How Do You Turn a Shitty, Unproductive Day Around?

Every minute is one less in your existence. When you leave this world, what will you have experienced? Grab life by the throat, you have one life, do not waste it away. This is my what awakens me from any daily slumber or laziness.

 

Hey mate. I struggle with this too, for years. I'm much better now (though far from perfect!). You're at uni at the moment (sorry, I briefly stalked your profile page!) which means you've got a shit load of time you can spend at home in your room, "studying". I can speak from literally years and years of bitter fucking experience when I say that you need to minimise your time alone, until you know how to control those urges when you're alone.

Step 1: instead of studying in your flat, get out! Head out to the university library, or to a cafe if you can afford it and the library is unbearable, or maybe find a study buddy. You'll find it much easier. Get out and stay out. Think of home as your place to come back to recharge your battery - it's where you eat, shower, sleep. It's not where you drain your energy endlessly battling urges to PMO, or even worse just wasting energy PMOing.

Step 2: figure out what you want to do with your life. Porn is just link bait: i.e. distraction from what really matters. The real change I've made is that I know what I want to achieve with my life. When I first got swept into PMO addiction I sort of vaguely knew what I wanted to do, but I never believed I could achieve anything in that area, and I had a lot of anxiety over failure. Now I realise that this was untrue. And worse, the problem with that lack of belief and anxiety was that it sucked me deeper into my PMO addiction. I was bored and directionless and anxious, and porn was an easy way of numbing the pain.

My question for you: You have one life. Do you want to spend it wanking yourself into oblivion, or do you want to achieve something?

It can take time to figure out your life goal. If you don't already know it yet, give yourself some time to figure it out - maybe take a few days to really work through the exercises on this page. But remember that your life is important, too important to throw away on PMO.

Once you've worked it out, try to maximise the amount of time you can spend on it each day. Get your university or paid work completed as efficiently as possible, then focus on what really matters. For me it is a) being a good boyfriend/future husband to my fiance, b) having success in my creative work. I'm getting better at both, and by focussing on them I've found it much easier to overcome my PMO problem. (Not that it's ever easy, but it's definitely much easier than it used to be before I had direction)

Wishing you luck and sending you strength.

 

At this point you ask yourself: "I've wasted 6 hours, am I really going to waste 6 more?"

You're better than that. Get up and go do something.

 

Im not trying to be a smart ass or a-hole, but just do something! Anything! Clean up your house, read a book, or whatever else. The hardest part is starting something productive. Once you start, it becomes easy. Willpower and mind over matter. There is no secret recipe to it. Just get up and do something. Don't think, just act, would sum it up. You are overthinking things.

 

Exactly.

 

I know, man, I know. I've been there too. I've felt exactly what you're feeling.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY!

You feel like shit because you've chosen to waste those 6 hours. What are you going to do about it?

 

Read, go for a walk, exercise/do yoga, plan a business venture...reading self help books will help a tonne, itlk fix you're mindframe

 

Watch this. Simply!
https://m.youtube.com/results?q=noah elkrief procrastination&sm=1

 

Even I am suffering from this lately. But I figured that about two weeks ago I didn't even care about being unproductive. I just PMO'd throughout the day but at least now I am thinking about doing something productive. Doing things gradually is the key I guess. Start with general cleanliness. Clean your house and stuff. Arrange files. In fact this is how I figured out the actual problems in my life. Then start doing one thing at a time. The way ahead will get clear for you. And then, never look back!

 

Do you have any hobbies? If you do, go do it! If you enjoy drawing or gardening or dancing, get off the couch and do them! If you don't have a hobby, then you gotta work on getting yourself to do productive stuff.

For example, you wanna go work out, good. First off, you need to know why you have that desire. Why do you wanna go hit the gym? What is your goal? Once you know that, utilize them to give yourself motivation, that drive to do what you wanna do. If your reasons are strong enough and you've identified them, it's gonna be naturally easy to be motivated to do what you originally planned on doing, and you'll find a way to it.

Try doing the dishes, cooking something for yourself or taking cold showers. Guess what? If you fear discomfort, you will run away from it and you won't be able to do what you truly wanna do. Resist the discomfort, get stronger and be comfortable being uncomfortable! That's gonna develop a strong mindset so you don't procrastinate on stuff.

Remember! If you know your WHY, you'll find HOW. Good luck!

 

I realize that there are cycles working in my subconscious that don't adhere to the schedules I might create for myself. I know that there are going to be several days in a row sometimes where I might want to do a specific thing, but don't seem to be getting anywhere. At that point, I let my intuition guide me and I pick things that will improve my life in some way. Before starting, I think about what it is I am about to do and I predict how it will make me feel. I often pick something I haven't done in awhile which ensures variety and eliminates the problem of having routine automatic habits that do not lead anywhere. I also pick something that piques my interest.

Another thing about procrastination days is that I realize the body and mind need some relaxation and they can't spend all time in hard focus (or hard mode when it comes to PMO). Relaxation time gives your diffuse thinking mode a chance to work and isn't totally time lost. When the day is over, I think of it as a rest period for my mind. I look at what I have accomplished and often realize that life is not so bad. I remind myself that sometimes slow learning is better than rushed learning (where are some people trying to go in such an incredible hurry?). A smart thinker may get to the same place with far less work than the burn-out workaholic. Life requires balance and as long as you are confident in who you are, having days of procrastination won't make the rest of your time suffer.

Having a negative attitude about procrastination will cause much of the problem and may lead to a rough habit not unlike PMO. As more eloquently put by other posters, change how you feel and you change your behavior.

 

Story of my life man, story of my life. It's hard for me, and it sounds like we're going through exactly the same thing you and I. Sometimes, I just feel really discouraged, really bummed out. And almost, just hopeless? Stuck. Immovable. And it's a spiral, the more time passes, the worse I feel, the less I want to move, the less I do, the worse I feel, more time passes, etc etc.

Honestly, the key is very simple. And it doesn't always work, but this is all it comes down to. You need to be more positive. That's it. You need to remind yourself, you're lucky. You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky to be here, talking with people who want to help you. Find all of the good things in your life, and say thank you. Find a one reason, every day, that you're thankful. Remember, it's ok to be lazy sometimes.

It's ok if you didn't do anything for the first 5 hours of your day. It doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone should be entitled to some time off to just take it easy sometimes. If you do one single thing in your day, then you've accomplished something. And you should feel good about that one thing.

Avoid the negative, don't think about everything you have to do, all the time you wasted, stop it. Stop it right now! When you feel those negative thoughts, focus, think, look for the positive. It sounds cheesy, but it works.

Sometimes I even use the nofap emergency tool just to spam my lazy depressive ass with a bunch of random positivity, and it helps. Helps me to remember that, I'm just a regular guy, going through the same crap as everyone else in the world, and I can do this. So can you.