I expected this to go on a lot longer, but I think we're wrapping up already. I guess those posts were quite long. But also, how many of you found that really familiar? How many of you went on a similar journey? How many of you never really had a problem with it? Or had completely different problem? Is there anything you're curious about my experience?
For many people it helps to think of your brain as an eager puppy. It *wants* to help, but it's not always very good at it. If it's sad, you may need to cheer it up first: trying to train a puppy who's just cringing whatever you do doesn't achieve much.
You might think that you could praise it for achieving the objective and blame it for not achieving the objective, but often that doesn't work, and blaming it for "coming really close" just translates to "feels like it might as well not try". Often better results come from encouraging each baby step on the way until they become routine.
Sometimes it has too much energy and you need to let it calm down a bit. Sometimes its eager for a walk. Sometimes it's eager to help, but what you're doing isn't very fun and you need to make it a thing you enjoy doing together.
But over time, you get there. That was the thing that wasn't obvious to me, that sometimes there wasn't a one technique which fixed the thing, you needed to keep practising and only after months or years, did it start coming naturally. And practising kindness and empathy help, and rage should be used in very cautious moderation if at all.
However, as with many of these metaphors, that's one I expect to help *some* people and be actively damaging to *other* people, so don't force yourself to do this if it doesn't seem right to you, work on what does work.
You might think that you could praise it for achieving the objective and blame it for not achieving the objective, but often that doesn't work, and blaming it for "coming really close" just translates to "feels like it might as well not try". Often better results come from encouraging each baby step on the way until they become routine.
Sometimes it has too much energy and you need to let it calm down a bit. Sometimes its eager for a walk. Sometimes it's eager to help, but what you're doing isn't very fun and you need to make it a thing you enjoy doing together.
But over time, you get there. That was the thing that wasn't obvious to me, that sometimes there wasn't a one technique which fixed the thing, you needed to keep practising and only after months or years, did it start coming naturally. And practising kindness and empathy help, and rage should be used in very cautious moderation if at all.
However, as with many of these metaphors, that's one I expect to help *some* people and be actively damaging to *other* people, so don't force yourself to do this if it doesn't seem right to you, work on what does work.
I tried many, many different things to get more productive. None of them fixed everything, but many of them were useful.
Getting Things Done
Gettings Things Done by Dave Allen was about getting a handle on a mess of different todo lists you never actually do. The advice that worked I've mostly internalised so I can't easily remember what was actually in it, just stuff that seems normal now.
But what I really liked about it was that it gave you a compartmentalised network of different tools, and explained what purpose each was supposed to serve, so you could choose ones that worked for you and adapted ones that weren't quite right, and skip ones where you already did something else that worked.
I know some people respond better to "just trust me, do what this says and don't question why" but I always find it really hard to trust without knowing why.
Assorted tips from here. Keep a calendar! Having google calendar or similar means now that's easier for most people to do automatically, but if you need to remember to do things on specific days, calendar.
Have a filing cabinet. Or somewhere else where papers are *supposed* to go (scanned on a computer would also make sense). You can't tidy things when they don't have a place to go. It feels like you can, but you can't. It should be not overfull (I'm falling down on this nowadays), so that it's as easy to put bills etc straight into the filing cabinet as to "put them down somewhere to deal with later".
Do not succumb to the temptation to have a file for "important" things. File by subject. Don't worry too much about ambiguities, if it's under "HSBC" or "bank", you'll still find it really quickly as long as you're looking for one file out of twenty -- but don't have duplicate files where some of the content is in one and some in the other. It's much easier to find "six months ago, I got a letter from the bank" than "six months ago, would I have considered this 'important'"?
That's for everything which you need to keep. If you still need to pay it it's ok to have a pile of things you need to DO (although better to keep it in a filing cabinet and have a list of things to do instead). Indeed, he advocates having an "inbox" of stuff, which you deal with now and move into long term storage. I need to resurrect this, I fell off the bandwagon.
Do not succumb to the temptation to put in your calendar or todo list things which you HOPE to work on today. Be clear what you HAVE to do today, because the deadline's today, and have a separate list of things you INTEND to work on today.
Diary
Inspired by some of Allen's advice, but later on, I started keeping a diary, a text file, a mix of "what I did today" and "todos for today/the week". Keeping that all in a single file really really helped keep spiralling todo lists out of control, even as I repeatedly declared bankruptcy and started over.
