I think that it is best to just simply acknowledge it not as some sort of continental philosophical thing but rather simply as a neurological dysfunction that ought to be resolved in some way or another. The will is merely a part of biological functioning and ought not to be romanticized
I can conceive of it either way, and often switch back and forth between the two modes of thought, neither one really helps more than the other when it's time to actually do shit.
Stop thinking so much and just do it.
If you are that bad that you have to ask advice on here, get professional help.
Way ahead of you. I think at least some part of it is frustration at how long the professional help road is, and how many ups and downs it has where sometimes you're making progress and sometimes you're backsliding and it feels worse than ever even though you know it isn't.
I'm not really expecting anybody to come in with some life changing gem of advice, but sometimes talking about how I need to do shit with real people (even just anonymous assholes on the internet) kind of helps move toward the 'actually doing shit' phase, hence the thread.
Get out of your comfort zone. I find I can't do shit when I'm alone in my room, the opportunity to play video games/surf mindlessly/masturbate is too great. Walks are a great way to clear your head.
Yeah. Always solid advice. Sometimes I'm more afraid of being alone with my thoughts (Christ doesn't that just sound like some emo edgelord bullshit) and that psychs me out of doing something more quieting, but in the end it's usually more or less what I needed to do in the first place anyway (for anyone else reading this shit, yeah, just going outside for a bit and walking around with no distractions is a very great choice).
Do you have a concrete way to designate between "get shit done" time and "fuck around" time? I have no idea what it is you need to do, but I'll use school shit/general paperwork as an example. Even if the tasks you need to do involve staying in your room or being online, I find setting up my desk with whatever I need to get my shit done and/or closing all tabs and windows on the computer not related to the task at hand really helps me focus. Even if it's just getting your notes out and piling all irrelevant things off to the side, having a somewhat standardized layout for your desk when you want to get shit done can help change your mind frame from "Oh fuck I need to do things" to "Now I am going to do things".
Similarly, if you feel like the task at hand is one giant, intimidating, amorphous blob of task, try breaking it down into smaller steps. It takes the anxiety away and you usually find that you have less work to do than you originally thought.
Also great advice, and something I have an enormous amount of difficulty with. I'm definitely lacking in the habit/normalized schedule department. I'm working on it, but it tends to be the first thing to go when I start backsliding. It's always a good thing to be reminded of, though, as are the other two bits. (And yeah, it's a thesis paper coming up, above all else, along with a foreign language presentation and some lab work I'm backlogged on.)
When I have a pile of stuff to do, like now (with six commissions pending) I find the best thing to do is just start doing the work.
Before you know it, you've made inroads and the feeling of completing the task is sweet. Creativity is why we are here..
This is my go-to, as well, and I think the problem is I've had so many setbacks with this thesis I've been working on that every sentence feels wrong when I start to just write (and I tend to go down timesuck rabbit-holes when I fall back on 'more research' instead of just pushing myself to just write the damn thing).
Thanks, guys, this has all helped quite a lot.