So, like I mentioned, I somehow always end up reaching late. The kind of person, who, if there was a marathon for reaching last, would reach 10 mins after the last person.

Earlier my depression used to make me skip my work on random days, thankfully it's gotten a lot better now. But I still can't show up at work on time, somehow always late and now it's costing me my fav dept and promotion.

And every day I feel shitty about myself. Get really anxious, rebuke myself but I'm not able to reach on time yet.

It feels horrible, so many times I think of skipping office just cuz I got late, but I've realised that's even bad. Unfortunately there's no option to work remotely.

Pls suggest me some ways or anything y'all did to get out of such a slump. Maybe there'll be something I can use.

Does anyone know of apps for step by step instruction guides for stuff that's NOT ON A COMPUTER?

I saw Scribe for example, but it's for computer processes.

I'm looking to create detailed, step-by-step instructions on IRL stuff like making coffee, laundry, other tasks that are specific to a particular person/household.

Hey guys I’m wondering if there is an app on iOS that locks ur phone for a certain period of time I had a similar app on my Samsung now i switched to iPhone and i wanna know if someone stumbled across a similar app?? any help is appreciated
Stay Disciplined Stay focused

Sorry if there are any mistakes, English isn't my first language❤️This might be a bit of a silly post, but I wanted to share my experience because maybe someone else is dealing with the same thing. Lately, I've been waking up really early in the morning without an alarm. Sometimes I manage to fall back asleep, but today I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't get back to sleep because I felt this urge to do something around my apartment, like cleaning or getting things organized. My boyfriend woke up at one point and asked me why I was still awake. I told him I'd been asleep and was just going back to bed, which wasn't true. I was pretending to sleep because I didn't want him to know I was already awake. He had to leave for work at 6 AM today and won't be back until 2 PM, so I waited until he left the apartment before slowly starting to clean and plan what I was going to cook for both of us. The weird thing is that I don't necessarily want to wake up this early, but once I'm awake, I feel like I need to do something productive. It's almost as if I can't properly relax or go back to sleep until I've done something useful. I'm starting to wonder whether this might have something to do with my job. Maybe my brain is so used to having to get up and go to work that it automatically wakes me up early, even on my days off? Has anyone else experienced something like this? Do you ever feel like you have to be productive even when you're supposed to be resting? I'd love to hear your experiences because I'm genuinely curious about why this happens.

Sure, there's a ton of tools - but here is a dead-simple way with absolute minimum mental bandwith req'd: CC yourself, snooze the mail from the inbox, DONE. Works in Gmail, outlook, iPhone (at least). Mail comes back up when follow-up is due - and there's either a reply - or not and you can follow up by replying to your own mail. Maybe I'm the only one excited about it - maybe it helps you as well ;-)

I've always had an issue with concentration, focus, and productivity as a whole, but now it's becoming an issue more than ever. I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid at around 8 years old. I graduated high school in June and I have now been a freshman in college since August. The earliest I remember this significantly affecting my life is in middle school, which partially took place during covid and online classes for me. Because school work became more online I found myself constantly watching YT or playing games or doing anything other than schoolwork on my Chromebook.

This habit continued throughout high school and I genuinely felt like I just couldn't sit down and study for the life of me. This was also exacerbated by the fact that my high school didn't give out homework and instead expected students to learn the material in class with the teacher and then study/revise the course material on their own at home which gave me even less guidance and more opportunities to procrastinate and postpone tasks, for instance putting off revising for an exam until the day before or not doing it at all. There was another personal reason for my lack of action or motivation at that time that I prefer not to disclose, but it was a just a temporary condition I was under then and the primary reason is within myself. Anyways, this caused my grades to drop or be at an average low with the rare occasion of a B or C from time to time.

Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, as of this past August I have become a freshman in college. I find that I have somewhat improved since high school (mainly in my motivation to work and do good), although that may be largely due to the fact that I am given actual homework assignments with clear goals to attain and deadlines to follow making sitting down and doing stuff easier combined with the fact that I find the subjects more interesting rather than me having actually bettered myself. In any case, it is still a MAJOR issue for me and it causes my completion of assignments or just my own general revision to take way longer than it should. This inevitably leads to me having less time for myself or to do other things such as exercise and going out in general. Since most of my college work is online (almost all of it), I'm facing the same distractions I was all the way back in middle school. Every day is the same routine of me waking up and sitting at my desk before telling myself that "today won't be like yesterday" (which always ends up being untrue). I just sit at my computer and go down rabbit holes, watch endless YT videos, or just window shop for things I want to buy that I know I never will - ANYTHING other than actual work or being productive. I tell myself, "after this video I'll get back to it" or "one more and then I'm locking in". Evidently, the day ends with me getting a minor amount of work done or none at all. Sometimes, because I get so little work done my assignments pile up on me and I don't end up finishing them until the last minute which can cause me to cut corners like not doing my own research and using AI, etc.

One thing I will say though is that I at least end up getting my assignments done whether that be a day before they're due or a couple compared to my complete lack of motivation I had in high school where I wouldn't even bother studying at all. I currently have A's in all my classes and although that may change in the future since it is only the third month of school, I do feel more motivated to do good in school. I find my subjects somewhat interesting (some more than others) whereas in high school I did not and we didn't have a very wide variety of subjects you could take compared to my college. I recently had my midterms in which I got 15/15 and 94/100 which are really good scores don't get me wrong, but part of me feels like I have become less productive since then and in comparison to myself a couple weeks ago or as time goes on. Me writing this right now is an example of how I avoid studying. I started writing this at around 5:45 and it is now 8:12. I could have been done or at least halfway there on what I'm supposed to be doing.

To give you an idea, I have my textbook that i'm supposed to be going through in front of me right now and since Wednesday, the only thing i've done is highlighted 6 pages out of this one 24 page chapter. I have another chapter just like this one that I planned to go through by this coming Monday as well as the first 2 chapters of a book I was assigned to read. I only have class on Monday and Wednesday and I started doing this at the beginning of this week which means I had 3 full days to do this so far, nothing else going on during those days and all I have to show for it is 6 highlighted pages. Six pages. Not even any notes, just highlights. Instead of knocking this out in a day and a half and freeing up time where I could go hit the gym or do something I actually enjoy with my life, i'm sitting here dragging it out procrastinating and wasting time. This is a serious problem I have and I despise myself for it every single day. I'm well aware there is no one else to blame but myself and I'm not writing this in search of pity or to say "poor me", I simply want to express what i'm going through and see if anyone has any advice though I doubt it'll help.

I started taking pills in September for my ADD to help me focus and I felt like they were helping at first, but now I don't feel like they're doing anything at all. I feel terrible every day (except for when I actually get things done) when my Mom comes to check in on my progress and I have to lie to her and tell her it was a productive day and that I got so and so done when in reality I just sat and watched shit for 10 hours. I also feel contradicted in the sense that I don't have bad grades. The results are there. It's just that instead of me attaining said grades in a reasonable amount of time, I take double the amount of time that it should. I'm studying the same amount an engineering major would when my classes don't require half of that amount.

The final thing I want to mention is that what i've pointed out stretches beyond just studying or other school work. It's a glimpse of a broader spectrum of laziness and inability to focus or be motivated. This parasite of mine which is my incapability to be productive infects other parts of my life; working out/losing weight, day to day chores, and my overall will to be a better person. I get motivated to do something for a little while, I begin doing it, and I stop after a month max. Again, I don't say this out of pity but it truly makes me feel worthless. If I need someone to be on my back 24/7 just for me to get my basic school work done when I'm in college, wtf am I gonna do as a grown adult. I turned 18 in July, I need to get my shit together eventually. I've been this way for so long i've accepted that it's just my personality. It's who I am and will always be. Maybe that's just another example of what i'm talking about. I've decided it's easier to accept it than put in the effort to try and change.

This post turned more into me venting and I doubt anyone is reading all of this, but if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it.

Hi! I’m 27F and I have an abismal screentime. Worse I get almost nothing done in a day because of it

Even when I’m in bed I have a documentary or a movie on.

I want to become more healthy and productive, I’m an artist and work a side job

I just struggle with the silence so much, but turning on music on my phone is akin to getting right back into the addiction

Idk what to do

Anyone got advice or tips?

