Observation of productivity

[ZenRaiden]

So I basically ended up observing my daily routine and activity, and brain activity as it were, and I realized that the brain has a default setting, that goes from one dopamine activity to another dopamine activity. But due to ADHD and mild but long depression inability to focus long enough I never developed the capacity to stick with activities that require prolonged effort but yield no immediate reward.
So basically lets say I want to learn a language. I immediately know that is good activity that I have time for, but every time I engage in it I get no reward. The reward will come, maybe month later at best few weeks later, at worst months later depending how much learning and progress will seem rewarding to me.

SO ultimately I realized that all activity that lead to progress and the most rewarding activities in future are least rewarding in the moment. Lets say I pick up a math book, a hard subject that can maybe year from now land me a better job.
Obviously nothing about math is rewarding in and of it self. Its tedious, boring, repetitive and often times requires going through problem solving techniques where you feel monumentally retarded. Whats more even when you eventually do get something right it feels like you just wasted 2 days solving the most trivial thing.

On top of it when you run dry as I call it, when you feel little emotions in it and passion is nonexistent and the drive to do the thing is merely an idea how great it sounds, it pretty much means you get no rewarding feeling for very long time and instead of your brain growing and feeling stronger through effort, you actually start feeling depressed and rather depleted and hazy and foggy at simply even worse of than not doing the activity it self.

Then I saw a coaching video on YouTube and the coach did something remarkably simply. He zeroed in on what makes people happy in the moment while doing the activity. He focused the fact how much we focus on the negative side of things unconsciously without really giving any attention to the positive side of things. It made me realize that the real difference between lets say a person with PhD, or someone who achieved some mastery of a subject on meaningful level is simply their ability to hack their brain and feel instant reward. Invariably if you feel no reward you simply cannot progress. I mean you can, but the moment the first chance you get to drop the activity you will drop it and avoid it until further situation where you have to do it again. This made me factually realize one thing. IF you get the idea that this crappy activity is actually fun to do now and you get a dopamine hit right now you can pretty much get addicted to ding impossible.

 

[scorpiomover]

Yes.
The subjects people are good at, are the subjects they happen to study/do a lot.
The subjects they happen to study/do a lot, are the subjects they enjoy in the moment.
The subjects they enjoy in the moment, are the subjects where they have discovered a way to perceive the activities of those subjects in a positive way in the moment.

E.G. to some people, exercise is a pain. To others, it's "endorphins".
To some people, maths is painful and boring. To others, it's "solving puzzles" and "stimulating the brain".
All depends on how you look at things.

You might also want to take a look at self-efficacy.

 

[dr froyd]

how do you achieve this without futuristic brain surgery that can rewire your entire brain

to me it's about continuously finding some "hook" that inspires you to continue. That hook can be many things - intrinsic interest (like, you just love doing math for its own sake), extrinsic motivation (like you have a clear vision this will make you a millionaire), social motivation (you have friends who do the same thing), some competitive thing, etc etc.

ideally it would be organic, intrinsic motivation all the way. Unfortunately that's not possible in practice (for most people). When i studied math i cycled through many of these motivations over time

i guess my main point is: one cannot simply make things fun and interesting all the time. That's a very specific type of motivation that depends on the level of certain neurotransmitters in one's brain - which is quite difficult to regulate at will

 

[Puffy]

So I basically ended up observing my daily routine and activity, and brain activity as it were, and I realized that the brain has a default setting, that goes from one dopamine activity to another dopamine activity. But due to ADHD and mild but long depression inability to focus long enough I never developed the capacity to stick with activities that require prolonged effort but yield no immediate reward.
So basically lets say I want to learn a language. I immediately know that is good activity that I have time for, but every time I engage in it I get no reward. The reward will come, maybe month later at best few weeks later, at worst months later depending how much learning and progress will seem rewarding to me.

SO ultimately I realized that all activity that lead to progress and the most rewarding activities in future are least rewarding in the moment. Lets say I pick up a math book, a hard subject that can maybe year from now land me a better job.
Obviously nothing about math is rewarding in and of it self. Its tedious, boring, repetitive and often times requires going through problem solving techniques where you feel monumentally retarded. Whats more even when you eventually do get something right it feels like you just wasted 2 days solving the most trivial thing.

On top of it when you run dry as I call it, when you feel little emotions in it and passion is nonexistent and the drive to do the thing is merely an idea how great it sounds, it pretty much means you get no rewarding feeling for very long time and instead of your brain growing and feeling stronger through effort, you actually start feeling depressed and rather depleted and hazy and foggy at simply even worse of than not doing the activity it self.

Then I saw a coaching video on YouTube and the coach did something remarkably simply. He zeroed in on what makes people happy in the moment while doing the activity. He focused the fact how much we focus on the negative side of things unconsciously without really giving any attention to the positive side of things. It made me realize that the real difference between lets say a person with PhD, or someone who achieved some mastery of a subject on meaningful level is simply their ability to hack their brain and feel instant reward. Invariably if you feel no reward you simply cannot progress. I mean you can, but the moment the first chance you get to drop the activity you will drop it and avoid it until further situation where you have to do it again. This made me factually realize one thing. IF you get the idea that this crappy activity is actually fun to do now and you get a dopamine hit right now you can pretty much get addicted to ding impossible.

I'm very likely ADHD as well, I'm just waiting on an assessment, so I relate to the challenge with this.

On learning a language, you could try something like duolingo, as it is basically designed to gameify learning and give you that dopamine hit of reward on a daily basis. I initially learned coding through similar means like competitive coding websites.

Ultimately, however, learning something does mean accepting that it won't always be fun and that it's about turning up for it even when you don't feel like it. I've learned over time that a little bit every day is the best approach. For example, at the moment I'm learning guitar and I just spend 15 minutes a day practicing chords. It's little enough that I can motivate myself to do it, but consistent enough that in a few months from now I'll probably be able to play a basic song. I won't ever be a master on 15 minutes per day but I can definitely be competent on 15 minutes per day over time.

The thing that really helps me in keeping to this is external accountability. My mind will race off in all directions and I will forget or be distracted away from my original goal. So that's why the external accountability is there, to check-in on how I'm doing and remind me of what I've committed to. I get free coaching through the UK government due to my autism diagnosis so that's how I do it and it's cost effective.