Deep Work & Systems

I promise I’m not crazy. I am just genuinely curious if anyone has tried and noticed any benefits of staring at a wall for some time before starting work—it’s a trend on social media in the “productivitymax” call it realm.

I love the flexibility, but sometimes it feels too easy to spend hours organizing systems instead of actually doing the work 😅

Do you prefer:

• super simple setup or
• highly customized dashboards/workflows?

[supprimé]

I find myself always having a conflict between internal expectations and what my actions are. I want to progressively turn into someone who is respected and doesn't do bs all the time. Yet, when I go to school, I turn towards my social nature and start acting like a goofy dick who no one takes seriously.

I become too social, rowdy at times, and just someone who gives too many fucks about others and what they think. I chase social approval asf, and I've become super far from what I want to be. I accept that change should come from within and from my mindset, but I'm not able to totally ingrain this into my mind, and once I start my goofy sh again, I fall into the loop.

The thing is, this has been bothering me for a while because I know I want more for myself. I want to be someone disciplined, respected, and taken seriously, but my actions don't really line up with that. It's like I know the type of person I want to become, but when I'm actually around people, especially at school, I switch up and become this overly social, attention-seeking version of myself. Then when school's done, I regret it and think, “why did I act like that again?”

I also started to read Mark Manson's Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, and I find the stories quite amusing. While his points are valid, my nature prefers being a social goofball and acting like a clown or something to get attention. It may seem like I'm not trying, but I'm honestly really confused and regret being too social once school's done.

Part of me wonders if I'm trying too hard to get validation or if I've just built habits that are hard to break. I don't want to completely kill my personality or become some emotionless robot either, but I do want to stop acting in ways I regret and actually become more aligned with who I want to be.

I'm not sure how to change this. Any tips? Thanks.

Some people say it's a waste of time and then will just tell you to get some caffeine in to get work done, how do you feel about it?

I’ve noticed a repeating cycle with myself over the past few years.

I get motivated to organize my life better, download a bunch of productivity apps, create routines, set goals, organize everything perfectly… and for a little while it feels great.

But eventually the system itself becomes tiring to maintain.

Too many dashboards.
Too many categories.
Too many notifications.
Too many apps trying to become an entire operating system for life.

At some point I realized I was spending more energy managing productivity than actually doing things.

Recently I started simplifying everything instead:
fewer tools, fewer systems, fewer things demanding attention all day.

Ironically, I think I’ve become more consistent because of it.

Now I’m curious how other people here approach this.

Do you prefer:

• highly customizable systems
• or simpler setups that are easier to stick with long term?

And what usually makes you abandon productivity apps after the initial excitement wears off?

At first it’s:

• simple notes
• tasks
• docs

Then suddenly there are dashboards, templates, automations, databases, and 50 different pages nobody updates anymore.

How do you personally keep your Notion setup minimal and actually usable long term?

So I've always been hitting the gym after work but lately I started to feel really sluggish after work and because of that I skipped a few days, also I hate how busy it is at night so I've been thinking of switching to before work. The gym is like 13 minutes on foot from my house but I don't intend to go back home after since it's already on the way to my office but also I hate gym showers

https://preview.redd.it/prfui4vyo62h1.png?width=2662&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e6504afe54ce38a0332cac42264f4d6016eca30

https://preview.redd.it/aao8ztuyo62h1.png?width=2640&format=png&auto=webp&s=c392e8605e6bcc2c8955aed62c4fb6ed9ad1c485

I am sure this has been done many times before, but hopefully this will be helpful to some. It has definitely been a game-changer for me, even if it is such a small change.

I am constantly struggling to focus when I see a huge block of text, even when divided by headers with a colourful font. My dyslexia and ADHD probably do not help.

I have been trying to recreate what I saw in Notion years ago, and wrote this quick CSS snippet to add to a Tokyo Night theme I am using. I tried callouts previously; they looked great, but were obviously not headers.