And at some point Ghoti introduced me to bullet journals and bought me fancy erasable japanese biros, and I incorporated a lot of the bullet journal techniques into my diary, and I really loved using the pens for quite a few things, even though "making todo list pretty" didn't work for me the way it did for many people.
Beeminder
Beeminder is a website built around committing to specific goals. The actual idea is rather weird -- instead of a paid subscription, you commit money to pay if you fail your pledge, which you can have go up in a fibonnci-sequence like rise. I avoided that side of the site entirely -- I knew the pressure would make me worse not better, and it's specifically designed for goals where you commit to an average of X, no matter what, which wasn't always what I wanted. But the admins were ever so helpful (Thank you Daniel et al!)
This is finally what started my gym habit. I resolved for twice a week, and doing extras when I could, and to start with I was often doing it on the last day I could when I *had* to do it, although now it's just a part of my usual routine.
I've used beeminder for a few other goals too, when the "ALERT ALERT YOU'RE GOING TO FAIL IF YOU DON'T DO THIS IN THE NEXT TWO DAYS! NEXT ONE DAY! RIGHT NOW!" effect is what I need to keep myself honest.
And recently I've adopted another app, currently Habits by Loop Habit Tracker, for day to day habits where I don't want to be pressured when I don't have time but I do want a helpful guide to "I have five minutes, can I remember to tidy up/do duolingo/etc" which has been useful.
Pomodoros
The name is embarrassingly "hip", but the idea is simple and good, of setting a timer -- traditionally 25 minutes -- where you work on something specific. I've done this occasionally, but it's very useful for most people where a little bit of guidance getting into the flow on a task helps.
I would like to do this more but it veer between "don't need it" and "I have a more fundamental problem it doesn't help with" so I only sometimes use it, but it's a really good one to try. Many people have online chat rooms where they set a timer, and having other people with you virtually really helps.
I used them for slightly different reason. When I had tasks to do that I was so scared of I was actually shaking, and even when I'd got all of my procrastination excuses out of the way and was staring at a computer trying to do them, setting a timer for five minutes, or twenty five minutes, and trying to do, well, even thirty seconds of work in that time, broke me out of being completely stuck.
In retrospect, I wish I'd thought to see if someone else would help me with the tasks I was most blocked on, but that didn't seem appropriate (partly, several were financial, and partly, I didn't want to make anyone feel responsible for it as an ongoing thing) and I didn't have the awareness to realise it might have been better to do that anyway. Anyway, I got through it.
I don't recommend this as a technique, but when I used to be blocked like this, it often used to involve staying up late (or staying at work late) not so much until I finished, but until I started...
Procrastination root causes
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ty2tjPwv8uyPK9vrz/my-algorithm-for-beating-procrastination
Someone on less wrong message board wrote an essay which really resonated with me at the time, of diagnosing the root cause of individual cases of procrastination. Like, if you're hesitating over the task because you expect that you will fail it, or that the result will be one you don't want, recognising that and being realistic about your expectations can help more than forcing yourself to do it anyway.
If you're just finding the task itself unpleasant or boring, then little tricks like "do five rows, then take a break and do something nice for a minute, then repeat" can help a lot.
If the reward is very distant from the task itself, setting intermediate rewards can help. e.g. you need to hand this work in but it won't be marked for months, then try to work with someone and encourage each other, or give yourself a chocolate after.
This didn't turn out as useful for me as I'd hoped, because my problems tended to be much bigger (and the problem was obvious but not easy to fix) or much smaller (I didn't want to do this analysis for every little household chore), but I still think it was a useful way of thinking about it.
General principles
What lessons do I draw from that? Well, there's several examples above, but one big one, is don't overthink it looking for the perfect technique, MOST techniques help a lot just by providing some structure whether they're the best or not, and it's often easy to tweak them once you get a better idea what you need. So... just pick something promising and try it.
The ones that are most likely to be useful seem to be:
* Anything with other people providing mutual support and just being there so someone sees if you do it or not
* Anything providing a regular routine which can become a habit
Overall conclusions
If the coping technique works well enough, that can be a solution all by itself.
If you can keep on top of all the admin, but only if you use a clock for pomodoros, or if you work alongside someone else, or whatever, well, if there's no particular downside to that, then just keep doing that!
Most successful people have *ways* they work, they don't just magically work wonderfully by strength of will regardless of the situation.
