. Everyday I wish I was younger. I wish I took more action in the past. And that's causing me to procrastinate more. My screentime is like 15 hours, I spend all day on reddit. I can't let myself think so I distract myself with social media constantly. I need to be studying and finding a job but I can't do it. I can't work when I'm in a bad mood (which I need to work on because it's not sustainable.) I need to overcome this negative cycle but I don't know how. I have thoughts of giving up everyday. I just feel like everything is pointless. How do I get out of this cycle and get things done? And how do I get things done when I'm in such a negative mood? The rumination is literally CONSTANT. When I try to get things done, I have constant thoughts that i'm a loser and that I shouod've done more before so ai just quit and distract myself because of how painful it is. If anyone has experienced this, what helped you quiet your mind?

Hi everyone, I am starting my MBA, and it is completely different than my STEM bachelor's. What is the best organization tool you use for university nowadays? This is very case-based, so it is completely different than what I am used to. I have tried Notion, but the mobile interface isn't very good.

Some things I'd ideally want

- easy UI to navigate

- no bells and whistles

- an accessible to-do list

- good calendar synchronization (also what is the best cal : apple / google / outlook??)

- overall keeping your studies organized in a less overwhelming way

If you have any other recommendations for staying organized i'd love to hear it! I tried a physical planner and a planner on my iPad, but it seems like that isn't for me.

I am a college student with ADHD and set a goal to clean up my house some over the summer. The house has always been a mess since my mom is a bit of a hoarder, but it's significantly better than what it was years ago. It's been three months and it feels like it's worse than before.

At first, everyone told me to focus on my own room because that's the main thing i can control, blah blah blah. I tidied it up, but had virtually no storage other than the closet, so I wanted to get a bookshelf or something. Instead, my family was telling me i should paint my room. I didn't even care that much about the color of my room, but everyone kept telling me it was easy and quick to paint a room. I didn't think things through and started prepping my walls which took a lot of work since i didn't have the right tools at first and my walls are in not great shape. After all that work, I couldn't figure out how to move people/pets in my house around to actually be able to paint. My walls have just been in this ugly, unfinished state for almost two months now. I also still don't have a bookshelf, so nothing has a place and my room is always a mess.

I tried ignoring my room and working on other parts of the house and yard. I did some cleaning and some rooms were a little better, but i haven't maintained them and now they're basically back to how they started. I haven't maintained the yard at all either and now the invasive i cut down earlier have grown back bigger.

I didn't work this summer or see friends very much, I just sat in my room or paced around the house telling myself to do something and breaking down when i wasted another day.

I was supposed to move in to college early yesterday. I got up early to get my things together and just ended up not going. At this point, I've still barely packed anything, so I'm definitely going to forget half of my things.
I don't know what to do and I don't have anyone to talk to about any of this, but I'm so sick of being so incapable all the time.

Recently im trying to do a few things of mine like projects or smtg which require long term effort and consistency but the thing is I somehow always get distracted and the main thing that always distracts me is my phone and that's because I need to do that work on my phone as I don't have a pc or smtg so can someone help me actually stay consistent at doing those I'm trying since like last year and achievevwhat I'm trying to

A system can look brilliant when you're motivated. Everything has a category, every project is perfectly labeled and the dashboard looks great. Then you're tired on Tuesday night and suddenly you can't remember where anything goes and that's when I think you find out whether the system actually works.

I've started asking: could I use this without thinking very hard?

If the answer is no, I'm trying to simplify rather than add another layer. The best systems I've had aren't the most sophisticated ones but the ones that still work when I don't feel like managing them.

I have seen a lot of videos around the book and I am thinking of buying the book.

I am not sure if the title is an appropriate way to look at things but here it is...

I feel like my days kind of fly away from me most days.

I write out a to-do list the night prior and try to stick with it.

I often get all my tasks done, but it feels exhausting.

I usually have 5-8 main priorities for the day. It is usually a combo of work and personal objectives.

I am often working till 5-8pm nearly everyday.

Including weekends.

But I do work from home, so I often do other things like workout, play with the dogs, etc throughout the day.

Not sure of that helps or hurts my situation though…

So it's never a full on working non-stop type of thing.

I am self employed so most days I get calls, emails or un-planable tasks that pop up in my day.

Even my off days I am still lightly working or have to do something due to the un plannable events.

I am Just struggling with what to do, most days I feel like I am overwhelmed, maybe a bit anxious as well...

So basically, I am looking to map out various goals and sore points across a few inter-linked projects. Ideally, I could list a task and map out which goals it would help achieve across said projects, which problems it would help solve, and which other tasks can't be done until after it's completed.

I originally had the idea looking at Obsidian's graph view. The idea would be that the more links a single task has, the more of a bottleneck it is for getting things done, and the higher priority solving it should be.

Is there any tool that works like this? I know a few will ask why I don't just do it in Obsidian, my reasoning is that links in obsidian are designed to stick around. So after completing a task, I would have to go to each other page it's linked to and manually unlink it, or re-link it if the same task opens back up. I'm hoping for something more streamlined and intended to work in this way.