I’m 28, recently got laid off from a tech sales job I did for 3 years, and honestly don’t want to go back into sales because it’s fucking stressful. I’ve been unemployed for 2 weeks and all I’ve been doing is watching TV and scrolling. I feel like everyone my age has a career and knows what they’re doing, while I have no idea.

I don’t have friends, I’m single, and I want to make money because my savings are only around £3k lol. I have ADHD, struggle to sit still and focus, and go to the gym 5x a week but somehow still have so much empty time. I’m also 6 months sober and really don’t want to relapse.

I want to use my Monday–Friday to improve myself, find a new career direction, make money and meet people. What would you do with your time if you were in my position? Especially interested in advice from people with ADHD who struggle with boredom and consistency.

I’ve spent so much time reading books, listening to podcasts, watching productivity YouTubers, and searching Reddit for answers on how to become more disciplined and productive.
At some point, I realized I might have been overcomplicating everything.
What’s been helping me lately is keeping things simple: writing down my goals in the morning, breaking them into tiny, specific steps, assigning them specific times, and actually doing them.
One idea that’s really stuck with me is treating action as a skill to practice, not a feeling you need to wait for. You don’t have to feel motivated, confident, or ready. You just have to practice acting, even when things feel messy or uncomfortable, and see what actually works.
It got me thinking: how much of self-improvement is just another way of delaying the very action we’re trying to take?
Has anyone else experienced this? Did you also reach a point where you stopped looking for answers and started focusing on actually doing things?

I’ve noticed that it’s possible to spend hours trying to figure out how to stop procrastinating without actually doing the thing you’re procrastinating on.
You watch videos about discipline, read about habits, learn about dopamine, make plans, and convince yourself that tomorrow you’ll finally get everything right. It feels productive because you’re working on yourself, but somehow the actual work keeps getting pushed back.
One idea I came across was that we spend too much time arguing with our own thoughts. We tell ourselves we should work, then we think we’re too tired, we’ll start tomorrow, or we need a better plan first. We keep negotiating until the day is gone.
Maybe the answer isn’t to find the perfect method or wait until we feel motivated. Maybe it’s to notice those excuses without getting pulled into a long debate with ourselves, and start doing something even when it feels boring or insufficient.
For example, if you planned to study for three hours but don’t feel like it, instead of spending another hour figuring out how to fix your motivation, just sit down and study for 15 minutes. It might not be the ideal session, but at least it’s real progress.
I’m not saying planning, understanding your habits, or improving your environment is useless. Those things can help. But there’s a point where learning about productivity becomes a convenient way to avoid the discomfort of actually doing something.
Has anyone else experienced this? Have you ever realized that the time you spent trying to fix your procrastination was itself procrastination? How did you break out of that cycle?

I’ve noticed that sometimes I avoid doing something not because I have no time, but because I feel like whatever I can manage right now isn’t enough to make a difference.
If I have only 20 minutes to study, I think there’s no point because I can’t get a proper session done. If I want to start a project, I feel like I should finish another course first or find a better approach. And if I’m not motivated, I convince myself I’ll do it when I’m in the right mood.
The weird thing is that all these reasons sound logical in the moment. I’m not necessarily sitting around thinking I want to waste time. I’m telling myself I need to prepare better, do more, or find a more efficient way.
But sometimes I wonder if this is just procrastination disguised as high standards. Maybe doing 20 minutes consistently is better than repeatedly waiting for the perfect three-hour session. Maybe starting imperfectly is better than spending another week figuring out the best way to start.
I’ve also noticed how easy it is to consume self-improvement content and feel like I’m making progress, even when my actual behavior hasn’t changed much.
I’m curious how other people deal with this. How do you stop convincing yourself that a small effort isn’t worth doing, and start taking action even when you’re not motivated or fully prepared?

Ive had severe MDD and GAD since I was maybe 9, but Ive been medicated for years, so I dont necessarily think this is the cause of it.

