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Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

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Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#91

Post by ghaff »

tonmoy wrote: post #89
agumonkey wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

often, no matter how stupidly simple a task is, I'll goo full meta and reflect on how to do it properly, the solve all these problem on paper by reflecting on how to do them properly, hey, time to take cook dinner and the garbage out !

Pondering about the task isn't really procrastination. In fact some of the most productive people I have seen in my life do exactly that.

Yes, but there's a fine line between pondering a task or doing "research" and procrastination. I do a lot of writing of various sorts and an editor of mine had the saying that "writing is discovery." By which he meant that, to a significant degree, you have to just get into some tasks before you can know how to complete them.

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#92

Post by agumonkey »

ghaff wrote: post #91
tonmoy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pondering about the task isn't really procrastination. In fact some of the most productive people I have seen in my life do exactly that.

Yes, but there's a fine line between pondering a task or doing "research" and procrastination. I do a lot of writing of various sorts and an editor of mine had the saying that "writing is discovery." By which he meant that, to a significant degree, you have to just get into some tasks before you can know how to complete them.

I feel this way when doing sports. Often the desire isn't there, the sensations only come back after 15 minutes in.

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#93

Post by mryan »

unfocused828 wrote: post #82
drb311 wrote: post #5

2 ways to deal with procrastination: 1. Don't worry about it. We all procrastinate and most of the time it works out OK. Our instincts know what they're doing. 2. Break tough tasks down into very, very laughably small tasks. Don't even worry about doing them. Once the first task in the list is small enough you'll think "sod it" and do it right away. If you try to improve your self control you will fail. Go with the g…

> Don't worry about it As an engineer who has been fired twice for performance problems, I don't have that luxury. > Break touch tasks down into very, very laughably small tasks. This works well if you've used the technology/tool before and you feel like you understand what you are doing. It is very difficult if you are in the circumstance of having to learn things as you go and having to prodding at things and tryin…

> It is very difficult if you are in the circumstance of having to learn things as you go and having to prodding at things and trying things to figure out how things work.

With respect, it sounds like you are describing a problem caused by not knowing the technology/tooling well enough to begin completing the task, rather than a problem directly caused by procrastination.

That being said, one can easily procrastinate the task of learning too :-)

In cases like this, the first item on the to-do list could be a time-limited R&D task where the goal is to learn enough so that you can compose a more concrete plan.

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#94

Post by mryan »

marai2 wrote: post #50
dazc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- the idea that, if you can do something in 5 minutes or so, just do it rather than keep putting it on to do lists. This seems so obvious now I've read it. When I think of how many small tasks I've never got around to doing it's embarrassing.

Though I've had the GTD book sitting in my bookshelf (unread) for a few years, I finally read about GTD on a blog just yesterday :-) And that was the one of the things I tried out yesterday. If a task takes around 2 minutes, just do it. And suddenly I felt like I had a productive day. I got many such small tasks done that were just sitting there in the back of my mind causing cognitive load.

The idea of a book that could solve your procrastination problems sitting unread on a shelf is an amusing irony. And I say this as someone who has multiple procrastination books on my shelves. :-)

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#95

Post by ycosynot »

clentaminator wrote: post #45

The real reason you procrastinate: You fundamentally don't want to be doing whatever task it is that you're avoiding, and while it might be the logically "correct" thing to do, that doesn't mean you want to do it. What we want and what we are pushed into doing are not always aligned. News at ten.

For me, the 2 reasons are 1) forced labor, we're too proud to submit fully and blindly to the system, we're meant to be free, or at least trust the government more, and 2) all the superhero movies and games stuff which make us worried about not being as exceptional as we should, so we need an excuse not to be exceptional, and that's procrastination. I couldn't be a hero, because I have this mysterious disease which stops me from trying, blocking my potential.

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#96

Post by mryan »

taneq wrote: post #39
vatotemking wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pomodoro is a great technique. its similar to #2

Admittedly I've never tried it, but from the description, the pomodoro technique would drive me mad. It often takes me more than 20 minutes (sometimes an hour or two!) to get "in the zone" but once I've got my head in the game I can smash through work for hours. The idea of just getting some flow going and then being interrupted seems awful. The only thing I can think of which it really sounds good for is boring, eas…

I use a modified version of the pomodoro technique in combination with David Seah's Emergent Task Planner [0].

The problem you describe is familiar to me - once I am in the zone I can continue there for hours, and taking enforced breaks every 20 minutes would force this streak to end early.

To work around this I just made the breaks optional, and use blocks of 15 minutes (as described in the Emergent Task Planner).

So, my timer goes off every 15 minutes. This breaks my concentration for a couple of seconds so I can reset my timer and tick a box to show I have completed another 15 minute block, and then I jump immediately back in to my task. A couple of seconds is not enough to take me out of the zone, but it lets me keep track of my progress on tasks and see where my time has been spent throughout the day.

