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Wellness Wednesday for June 14, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Any advice from overcoming a particular pattern of procrastination where I put off something -> eventually start it which makes me feel stupid for not starting earlier -> causes me to put it off more after minimal progress?

Many approaches to this:

  • Pharmacological: Executive function in a pill, adderall, lisdexafetamine, modafinil, pick your stimulant (poison). Congratulations, spreadsheets and doing your taxes is now fun

  • CBT-esque: Stop blaming yourself for failures, understand that most people are behind on their todo lists. If it wasn't urgent yesterday, it can't be that urgent today. If it's worth doing well, it's worth half-assing (perfectionism trap). This addresses the 'feel stupid' part of your procrastination loop.

  • Mind hacks/habit building: Do this slowly, but maybe make a habit of 1 task at 6PM every night. Again re: CBT, don't blame yourself if you miss a night or two because you're sick. If it takes less than a minute to do, never put it off. Etc etc.

Cocaine is probably the only thing that makes chores ‘fun’. Adderall is halfway between that and coffee imo, it provides you with a lot of energy to do whatever you want, but it doesn’t turn you into a chore machine unless you still really want to do chores.

Amphetamines at therapeutic doses are indeed not euphoric, you're not having fun doing chores, but you also don't want to tear your hair and eyes out. They shift your reward curves just such that the delayed gratification and rhythm of work feel Sisyphean-esquely bearable.

Amphetamines at abuse doses/cocaine are euphoric, sure, pure dopamine, but affect your cognitive processes too much for genuine productivity.