Indeed, many successful people are super screwed up and do SOME things exceedingly well, while relying on other people picking up the slack for everything else (a spouse to do household admin, hiring employees to work the way that works for them and never working with people who need to work a different way, people who are good at work but crap at work politics, or people who are good at work politics but crap at useful work, etc)
Working in different circumstances when you need to is a skill it's worth developing, but it's not a threshold you need to count for what you get done to "count". (Just, if you completely fall to pieces without your coping strategy, be aware of that and know what to do if it happens, don't just pretend it isn't true.)
This didn't work for me that much, as I had lots of coping strategies which helped some amount, but still left me really struggling to get anything done. Indeed, now I've dealt with some of the serious issues, I find myself in a place a lot more like what other people described, picking up techniques to deal with what feel like normal levels of getting round to things.
Getting Things Done
Gettings Things Done by Dave Allen was about getting a handle on a mess of different todo lists you never actually do. The advice that worked I've mostly internalised so I can't easily remember what was actually in it, just stuff that seems normal now.
But what I really liked about it was that it gave you a compartmentalised network of different tools, and explained what purpose each was supposed to serve, so you could choose ones that worked for you and adapted ones that weren't quite right, and skip ones where you already did something else that worked.
I know some people respond better to "just trust me, do what this says and don't question why" but I always find it really hard to trust without knowing why.
Assorted tips from here. Keep a calendar! Having google calendar or similar means now that's easier for most people to do automatically, but if you need to remember to do things on specific days, calendar.
Have a filing cabinet. Or somewhere else where papers are *supposed* to go (scanned on a computer would also make sense). You can't tidy things when they don't have a place to go. It feels like you can, but you can't. It should be not overfull (I'm falling down on this nowadays), so that it's as easy to put bills etc straight into the filing cabinet as to "put them down somewhere to deal with later".
Do not succumb to the temptation to have a file for "important" things. File by subject. Don't worry too much about ambiguities, if it's under "HSBC" or "bank", you'll still find it really quickly as long as you're looking for one file out of twenty -- but don't have duplicate files where some of the content is in one and some in the other. It's much easier to find "six months ago, I got a letter from the bank" than "six months ago, would I have considered this 'important'"?
That's for everything which you need to keep. If you still need to pay it it's ok to have a pile of things you need to DO (although better to keep it in a filing cabinet and have a list of things to do instead). Indeed, he advocates having an "inbox" of stuff, which you deal with now and move into long term storage. I need to resurrect this, I fell off the bandwagon.
Do not succumb to the temptation to put in your calendar or todo list things which you HOPE to work on today. Be clear what you HAVE to do today, because the deadline's today, and have a separate list of things you INTEND to work on today.
Diary
Inspired by some of Allen's advice, but later on, I started keeping a diary, a text file, a mix of "what I did today" and "todos for today/the week". Keeping that all in a single file really really helped keep spiralling todo lists out of control, even as I repeatedly declared bankruptcy and started over.
And at some point Ghoti introduced me to bullet journals and bought me fancy erasable japanese biros, and I incorporated a lot of the bullet journal techniques into my diary, and I really loved using the pens for quite a few things, even though "making todo list pretty" didn't work for me the way it did for many people.
Beeminder
Beeminder is a website built around committing to specific goals. The actual idea is rather weird -- instead of a paid subscription, you commit money to pay if you fail your pledge, which you can have go up in a fibonnci-sequence like rise. I avoided that side of the site entirely -- I knew the pressure would make me worse not better, and it's specifically designed for goals where you commit to an average of X, no matter what, which wasn't always what I wanted. But the admins were ever so helpful (Thank you Daniel et al!)
This is finally what started my gym habit. I resolved for twice a week, and doing extras when I could, and to start with I was often doing it on the last day I could when I *had* to do it, although now it's just a part of my usual routine.
I've used beeminder for a few other goals too, when the "ALERT ALERT YOU'RE GOING TO FAIL IF YOU DON'T DO THIS IN THE NEXT TWO DAYS! NEXT ONE DAY! RIGHT NOW!" effect is what I need to keep myself honest.
And recently I've adopted another app, currently Habits by Loop Habit Tracker, for day to day habits where I don't want to be pressured when I don't have time but I do want a helpful guide to "I have five minutes, can I remember to tidy up/do duolingo/etc" which has been useful.
Pomodoros
The name is embarrassingly "hip", but the idea is simple and good, of setting a timer -- traditionally 25 minutes -- where you work on something specific. I've done this occasionally, but it's very useful for most people where a little bit of guidance getting into the flow on a task helps.