If you do have ideas for how I could achieve this sort of system in a way that's expandable and doesn't require a tonne of upkeep beyond checking/unchecking tasks, I would love to hear about it.

People sometimes talk about being exhausted like it's proof they're productive. But being busy and actually making progress aren't necessarily the same thing.

I just decided to stop watching social media scrolling stuff all together. I posted a comment that got misinterpreted, got flooded by angry replies before I could specify, and got paranoid and just deleted my account. Figured I might as well quit now since I’m starting a lot of schoolwork soon.

I just don’t know what to do. I have lots of things I can do but I just wanna do absent minded things that don’t require thought or energy. Im having a hard time being engaged with stuff because I’m so used to not having to think hard when I wanna relax. On top of that I currently don’t have anyone to hang out with. Normally I have plenty of people to chill with and I can just listen to their chatter and be empty headed but its busy season for everyone I know.

I can’t find any videos that I enjoy in the past weeks so I can’t just switch to long form content and while I find watching streams to be a similar lack of need of brains the streamers I like don’t stream often.

Any tips on things to do that require less mental energy? Or if that’s not a good idea any tips on how to get rid of this listless feeling that prevents me from enjoying my hobbies when tired?

I’m in a place in my life right now where I have the opportunity to become very successful in the future, but I don’t know how to lock in. I’ve just recently graduated high school and I still have problems. I have a very bleak perspective on the world which is partly holding me back in succeeding, I don’t know how to change my worldview. I never had the motivation to study, so I had pretty low marks in high school. I don’t know how to make friends since I’m insecure and socially anxious. If you saw me in school, you would basically see me as the lonely quiet dude that has doesn’t have a reputation of any kind.

I don’t know exactly what I want to do in the future but I think I want to work with cars, specifically tuning and modifying them, like Brabus or Novitec. I know I should pursue mechanical engineering for that but I got poor marks in school and only took college courses, so I feel like my application to Concordia is going to get rejected. Like I said before, I suck at socializing, which applies to networking as well, which is detrimental to financial success. I don’t know how others do it.

I want to be a unique individual, I don’t want to be like other people. I want to be cool, but I don’t put any work into being that kind of person. I don’t have anything interesting about me right now, no talents or anything, I just play video games and fap in my free time, which is having an impact on my self esteem but I feel unmotivated to change, because I constantly feel like the outer world is just as bad.

I need to lock tf in, but I don’t think I recall ever doing that on a consistent basis. Has anyone gone through this phase before. How did you improve?

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This has been annoying me lately.

I’ll have something I actually need to finish, and instead of doing it, I suddenly find 10 other things that seem more interesting.

I’ll check my phone, make food, clean something that didn’t even need cleaning… basically anything except the thing I’m supposed to be doing 😭

The worst part is that once I finally start, it usually isn’t even that bad. Getting started is the part I keep making difficult for myself.

I’ve tried making huge to-do lists and planning my whole day, but I never stick to them for long.

So now I’m thinking maybe I should just pick one thing and finish that before worrying about everything else.

For anyone who used to procrastinate a lot, what actually helped you?

I've picked up like a few solid hobbies/things that will help me in the long run mentally, but like apart from getting a job (im 17 & have been trying for a solid year) what else am i supposed to be doing???

I weight lift 6x a week, I read psychology & overall just good books, im learning my 2nd language for 2+ hrs a day (because I have so much time on my hands) I journal, keep my room tidy, do house work. But now i feel like a literal robot, what else am I supposed to be doing!! im out of college as well until mid September, and there's no clubs around me/sports shit.

Been a SWE for a while and finally put my finger on why I'm always fried by 3pm.

It's not the hours. It's that every single mode of my day routes through a screen. Wake up —> phone. Work —> two monitors. Break -> i look away from the monitor and immediately look at my phone. Gym —> screen on the treadmill, phone between sets. Drive home —> screen in the dash.

My brain never gets the signal that I'm somewhere else now. There's no contrast. So I "rest" for 10 minutes and come back exactly as tired.

I've tried the usual stuff like screen time limits, app blockers, Pomodoro timers. They all handle the *work* half. None of them solve the break, because when the timer goes off and I stand up, there's nothing to actually do with my hands and eyes for five minutes. So I pick up my phone. Every time.

Does anyone actually have a break that isn't a screen? Not "go for a walk" in theory, something you actually do, consistently, on a Tuesday afternoon.

I've always hated that tradeoff where something helps you knock out at night, but the next morning you feel heavy, foggy, and just... not fully awake.

So instead of looking for something that would completely knock me out, I started paying more attention to *how* I was sleeping.

Keeping the same sleep and wake time, cutting caffeine earlier, getting some daylight in the morning, and giving myself a bit of time to wind down before bed.

Nothing crazy. Just trying to make sleep feel more natural instead of forcing it.

And honestly, I'd rather take a little longer to fall asleep and wake up feeling normal than pass out quickly and spend half the morning trying to wake my brain up.

