Oliver Burkeman writes about time, productivity, and accepting human limits, and is the author of Four Thousand Weeks and The Imperfectionist newsletter.
HN commenters recommend his book Four Thousand Weeks and his 'just do the thing' post to people struggling with procrastination, unfinished projects, and trying to fix themselves.
"Don't wait until you feel like doing something"
That's the one sentence solution described by Oliver Burkeman that has remained in my Pinboard.
http://www.oliverburkeman.com/blog/posts/the-one-sentence-solution-to-almost-all-procrastination-no-really
This article describes procrastination as two demons you need to conquer: the first is doing the actual task, while the second is to get into a certain state of mind or mood that makes you want to do the task. By setting up two barriers to getting the task done, you're likely to procrastinate further.
The "just do it" mantra jettisons the "I need to feel like doing the task before I do the task" roadblock. What you'll find is that once you actually start working on your task, you're more likely to continue along merrily, wondering why you even resisted starting in the first place. This almost always works for me. Give it a shot.
>> If I fix the things that aren’t OK, all will be well. If I improve myself enough, if I only work hard enough, I can finally eliminate my suffering.
>I hate to inform you, but this doesn’t work. I’m also thrilled to inform you that this doesn’t work. You can stop picking up a lot of boulders.
Really reminds me of Oliver Burkeman. Take https://www.oliverburkeman.com/never for a start:
I might be stuck with certain inner disturbances forever [...] It turns out my really big problem was thinking I might one day get rid of all my problems, when the truth is that there's no escaping the mucky, malodorous compost-heap of this reality. Which is OK, actually. Compost is the stuff that helps things grow.
I liked Oliver Burkeman on this with his “too many needles” idea [0].
Personally, I hoard a bunch of stuff using Omnivore and then on a semi regular basis I go through that and just throw away 90% of it. I find this two stage process useful: stage 1 is gathering All The Things, stage 2 is after a while sifting and keeping only the stuff I’m really interested in. Ultimately though, I try nowadays to apply a Buddhist angle on it: I hold all this stuff very lightly, knowing that it’s as close to infinite as makes no difference, and letting it go!
[0] https://www.oliverburkeman.com/river
Not to dismiss what you're saying, but in this case the 'client button' is for tricking the annoying client into thinking you're making a change when you've really done nothing.
This is kind of the same idea as throwing in a duck[1] or hairy arms[2]:
1: http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
2: http://www.oliverburkeman.com/blog/posts/the-theory-of-the-hairy-arm-the-tactical-benefits-of-making-deliberate-mistakes
I mean you won't find the ultimate answer, but I found the writings of Oliver Burkeman on these kinds of topics interesting. He's a bit of an anti-productivity guru (aka recognizing that these are important issues, but being highly critical about the usual "read my book and everything will be fine" type of people).
See e.g. things like this:
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/onething
https://ckarchive.com/b/xmuph6hrzxwrd
The great news is you are still very young, you can fumble around for another two years trying to pick yourself up and will still only be thirty.
More practically, it’s simple, just not easy, take one step at a time and then have patience, as long as you are making progress you just need to keep going.
Worth reading:
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/freshstart
https://ckarchive.com/b/xmuph6hrzxwrd