Sounds like a great book that will sell well and sit on bedside tables in piles of books that people really need to read soon.
I’m just married to someone with a dusty pile of books on their bedside table
first draft is done
The most unrealistic part of this comic lol
I’m sorry for posting actual self-help, it’s not my intention to be toxic, but your mention of “first draft” has triggered a kind of fixed action pattern in me, where I am compelled to share this axiom that I find reassuring: The first draft is always perfect.
Oh I didn’t intend on taking a shot at anyone. It was just some glib commentary on how we often struggle to even start doing things.
More like, how to survive without the required psychopathic tendencies.
Yep, so many “self help” books have such great advice like “No energy? Have you tried going for a walk?”. WITH WHAT ENERGY‽‽‽
Sadly a lot of this stuff is a snowball effect though. You just have to push through and do it, and over time it gets easier and easier. I know this is easier to say than it is to do but it’s the sad reality. For some, meds may be what they need to give them that first initial strength to get the ball rolling, some may need support from friends or family or some may be able to just power through despite feeling shitty to do so. Keep fighting the fight! The wall will crumble eventually.
Great job being the sucky books. You completely nailed it and proved why this post exists by saying the same obnoxious things I’ve heard 5,000 times. I have an incurable chronic illness, that wall ain’t crumbling anytime soon short of a major advance in medical science. If I’m too exhausted to get to the toilet without help, how am I supposed to push through that?? Oh wait, I’ve tried pushing through that, you wanna guess what happens? I pass out, fun times.
The sad reality is people like you making assumptions about why someone they do not know is struggling. You are telling me I need to do something that is physically impossible. So yeah, saying it is easier than doing it when it can’t be done. I push through so much crap, an absurd amount of it, but when I hit my breaking point I stop. Pushing through has caused me more harm than good. And then people like you come along and tell me I “just have to push through”. NO! I’m gonna stick to respecting my body enough to listen to what it’s telling me.
Sorry to impose my experiences on your own. It’s true that it doesn’t work for everyone, I’m sorry that you’re not one of them. I hope you get the help you need however it is
(I’ve never read a self help book in my life - I was just using my own personal anecdotal experience to hopefully help others similar to myself)
I also have an incurable chronic illness (not as bad as what you’re dealing with, but could progress to that) and am 3-4 years into trying to fix my mental health and return to a normal life.
I took that previous post to be more relevant to mental illness than a physical inability to get through a normal-ish life.
Unfortunately, what I have learned is that many of the useless platitudes have a kernel of truth to them. You do have to want it, put in the work, and you may need therapy/medical help to get over the hump, but you also have to be realistic and find contentment in playing the cards you’re dealt. And when limited to playing the cards you’re dealt, there may be some humps you can’t get over, or issues you can’t push through yet (or ever).
It’s about accepting that this is the life you have, and even if it’s unfair and difficult, for your life to get better you have to do it within the confines that you’re given. Plus the way you internally react to your body, your mind, and the world around you is perhaps the most dominant factor in how happy or satisfying your life is.
I mean all this is in a very pragmatic sense, not in some hand-wavy spiritual way. Your potential paths through life may be severely restricted, but there is almost certainly a path that you will like better than the one you’re already on. However, the set of paths is unique to you, so you can’t necessarily do what worked for somebody else. You also don’t have an induction manual for yourself, so expect a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning about what makes you tick, and look for any positive incremental changes you can. Things will never be “fixed,” but they could very likely be a little bit better tomorrow if you just knew how to get there.
So much of it is learning about yourself and training yourself to think and process things in a way that benefits you.
A lot of the things that have stuck with me over the years have been aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the Buddhist take on meditation (stepping back and observing yourself, your feelings, and especially your desires), and stoic philosophy (the world can do shit to me, but how it affects my life is largely up to how I react to it).
Again, thinking mostly of mental health here. None of this will fix your condition or mine, but it very likely can change their effect on your mental state.
I’ve had psychiatrists push this crap.
One even refused to write me a prescription and insisted I just needed to get outside more after listening to an hour-long recounting of how my ADHD makes self-care difficult to impossible.
