You see, the hardest thing to realize is that happiness can't be a goal.
http://www.ted.com/search?q=happiness

It's only that natural that your body will refuse to put yourself in danger(creative danger at least) when you're already comfortable.

It's not just you, a lot of studies on procrastination have confirmed that it's a protection mechanism that exists in us since prehistory. That's why you cannot "win".

So the trick is: you have to change the game even if it sounds stupid or silly
-Don't exercise, just pick a fun hobbie that involves movement(like basketball).
-Don't cut videogames or anime, just work for 20 min and then do whatever you want for 10(I have completed a lot of work with this).
-Don't "study", but get better learning methods.
-Motivation can be very dangerous.

Here are some techniques on how to do so

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/archives/

It might seem very pretentious at first, but just scroll down and click on posts that interest you, I promise that you won't be disappointed.

>>4
If I start gaming for 10 minutes, I'll never stop. That's why I had to give it up. Gaming at one point was my entire life. I played competitively and did nothing else. I still watch anime because once I finish a 24 minute episode I'm "free".

I'm not sure I'm exactly like everyone else in this regard. I can't quit something once I get into it. Like if I actually manage to start studying I'll do it for 14 hours straight.

I have a somewhat similar problem

I have developed a serious addition to this one online game, I spend all my time on it, only stopping to rush homework for college at the last minute, often taking ~24 hours and cramming all of my homework into a single day at this time, and many times skipping sleep that day, as well as doing homework for classes later in the day in earlier classes.

The thing being this game isn't even good, it's basically a giant spreadsheet I should be able to do while studying/doing homework. It's gotten so bad that I don't even do things I enjoy anymore like play visual novels or watch anime, if I'm on the internet I am incapable of resisting to open it in a new tab provided I'm at home.

The only reason I come onto boards such as tohno chan with it is I can have it open in a tab right next to it.

The bad thing is once I start working on homework and get a decent way into it I can do it, I just have trouble passing the point that I can concentrate on it.

I've tried to quit it multiple times but have failed each time, it's like I don't even like the game anymore, but my brain demands I play it like a drug addict.

>>8
Uninstall? Or try a better game. Anything pvp centric.

>>9

It is PvP centric, and it's web based so I can't uninstall it. Problem with the game largely being that most of the players are shit, so it's really easy to get into the top 100-200 ranks out of like 11000 people so long as you have common sense and gives you a huge ego trip. Then again the good guilds don't fight much, and thats largely the reason, they pretty much sit around farming/griefing noobs, and every few months there will be a small conflict between guilds that are actually a threat.

>>10
OP here. You could do what I do and start blocking entire websites. I blocked 4chan for example. If you have a router it's probably pretty easy. I can't walk you through it though as it's different for every router.

If that's too complicated you could always just block it from inside windows itself by manually by editing your HOSTS file.

http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/block-websites-using-hosts-file/

>>4
those sound like half-assed comprimises. the typical sort of thing you read on self-help websites.

I experience kind of the same thing, being my best friend and worst enemy. I go through extremes of completely trusting myself or not trusting myself at all. It sounds like what you feel, being depressed or being angry. I think of it as a period of change where you go through hell trying to find balance in your life, between two dysfunctional sides. There's no easy solution and all you can really do is go through with it.

Well, I should be writing three different papers right now (all of them are due tommorow, and I've got two others which I should write on Monday and Tuesday) and I doubt I will even as much as begin to work on any of them. And yes, it's totally going to be trouble for me but I don't give much of a shit, if things will get really rough (as in if they will feel like finally kicking me out) I'm just going to kill myself. ... Probably. I don't know if I've got what it takes to commit suicide (I highly doubt it) but the thought is always so reassuring.

... Shit, sorry for this digression. So, back on topic...

I can't put my mind into something if it doesn't interest me and I simply begin to procrastinate. The funny thing is, I know that it wouldn't be so hard to actually get it done if I could find a way to force myself to begin doing all of this. No matter how small, the first step is hardest of them all.

So yeah, you're definitely not alone on this one, OP. My usual 'solutions' (neither of which work) include:
1. 'Oh, I'll just begin doing it in 15 minutes' and, of course, after some time I realize it's been ~16 minutes already and I want to begin at full hour (or xx:30). After some time I decide that I need juuuuust another 5 minutes and then I'll do it. And so on and so on, I bet you know this scenario pretty well.
2. The '20 minutes/10 minutes' method which has already been sugested. I don't think it's necessary to explain what happens once those 10 minutes are up.

The only solution that actually work is just doing it. Whatever it is - do it, right know, without thinking about anything else (or else you won't do anything and you'll simply spend your time contemplating wether to do it or not). Once you'll get past that point you'll notice how easy the task at hand actually is (even though it may be tedious) and you'll wonder why the fuck it took you so long to begin.