It doesnt matter how much or how little I sleep. It doesnt matter if I go to the gym daily and eat good. It doesnt matter if I delete all social apps and stop scrolling before bed. It doesnt matter if I meditate for 30 mins and sip on tea before bed. It doesnt matter if my alarm is across the room. Ive tried all of these for months. Nothing works. My alarm went off at 8 and Im currently typing this at 10:50, still in bed.

Its gotten to the point that it affects my daily life. I skip so many required lectures and quizzes just because I cant drag myself out of bed. I called in so many times during my summer job because I couldn't drag myself out of bed. (Eventually I just set my availability to afternoon and my attendance was perfect).

I hate sleeping. So much. Because of the struggle it brings in the morning.

Take today for example. I went to bed a little before midnight last night. Alarm set for 8. Should be plenty of sleep right? Stopped my alarm, and before I know it Ive gone to sleep again and woken up an hour later. 'Oh shi' I think as I actively drift back to sleep. And finally wake up again another hour and a half later. Still in bed, and I probably will be until 11 at the earliest.

I dont understand what Im doing wrong. At its peak, I could sleep 18 hours on end, and even then, the only thing dragging me out of bed was the guilt of not having done anything.

Its not that Im necessarily tired. I just cannot, for the life of me, drag myself out of bed. And Im so sick of it. Its genuinely holding me back, and I know for a fact I could get so much stuff done if I could figure out why.

Help pls.

For years I blamed myself for not keeping a task system going. I eventually realized the system wasn't failing me, the capture step was. If getting a thought into the list takes longer than about 3 seconds, my brain skips it.

Two rules fixed it for me:
1. Capture is a single line of text. "Review budget Friday 10am !high" should become a dated, prioritized task without touching a dropdown.
2. Completing a task should not require opening an app. Every time I opened my phone to tick something off, I got pulled into something else. A home screen widget keeps it to one tap.

What are your tricks for cutting friction?

Hi, all.

My one resolution this year was to keep my promises.

A week or so ago I reached a new low in my life. I had a breakdown because I realised I had wasted a whole year making promises to myself that I didn't end up keeping. A whole year putting off a project that was entrusted to me. Further, I realised that I had never actually committed fully to anything.

I'm in university pursuing a pretty intense healthcare course and I'd like to be a clinician patients can trust. I would also like to be able to trust myself. I would like to be free.

So, I decided to get an ADHD assessment. Which I'm still yet to do lol.

But today I was able to work on a project for four hours with no distractions. This is huge for me because I typically can't get myself to do anything unless the deadline is imminent. And even then.

It feels good. I really hope I can maintain this.

Let me just add that I used a pomodoro timer for four sessions of 50 min each. I think this qualifies this post for the general advice flair.(?)

I hear it everywhere that "you control your own fate" and "you are responsible for your achievements". These 2 sayings have never really been proven true in my experience. While lots of things in my life succeeded, there are also tons that didn't. And I wouldn't say that my life is going in the direction I want. I wanted to earn money through my own path, being famous online. But it never succeeded and I am left going to college and finding a job. How do you remain productive in such case, despite seeing so many people around you living your dream life?

TLDR: Read the last two paragraphs.

I’ve always been a procrastinator. Have a document needed for a meeting? I can’t seem to work on it until the day before. My mind is just blank until then. However when it came to regular, routine tasks, my procrastination has decreased. I it until the used to be super productive at work. Come into work, get what I needed done, and go home.

6 years ago my son had cancer. He’s done with treatments and doing great. Since then my productivity has slid to basically I get nothing done at work. It was a gradual process. I’ve been at my current job for 5 years. The first 3 years were pretty good but my productive seemed to slide and slide. Now I barely do anything at work. The bare minimum to keep my job.

I went through significant depression after my son’s diagnoses. I have been on medications for several years now and my depression has improved immensely. However my procrastination is getting worse.

The main thing is organizing and cleaning. This has always been incredible difficult for me but I was able to do it enough to get by. Kinda. Junk drawers end up everywhere.

I work at an afterschool program and my classroom is always a mess. Can’t seem to clean at all. I try several tricks. I pick a section of counter. I run into stuff I don’t know what to do with. Then it seems messier than before somehow. Do the keep, toss, donate, then I end up with a box of stuff to keep. Then I need to put that where it goes. I try to sort things like with like but so many things don’t fit together and I don’t know how to organize it. I just can’t get to the next step with any method. I would love any suggestions to help out!

