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Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

bbc.com

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Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#51

Post by dasil003 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #36
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

Procrastination is a signal that you hate what you are supposed to be doing. Don't ignore it.

Procrastination is a signal that task makes you feel uncomfortable, but that fear of it can be a result of many issues (boredom, laziness, feeling of incompetence, fear of making what seems as a hard decision, fear of people not liking it, fear of finishing as then you have to move to the next step, etc.). Usually it's far more complex than just "I hate doing it", because there's a deeper reason hidden behind that av…

And perhaps the most rational reason of all: because last time I was faced with a similar task I procrastinated and it went away on its own.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#53

Post by mbar84 »

mettamage wrote: post #46
rvz wrote: post #35

If you are going to procrastinate somewhere, you might as well do it here on HN. At least you can be inspired about other people's projects, tutorials and learn something etc. But reading generic news articles like this about procrastination? I don't think so.

Yea but ultimately no. Too much of anything screws you over. Too much HN feels like hoarding huge piles of clothes in your house. Except, the clothes are knowledge. The problem is that you’re not structuring the knowledge inside your mind. This can be fine when reading an article but not when you read 20 to a 100 per day. I’ve been there, I wouldn’t be able to remember what I read. With that said, you do learn someth…

> Except, the clothes are knowledge.

If only! Most of it is actually just semi useful information rather than knowledge.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#54

Post by pgt »

rl3 wrote: post #38

> Chronic procrastination is linked with mental and physical health costs, from depression and anxiety ... I would argue that anxiety can actually be a cause of procrastination. It turns into a nasty feedback loop that can go something like this: Anxious -> Procrastination -> [Depression] -> More anxious -> Repeat Depression of course depending on the circumstances, but it stands to reason if you're a chronic procras…

Fascinating point about caffeine as a methylxanthine. My experience with caffeine is that it can help kickstart me into doing something I have been putting off, but easily overcompensates by making me start too many things at once and thereby worsening symptoms of ADD.

I suspect this is related to caffeine's dopaminergic action (dopamine regulates anticipatory training): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Effects_on_striatal_d...

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#55

Post by mettamage »

john_minsk wrote: post #49
mettamage wrote: post #47

Yesterday I had a bit of a talk with myself about my behavior pertaining to procrastination. I am addicted to: - YouTube - Gaming Worse, I have quite a runway due to low living expenses. I came with a new idea today, I hope it helps anyone else. I need to get good at generating my own feelings. This is why I play games and watch videos. I do it to feel something. In order to do that I need to stay as close as to the…

Interesting, did you just start doing it or has been on it for some time?

Just started so in that sense this idea hasn’t been battle tested.

But replacement addictions work quite well with me (eg coca cola —> green tea).

So the fact that this is a replacement scheme as well does give the idea some promise for me.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#56

Post by dmos62 »

rvz wrote: post #35

If you are going to procrastinate somewhere, you might as well do it here on HN. At least you can be inspired about other people's projects, tutorials and learn something etc. But reading generic news articles like this about procrastination? I don't think so.

I think it's a good idea to have discussions about procrastination. It's something a lot of us experience. Something would be wrong if it didn't appear semi-frequently on the front page.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#58

Post by pumpkinsoup »

mettamage wrote: post #47

Yesterday I had a bit of a talk with myself about my behavior pertaining to procrastination. I am addicted to: - YouTube - Gaming Worse, I have quite a runway due to low living expenses. I came with a new idea today, I hope it helps anyone else. I need to get good at generating my own feelings. This is why I play games and watch videos. I do it to feel something. In order to do that I need to stay as close as to the…

> This is why I play games and watch videos. I do it to feel something.

I do the same. And it's a real pain, because after playing enough games or reading books everything gets repetitive. I feel sooo bored whenever I play a new game.

That's why I wanted to join OSS project, preferably game. It is fun to create stuff that actually works. Well, maybe modding community is the way.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#59

Post by gexla »

I have been remote working for many years. And I have done a handful of office working. I would have considered myself (probably wrongly) the worst procrastinator. It seemed like most of the people I worked with were able to get things done better than I could.

And I have been on the "overwork" part of the spectrum where I'm all about working until burnout.

It's about emotions, yes. But that's not very specific. This is one of those subjects where 10 different people could give 10 different explanations and nobody would be wrong. It's a rat's nest of issues. A bunch of threads tightly wound to create a mess of a problem.

Fixing a procrastination problem probably takes more of a gut feel than an attempt to understand it.

I don't know what causes it, but most of the time what fixes it is focus.

Why do students cram? Because time constraints strip away the BS and they're only left with figuring out a strategy for studying.

What are my best strategies to stop procrastinating? I'm out of money. Time is running out. I have a gun to my head.

Getting things done is sometimes like trying to reach through a heavy fog to snatch a pin head size blinking orb of light. The moving swirling fog distracts and makes you lose site of the blinking thing you're trying to keep in sight.

What you have to do is mentally banish the fog and go straight for that blinking thing and grab it.

Another issue for me is a failure to commit. The more I think about all the stuff I want to do, the less I'm willing to put the effort into doing one thing. Possibilities are more interesting than reality. Even as reality kills off possibilities, I can always spin up more. Reading HN is like a staging zone where I'm not having to commit to anything. I'm not getting anything done, but at least I'm still keeping all the possibilities in play. It's like a dude who likes to play the field rather than settle down and get married. ;)

As I mentioned above, certain realities I can't ignore. Paying bills is a major one.

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