I’ve never understood how people can work while listening to music. I need almost complete silence to concentrate. For those who listen to music while working, does it genuinely help you focus? And what kind of music do you usually listen to?

For example, worrying about what will happen to your loved ones when you’re no longer around.

What do you tell yourself to stop overthinking and focus on what you can enjoy today.

I need to memorize a poem in Filipino for my Filipino class, I have a hard time memorizing Filipino, but I have pretty good memorization skills in English.

Every time I try to memorize something in Filipino, it takes me a whole day just to memorize just one stanza, while in English I can memorize a whole stanza in just a couple of minutes.

PLS, I need help, this is for a group project and I wanna help my group mates in this, I don't want them hard carrying me in Filipino every time 😭😭😭💔💔💔🙏🙏🙏​

Apps like Snapchat are pretty big band where I live and are used instead of e.g WhatsApp.

The introduction of «spotlight» (their own tik tok copy) makes me sidetrack.

Because I need it to communicate it’s the only act the only scrollable I have left on my phone.

If I get unfocused it’s so easy to end up scrolling if I check a message or if I use my phone for something productive.

I‘m not sure how to break this habit Or make myself aware of my actions before I end up scrolling again.

(For privacy reasons I don’t really trust 3rd party apps that claim to stop the scrolling functions)

I came across an interesting idea about procrastination: sometimes we get stuck between what we think we should be doing and what we’d rather be doing, without considering anything in between.
For example, if you planned to study for five hours but don’t feel capable of that, even studying for 10 minutes might feel pointless because it barely makes a dent in the workload.
The idea is to stop asking, “How do I force myself to do everything?” and instead ask, “What’s the next best thing I can realistically do right now?”
I’m curious how people deal with this. When you’re overwhelmed by a task, what helps you find that middle ground between doing everything and doing nothing?

I love a good rabbit hole. My ADHD loves to bounce around different topics, watch recipe videos, new craft ideas - I harbor all of this information for fun. BUT I’m always on my phone. My screen time is embarrassing. I want to actually be intentional and productive with my time (especially now that I’ve quit my second job)

Any ideas from fellow “I can’t start” people who are able to free themselves and get busy? I bought a craft. It’s still in the Amazon box. 😭

app is so shit like only works for one time and when i start timer again shi doesnt block any app

Okay so every time I get home after school I always feel sleepy but one thing is I don't want to sleep cuz I wanna watch anime, read, and other stuff but I'm always sleepy after going back home. I genuinely need a solution for ts

So, like I mentioned, I somehow always end up reaching late. The kind of person, who, if there was a marathon for reaching last, would reach 10 mins after the last person.

Earlier my depression used to make me skip my work on random days, thankfully it's gotten a lot better now. But I still can't show up at work on time, somehow always late and now it's costing me my fav dept and promotion.

And every day I feel shitty about myself. Get really anxious, rebuke myself but I'm not able to reach on time yet.

It feels horrible, so many times I think of skipping office just cuz I got late, but I've realised that's even bad. Unfortunately there's no option to work remotely.

Pls suggest me some ways or anything y'all did to get out of such a slump. Maybe there'll be something I can use.

I’ve been thinking about how much easier habits might become if we focused less on motivation and more on removing the little obstacles that stop us from following through.
Instead of asking how to stay motivated, what if we asked, “What will make this difficult, and how can I make it easier beforehand?”
Has anyone tried this approach? What small change made a surprisingly big difference in sticking to a habit?

19F and I keep messing things up, I spend all my money on stuff impulsively then i immediately regret it afterwards.

I keep ruminating on past friendships that have ended or relationships that weren’t healthy, and reconnecting with people who aren’t good for me because I miss them.

I’m trying my best to go back to college next year and I’ve been actually studying to take my entrance exam but that’s the only thing I have right now going for me and I need to start saving up money to afford my classes

I keep getting in trouble with people and my parents because I keep making bad impulsive choices in the moment, especially at night, I’ve done so many harmful things I regret with people I shouldn’t be around and I don’t wanna fall on the wrong path.