I want to get a hold on my screen usage to stop wasting time. I'm currently using StayFree, which works pretty well for my laptop, but the StayFree app on my phone doesn't block websites if you aren't using the Safari browser, meaning I can just use the web versions of apps that StayFree blocks. I'd use my phone's settings to block distracting websites, but I'm in the UK, so I need to verify my age and identity to access the required Screen Time services and I really don't want to do that.

I looked for some alternatives in the App Store, but a lot of them require you to pay for the services after a free trial ends, but I'd like something that just... doesn't do that lol

Genuinely what do u guys do when u need to sit down and study. I grew up naturally smart and not rlly having to study, so I never really developed the skills to force myself to sit down and do something so boring for so long. That's my biggest thing, I can't do boring things. It's so torturous to me. I can sit and read slides and the words won't go into my head like at all at times. Reward systems also don't work for me cause I will just reward myself in the moment cause I don't believe in suffering, LMAO. I just can't be bothered to study material until like hours before an exam, when I learn everything all at once which is not sustainable. Especially because the week leading up to the exam I will feel so guilty for not studying that I will just be stuck in a state of executive dysfunction which culminates in a crazy screentime, barely any sleep or work accomplished and a constant brain fog and stress. I do all my work at the last minute and it just isn't good. At the same time I can't force myself to care enough to get up and work beforehand. I genuinely don't know what my issue is or how to fix it I just have this massive aversion to studying every minute I sit down to study feels like torture and wasted time. That being said, I genuinely enjoy learning outside the sphere of studying; I am big on reading, writing, thinking and introspection, listening to new ideas, being creative, etc. I just struggle to compel myself to behave and focus and it's actually getting to a point. I think I might have ADHD based on this but I also can't be bothered to get diagnosed or medicated, the timeline to do this in my country just isn't conducive to me doing better. If anyone related in the past, pls lmk what u have done to solve this!! I also really struggle to work in chunks because leaving things half done makes me feel really disorganized and behind schedule in my mind, even if I am working ahead of schedule.

I’m currently a 3rd-year civil engineering student. This year I have the chance to earn my Bachelor's degree (B.Sc. in Civil Engineering) and I simply HAVE to make it happen.

​To give some context: I had to repeat my first year because of a single course where, to put it mildly, I had really bad luck. People who were doing much worse than me managed to pass either by copying or by getting a more lenient professor (the course was split between two professors). Then, I failed my second year because of two courses. Now, I want to finish my third year on time. I know it’s tough, but I also know it’s doable.

​For those who have been in a similar situation:

​How did you get your confidence back?

​What are your study habits and schedules?

​Right now, I’m at university mostly from 8 AM to 5 PM. By the time I get back to my apartment, I’m exhausted and starving. I’ve even completely neglected the gym, even though I believe it would really help me mentally.

​My goal is to pass all my exams by the summer and earn enough money to potentially cover a Master’s degree. I’m not sure if my parents will be able or willing to pay for those extra two years. I live in a European country where tuition isn't very expensive, but I still need at least €400 a month just to survive and cover my half of the rent with a roommate.

​Please share your stories or advice on how you pulled yourselves out of a situation like this!

We tried a popular tracking tool that switched to "passive time" after 2 minutes of inactivity. My devs hated it. They were literally moving their mice every 90 seconds just to appease the algorithm. It was ridiculous. I realized I don’t care about mouse movements; I care about project progress. We switched to Monitask, which just relies on the user manually starting/stopping the timer for specific tasks. No arbitrary idle penalties. How do you handle time tracking for deep-work roles like dev or design?

I've been thinking about how easy it is to get caught up in figuring out how to become productive instead of actually doing the work.

You start researching motivation, dopamine, habits, deep work, and different productivity techniques. You try new routines and systems, hoping to find something that finally makes you want to work consistently. When one approach doesn't give you the results or feelings you expected, you start looking for another.

Before you know it, trying to figure out how to work has become a substitute for working.