I would like to do this more but it veer between "don't need it" and "I have a more fundamental problem it doesn't help with" so I only sometimes use it, but it's a really good one to try. Many people have online chat rooms where they set a timer, and having other people with you virtually really helps.
I used them for slightly different reason. When I had tasks to do that I was so scared of I was actually shaking, and even when I'd got all of my procrastination excuses out of the way and was staring at a computer trying to do them, setting a timer for five minutes, or twenty five minutes, and trying to do, well, even thirty seconds of work in that time, broke me out of being completely stuck.
In retrospect, I wish I'd thought to see if someone else would help me with the tasks I was most blocked on, but that didn't seem appropriate (partly, several were financial, and partly, I didn't want to make anyone feel responsible for it as an ongoing thing) and I didn't have the awareness to realise it might have been better to do that anyway. Anyway, I got through it.
I don't recommend this as a technique, but when I used to be blocked like this, it often used to involve staying up late (or staying at work late) not so much until I finished, but until I started...
Procrastination root causes
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ty2tjPwv8uyPK9vrz/my-algorithm-for-beating-procrastination
Someone on less wrong message board wrote an essay which really resonated with me at the time, of diagnosing the root cause of individual cases of procrastination. Like, if you're hesitating over the task because you expect that you will fail it, or that the result will be one you don't want, recognising that and being realistic about your expectations can help more than forcing yourself to do it anyway.
If you're just finding the task itself unpleasant or boring, then little tricks like "do five rows, then take a break and do something nice for a minute, then repeat" can help a lot.
If the reward is very distant from the task itself, setting intermediate rewards can help. e.g. you need to hand this work in but it won't be marked for months, then try to work with someone and encourage each other, or give yourself a chocolate after.
This didn't turn out as useful for me as I'd hoped, because my problems tended to be much bigger (and the problem was obvious but not easy to fix) or much smaller (I didn't want to do this analysis for every little household chore), but I still think it was a useful way of thinking about it.
General principles
What lessons do I draw from that? Well, there's several examples above, but one big one, is don't overthink it looking for the perfect technique, MOST techniques help a lot just by providing some structure whether they're the best or not, and it's often easy to tweak them once you get a better idea what you need. So... just pick something promising and try it.
The ones that are most likely to be useful seem to be:
* Anything with other people providing mutual support and just being there so someone sees if you do it or not
* Anything providing a regular routine which can become a habit
Overall conclusions
If the coping technique works well enough, that can be a solution all by itself.
If you can keep on top of all the admin, but only if you use a clock for pomodoros, or if you work alongside someone else, or whatever, well, if there's no particular downside to that, then just keep doing that!
Most successful people have *ways* they work, they don't just magically work wonderfully by strength of will regardless of the situation.
Indeed, many successful people are super screwed up and do SOME things exceedingly well, while relying on other people picking up the slack for everything else (a spouse to do household admin, hiring employees to work the way that works for them and never working with people who need to work a different way, people who are good at work but crap at work politics, or people who are good at work politics but crap at useful work, etc)
Working in different circumstances when you need to is a skill it's worth developing, but it's not a threshold you need to count for what you get done to "count". (Just, if you completely fall to pieces without your coping strategy, be aware of that and know what to do if it happens, don't just pretend it isn't true.)
This didn't work for me that much, as I had lots of coping strategies which helped some amount, but still left me really struggling to get anything done. Indeed, now I've dealt with some of the serious issues, I find myself in a place a lot more like what other people described, picking up techniques to deal with what feel like normal levels of getting round to things.
I can't describe myself as someone who *doesn't* procrastinate, but I think, after a very long time of small improvements, I might have moved out of the worst of "having things I'm literally unable to do". Which was something was never sure if I'd achieve, although I was never easily able to think clearly about, because I didn't want to admit how bad the problem was, so I don't feel so much exhilaration as extremely cautious numb relief. Although I think I am more relaxed and able to enjoy things.
Thousands and thousands of thanks to my parents, and Liv who have been supportive and patient and helped incredibly much while I've had problems I'm not easily able to describe what's wrong or what would help (even if many people I know fight much worse problems).
I'd always wondered if I'd write a "how not to procrastinate" guide when I fixed it. Well, it turns out that it's not easily reducible to a set of simple steps that once you know what they are, it's easy, which was not exactly a surprise. But I guess I do have *some* advice.
A lot of it feels really fake in retrospect. Like, I got over some particular hang-up, and then later on thinking back, I couldn't easily reconstruct the state of mind I was when I had the problem. I remember what I did that helped, but I found it hard to believe that had really been necessary.
