u/RandomHour

Is it just me, or is the emphasis on delegation not actually the best? Delegation makes it sound like you're a leader and you have to give tasks to a bunch of other people. It sounds like you have to hire a bunch of people, right?

At first, I actually wasn't too comfortable with it. Maybe it's how I grew up. If I could do something myself, I wanted to do it myself. "If you want to do it right, you need to do it yourself first." And if I had to ask a question, I would only ask if I had to.

That could be useful for skill building. I was more self reliant. But nowadays, I have to do so much stuff, I can't do it all alone.

Nowadays, I unlocked a ton of productivity, by just being willing to ask for help. I ask more questions. I ask more people for help, even in areas of my own expertise. I talk to more people.

There are lots of people who are willing to help you out, it's just that most people don't ask.

But yeah, it seems like the first unlock you need before you can delegate well, is to be a lot more willing to ask for help.

Something I've been experimenting with is really letting S**t go to solve procrastination.

Like really just relaxing, taking walks, and not getting too into my head about things. Like involve less thinking or feeling if possible.

Like if I have a task list. I just do it, without thinking about it much. Just make it as transparent as possible to just move from one task to the other.

If I have a mental hangup about a task, I use to charge straight into it, to then not complete it, and feel even worse about it. Then the next day, I finally finish it.

I found out that if I just stopped caring so much, I usually just finish the first day.

Which is pretty ironic.

Like if I just let s**t go, like I let go of the guilt of not doing it, or the worry of not doing it right, it ends up getting done way faster. And I feel way better, and then I can do the next task even easier.

Do people in the productivity world ever talk about Demand Avoidance?

I recently learned about Demand Avoidance because a family member of mine has an autism profile called Pathological Demand Avoidance. I've been helping him a lot over the years with dealing with it, and very recently I found the real name for the profile that he has.

Kinda weird how his psychologists never really named it. But learning more about it has significantly changed how I approach teaching him.

Anyhow, when I really think about it, demand avoidance isn't really a thing people ever talk about. Even though it may be a lot more common than we think.

Demand avoidance seems to stem from too high of anxiety, causing an automatic flight/fight/freeze response. External demands, but also internal demands can trigger the freeze response, which stops progress entirely.

I know I have some emotional and mental hangups with certain things. As do other people I know. And that stuff isn't just procrastination. It's seems to be much more than that.

The solution I found for those, is to have less ego, and to do the work more peacefully. Take some deep breaths, relax a lot, and just get the work done a peaceful pace. Understanding why you do it, can help sometimes. But ironically, trying too hard, is actually the problem sometimes.

Which reminds me A LOT of what a lot of productivity folks eventually move towards, which is more stable, and peaceful work.

Like not trying harder, but instead, doing less, but the more important stuff. Also developing more mindfulness, and being more, but also developed with the work.