Pretty happy with the result, I applied this to all headers, but I am considering keeping only H1 - H3.

Here is the code - I am not technical, so it has obviously been written with Claude. I tinkered with this a bit to make it look solid. Colours can be adjusted to fit the different themes.

If you have any suggestions on what can be improved, please share!

/* H1 - Salmon/Pink */
.markdown-rendered h1, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-1) {
    background-color: #2b2024;
    color: #e06c75 !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important; 
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important;
    left: -6px !important;
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important;
    display: block;
}


/* H2 - Green */
.markdown-rendered h2, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-2) {
    background-color: #283129;
    color: #81b866 !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important;
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important; 
    left: -6px !important; 
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important; 
    display: block;
}


/* H3 - Teal */
.markdown-rendered h3, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-3) {
    background-color: #203131;
    color: #34b79b !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important;
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important; 
    left: -6px !important; 
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important; 
    display: block;
}


/* H4 - Blue */
.markdown-rendered h4, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-4) {
    background-color: #252a40;
    color: #6f88d9 !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important;
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important; 
    left: -6px !important; 
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important; 
    display: block;
}


/* H5 - Purple */
.markdown-rendered h5, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-5) {
    background-color: #2d233f;
    color: #a981d4 !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important;
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important; 
    left: -6px !important; 
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important; 
    display: block;
}


/* H6 - Yellow/Orange */
.markdown-rendered h6, .cm-line:has(.cm-header-6) {
    background-color: #2d2820;
    color: #e5c07b !important;
    padding: 8px 14px !important;
    border: 6px solid transparent !important;
    background-clip: padding-box !important;
    border-radius: 10px !important; 
    box-sizing: border-box !important;
    position: relative !important; 
    left: -6px !important; 
    width: calc(100% + 12px) !important; 
    display: block;
}

I'll start by saying that i'm well aware that an enjoyable life has breaks and moments of fun between the work and effort, but i've gotten to the point where i need to change things.

For my whole life i've enjoyed playing video games, and i never really needed to manage them alongside my other priorities, because those priorities either weren't very hard/time consuming (chores, cooking, etc) or were required from me, and i just put up with them (school, work). However, i'm now in my 2nd year of uni, going into my 3rd, and i've realized i need to change things. My grades have been fine, but i have procrastinated every single assignment, reading, and studying that i possibly have been able to. I mainly do so by playing games on my computer with my friends, though i'll doomscroll sometimes, as many tend to do. I have come to realize i have a very unhealthy relationship with my technology, and i need to do something to get myself off of it when there are things that need to be done, and to do other, more self-fulfilling things when there arent. I know that if i set some kind of daily time limit i'll probably just start turning it off eventually, and so i need some kind of solution that's more drastic.

Since i am a student, however, i do NEED my technology, since ~90% of my assigned work is completed online. But, i'm more than willing to try any kind of solution that isn't tied to my computer, i just really want to make some kind of change. Thank you all.

Title: Atomic Habits Nearly Killed Me

Not literally, but whew… 300+ pages.

Before anyone comes for me, I actually respect Atomic Habits and can see why so many people swear by it. James Clear clearly knows his stuff and there are some genuinely powerful ideas in there.

But I’ll be honest… I spent so much time trying to absorb everything, implement everything, and feeling bad about not implementing everything that the whole process started feeling like homework.

Maybe this is just a me problem, but sometimes productivity books accidentally create a second job: managing the productivity system.

I realized I don’t always need another framework, tracker, identity layer, or habit matrix. Sometimes I just need something that cuts through the noise and gets me moving.

Recently I read Get Sh*t Done by Knute Steel and it kind of surprised me. A lot of the same core ideas showed up, but compressed into something I could get through in under an hour. Totally different tone too — less professor, more brutally honest friend who knows your brain is trying to sabotage you.

Honestly laughed my ass off through parts of it.

