Nikita Khutorni's Site

Today I learned that doing physical exercise outside, getting plenty of sleep, meditating, taking cold showers and drinking enough is not enough to get shit done.

I did all of it yesterday and yet I accomplished nothing. Finally sat down to work at 1 pm. I started reading about how to organize work. Found a great guide, specifically for people with ADHD (I don’t know if I am affected). Then I accidentaly found a padlock where the number combination was forgotten. I thought to myself: Let’s try to open it up — it won’t take long!

And it actually didn’t. I opened it with the help of a video in 20 minutes. The problem is that I then shuffled the combination and did it again. And again. And again. And again. 2 hours passed. I went to help my father. Had supper. Contiued researching. Helped my father again. 6 pm. When I was helping I had a strong urge to play video games.

I thought: I might have ADHD. In that case, my dopamine levels are low. Poeple with low dopamine levels need to do activities that are exciting. So playing video games for me is justifiable. After all, I can hyperfocus on video games and play them for hours on end. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I told myself: Only for a short time! And I sat down to play. 10 pm — late night dinner. Watched a movie with parents until 11.30 pm. And I thought — I’ll just play for a few more minutes! And then it was 4.30 am. YouTube — 5.30 am.

Every time I read up on ADHD after a while, it fucks up my day. I start identifying as someone with ADHD and it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy — I start behaving as if I had ADHD. Regardless if I am affected, reading up on it after a while causes my day to crash.

So it is 1 pm again. I am sitting and reading ADHD reddit. This does not help at all. Regardless of whether I have it, reading this won’t change my situation. So let’s get started. Going outside. Do a small workout. Cold shower. Plan my day according to How I plan my day.

Here is a video by Angela Lee Duckworth (love the name) who studied what the most impactful factor for success is. It is grit. The ability to keep going even though it is hard and getting up after failing. It is a better predictor of success then intelligence, talent and social stance in life. Which leads me to two thoughts:

I talked about Mark Manson suggestion to not aim for goals, but to learn the necessary skills that are required to reach a goal and the many benefits this approach brings. Given that grit is the key determining factor in success, then the best possible skill to learn is — grit. I could make this a public experiment using social pressure that would help me keep going. This could also be the topic of my Bachelor’s thesis.

An article about the video: https://www.changeboard.com/article-details/17150/nutshell-effort-counts-twice-angela-duckworth-s-grit-/

An interesting thing I am noting: I really enjoy writing.

I found this website today: The Habit Gym. You can commit to doing a habit for 30 days and tracking it publicly, based on the so-called X-Effect (crossing habits off and seeing them). If you don’t cross it off, you have to pay.