tricks: cheating self-discipline
Self-discipline is tough to achieve with ADHD. At least it used to be impossible for me. Here's how I cheated and became disciplined.
Self-discipline doesn't come easy to me. We can blame it on the ADHD or you can blame it on poor habits growing up — it doesn't really matter. I just know that it's essential for getting shit done.
After letting down a lot of people last year, I ended up delegating the "self-discipline" part of my life to digital tools and it's been pretty life-changing.
I now consider myself fairly productive compared to the average person with ADHD, but I wasn't always like this.
Last year I was struggling to hit 2 hours of work per day even during my final exams. Now I'm able to hit 5 hours of somewhat consistent daily productivity (high-efficiency). That number should hit 6.5 by the end of next month, and 8 by the end of the year. I still have some bad days here and there though
I owe my productivity gains mostly to my digital toolkit of about 10-15 apps (yeah...). This post covers the accountability component of my toolkit: Beeminder.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Beeminder in any way. It's just helped me a lot and I wanted to share it with you guys.
Disclaimer 2: Beeminder is not a magic fix. It should help but I’ve got a ton of other systems in place that help me. It’s still hard to hit my goals without medication.
Beeminder
Beeminder is an accountability/reminder service that lets you set quantitative goals like losing weight, writing daily or doing more hours of work. If you miss your goals then you get charged money.
It has native integrations with most productivity and task management tools (e.g. Todoist, Habitica, Duolingo, GitHub, Trello).
Beeminder also integrates with Zapier and IFTTT (If-This-Then-That) so you can link it with pretty much any other app.
Benefits I’ve experienced
I'm the happiest I've ever been. My life is no longer chaotic and I feel in control.
Everything just gets done. For the first time in my life, I feel like a reliable person.
No more all-nighters to finish projects/assignments. I probably did 10+ all-nighters last year.
Sleep is extremely important and the all-nighters just made my symptoms worse.
I no longer experience anxiety or stress related to work. Shit will just get done at a sustainable pace.
I went through a phase with pretty severe time-anxiety last year. It got so bad that I started paying for private therapy sessions. I fixed it by slowing down rather than speeding up (ironic, right?).
Tip: It's possible to achieve your goals at a sustainable pace.
How it works
Setting up is pretty simple.
First, put your goal into quantitative terms. For example, "Write 1000+ words a day" or "Go to the gym four times a week".
Second, Integrate it with the appropriate tool.
If your goal doesn't have an appropriate integration then you can set it up as a manual goal and log your data points via the website, email or even SMS.
If you fall off track from your goal for too long then you get charged automatically via your credit card.
The amount you get charged can scale up if you want ($5 —> $10 —> $30, etc..).
The service is legit and they won't charge you randomly, they even e-mail to double-check that you genuinely fell off track.
You start off with a 7-day safety buffer and you're able to build on top of it.
So, for my productivity goal of 5 hours/day: if I do 10 hours of work today, it means that I'll have extended by safety buffer by a whole day. That's not really sustainable, so instead, I try to do 6 hours of work for 5 days straight to increase my safety buffer.
Sticking to Goals
There's a well-researched principle in the field of persuasion and marketing called "commitment and consistency". The idea is that humans will do almost anything to stay consistent with what they've said previously.
Take advantage of the principle - create a small goal and tell your friends. Don't go back on your word.
The flexibility of Beeminder makes it easy to cheat, but don't do it. Seriously, don't cheat. Don't give up. Take the $5 loss and lower your goal to something more achievable.
I repeat: Do not cheat. The urgency provided by a Beeminder deadline will change your life and cheating negates that magic power. Just lower your goal.
Tip: Start with very small goals.
Committing to writing 100 words/day or doing just 30 mins/day is enough to build a solid habit.
You don't lose anything by signing up. You're very unlikely to get charged with a small goal and the gains will be so worth it.
And anyway. What if someone told you they could give you hundreds of hours of productivity? All you’d have to do is give up $10 every month.
Sounds too good to be true right? Well, that's effectively what Beeminder has done for me. I've known about it for a couple of years but I wish I signed up sooner.
My Goals
Productivity: My daily hours of "productivity".
Current goal is 35hrs/week which is 5hrs/day.
Linked with Toggl which I use to track my time every single day (More on this in a later post)
My most important goal. More on this in the section below.
Exercise: Exercise at least 5 times per week (Manual entry via Beeminder Android)
I'm fairly liberal. I'll do 100 pushups on the days I can't be bothered doing one of my HIIT routines.
Pro Tip: Watch TV while exercising. It makes it so easy.
Articles: Write and release one post per week (Manual entry via Beeminder Android)
This newsletter! Yes — I'll literally get charged $5 if I miss a post to this newsletter.
Tracking Productivity
I felt that this goal deserves it's own section since it's had the largest impact on my life.
Like most ADHD people, I have trouble even getting my laundry and dishes done. So, I cheat a little a bit and use a "Life" category on Toggl which can take up 1-3 hours/week.
On really tough days, I'll include "productive" hobbies like reading non-fiction or learning Chinese, but I haven't had a tough day in a few weeks.
Screenshot of my other Toggl categories is below. I've renamed the categories for your convenience.
This post falls under "Side Project". It says 15 hours of work this week since I've also been working on some other things to help the ADHD community (stay tuned).
Strictness
Aside from the "Life" category and tough days, I'm strict with what I count as “productive”.
I rarely include meetings or I'll only include 30-minutes for a 1hr meeting which I consider "valuable" (Meetings are generally inefficient).
I stop my timer if I'm going to the bathroom.
Toggl also has an idle detector which I've set at 1-minute.
I'll punish myself by removing a few minutes if I get distracted by anything (this happens less often now).
Following this system has worked for me. If I keep this up then I'll be at 7-8 hours by the end of the year.
Make things easy
Consistency is key. Yes, becoming more productive is good, but you also don't want to burnout. Pick a goal that you'll be able to consistently hit on good days.
I scaled my productivity from 2hrs/day —> 3 —> 3.5 —> 4 —> 4.5 —> 5 over the course of three months. It's a bit similar to building up a sustainable calorie deficit.
Other Tools
I haven't used any of these but they might be good options if Beeminder isn't for you.
Very similar to Beeminder but you can send money to a friend, foe, charity or anti-charity (one that works against your beliefs).
You can invite a "referee" who verifies whether you stuck to the goal. (Beeminder also lets you do this!)
Don't really like this model. I'd rather the money just went to the company. Beeminder works fine for me and has better support for integrations (which I use).
Simplified version of Beeminder/StickK. No need to register an account.
You just set up a one-off goal, a deadline, a price, and a referee who will verify your progress.
You'll automatically get charged if your referee says that you didn't complete the goal.
Let's you hire a personal coach who you meet with/message regularly. Lots of productivity, diet, exercise and writing coaches here. Seems like most coaching costs $15-$25/week.
I'd be cautious with this one. The quality of coaching probably varies a lot.
Social Accountability
Tell your friends & family about your goals. Setup social contracts.
James Clear (Author of Atomic Habits) suggests this habit contract.
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Cheers,
BeatADHD
Got 10 seconds to spare feedback? No science/studies in this post. Just my own strategies that I know helped me and my friends. Let me know what you think.