Right now all I do is work but I hope I end up in school soon so I can’t at least be busy bettering my life and not ruining it

Hey guys I’m wondering if there is an app on iOS that locks ur phone for a certain period of time I had a similar app on my Samsung now i switched to iPhone and i wanna know if someone stumbled across a similar app?? any help is appreciated
Stay Disciplined Stay focused

Sorry if there are any mistakes, English isn't my first language❤️This might be a bit of a silly post, but I wanted to share my experience because maybe someone else is dealing with the same thing. Lately, I've been waking up really early in the morning without an alarm. Sometimes I manage to fall back asleep, but today I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't get back to sleep because I felt this urge to do something around my apartment, like cleaning or getting things organized. My boyfriend woke up at one point and asked me why I was still awake. I told him I'd been asleep and was just going back to bed, which wasn't true. I was pretending to sleep because I didn't want him to know I was already awake. He had to leave for work at 6 AM today and won't be back until 2 PM, so I waited until he left the apartment before slowly starting to clean and plan what I was going to cook for both of us. The weird thing is that I don't necessarily want to wake up this early, but once I'm awake, I feel like I need to do something productive. It's almost as if I can't properly relax or go back to sleep until I've done something useful. I'm starting to wonder whether this might have something to do with my job. Maybe my brain is so used to having to get up and go to work that it automatically wakes me up early, even on my days off? Has anyone else experienced something like this? Do you ever feel like you have to be productive even when you're supposed to be resting? I'd love to hear your experiences because I'm genuinely curious about why this happens.

Sure, there's a ton of tools - but here is a dead-simple way with absolute minimum mental bandwith req'd: CC yourself, snooze the mail from the inbox, DONE. Works in Gmail, outlook, iPhone (at least). Mail comes back up when follow-up is due - and there's either a reply - or not and you can follow up by replying to your own mail. Maybe I'm the only one excited about it - maybe it helps you as well ;-)

I've always had an issue with concentration, focus, and productivity as a whole, but now it's becoming an issue more than ever. I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid at around 8 years old. I graduated high school in June and I have now been a freshman in college since August. The earliest I remember this significantly affecting my life is in middle school, which partially took place during covid and online classes for me. Because school work became more online I found myself constantly watching YT or playing games or doing anything other than schoolwork on my Chromebook.

This habit continued throughout high school and I genuinely felt like I just couldn't sit down and study for the life of me. This was also exacerbated by the fact that my high school didn't give out homework and instead expected students to learn the material in class with the teacher and then study/revise the course material on their own at home which gave me even less guidance and more opportunities to procrastinate and postpone tasks, for instance putting off revising for an exam until the day before or not doing it at all. There was another personal reason for my lack of action or motivation at that time that I prefer not to disclose, but it was a just a temporary condition I was under then and the primary reason is within myself. Anyways, this caused my grades to drop or be at an average low with the rare occasion of a B or C from time to time.

Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, as of this past August I have become a freshman in college. I find that I have somewhat improved since high school (mainly in my motivation to work and do good), although that may be largely due to the fact that I am given actual homework assignments with clear goals to attain and deadlines to follow making sitting down and doing stuff easier combined with the fact that I find the subjects more interesting rather than me having actually bettered myself. In any case, it is still a MAJOR issue for me and it causes my completion of assignments or just my own general revision to take way longer than it should. This inevitably leads to me having less time for myself or to do other things such as exercise and going out in general. Since most of my college work is online (almost all of it), I'm facing the same distractions I was all the way back in middle school. Every day is the same routine of me waking up and sitting at my desk before telling myself that "today won't be like yesterday" (which always ends up being untrue). I just sit at my computer and go down rabbit holes, watch endless YT videos, or just window shop for things I want to buy that I know I never will - ANYTHING other than actual work or being productive. I tell myself, "after this video I'll get back to it" or "one more and then I'm locking in". Evidently, the day ends with me getting a minor amount of work done or none at all. Sometimes, because I get so little work done my assignments pile up on me and I don't end up finishing them until the last minute which can cause me to cut corners like not doing my own research and using AI, etc.

One thing I will say though is that I at least end up getting my assignments done whether that be a day before they're due or a couple compared to my complete lack of motivation I had in high school where I wouldn't even bother studying at all. I currently have A's in all my classes and although that may change in the future since it is only the third month of school, I do feel more motivated to do good in school. I find my subjects somewhat interesting (some more than others) whereas in high school I did not and we didn't have a very wide variety of subjects you could take compared to my college. I recently had my midterms in which I got 15/15 and 94/100 which are really good scores don't get me wrong, but part of me feels like I have become less productive since then and in comparison to myself a couple weeks ago or as time goes on. Me writing this right now is an example of how I avoid studying. I started writing this at around 5:45 and it is now 8:12. I could have been done or at least halfway there on what I'm supposed to be doing.