Personally speaking, my biggest procrastination problems arise when I lack clarity about exactly what I should be working on at this precise moment, or when I finish a task and need to think of what to do next.

My bastardised pomodoro technique solves this problem for me by always making it clear what I should be doing right now. If my mind wanders for a moment, or I get distracted by an urgent task, this list allows me to immediately refocus without any mental effort. When a task is complete I might take 5 minutes as a break, and then jump on to the next task.

If my procrastination problems sound familiar I highly recommend the ETP approach. Print out five of them, grab a timer set to 15 minutes, and give it a try for a week. Make it part of your morning routine - plan out what you want to achieve for the day, write it down, and start the timer!

0: http://davidseah.com/productivity-tools/

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#97

Post by unfocused828 »

mryan wrote: post #93
unfocused828 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't worry about it As an engineer who has been fired twice for performance problems, I don't have that luxury. > Break touch tasks down into very, very laughably small tasks. This works well if you've used the technology/tool before and you feel like you understand what you are doing. It is very difficult if you are in the circumstance of having to learn things as you go and having to prodding at things and tryin…

> It is very difficult if you are in the circumstance of having to learn things as you go and having to prodding at things and trying things to figure out how things work. With respect, it sounds like you are describing a problem caused by not knowing the technology/tooling well enough to begin completing the task, rather than a problem directly caused by procrastination. That being said, one can easily procrastinate…

> caused by not knowing the technology/tool well enough.

Yes. But given the average quality of documentation and the fact that the most common advice for how to learn a new technology is just to build something with it, how uncommon is this?

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#98

Post by programmarchy »

domusliber wrote: post #8
drb311 wrote: post #5

2 ways to deal with procrastination: 1. Don't worry about it. We all procrastinate and most of the time it works out OK. Our instincts know what they're doing. 2. Break tough tasks down into very, very laughably small tasks. Don't even worry about doing them. Once the first task in the list is small enough you'll think "sod it" and do it right away. If you try to improve your self control you will fail. Go with the g…

I didn't even click the article (the pain of reading it seemed too large) so I came directly to the comments. Awesome tips! "Our instincts know what they're doing" is very true. I tend to procrastinate when two conditions are fulfilled 1) the task is boring/painful, and 2) in the back of my mind, I've already calculated out the time and I can afford to push it until later. Trying to force myself just increases my exp…

Our instincts don't know they're doing actually. It's an ancient system that is designed for survival but in the modern world it's easily tricked and manipulated.

Just by doing something over and over, our instinctual caveman brain rewards with dopamine, which automatically forms habits over time. Imagine a caveman looking left and right before he leaves his cave: it just started out as a random occurance, but since he didn't get eaten he gets a dope hit which forms the neural pathways to continue the habit. Great adaptation for basic survival, and social mechanisms will even propagate the habit to others.

However, the habit forming dope reward system doesn't "know" what the behaviors are. It's not making any rational or moral judgement. Habits like addiction are extremely maladaptive, formed by the same feedback loop. This is why withdrawals actually feel like a threat to an addicts' survival. Breaking it feels like a threat triggering a fight or flight response. Trusting your instincts or feelings won't help you break a bad habit.

Thinking can help, though, which is where the forebrain comes in. By thinking, we can break a bad habit by creating a different, better adapted habit to replace it. This requires the force of the will, at least in the beginning until the new and improved neural pathway is formed. But once it is, you'll have a shiny new habit that's actually beneficial.

tl; dr. Think and use your forebrain to form the habits you want.

Re: Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop

#99

Post by heimatau »

abalone wrote: post #81
heimatau wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this article and feel it 'clicked' for me. Especially since HN had another article about procrastination recently [1]. I know abalone is saying it's all about emotional management but...I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management. My big takeaway from thi…

> I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management Those are not in conflict. A clearer analogy would be, you don't tell an alcoholic to just stop drinking. You focus on judgement-free emotional support systems. You go to meetings, you get a chip for making it 24 hours sober, 1 mo…

It again seems like you didn't read the article.

> [i]Tim Urban points out that the typical advice for procrastinators — essentially, to stop what they’re doing and get down to work, is ridiculous, because procrastination isn’t something that extreme procrastinators feel as though they can control.

> “While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean,” Urban writes.[/i]

That's a direct quote from the article.

The research supports judgement-free internal thought life. Not support systems. AA isn't a solid comparison but it's close. But apples to oranges doesn't help when the problem is apples. Let's stay focused on what the research says.

Also, I'd consider myself a hardcore procrastinator. My issue could be a symptom of ADHD or something else but I fall in the 'hardcore' category. And it's something that I still struggle with but 'sucking it up' or 'just stop procrastinating with social support' won't change my situation, something deeper needs to occur, which is why I mention the beliefs. Our beliefs affect our behavior.

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