But yeah, I'm giving all the advice even though I'm 100% sure I won't get anything done today. I wasted Friday, Saturday (the sad thing is, I haven't done jack's shit on both of those days) and I'm just about to waste Sunday (at least I'm doing stuff I enjoy right now), too. But yeah, sometimes it really works. Just not today, I guess.

(I wonder if I wrote all that just to spend some time on something I totally shouldn't be doing.)

I had this problem a while back. I needed to study, eat, sleep, play WoW, watch anime, play new video games, etc.

Once I quit WoW, I found I had an insane amount of time on my hands. If I told myself to stay on Campus until 4 every day, I could use the free time to study as long as I did not bring my laptop with me. I only watch one anime a season now, I can thank how shit everything is now, or how high I set the bar for shows I guess. and the only videogames i play anymore are fighters like Blazblue, Arcana Heart, Umineko, etc. and the occasional shump. All games I can pick up and play for only a few minutes at a time and do not require a massive amount of time like MMO's. You just have to find what you can cut out and what you can compromise OP. For me it just happened naturally.

It's not just you, I'm my own worst enemy. I wish I had some advice to give but I don't, I struggle with it every day.

Seems like I missed this thread. I'll just had me to the list here. I am seriously my worst enemy, I could have done great things. Great things, I tell you.

It is only under the constraint of time that I can actually start to work. Working in itself is absolutely no problem, starting is. I look at the clock and think I have this 150 pages here to read and there is only 3 hours left and that's when I start to work. Under pressure. There is no other way for me to study.

How I passed my exams so far? I never slept. Exams are usually at 8 or 9AM, so the night the before is the only time I can actually make myself study, only because I am under extreme pressure. If there is more to learn than time allows me to do in about 6 hours that means I am fucked.

After all this is over I can only feel anger and guilt. I know I could have done better, I'm not stupid, why do I have to do this? Why can that guy that's dumb as wall study so hard during weeks before the test and get good marks and I can't?

This thread is really hitting home.
I should be studying or at least making some of the tasks but instead I'm just wasting my time doing nothing.
Sometimes I look at the clock and I realise that I have been staring at my computer screen for more than half an hour.
I'm also wondering what happened with >>13

I can't really explain what it is you're feeling or the reason why, OP. All I can say is I fight the same battle from time to time.

I think what you are experiencing is something called destrado. Everyone has a measure of it. It can be boiled down to that instinct you have to jump when you're at the edge of some place on high. It's not suicidal, really... but certainly self-destructive in its own fashion. I manage mine with vigilant self-awareness and the practice of "FAKING IT". Often I will just start going through the motions of something without any real desire to do what it is I'm doing. Just forcing myself to do it. The only benefit comes from a slight relief knowing whatever it is is no longer lurking in my unconscious mind and nagging at me.

What to do? I don't know. You know that feeling of wanting to jump I just described? Well, there's gotta be a similar instinct of self-preservation and productivity. Try to spur it on and harness it as much as possible. Prescription antidepressants and large doses of caffeine do it for me, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a struggle sometimes.

Hey, at least you're not alone, right?

>>1396

>Working in itself is absolutely no problem, starting is.

Exactly. Let me quote myself here:

>Once you'll get past that point you'll notice how easy the task at hand actually is (even though it may be tedious) and you'll wonder why the fuck it took you so long to begin.

No matter how small the first step is always hardest of them all.

>How I passed my exams so far? I never slept. Exams are usually at 8 or 9AM, so the night the before is the only time I can actually make myself study, only because I am under extreme pressure.

Same here. If it's a 'now or never' case I usually manage to somehow pull it off. I never slept on Sundays.

>After all this is over I can only feel anger and guilt. I know I could have done better, I'm not stupid, why do I have to do this? Why can that guy that's dumb as wall study so hard during weeks before the test and get good marks and I can't?

I can only say it's fair. We have potential but we never make any of it so it's only fair that we never achieve great results. What really makes me sad is seeing people who really give it their best and still fail. During all my years in education there were always people like that in my classes. They would study all week long and somehow fail the test either way while I never touched any textbooks and sill passed them all. That didn't feel good, not at all.

>>1398

I kinda dropped out. Again. Sorry bro.
But I think I managed to write one of them during the night. Not sure about that one, though.
Oh and I dropped out not because of those papers... or rather, not only because of them. I missed tenths of deadlines and at one point it became apparent to me that it's pointless as I'm just not capable of forcing myself to do something.


Also, I figured out I might suffer from neurosis. I finished reading 'The Bell Jar' and if that's what neurosis looks like I'm 100% positive that that's my problem. There were paragraphs that I could have easily written myself (well, maybe not so skillfully) as I felt exactly the same way. For example this:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.