I have too many ongoing projects. It perfectly reflects the state of my mind. Everything is in my head, without structure.

No project management, no direction, no goal or pressure to finish. 

What’s happening is I start a new project. I get stuck or I get to a point that I have to make a decision but for some reason can’t. I let it simmer in my head. Then I start a new project. 

The worst part is that my office has become an ever-growing pile of unfinished projects.

Possible solution

One solution I’ve come up with is to pre-decide in advance what I should do each day and then consistently follow through. I call this approach “Project DOTED,” which stands for “Do One Thing Everyday.”

Criteria

To help with the decisions on what to do, these are the guidelines:

• Focus on things that would reduce clutter in my office
• Small enough that it can fit in my family and work life.
• Notable enough that it chip-off towards a completion of a project
• Lastly, avoid new projects. Purchase freeze until things are manageable again.

Let’s see what happens

https://www.jericoaragon.com/doted

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I gave up on the idea of “beating” procrastination. I’ve tried all the to-do apps and all the productivity hacks. I just accepted that it’s part of my nature and I should embrace it.

Not mindlessly embrace it though.

Introducing a competing response

A competing response is a pre-decided alternative action when a specific habit triggers.

Let’s say I’m having a hard time on a specific task. My default action is to take a break and browse reddit/twitter/facebook. My competing response is to spend time with my family instead.

“I love them more than evolution required” is a phrase that I keep feeling whenever I spend time with them.

I’m still procrastinating but I’m spending it on something I enjoy and worth doing.

I’m starting a personal weekly goal of producing something I can show. The idea is based on Patrick McKenzie’s advice with the same title. Ever since I read it a few years back, it stuck with me. His advice boils down to: Don’t end the week with nothing. Prefer to work on things you can show. Ship it and intentionally seek feedback. A week seems the sweet spot with the way I operate. Shorter time means there will be too much pressure and I’ll just abandon it after a few days. Longer time means the project will be dragging. With a week, I can catch up if I miss a few days on not working on something at all, but with the right amount of urgency.

What should I work on? What qualifies a work that I can show here?

Ideally, I want to work on things that utilizes my accumulated capital. Something that demonstrates value I can provide. However I’m sure that it will not always be the case every week. I can work on things that enriches my life in any way. Be it writing a helpful blog I can reference in the future and publishing it. At the very least, I can work on anything I want as long I have a concrete valuable output to show. Just don’t end the week with nothing. This page will act an index what I have to show every week. Week 08: Personal Dashboard Week 09: Julie’s Contract Maker Week 10: Homebridge integration with Broadlink Week 11: THTF Facebook Bot Week 12: ERPNext implementation at CLP Week 13: Week 14:

So this is my simple observation: When deciding to embrace a self-motivated ambition, choose a definition of success that your aunt in Peoria would understand and find impressive. This is not about succumbing to the status quo, but instead setting yourself up to receive the brutal but useful feedback needed to eventually start producing things too good to be ignored. - Pursue Metrics that Matter, Cal Newport

I’ve been thinking of making my workflow vim-centric again, just because. Then this got me thinking: Getting better at vim will give me nothing. It will not get me closer to any goal I have now. PhpStorm works perfectly fine. It’s heavy, yeah. But so what? My machine can handle it pretty good. Ewan ko ba bakit na attract ako sa idea na of “get better” at vim. It does not provide value. What I mean is, the effort I will put in it does not convert to something of valuable. Pursue metrics that matter. Getting better at vim does not matter. Getting better at coding does. Better yet, getting better at achieving goals that improves my life is the thing that truly matters. Focus on getting better at creating things instead.