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Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

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Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#101

Post by anoncoward111 »

haskellandchill wrote: post #91
anoncoward111 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually debatable. I certainly do rewarding things for myself when procrastinating. And my job honestly is a negative value to society. I am a salesman at a rent seeking corporation. I would literally do society more good if I wasn't driving a gas guzzler to work every day and sitting in a giant air conditioned office.

I’m in the same boat, advertising with big data and generative deep learning. Harmful garbage if you ask me. I have no savings but I’m quitting as soon as I get an offer. I don’t care if I get fired, I’d rather be homeless.

Haha +1 username btw.

I've done homelessness in between jobs for this very reason (I used to work for Oracle lol). It was awesome. And I don't mean to imply that I was on the streets, needle in my arm, skid row type homeless. Those men and women and kids are going through really rough shit.

I mean that I was sleeping in my car in the woods or at national parks or in corporate parking lots (not Walmart, more like Regional Shipping Corporation INC after 7PM and all the employees have gone home).

It was the most liberating and freeing period of my life. I came back to work because I want more money and I thought I could save enough money to put an actual roof over my head (and my gf's too). Apparently I'm wrong- this is the most expensive housing market ever, and many cities/towns/counties don't want to let me put a pre-fab house on any piece of land in their jurisdiction...

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#102

Post by pc86 »

padobson wrote: post #93
skriticos2 wrote: post #51

Well, maybe sometimes this happens to me.. "I just go check the headlines on my favorite news sites and then I start my productive day.. and I drink this cup of coffee." .. 2 hours later. "Just this one headline, then I'm ready." .. 2 hours later. "Damn, where did the day go all of a sudden?" Of course the solution is to first do the work and then read the news.. but that's the rational part of my brain speaking - no…

Self discipline definitely has a momentum effect. My most productive days are the ones that start at 5am with a run, followed by a shower, meditation, and writing up a list of things I want to accomplish that day. Then I start working with my noise cancelling headphones and my flow-state playlist. It's very deliberate from start to finish. My least productive days are the ones where I roll out of bed randomly, when t…

I definitely find that my days that start off productive typically end productive as well. The days where I "ease into it" or "warm up for the day" I blink, it's 8:30pm, and I haven't done a single worthwhile thing except maybe a load of dishes or something.

The flip side is the more productive my day is, typically the more tired I am, and the more likely I am to be moving slowly the next morning.

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#103

Post by projektfu »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #49
aidenn0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for the discomfort wall's existence is important to figuring out the best way to get over it. Certainly being required to do something day-in and day-out that you find purposeless is one way that the wall might be created. For me, a lot of times it's boredom. It's boring to have to do 2 hours of work sometime in the next week; it's far less boring to have to do 2 hours of work in the next 90 minutes. (Note…

That's another good point. I work far better when I have a challenging work-load with real goals. As I mentioned in a nearby post, I found micro-todos to help me visualize my workload (which is usually bigger than I imagined lol) , and cause me to understand the weight of the work ahead of me.. thus, giving me a kick to get it the hell out of the way.

Googling failed me. Is micro-todos a term you use to describe what you do, or is it a technique I can learn more about?

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#104

Post by DigitalBison »

have_faith wrote: post #60
logeek wrote: post #45

Nice concept, but all I got was: "Oops. Sorry, we can't seem to find what the problem is."

Ditto. In my case it's just that the amount of work I would have to do to be happy with my own side projects causes me to procrastinate on starting them, as I don't have a perfect image in my head of an objectively successful outcome yet so I just delay.

The way you put this really resonates with me. Often when I'm procrastinating it's because a task seems/feels/sounds really daunting, but the "daunting" feeling is because I'm imagining just how damn hard it's going to be to do the task perfectly. It creates this mental barrier to getting started because completing it perfectly (or, to my expectations) seems too hard.

Breaking out of this by realizing that "perfect" is not the goal, and setting more attainable sub-goals for myself is key, but hard.