What’s interesting is both books are still digesting in my head, but I keep going back to GSD because it felt lighter and easier to actually apply instead of study.

Now I’m curious if I’m alone here.

Anybody else hit a point where productivity books become so dense or system-heavy that you stop doing the actual thing?

Would love recommendations for books that hit similar themes — habits, focus, discipline, getting unstuck — but are a little less demanding or more immediately actionable.

Just finished reading Jordan Mechner's 1985–1989 journals. He made the original Prince of Persia at 21, solo, on an Apple II.

Near the end he does the math: 3,800 hours over four years. About two years of honest work, spread across four calendar years.

The other two years were a screenwriting detour, an NYU film school rejection, weeks of staring at the code without touching it. For most of late 1987 he didn't open the game at all.

What got him back to it was one sentence over lunch. A colleague named Tomi Pierce told him: "Think of the game as an old car you're fixing up in your spare time." That was the pivot of the entire production.

I think we romanticize people who grind on one thing for years. The reality is messier. Most long projects have a dormant year in the middle, and the people who recover are the ones who happen to have a Tomi Pierce around to tell them, kindly, to pick up the wrench.

If you're in your dormant year on something right now -- you're not behind. You're in the middle.

I wrote some longer notes after the book if anyone wants more - you can find it in the first comment. Honestly it gave me a real boost of energy and I think it might help someone else feeling stuck.

I wasted so much time hating myself for procrastinating

For real though. I downloaded like 12 productivity apps, tried time-blocking, Pomodoro, cold showers, waking up at 5am... the whole self-help starter pack. Nothing stuck longer than a week.

Then I stumbled on something in a behavioral psych book that hit me hard: procrastination isn't laziness. It's your brain running from uncomfortable emotions tied to the task. Not the task itself the feelings around it.

That clicked for me because I noticed I don't procrastinate on everything equally. Some stuff I avoid because it feels too big (I freeze), other stuff because I'm scared I'll do it wrong.

Turns out there's a few common patterns. I'll share the ones I personally relate to:

The it has to be perfect trap I used to rewrite the first paragraph of anything like 20 times before moving on. Then I'd run out of energy and quit. The fix that actually worked for me was forcing myself to write the ugliest possible first draft. Like intentionally bad. Then editing later felt easy.

The it's too bigةfreeze When I see a massive project I literally shut down. I'll close my laptop and waste hours on my phone feeling guilty. What helped was making my goal stupidly small. Like "just open the document." That's it. Most times once I'm in, I keep going.

The i work better under pressure lie Man I told myself this for years. Yeah sure I'd finish stuff last minute, but it was always mediocre and I'd be destroyed the next day. I started telling my friend fake deadlines so someone would actually hold me accountable. Game changer.

I think the key thing I learned is that fighting procrastination with more discipline is like fighting fire with gasoline. You gotta understand what emotion is blocking you first, then reduce the friction around that specific thing.

In 2025, I experienced depression, repeated burn out, mood swing, insomnia. So I decided to make 2026 a year focused on becoming happier and more stable.

Now I paused depression medication, stabilized circadian rhythm, and perform cognitive heavy tasks consistently without burning out. A lot of small wins lead to this transformation, and I want to celebrate all the small wins by sharing my experience.

To achieve this, I re-engineered my life in 3 aspects: Sleep, Environment, Work.

I shared about Sleep in my previous post with title "[Method] How I consistently get up at 5:30 am as someone suffered from insomnia in the past 10+ years". Now it is time to share how I chose the environment and why it works for me.

The context

I have been living in 4 different countries over the last 8 years. Constant moving has been taxing my mental health and disrupting productivity. In 2025 alone, I moved 4 times across 3 countries. I also lived with parents for 2 months, I love them, they love me, but we had a lot of conflicts. Therefore I decided to settle down in 2026, in an environment that works for me.

I searched for several places and ended up settle down in a coast city in Kanagawa, Japan. Rented a hotel room for 1 year.