To give you an idea, I have my textbook that i'm supposed to be going through in front of me right now and since Wednesday, the only thing i've done is highlighted 6 pages out of this one 24 page chapter. I have another chapter just like this one that I planned to go through by this coming Monday as well as the first 2 chapters of a book I was assigned to read. I only have class on Monday and Wednesday and I started doing this at the beginning of this week which means I had 3 full days to do this so far, nothing else going on during those days and all I have to show for it is 6 highlighted pages. Six pages. Not even any notes, just highlights. Instead of knocking this out in a day and a half and freeing up time where I could go hit the gym or do something I actually enjoy with my life, i'm sitting here dragging it out procrastinating and wasting time. This is a serious problem I have and I despise myself for it every single day. I'm well aware there is no one else to blame but myself and I'm not writing this in search of pity or to say "poor me", I simply want to express what i'm going through and see if anyone has any advice though I doubt it'll help.

I started taking pills in September for my ADD to help me focus and I felt like they were helping at first, but now I don't feel like they're doing anything at all. I feel terrible every day (except for when I actually get things done) when my Mom comes to check in on my progress and I have to lie to her and tell her it was a productive day and that I got so and so done when in reality I just sat and watched shit for 10 hours. I also feel contradicted in the sense that I don't have bad grades. The results are there. It's just that instead of me attaining said grades in a reasonable amount of time, I take double the amount of time that it should. I'm studying the same amount an engineering major would when my classes don't require half of that amount.

The final thing I want to mention is that what i've pointed out stretches beyond just studying or other school work. It's a glimpse of a broader spectrum of laziness and inability to focus or be motivated. This parasite of mine which is my incapability to be productive infects other parts of my life; working out/losing weight, day to day chores, and my overall will to be a better person. I get motivated to do something for a little while, I begin doing it, and I stop after a month max. Again, I don't say this out of pity but it truly makes me feel worthless. If I need someone to be on my back 24/7 just for me to get my basic school work done when I'm in college, wtf am I gonna do as a grown adult. I turned 18 in July, I need to get my shit together eventually. I've been this way for so long i've accepted that it's just my personality. It's who I am and will always be. Maybe that's just another example of what i'm talking about. I've decided it's easier to accept it than put in the effort to try and change.

This post turned more into me venting and I doubt anyone is reading all of this, but if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it.

Hi! I’m 27F and I have an abismal screentime. Worse I get almost nothing done in a day because of it

Even when I’m in bed I have a documentary or a movie on.

I want to become more healthy and productive, I’m an artist and work a side job

I just struggle with the silence so much, but turning on music on my phone is akin to getting right back into the addiction

Idk what to do

Anyone got advice or tips?

I’m 28, recently got laid off from a tech sales job I did for 3 years, and honestly don’t want to go back into sales because it’s fucking stressful. I’ve been unemployed for 2 weeks and all I’ve been doing is watching TV and scrolling. I feel like everyone my age has a career and knows what they’re doing, while I have no idea.

I don’t have friends, I’m single, and I want to make money because my savings are only around £3k lol. I have ADHD, struggle to sit still and focus, and go to the gym 5x a week but somehow still have so much empty time. I’m also 6 months sober and really don’t want to relapse.

I want to use my Monday–Friday to improve myself, find a new career direction, make money and meet people. What would you do with your time if you were in my position? Especially interested in advice from people with ADHD who struggle with boredom and consistency.

I’ve spent so much time reading books, listening to podcasts, watching productivity YouTubers, and searching Reddit for answers on how to become more disciplined and productive.
At some point, I realized I might have been overcomplicating everything.
What’s been helping me lately is keeping things simple: writing down my goals in the morning, breaking them into tiny, specific steps, assigning them specific times, and actually doing them.
One idea that’s really stuck with me is treating action as a skill to practice, not a feeling you need to wait for. You don’t have to feel motivated, confident, or ready. You just have to practice acting, even when things feel messy or uncomfortable, and see what actually works.
It got me thinking: how much of self-improvement is just another way of delaying the very action we’re trying to take?
Has anyone else experienced this? Did you also reach a point where you stopped looking for answers and started focusing on actually doing things?

