A related phenomenon: going to therapy versus going through a workbook on say, CBT, that teaches you all the theory and techniques. If you can self-hack from the workbook, all power to you, but a large portion of people need the accountability and the feedback from sitting in a room with another person going through workbook-type things together.

Request: A friend of mine would like to get better at breaking down big vague goals into more actionable subgoals, preferably in a work/programming context. Does anyone know where I could find a source of practice problems and/or help generate some scenarios to practice on? Alternatively, any ideas on a better way to train that skill?

I seem to have gotten a lot better lately at getting things done, so here's my attempt at breaking it down.

• Consistency effects from being responsible for other people/groups: +8, 6 months or so. I am responsible for membership admittance of a private group on Habitica (see below), for reminding a friend to take their meds, and for helping other friends debug their productivity. The overall effect is that a) I get practice at productivity techniques, b) It primes me to be a productive person.

• Habitica (formerly known as HabitRPG): +4, on and off for 3 years. I'm a member of an active party in this gamification of productivity, which means that if I don't do my dailies, my teammates take damage. Being responsible for membership of a private group means I have to log on regularly anyway, so I might as well use the system. And the combination of daily and to-do lists is good enough for me to track all my tasks and make sure I stay on track (one of my daily tasks is to do at least 1 to-do item).

• Working from home: +3, 10 months. This might come across as counterintuitive, but when I started working from home I floundered around for the first few months, and then money became an issue and I got better at consistently putting in the work. I'm still not perfect (witness me here instead of working), but I feel like I've improved my ability to get things done in less structured environments and with little to no oversight.

• Pomodoros: 0, on and off for the last 3 years. I still find them useful occasionally when I'm having major issues getting started on something, but the enforced on/off pattern drives me bonkers. If I'm not getting into the task, 25 minutes on feels like an eternity and 5 minutes off feels much too short of a break. If I am getting into the task, I'll just ignore it altogether. Giving them a zero because I feel like the pros and cons cancel out.

• Asking people to tell me to work: +1. Another way to convince myself to get started when I just don't wanna, by utilizing peer pressure.

I would like to do this in either Australia or Canada

I come here probably a few times a week, almost entirely just for reading or clicking through on particularly interesting links. I always use a desktop.

2 weeks ago I realised my current job is making me miserable. I've now started doing something about it and have a trial period of a few hours this weekend for a new job.

The forementioned misery was getting projected onto my boyfriend in the form of finding some of his less awesome behaviours incredibly annoying. I eventually realised that I was projecting and had a chat with him involving an apology and a discussion about what the underlying issues are and what we could potentially both do better in the future.

A friend and I have become accountability buddies in the sense of sharing our lists of goals and asking about their progress every now and then.

Have been trying to do the homework set by my therapist, although it's tough going (which of course is the reason it's such a major ugh field in the first place)

I'm in Eastern Standard Time in North America and have done a ton of volunteer hours at www.7cupsoftea.com, a peer counselling service. I'm very confident in my ability to be a good active listener to other intelligent people as a result of my training there, as well as having access to a lot of techniques from DBT and CBT. Not sure about cost, but for now I assume I have the ability to do it for free. Message me here on LW or at j.runds at gmail

I found a job. A crappy, low-paying job, but one which will improve my interacting-with-random-people skills and which will give me the financial security to work on my other skills

• I finally finished all the work to leave grad school with an MA, and am officially graduated in just over a week's time.

• I am getting a visa so that I'll be able to move to my boyfriend's country and move in with him. If you're in doubt about how awesome that is, you should see the mountain of bureaucracy I've had to deal with...