The new environment

Turns out it works perfectly for the following reasons:

• Minimal decisions to make. No need to decide what to wear (limited options), what for breakfast (offered by hotel). So I can start my day with minimal cognitive friction, and use the saved mental energy on the important decisions. Although those decisions sounds easy, they tax the prefrontal cortex nonetheless. And that is why you see people wear the same outfit everyday.
• Approximate to the Pacific Ocean. I find ocean brings me peace, and it only takes 15 mins for me to walk to the beach. And knowing the accessibility to my favorite environment is relieving. 
• Variable environment. I can work at lobby when I want to be surrounded by people, or at my room when I want to be alone.
• Low-effort maintenance. My room gets cleaned every 3 days. No cooking. All I do is laundry.
• 2-meal a day, and I only eat 1 meal after breakfast. To further reduce decision-making, I set a schedule of where to eat on each day.

Overall, this lifestyle significantly reduced cognitive friction and preserved more cognitive resources for work, reflection, providing the foundation for me to strengthening my neurological stability and improve long term well-being. And as a result, I have finished more work in the last 3 months than the last whole year.

This is not the money-saving lifestyle, but also not too expensive. I am spending less than $2500 a month, thanks to the affordable price in Japan. And considering the productivity boost and happier mood, it is a really good deal for me.

Having a bad academic year motivated me to discipline myself more and begin building healthy habits. However I don't feel like my progress is as fast or as meaningful than it is. I've always tried to self improve but I often got stuck in a cycle where I went all out burned out and stopped. This created a mentality where I think I'm destined to fail and to not progress. Recently though I've downloaded a calendar app and Microsoft to do to show my daily victories instead of giving up and escaping through bad habits. I just think that since I get anxious by thinking I have to solve it all in one day or if I'm doing good enough or not putting in the effort, time, that I'm creating an unstable, unpredictive environment. So lately I've been very dedicated on myself and have focused on disciplines like re learning algebra to prepare for pre-calculus and hobbies like journaling, guitar, exercise. They are good meaningful ways of improving on myself but since I can't overload myself with many tasks I miss out on important things like cleaning my room, house, maintaining an organized room, self care. And I try to do them every day but mostly micro dose them ( 5-30 minutes) depending on how I feel. I think it is working, given that I started this recently and the first thing I'm not doing when I wake up is doom scrolling, but too slow or due to my past I don't trust myself so I stress on being productive and avoid relaxing like playing a video game or exercising, watching a movie, show, reading manga. I have a very hard time explaining myself but this is the best way I can and I can currently describe. I don't have to explain it all in one post. I feel like I don't deserve summer vacation to improve and getting over myself without a difficult school structure is less valuable. So I constantly try to be productive or do lots of things for short periods to deserve a break. So working up to things feels wrong, especially when those close to me do more

In another subreddit, I saw a comment saying that we can only grow by stepping out of our comfort zone, and I’m well aware of that. The problem is that in certain social situations, my anxiety spikes, and I get terrified of failing.

Currently, I’m looking for a job, and it’s becoming a huge problem. I know it might sound stupid, but I can’t bring myself to send out resumes. I just don’t feel capable, I’m completely unmotivated, and I can't do it because I feel like I'm not good enough and that I’ve failed in every possible aspect. How can I step out of my comfort zone, start being more proactive, and stop being so afraid of judgment and failure?

Right now, I’m even losing motivation to do the things I used to enjoy. I feel like I’m not even good at those anymore. My current routine is just waking up, getting on the PC, and doing absolutely nothing else. I want to break out of this, but I feel trapped, lazy, and completely drained. I spend the entire day overthinking my life, but nights are the worst everything just feels like shit because I view myself as incompetent, and I just sit there contemplating my entire existence.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. I just finished my bachelor's degree, and now I’m just stuck here. All my friends are moving forward, doing something with their lives and I feel like a total failure because I can't seem to move on.