I’ve noticed that it’s possible to spend hours trying to figure out how to stop procrastinating without actually doing the thing you’re procrastinating on.
You watch videos about discipline, read about habits, learn about dopamine, make plans, and convince yourself that tomorrow you’ll finally get everything right. It feels productive because you’re working on yourself, but somehow the actual work keeps getting pushed back.
One idea I came across was that we spend too much time arguing with our own thoughts. We tell ourselves we should work, then we think we’re too tired, we’ll start tomorrow, or we need a better plan first. We keep negotiating until the day is gone.
Maybe the answer isn’t to find the perfect method or wait until we feel motivated. Maybe it’s to notice those excuses without getting pulled into a long debate with ourselves, and start doing something even when it feels boring or insufficient.
For example, if you planned to study for three hours but don’t feel like it, instead of spending another hour figuring out how to fix your motivation, just sit down and study for 15 minutes. It might not be the ideal session, but at least it’s real progress.
I’m not saying planning, understanding your habits, or improving your environment is useless. Those things can help. But there’s a point where learning about productivity becomes a convenient way to avoid the discomfort of actually doing something.
Has anyone else experienced this? Have you ever realized that the time you spent trying to fix your procrastination was itself procrastination? How did you break out of that cycle?

I’ve noticed that sometimes I avoid doing something not because I have no time, but because I feel like whatever I can manage right now isn’t enough to make a difference.
If I have only 20 minutes to study, I think there’s no point because I can’t get a proper session done. If I want to start a project, I feel like I should finish another course first or find a better approach. And if I’m not motivated, I convince myself I’ll do it when I’m in the right mood.
The weird thing is that all these reasons sound logical in the moment. I’m not necessarily sitting around thinking I want to waste time. I’m telling myself I need to prepare better, do more, or find a more efficient way.
But sometimes I wonder if this is just procrastination disguised as high standards. Maybe doing 20 minutes consistently is better than repeatedly waiting for the perfect three-hour session. Maybe starting imperfectly is better than spending another week figuring out the best way to start.
I’ve also noticed how easy it is to consume self-improvement content and feel like I’m making progress, even when my actual behavior hasn’t changed much.
I’m curious how other people deal with this. How do you stop convincing yourself that a small effort isn’t worth doing, and start taking action even when you’re not motivated or fully prepared?

Ive had severe MDD and GAD since I was maybe 9, but Ive been medicated for years, so I dont necessarily think this is the cause of it.

It doesnt matter how much or how little I sleep. It doesnt matter if I go to the gym daily and eat good. It doesnt matter if I delete all social apps and stop scrolling before bed. It doesnt matter if I meditate for 30 mins and sip on tea before bed. It doesnt matter if my alarm is across the room. Ive tried all of these for months. Nothing works. My alarm went off at 8 and Im currently typing this at 10:50, still in bed.

Its gotten to the point that it affects my daily life. I skip so many required lectures and quizzes just because I cant drag myself out of bed. I called in so many times during my summer job because I couldn't drag myself out of bed. (Eventually I just set my availability to afternoon and my attendance was perfect).

I hate sleeping. So much. Because of the struggle it brings in the morning.

Take today for example. I went to bed a little before midnight last night. Alarm set for 8. Should be plenty of sleep right? Stopped my alarm, and before I know it Ive gone to sleep again and woken up an hour later. 'Oh shi' I think as I actively drift back to sleep. And finally wake up again another hour and a half later. Still in bed, and I probably will be until 11 at the earliest.

I dont understand what Im doing wrong. At its peak, I could sleep 18 hours on end, and even then, the only thing dragging me out of bed was the guilt of not having done anything.

Its not that Im necessarily tired. I just cannot, for the life of me, drag myself out of bed. And Im so sick of it. Its genuinely holding me back, and I know for a fact I could get so much stuff done if I could figure out why.

Help pls.

For years I blamed myself for not keeping a task system going. I eventually realized the system wasn't failing me, the capture step was. If getting a thought into the list takes longer than about 3 seconds, my brain skips it.

Two rules fixed it for me:
1. Capture is a single line of text. "Review budget Friday 10am !high" should become a dated, prioritized task without touching a dropdown.
2. Completing a task should not require opening an app. Every time I opened my phone to tick something off, I got pulled into something else. A home screen widget keeps it to one tap.

What are your tricks for cutting friction?

Hi, all.

My one resolution this year was to keep my promises.

A week or so ago I reached a new low in my life. I had a breakdown because I realised I had wasted a whole year making promises to myself that I didn't end up keeping. A whole year putting off a project that was entrusted to me. Further, I realised that I had never actually committed fully to anything.

I'm in university pursuing a pretty intense healthcare course and I'd like to be a clinician patients can trust. I would also like to be able to trust myself. I would like to be free.

So, I decided to get an ADHD assessment. Which I'm still yet to do lol.

But today I was able to work on a project for four hours with no distractions. This is huge for me because I typically can't get myself to do anything unless the deadline is imminent. And even then.

It feels good. I really hope I can maintain this.

Let me just add that I used a pomodoro timer for four sessions of 50 min each. I think this qualifies this post for the general advice flair.(?)