I had a psychiatrist send me off with the helpful suggestion to start working out, I was a lifeguard and literally had to work out to keep my job. He also told me I couldn’t have ADHD because I’d graduated high school, without checking if I actually had. Like I did, but he just assumed that. The kid who showed up twice a week and turned in work never also graduated. My school had an excellent graduation rate, just ignore all the people who graduated unable to read past a 5 year old level.
I’m still undiagnosed, though not for lack of trying. One doc wanted me to stop literally every medication I was on for like an entire month “to get a baseline”, and when I refused he prescribed me something I couldn’t take anyway, and I never went back. I’m chronically ill, that would literally land me in the hospital.
That’s some awful gaslighting.
I have no idea how these people make it through 8-12 years of college without even getting their understanding of common diseases up to a wikipedia level.
Does anyone have any recommendations for books like that? A productivity book written for people who can’t for the love of god stick to any system? I’ve tried a lot of them. Read a bunch of books, implemented gazzilion of systems, but everything seems to last only for a few days (during which I procrastrinate by setting it up), then it holds for a while, before being forgotten almost instantly.
And most importantly, all those books just assume that if you plan your day, you’re actually going to stick to that plan. And once you start moving tasks from one day to the next, the whole thing falls appart…
Outsource.
Use your productivity moments to set up the realistic reminders about must do things and automate what can be automated.
Practice triage. “I’ve let the dishes go for 3 days but if the trash doesn’t go out in the next 3 hours then it will be a week therefore trash comes first”
Enlist cheerleaders that get you and be your own cheerleader to celebrate overcoming things that are obstacles to YOU. “I was feeling physically for a few days which put me behind on doing a bunch of important things around the house, and that made me feel s***** mentally. I fell off the rails with diet, sleep and exercise, and was feeling overwhelmed by all the things waiting for me to get done, but I did triage. I managed to get the trash to the road, and after doing one important thing I also did the dishes that were 3 days behind. I didn’t really crush it the rest of the day, but I feel good about how the morning went.” " Hey, that’s really great. It’s hard getting going again isn’t it? Good for you! Sometimes getting the dishes done is impressive as hell!"
This. Struggling really hard to get through this book because ADHD sucks sometimes…but simple Python to solve annoying problems is awesome.
But I just stumbled through writing my first BASH script to automate an annoying process I kept typing by hand on Linux, and it feels incredible.
I never really was able to summon the initiative to read a book about organization etc.
But I have learned that short term accountability is really effective to me. The system that has evolved and seems to be working okay is:
Every week I have a meeting with my boss to talk about ongoing projects and what specific tasks I am going to complete on which dates in the coming the coming week.
Every night after the kids are in bed my wife asks me if I have completed everything on my list for that day. (She doesn’t need to know what they are)
What works for me is that I’m not overburdening any single person with what’s traditionally considered personal organization, and my boss isn’t micromanaging me, and doesn’t have to follow up with every task. But, I’m still getting the micro accountabilities that give me that sense of urgency because I don’t want to tell my wife I didn’t succeed.
Not a book but I love the Cortex podcast (website, youtube) for a more vibe-centric approach to productivity and it’s great to listen through the back catalogue to see what changed over the years, because neither Myke nor Grey just had a productivity system that was perfect from the start and Grey is very open with his struggles. Episode #101 has a bit of a primer on how to get started, but don’t get hung on the apps discussion and more on the parts where they talk about what if someone needs to organise their life. Yearly Themes is also great, especially since the new year is almost here, and you can expect an episode on it this month.
Little warning upfront though, the target audience is very much people who have a lot of tech in their life. You might need to filter through that, and it’s easy to bounce off because it’s a lot of two relatively rich guys talking about how spending money is solving all their problems. If that’s too much, I understand.
From that podcast I’ve gotten the recommendation of Getting Things Done, which is about the trappings of organising your tasks in your head (especially relevant for people with ADHD, I think) and Triggers, which is about how the environment makes certain tasks easier or harder. Both are good, but both are business books.
https://anti-planner.com/shop/the-anti-planner-how-to-get-sht-done-when-you-dont-feel-like-it/
It’s meant to be used like a field guide while you’re in the shit. It’s broken down by section (overwhelmed, unmotivated, etc) and you flip to that section and it helps you break it down further to get going.