The truth is, I don't really know what I want for my future. I want to work, earn money, and have my own life, but what do I actually want to do? I don't fucking know. And even if I do get hired somewhere, I'm socially awkward people won't like me. Plus, I look way younger than I am, so I feel like I'm going to be judged for that too. I'm just so sick and tired of everything. I'm afraid of fk growing up I'm not ready but I now I need to.

I kept failing at goals for years. Not spectacularly — I just kept quitting.

Ate healthy. Worked out. Hit my marks some weeks — then stopped. Repeat cycle. I'd feel good for 3-4 weeks, then something would come up, and I'd fall off, and I'd never quite get back on.

5 years of this.

I did everything you're supposed to do. Habit trackers. Accountability partners. Apps. Reading books about habits. Made it 3 weeks on the apps, then forgot to check in, then stopped opening them entirely. The accountability partner stopped texting back after week 2. No one's fault — people have their own lives.

What changed: I put real money on the line. Not a badge. Not a streak on an app. Actual cash — and I lose it if I don't follow through.

The mechanic: you set a goal, stake an amount you're comfortable losing, pick a friend as your witness, and if you don't hit your mark, they know, and the money goes. That's it.

The trick isn't the money. The trick is the accountability with someone who actually wants you to succeed — friends who notice when you go quiet. The stakes make the check-in feel normal instead of awkward. "Hey, how'd it go?" from a friend hits different when there's something real behind it.

And the data backs it up: people with accountability partners are 5x more likely to succeed at goals than going solo. That's not from the app — that's from behavioral research on commitment devices and loss aversion.

What I learned: willpower isn't the problem. The problem is that going solo gives you too many exits. "I'll start again Monday." "I've had a rough week." "It's fine." The stake closes those exits — not because you're afraid to lose the money, but because you're not willing to let your friend watch you quit.

Curious if anyone else has found commitment devices that actually stick past week 3. Most of the popular stuff — habit trackers, apps, accountability partners who aren't financially tied — fades by month one. What worked for you?

Basically what I want, is a program or an app that allows me to log and keep track of all my personal projects, and maybe chores/things I still have to do.

I'm looking for something that has a progress-bar on how far a project is completed, when I started it, how long a certain project has been running / open / not worked on - something that allows me to just dump all tasks relating to a project in it and then allows me to prioritize it.

So far, google and AI have only suggested (shocking) AI cloud-based stuff - not looking for that, I just want something local.

Not a problem if it requires a bit of setup.

What do you guys use?

Have been using obsidian more extensively for the last 2 weeks, and here are my thoughts.

I already tried multiple times to make it a habit to write down notes, and always failed. I would write notes for 2 or 3 days, then I'd get tired, feel lazy, and give up. All of that was because i was writing notes just for the sake of writing them. And I was spending a lot of time on them, used to write long notes, and maybe it's because of this i got tired and didn't make it a habit.
Now I mostly take short notes, writing down some really important stuff, which i believe would be helpful. And even though I still don't take notes as often as I should, cuz there already were some things that i read one day, then a few days later I needed to check again that post, and had to search it again in browser history instead of looking up in my vault.
This is how my vault looks after about two weeks. And i'm amazed by how some completely unrelated topics end up being connected

https://preview.redd.it/2jdmn49fg52h1.png?width=2586&format=png&auto=webp&s=2eea9fdc48475ecfe1cbb35f3c2cc88969053627

I use the MOC system btw. I find it pretty intuitive and helpful when i have to find a specific note, but i can't remember the exact name of that note. I just open the MOC for that topic and then just navigate through notes till i find the note i've been looking for.
This is the folder structure if someone is interested:

https://preview.redd.it/upfcz101h52h1.png?width=570&format=png&auto=webp&s=863aaddf3019d94cbc9f20732c3320e63fc56e28

If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, I’d love to hear them.
And yeah, i'm not a native english speaker, so my grammar is not that good. Half of this post i wrote with the translate.