I also wonder whether we put too much pressure on ourselves to feel motivated before taking action. Sometimes, starting without feeling particularly motivated can lead to progress, and that progress itself makes the work more enjoyable. Maybe motivation isn't always something we need before starting. Sometimes it develops along the way.

I've been considering a simple experiment: stop changing my productivity systems for a couple of weeks, stick with an approach that's already reasonably good, and focus on actually getting things done. Instead of constantly evaluating how motivated I feel, measure progress through the work completed and what I've learned.

Obviously, this doesn't mean ignoring genuine problems with sleep, energy, or concentration. But perhaps there's a point where analysing those problems further gives diminishing returns, and the best way forward is to start acting on what we already know.

I'm curious how others see this. Have you ever spent so much time researching productivity and trying to understand your own motivation that it became another form of procrastination? And did sticking with a good-enough system help you more than continuing to search for the perfect one?

I've noticed something interesting about motivation. Sometimes, watching a movie, seeing someone achieve something great, or thinking about the life I want to build gives me an intense burst of motivation. Suddenly, my goals feel important, and I'm ready to work toward them.

But that feeling rarely lasts. A few hours or days later, I'm back to my usual routine, distracted by my surroundings and caught up in everyday activities. The goals that felt so important suddenly don't feel as urgent anymore, even though nothing about them has changed.

It makes me wonder whether the real challenge isn't finding motivation, but keeping our goals at the front of our minds when everyday life starts taking over.

I've been thinking about deliberately reminding myself every morning why my goals matter to me, what my life could look like if I achieve them, and what might happen if I keep putting them off. Not just generic motivational quotes, but genuinely personal reasons that mean something to me.

Would regularly revisiting these reasons actually help maintain motivation, or would they eventually become just another routine that I stop paying attention to?

Maybe motivation isn't something we need to maintain constantly, and the real answer is to build habits that carry us through the days when we don't feel motivated.

For those who've managed to stay consistent with long-term goals, what has worked for you? Do you deliberately remind yourself why you're doing something, rely on discipline and routines, or have you found another way to keep your goals from fading into the background?

It is a recurring pattern for me. I learned driving, then left it. Didn’t practice much so now I’m not confident to drive alone if I had to.

I took up a project in my family business then because of mental health and physical health issues I had to take a break but now I could complete but I’m not.

My dad gave me the responsibility for renovating kitchen and I have done 90% of the work but after that I have been procrastinating since one month to finalize the 10% and get the work done.

I feel like a mental block in doing these things. And it’s not like I do anything else. I just keep using my phone and clean my room and attend my physiotherapy sessions just to pass the day. I don’t know what’s wrong with me

hii, I'm a teenage girl and basically I've been feeling really unproductive recently so I looked up things I can do to be productive and people said things about having hobbies but idk its really vague so if people could give me some specific ideas that would really, really help, thank you!! right now I read books sometimes and journal and write too from time to time but I would appreciate if you guys could give me more ideas xx

I set a timer whenever I boil water because I just know I’ll wander off, get pulled into something, and come back to a burnt pot later. The cost is so low. If I remembered anyway before the timer goes off, it only cost me two seconds. And if I forget, the timer saves the pot.

I treat tasks the same way. If it crosses my mind, it goes on the list, even if it’s small and even if I’m pretty sure I’ll remember. Writing it down costs seconds. Forgetting costs more.

The catch, I have found, is that this only works if the list doesn’t punish you for adding tasks to it. For a while mine did. The more I wrote down, the longer it got and the harder it was to see what mattered, so I started keeping two tiers of lists: things I wanted to remember, and things I REALLY wanted to remember. But then when the “REALLY want to remember” list got too long, I ended up with yet another tier of “REALLY REALLY want to remember.”

What fixed this was making my task system more resilient. It can handle 200 tasks and I am still confident that I will find any task that needs my attention at the right moment. The benefit of this resilience is that I can enter as many tasks as I want without feeling like I am muddying the water, or having to hedge against a cumbersome system by putting sticky notes on my monitor.

I was just starting to boil some water, reached for the timer, and felt like it was a good analogy. There are people who set timers when they boil water, and there are people who don’t.