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#105

Post by taylorjacobson »

skriticos2 wrote: post #51

Well, maybe sometimes this happens to me.. "I just go check the headlines on my favorite news sites and then I start my productive day.. and I drink this cup of coffee." .. 2 hours later. "Just this one headline, then I'm ready." .. 2 hours later. "Damn, where did the day go all of a sudden?" Of course the solution is to first do the work and then read the news.. but that's the rational part of my brain speaking - no…

Agreed. In my experience, the core challenge with most tasks is just that we don't spend enough time working on them. I can easily ignore a bot nagging me, and eventually just turn it off.

The best solution for me is real-time accountability that forces me to sit down and commit to a real person what I'm about to do RIGHT NOW.

I made an app for this called Focusmate (https://www.focusmate.com). It's a bit like a study buddy, except for anyone and any task, and much more effective IMO.

PS. My quiz results: "Oops. Sorry, we can't seem to find what the problem is." (https://imgur.com/a/A2qhoGQ)

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#106

Post by grafelic »

I wish had the time to procrastinate more.

Ironically, my job, which is the reason for my lack of procrastination time, I got directly as a result of the many hours I procrastinated during the last year of university.

Sometimes procrastination pays of, you just don't know it whilst procrastinating, which makes it valid procrastination at the time.

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#107

Post by Yen »

There's another potential cause for procrastination, that this website doesn't seem to diagnose or offer advice on -

I have a hypothetical task in front of me, which is interesting, impactful, within my skill range, well-defined, and I know the first couple steps to start on it. I estimate that I can complete the task with 2~3 hours of solid work. This sounds like the _ideal_ anti-procrastination scenario, right?

But, I know I have a meeting at some point in the next 20~40 minutes, and that meeting will end 15~5 minutes before lunch starts.

And then, hypothetically, the meeting gets canceled, or is shortened to ~5 minutes, and basically the whole morning's worth of time has been wasted.

Any advice for either

> how to overcome the hump of starting to spin up on a deep work task you're likely to be interrupted for

or

> how to commit to starting a deep work task in a known uninterrupted block of time later in the day, and find _meaningful_ shallow work to do now, in a way that won't delay spinning up on the important task when the time becomes available

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#108

Post by notheguyouthink »

projektfu wrote: post #103
notheguyouthink wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's another good point. I work far better when I have a challenging work-load with real goals. As I mentioned in a nearby post, I found micro-todos to help me visualize my workload (which is usually bigger than I imagined lol) , and cause me to understand the weight of the work ahead of me.. thus, giving me a kick to get it the hell out of the way.

Googling failed me. Is micro-todos a term you use to describe what you do, or is it a technique I can learn more about?

Apologies, it's a made up term. It seems fitting though. Rather than plan the todos like it's something anyone else could read, I write them for me. And because they're just for me, I can make them as tiny as I want. My general rule of thumb for writing them is:

1. As I'm writing, if it's in my head as a "oh, that needs to be done", I write it down. Tiny or large.

2. If it's really large, I tend to word the task as to break it up. Otherwise I'll spend a day working on that one item, which defeats the purpose of trying to give my brain dopamine/etc.

3. If at any point in code I think of those "oh, I gotta remember to fix/refactor/add that" I write it down.

It's quick because I don't need to give others context. It's short, because it's just for me and it shouldn't be too far away from my current context anyway. And finally it helps me actually take breaks, and come back getting right into it. I try to never leave without writing what I should do next.

To pair with that, I chose a todo app (Dynalist atm) that I enjoy using. It should be quick to get ideas onto paper so to say, and not bogged down with features. This is more of a notebook, than a todo.

Anyway, it's all an experiment for me. I'm on week two or so of it, and it's been great so far. Good luck if you try it :)

edit: fix stupid list formatting.

Re: Show HN: Why Do I Procrastinate? – Web MD for Procrastination

#109

Post by quadrangle »

nihil75 wrote: post #33

This questionnaire is entirely incompatible with enterprise environments, where the work is not only boring, but also pointless (as results are way further down the line and deliverables will surely change multiple times).

http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ … and the full-length new book it inspired… to the heart of what you're saying
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