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Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
71–80 of 84 posts
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#72Notice that this is just a short essay. A blog post, maybe. But it's also potentially a reason to search for available domain names; to actually register one (after exploring the compromises around what registrar to choose), to find a host (navigating the truly bewildering options), to decide whether wordpress might be the right way to go, and what theme, and what big header image. Plugins? And what if it really goes…
I remember stumbling on this site a while ago and the format [1] was completely different. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20150214165654/http://www.structu...
Yep I have seen that page 5-6 years ago too :)
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#73I used to procrastinate on Quora and now I do it on HN. It has done wonders for my writing, my awareness, and my education. As a side effect, I now have far better plans for the projects on my todo list that I haven't been able to do because of all this procrastinating. But if it's making me smarter, I have just justified further not being able to help myself not be able to help myself.
For those who procrastinate at the gym enjoy the side effects of being fit and healthy. It's when it's work that we start experiencing sacrifice. There is only joy in procrastination. The author of this essay procrastinates by writing brilliants essays.
I did read somewhere that efficient workers sleep a lot and work a lot less. Those who have experience being their most efficient selves work towards that state of mind by sleeping and being lazy. And when they work, they get shit done. At the end of the day, it may very well be a tortoise vs hare race, where those that keep working slowly but surely catch the hares that only work sporadically. But for the same amount of work, the hare gets a life.
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#74What I have found is that the subconscious will resist taking action on something perceived to be important until it's worked out an appropriate approach. As a result one can avoid doing things like planning and preparing and simply query the subconscious as to whether you're ready to work on something. Yes has me start on it and either complete it or hit a snag. If it's a snag, then I'll analyze it briefly and then…
Agreed procrastination is just your brain telling you are not ready to start or that something may happen which makes the work not relevant. Procrastinating is always a very good idea. The trick is picking the right alternative tasks that are either higher value or will help you get ready. I find meditation works great. Just envisioning myself doing the task. It will often reveal the key parts my subconscious is worried about.
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#75Notice that this is just a short essay. A blog post, maybe. But it's also potentially a reason to search for available domain names; to actually register one (after exploring the compromises around what registrar to choose), to find a host (navigating the truly bewildering options), to decide whether wordpress might be the right way to go, and what theme, and what big header image. Plugins? And what if it really goes…
I remember stumbling on this site a while ago and the format [1] was completely different. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20150214165654/http://www.structu...
Well this gave me a good laugh.
Brilliant essays by John Perry, defending yet more life choices
generally seen as faults.Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#76I learned about "productive procrastination"[1] at least a decade ago and as a result learned to embrace my procrastination tendencies as long as (a) I am actually being productive at something and (b) there isn't something that must actually get done right now.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=productive+procrastination+-procra...
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#77> Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important.
Or the opposite. Because the subconscious figured out there is something more important to do than what you were doing.
Ignoring the pull of the subconscious is equal to self sabotage.
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#78Structured procrastination appears analogous to the second-price auction, in which the winner of an auction pays the second-highest bid. This strategy leads the bidders to bid the true value of the auctioned item. One proof of this assertion can be found in the solution to an exercise in Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction (Second Edition), by Herbert Gintis.
It appears that structured procrastination is a two-player game that pits the present self against the time-inconsistent hyperbolically discounted future self. The success of this strategy depends on accurately ranking more important things to do. Presumably the rank of the second-most important thing accurately reflects its hyperbolically discounted value far enough in the future to avoid time inconsistency. An assumption seems to be that most important or interesting thing to do now is generally important or interesting for the wrong reason. Also, if the thing I happen to be doing isn't that important, the thing I should be doing can't be that much more important either.
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bit like Raymond Chandler's process for writing: > The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least when a professional writer doesn’t do anything else but write. He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try. He can look out of the window, or stand on his head, or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not re…
Strikes me you have three choices: 1. Force yourself to sit here and do nothing else until the task is done. The Chandler method, which requires a great deal of discipline. 2. Keep telling yourself "I'll start just after I check Hacker News / Twitter / watch one more episode on Casualty". This means you never achieve anything and feel forever guilty and worthless. 3. Put the task to one side for now and do something…
Note that Chandler's approach very specifically did not involve getting a task done. He was talking about writing novels over the course of months or years, not little things he was putting off.
Also it's a task where inspiration is involved, so if he forced himself to write every day no matter what, some of it would be worthless because the ideas weren't there. The point of his approach is to make habits that ensure you accomplish something in the long run, regardless of whether you get something done today or not.
Re: Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
#80I'm a big procrastinator, but I finally found a way to get around it. Instead of thinking about the big tasks, I just allot myself a fixed amount of time that I'll be doing something, work on it steadily during that time, and quit at the end regardless of the state it's in. For some reason, it really makes it easier to face big important projects if I just say "I'm going to spend 8 hours putting up siding today, then…
"Timeboxing".
It can be effective.
The challenges for me:
1. Boxing sufficiently large chunks of time that I can actually work on a project. Task-switching has immense costs.
2. Actually having a path forward. If I've yet to find a good way to tackle a problem, or worse, if I'm stymied by having been mislead as to a possible pathway (a false Bayesian prior, or similar concepts in logic/truth), it can be quite frustrating.