Which just shows, how *different* brains can be, and how hard it can be to get what's going on in someone else's brain, even when it feels like you would know.
So some of this series will be my best recollections of what worked at the time, before they fade further, and some will be my best interpretations of what was going on with the power of hindsight.
Tip #1: Don't be depressed
I realise that's sort of unhelpful. But seriously, that CAN help, in several ways.
If you're burning out on something, often taking a break can help. You need to figure out how much to take a break to recharge, and how much not to because that will just turn into never doing the thing. Do self care things, a break from responsibility (e.g. play a phone game, etc, ideally something absorbing but not something complicated enough you get sucked in long term), low-pressure human contact if that usually helps you, eat if you're hungry, get a hot drink, and enough water/squash/etc that you're hydrated.
If this is a long-term problem, consider if a therapist, life coach, etc, is an option available. Don't focus on "do I deserve this" -- that's the depression talking, generally speaking taking advantage of that sort of service HELPS it be available to other people, not hinders. If there's a year or more waiting list, you'll find that out. Don't ask, will it help, if you're not sure, you can try it and see. (I didn't do any of this, sorry. But I probably should have done.)
(And this is way, way outside the scope of the post, but if, if you ask someone you know fairly well, "it feels like this, do I probably have depression", then you probably do, and treating it is hard, but many many people find therapy, or one medication or another, or some combination helps, so try that, even if it's not a guarantee. Do not think, "nothing will help, there's no point", it's a trap. Do not think, "I should be able to fix this with willpower", not having willpower is exactly the disease, try to get that fixed first. If possible, get a friend to talk you through the steps of finding a professional, or the best alternatives if you can't do that. And do that *first*, fixing "I find doing things hard" will be a lot easier once you've started to handle that.)
As hinted above, if you have friends you can ask for advice, outsource some of these decisions. Often saying, "yes, duh, you'd benefit from therapy" or "it's worth it, keep going, you're nearly there" or "friend, you are not making progress, you are not going to do this by the deadline nohow."
Sometimes you need to get things done despite a bad life situation :( But if you can reduce the amount you're totally dispirited, it will likely help a lot. All sorts of things, from small tasks to massive ones, suddenly feel easy when I feel more upbeat.
I don't think it was always that straightforward, I think when I was mired in some of this stuff, having a better mood helped, but there was plenty of stuff that I still found impossible, and trying to do them just made me despair again. But the steady improvement meant I reached a point where, when my mood improved, things seemed straight-forward again.
Even small things. I get into a habit of throwing socks onto the bottom step, to take upstairs to the laundry basket next time I'm going. Do I, in fact, take them upstairs next time I'm going? I mean, walking up stairs with socks is not actually harder, the only thing I need to do is actually pick them up. But no, do I heck as like. Well, some days I do, some days I don't. I know I could build the habit of doing it always, I have for things I really need to do, but when I haven't, it's like a switch. When I feel better, I do random small chores because why not. When I feel bad, I feel doing that carries the weight of committing to ALWAYS do that and keeping it tidy forever and I shy away, leaving it until I actually have to do it. I think the specifics of those behaviours are very individual, but (a) if something feels impossible, know that most of the time, what you actually need to do *isn't* impossible, and doing something is probably better than doing nothing, and not thinking about the bigger problem except occasionally is often better than dwelling on it (b) if you practice, you often can learn to do little things without thinking about any of the hangups, don't put too much weight on it (c) if you can't today, maybe you will tomorrow, don't feel too bad if you can't.
Standard caveat
I'm not sure how much the depression description applies to me. I was never "not able to enjoy things" the way I associate with descriptions of depression, and if I got away from the problems I was worried about, I perked up immediately. But I did have a lot of "everything feels impossible". And I always had friends, enjoyable activities, etc, I never felt like I was sad or suffering especially, rather than I had a normal fairly enjoyable life, except that before I worked to improve it, for quite a while I kept not getting around to things, both fun things like "write a computer game" and important things like "paying bills" and "doing my job" underneath the waterline.
This is "how not to procrastinate" not "how to fix mental health". OK, further posts to follow.
Thousands and thousands of thanks to my parents, and Liv who have been supportive and patient and helped incredibly much while I've had problems I'm not easily able to describe what's wrong or what would help (even if many people I know fight much worse problems).