I woke up at 2:41 PM today.

Missed all my classes. Felt like shit knowing I'd just added more to my backlog and wasted half the day.

So naturally, I spent the rest of it consuming everything I could, from Instagram, LinkedIn to anime, while stuffing myself with junk food.

I was drowning myself in dopamine because I didn't want to think about all the shit I had to do.

It was 11:55 PM and I'm lying in bed scrolling Instagram, watching people give motivational speeches and build the things I want to build.

And that's when it hit me.

This is exactly why I stopped using these apps in the first place. I don't want to sit there watching other people build shit.

I want to build shit.

I slammed my laptop shut, got off the bed, put my shoes on and went for a run.

My brain was screaming, "there's too much to do", "just sit the fuck down", "it's too late anyway."

The thoughts kept playing in the back of my head but, I just put my shoes on and went anyway.

3 km at 12:20 AM. It felt fucking amazing.

Came back, took a hot shower, and spent the next hour working on my SaaS.

And somehow, that feeling of being stuck and shitty just disappeared.

All it took was 5 fucking seconds to change the trajectory of my day.

You don't need to suddenly feel motivated. You don't need to have everything figured out. You're going to feel tired, lazy, overwhelmed, and come up with a hundred reasons why you shouldn't do it.

Let those thoughts play. Put the distractions away, get up, and start anyway.

You might be surprised how quickly that shitty feeling starts to disappear once you're actually doing something.

Your day isn't over just because you've wasted half of it.

Now put your fucking phone down and go make your day productive 🔥

Since I easily get lost in the shuffle of daily thoughts and tasks, I constantly need to pause and reflect: "Okay, my goal is X in six months, so I need to do Y to reach Z, while handling W in parallel." I want to document this because, honestly, I forget it all within two days. I’m tired of realizing after a whole week has gone by that I’ve lost my way again because I focused only on whatever was screaming the loudest for attention (usually work).

But I don't know how to organize this. There are also thoughts or insights that pop up out of nowhere, moments of clarity I didn't have before, only to vanish just as quickly. I try to jot them down to help me get back on track, but they end up buried in a conversation with myself or scattered across a random Notion page. How do you organize/capture this kind of thought?

I am having issues retaining information from audiobooks. I am not sure if it is the tone or what the reason is, but they don't hit me like a video does and it feels so slow and less productive, thoughts?

This is an explanation of Atomic Habits as I recall from memory, so it's how I understood and applied it myself rather than a chapter by chapter recap. It got a bit long, so I'll break it into parts. This first one covers the core idea and how to actually start a habit. The next goes into the deeper mechanics.

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The core idea behind Atomic Habits: small micro habits that compound over time to yield big results in the long run.

Belief comes first.

Habits aren't really about the outcomes but about identity. Every time you do a habit, you're casting a vote for the kind of person you believe you are.

So the goal isn't "I want to achieve X," but "I am the person who does X," and the habit becomes proof of it.

This is why the same amount of effort to quit a bad habit plays out differently for different people:

The one without that belief says: "I'm trying to leave this habit," or "I'm focusing on stopping that." It's like admitting that the habit is still a part of them.

The one with belief in their identity says: "I don't do this."

The first person still believes they haven't changed. The second one believes in their new identity and the behavior follows.

Just like Good habits build the identity you want, the bad ones can be removed the same way: notice and observe the habit clearly, recognize it's not the part of identity you're becoming, then consciously reject it.

How to start a habit and stay consistent:

Set up your environment first by removing the things that trigger the bad habits while adding the ones that cue the good ones in your line of sight which evokes your visual receptors to act on habits linked to the environment.

Eg: Want to drink more water? Keep a bottle on your desk, which cuts the friction for going to get it.

eg: Want to workout in the morning? Keep your dumbbells where you'll see them in morning when you're up.

Create a flow by chaining your habits so the sequence is pre decided instead of something you have to think about in the moment.

Try "When I do X, I do Y, then Z."

eg: When I wake up, I get up immediately and stretch, then go for my workout.

eg: After I'm fresh, I'll have a healthy breakfast, then start with my first work sprint.

Make sure to be consistent. You don't need to adopt dozens of habits at once. Take one, do it daily and you can always add more once you're used to previous ones.

Progress by 1% each day. Try to be 1% better than yesterday. It keeps you improving and makes each time feel satisfying.

Let it compound over time. Don't judge a habit by a single day, instead judge it over the trend. Don't focus on how much better you'll be tomorrow instead focus on who you become if you keep this up daily for 3 months, the next 6, then a year.

All I need to do 80% of my job is Microsoft Word. I watched this Yt video that said the answer to procrastinating is to do absolutely nothing so that the prospects of working sounds better than watching paint dry.

Has anyone tried this?

Im self employed and work from home. I find I have no structure. Watch movies and shows, I can be so incredibly lazy and justify it to myself at times.

Maybe if I turn off everything that gives me temporary pleasure, I'll end up doing something that actually matters... I realize I could be doing this right now but... I'll start tomorrow. F, I hate myself sometimes lol