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How to Procrastinate Productively

nickwignall.com

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Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#21

Post by mgnn »

crooked-v wrote: post #19
jarnagin wrote: post #6

The moment I start worrying about procrastinating productively, I’ll start procrastinating procrastinating, and then there will be two levels to traverse back to productivity, rather than one.

With this kind of metacommentary in mind, you may be intrigued/horrified by some of the Black Mirror-esque ideas that come up in transhumanist scifi now and again of future people creating automation for themselves for given activities, and that automation when sufficiently advanced emulating the person well enough to create automation for itself for given activities, and that automation when sufficiently advanced...…

This was also explored in a short from Robot Film Festival 2018 [0], though the recursion wasn't so deep.

[0] Everything is Okay, https://vimeo.com/227801697

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#22

Post by mvanvoorden »

crooked-v wrote: post #19
jarnagin wrote: post #6

The moment I start worrying about procrastinating productively, I’ll start procrastinating procrastinating, and then there will be two levels to traverse back to productivity, rather than one.

With this kind of metacommentary in mind, you may be intrigued/horrified by some of the Black Mirror-esque ideas that come up in transhumanist scifi now and again of future people creating automation for themselves for given activities, and that automation when sufficiently advanced emulating the person well enough to create automation for itself for given activities, and that automation when sufficiently advanced...…

Sounds like the Rick & Morty episode 'The Ricks must be crazy'

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#23

Post by kapep »

[...] what procrastination looks like for most people:

- Think about working.

- Immediately feel the urge to procrastinate.

- Start beating themselves up with a bunch of negative self-talk for wanting to procrastinate (I’m such a procrastinator, why can’t you just stay focused?)

- Feel badly, including a bunch of negative emotions like shame and disappointment, on top of the already-strong urge to procrastinate.

- Procrastinate on something emotionally numbing.

Is that really how it works for most people? I (and I always assumed that's how it is for most people) often just rationalize procrastination ("My tasks are not that important/interesting, I'll do them later", "Reading just one more article is fine, then back to work") without any negative thoughts at that time. Sometimes I do some research and suddenly realize I ended up on StackOverflow or HN and think "wait a minute, that's not work any more". But that's ok if I get all work done.

I think that is the usual way of procrastination. What the article claims how most people procrastinate (negative thoughts, getting no work done) sounds like more extreme but rarer cases.

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#24

Post by barking »

If that article hadn't been upvoted here I would have just glanced at and instantly dismissed it as rubbish, the style, the stock picture, the seemingly fake piece of dialogue at the start stop being so productive!. The whole looked thing like it was put together to a recipe.

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#25

Post by rejschaap »

mosselman wrote: post #17
shubhamjain wrote: post #12

At some point, you have to stop fiddling and finish what you started. Even if you procrastinate productively, spending ten minutes on a musical instrument, then another ten on reading an article, and then delving somewhere else is marginally better than binging on Youtube and Netflix. The constant context switching prevents you from going deep. All you gain is superficial knowledge. This, in my opinion, the bad "good…

So you are saying that 30 minutes of procrastination is only marginally better than binge-watching Netflix series? What Netflix region are you in? I’d be hard pressed to find a series where one episode is less than 30 minutes, let alone whole seasons. Sure you have to finish things, but that is what the article is all about. Didn’t your read it?

American sitcoms average 22 minutes. You could binge-procrastinate The Office. ;)

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#26

Post by cgoecknerwald »

kapep wrote: post #23

[...] what procrastination looks like for most people: - Think about working. - Immediately feel the urge to procrastinate. - Start beating themselves up with a bunch of negative self-talk for wanting to procrastinate (I’m such a procrastinator, why can’t you just stay focused?) - Feel badly, including a bunch of negative emotions like shame and disappointment, on top of the already-strong urge to procrastinate. - Pr…

Anecdata: personally, procrastination and self-hatred go hand-in-hand.

While the BBC isn't the most authoritative source, this reminds me of this post from recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878716

"Prof Tim Pychyl, from Carleton University, Ottawa, who has been studying procrastination for the past few decades, believes it is a problem with managing emotions rather than time."

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#28

Post by matwood »

Or make your procrastination time really worthwhile. I force myself to do chores or other work when I'm procrastinating about a particular task. This also means I'll have more time later.

It's also important long term to train yourself to not procrastinate. The trick I use is to immediately work on something when I recognize procrastination. For me, it was always getting started that was hard. When I fail at this, I do the chores above.

Another trick is getting up early. Did I get up at 5am to read HN, or did I get up at 5am to workout and get some solid work time on my side project?

Re: How to Procrastinate Productively

#30

Post by coldtea »

kapep wrote: post #23

[...] what procrastination looks like for most people: - Think about working. - Immediately feel the urge to procrastinate. - Start beating themselves up with a bunch of negative self-talk for wanting to procrastinate (I’m such a procrastinator, why can’t you just stay focused?) - Feel badly, including a bunch of negative emotions like shame and disappointment, on top of the already-strong urge to procrastinate. - Pr…

>without any negative thoughts at that time.

You'd be surprised...

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