I'd always wondered if I'd write a "how not to procrastinate" guide when I fixed it. Well, it turns out that it's not easily reducible to a set of simple steps that once you know what they are, it's easy, which was not exactly a surprise. But I guess I do have *some* advice.
A lot of it feels really fake in retrospect. Like, I got over some particular hang-up, and then later on thinking back, I couldn't easily reconstruct the state of mind I was when I had the problem. I remember what I did that helped, but I found it hard to believe that had really been necessary.
Which just shows, how *different* brains can be, and how hard it can be to get what's going on in someone else's brain, even when it feels like you would know.
So some of this series will be my best recollections of what worked at the time, before they fade further, and some will be my best interpretations of what was going on with the power of hindsight.
Tip #1: Don't be depressed
I realise that's sort of unhelpful. But seriously, that CAN help, in several ways.
If you're burning out on something, often taking a break can help. You need to figure out how much to take a break to recharge, and how much not to because that will just turn into never doing the thing. Do self care things, a break from responsibility (e.g. play a phone game, etc, ideally something absorbing but not something complicated enough you get sucked in long term), low-pressure human contact if that usually helps you, eat if you're hungry, get a hot drink, and enough water/squash/etc that you're hydrated.
If this is a long-term problem, consider if a therapist, life coach, etc, is an option available. Don't focus on "do I deserve this" -- that's the depression talking, generally speaking taking advantage of that sort of service HELPS it be available to other people, not hinders. If there's a year or more waiting list, you'll find that out. Don't ask, will it help, if you're not sure, you can try it and see. (I didn't do any of this, sorry. But I probably should have done.)
(And this is way, way outside the scope of the post, but if, if you ask someone you know fairly well, "it feels like this, do I probably have depression", then you probably do, and treating it is hard, but many many people find therapy, or one medication or another, or some combination helps, so try that, even if it's not a guarantee. Do not think, "nothing will help, there's no point", it's a trap. Do not think, "I should be able to fix this with willpower", not having willpower is exactly the disease, try to get that fixed first. If possible, get a friend to talk you through the steps of finding a professional, or the best alternatives if you can't do that. And do that *first*, fixing "I find doing things hard" will be a lot easier once you've started to handle that.)
As hinted above, if you have friends you can ask for advice, outsource some of these decisions. Often saying, "yes, duh, you'd benefit from therapy" or "it's worth it, keep going, you're nearly there" or "friend, you are not making progress, you are not going to do this by the deadline nohow."
Sometimes you need to get things done despite a bad life situation :( But if you can reduce the amount you're totally dispirited, it will likely help a lot. All sorts of things, from small tasks to massive ones, suddenly feel easy when I feel more upbeat.
I don't think it was always that straightforward, I think when I was mired in some of this stuff, having a better mood helped, but there was plenty of stuff that I still found impossible, and trying to do them just made me despair again. But the steady improvement meant I reached a point where, when my mood improved, things seemed straight-forward again.
Even small things. I get into a habit of throwing socks onto the bottom step, to take upstairs to the laundry basket next time I'm going. Do I, in fact, take them upstairs next time I'm going? I mean, walking up stairs with socks is not actually harder, the only thing I need to do is actually pick them up. But no, do I heck as like. Well, some days I do, some days I don't. I know I could build the habit of doing it always, I have for things I really need to do, but when I haven't, it's like a switch. When I feel better, I do random small chores because why not. When I feel bad, I feel doing that carries the weight of committing to ALWAYS do that and keeping it tidy forever and I shy away, leaving it until I actually have to do it. I think the specifics of those behaviours are very individual, but (a) if something feels impossible, know that most of the time, what you actually need to do *isn't* impossible, and doing something is probably better than doing nothing, and not thinking about the bigger problem except occasionally is often better than dwelling on it (b) if you practice, you often can learn to do little things without thinking about any of the hangups, don't put too much weight on it (c) if you can't today, maybe you will tomorrow, don't feel too bad if you can't.
Standard caveat
I'm not sure how much the depression description applies to me. I was never "not able to enjoy things" the way I associate with descriptions of depression, and if I got away from the problems I was worried about, I perked up immediately. But I did have a lot of "everything feels impossible". And I always had friends, enjoyable activities, etc, I never felt like I was sad or suffering especially, rather than I had a normal fairly enjoyable life, except that before I worked to improve it, for quite a while I kept not getting around to things, both fun things like "write a computer game" and important things like "paying bills" and "doing my job" underneath the waterline.
This is "how not to procrastinate" not "how to fix mental health". OK, further posts to follow.