Endure the process

Some days ago I read a post named "Hate The Process" on the blog Ninjas and Robots. The author reminisced over his DIY halloween costumes over the years and how painful it was to make them, then made the point that to him, to achieve some things in life that he would be proud of, he had to endure a process he doesn't like or actively hates. He would try to dilute the pain by pairing parts of the process with other enjoyable activities, effectively "masking" the pain, such as listening to podcasts while running.

Another thing mentioned in the article is that during the process, he would find or set up interesting bits within the process as kind of a partial goal, to suffer less before getting to the finish line. (Incidentally he's trying to love the process :))

The observations made me recall another article on procrastination I read earlier, which states that people, especially those with ADHD, relapse into a paralysis despite knowing what needs to be done. It gave three possible causes of this paralysis:

• Overwhelm: Failure to break tasks into smaller steps cause the brain to feel overwhelmed.
• Decision-making challenges: Inability to prioritize tasks and make decisions results in a mental standstill.
• Fear of failure: The dread of making mistakes and failing causes the brain to opt for inaction instead of taking risks.

The solutions it gave are commonplace in most related articles: break tasks into smaller ones, set realistic goals, implement time management techniques, move your body, etc. Easier said than done.

Back to the original article, it gave a possible solution to the problem the second article failed to answer: To overcome ADHD paralysis, maybe a realistic way is to confess that I hate the process, and then sprinkle some niceties throughout to serve as refills for motivation, much like the mystery boxes on a typical Mariokart racetrack.

I was pestered by this kind of paralysis for a long time, which I always attributed to my laziness. After knowing that the behavior is not laziness and is controllable, I tried to get out of the slumber on tasks with varying degrees of success. I started setting up checkpoints, exchanging work with peers for reviewing, aiming for a certain amount of work per day (especially with bug triaging), etc. It worked quite well with everyday chores and tasks I have interest in, but not yet with assignments and self-studying goals.

On a tangent, I signed up for therapy assessment on-campus, we'll see how that goes.

— ltlnx 2024-10-21

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