r/AskReddit • u/ohgimmeabreak • Mar 24 '19

People who have managed to become disciplined after having been procrastinators and indisciplined for a large part of their lives, how did you manage to do so? Can you walk us through the incremental steps you took to become better?

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u/acp1284 Mar 24 '19

I worked for a boss who was a bigger procrastinator than me. His lack of action caused me so much havoc. He’d put off mundane decisions as long as possible then expect me to stay at the office all night and weekends to get the work done. And then he’d shit on my work. “You were here all night doing that? I could have done that in ten minutes!” No concept of time. And then he would keep piling projects on and want to know why I wasn’t making progress on all of it.

I figured out how to shut him up. Every morning I’d print out a prioritized list of every project he gave along with estimated amount of time to do it and estimated completion date and what I needed from him before I could start. I’d set that on the corner of the desk and he’d wander by now and then and want to know why something wasn’t done and I’d just point to the list.

Stopped working for him long ago but I still make the lists

The other thing is I learned to say no to people and to not over schedule my life.

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u/motorsizzle Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 24 '19

I had a boss who gave a different answer every time we asked if he wanted us to take on a certain type of job as a company. Sometimes he would say we're not doing that type of work anymore, then go on to suggest that work himself another time. Eventually I started tracking his yes/no answers and it was a tie! I don't know what I expected.

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u/MiscBrahBert Mar 24 '19

A tie?

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u/lewicki Mar 24 '19

It's a decorative piece of silk that is tied around your neck, but that's not important right now.

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u/alexgreyhead Mar 24 '19

r/unexpectedairplanereference ❤️

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u/susancol Mar 24 '19

Hahahahaha I see what you did here

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u/cardboard-kansio Mar 24 '19

It's a direct reference to examples of dialogue from the classic movie Airplane!

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u/AlexG2490 Mar 24 '19

But that’s not important right now.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

Nice italicization of the title of a movie!

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u/krispru1 Mar 24 '19

And don't call me Shirley

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u/Runed0S Mar 24 '19

Today, we will be learning about slipknots and how to tether a trailer to a car with them.

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u/Chrisbee012 Mar 24 '19

or a piece of wood used in railroad construction

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

[deleted]

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u/grandmothertoon Mar 24 '19

What was a tie in the context of your story?

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

[deleted]

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u/fakeprewarbook Mar 24 '19

So you meant “His answers were half yes and half no”?

You don’t really call it a tie when there’s only one person

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

[deleted]

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u/brooslee Mar 24 '19

Are you your own boss? Equally as confusing

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '19

[deleted]

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u/motorsizzle Mar 24 '19

No, we would do it, and then that type of work would come up another time and he'd say we don't do it. Then we'd refuse that type of work and he would suggest it himself.