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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

#71

Post by idclip »

djsumdog wrote: post #27
temporaryvector wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, mediation, mindfulness and several other techniques for controlling emotions were things that we tried with my psychiatrist. Meditation didn't really work for me but mindfulness sure did.

Meditation isn't always for everyone: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/mindful-meditation-is-n...

I know, but consider psychiatric meds perscribed - its generally very risky to mess with one’s head. Ive 700hours in monasteries under my belt, ive seen the dark side of meditation, aswell as its light. I still say take the risk tho.

Mindful is a great tool. It needn't be vipassana. Many People who do vipassana often are at a point where its a last resort before something worse.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#72

Post by pmoriarty »

Tim Pychyl, who's ideas this article discusses, goes in to these ideas much more deeply in a really fantastic video here: [1]

I've watched a ton of videos on procrastination, and read a lot about it, and this video is head and shoulders above everything else. Highly recommended.

He also has the iProcrastinate Podcast[2], which also has some useful and interesting episodes.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA

[2] - http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#73

Post by burntoutfire »

thecatspaw wrote: post #45
juskrey wrote: post #33

Procrastination is a BS detector.

I disagree, I also procrastinate on things I want to do

Jordan Peterson had a nice distinction about this: there are things you want to do and things you want to BE WANTING to do. I.e. you want to eat a cookie, but you want to be wanting to go to the gym.

In reality, it's pretty hard to consciously make yourself want something (at least for most people), as our conscious brain does not have that much of an effect on our emotions. In practice, what I've found out I (my conscious brain) can do is alter my circumstances - don't store nice food at house so that it's harder to snack, work from the office (not from home) so that it's harder to procrastinate or get so fat that I no longer feel good in my body.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#75

Post by neuronic »

trianglem wrote: post #62
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…

>to feel something This is a phrase I hear in American discourse a lot. What does it mean?

The question is a bit odd if you are human, but let me explain this in short terms.

Modern lifestyle has stripped many of us of essential, real problems. By far not all, of course, but definitely the generally well-paid IT crowd on HN.

So instead of hustling to survive like a maid in 1929 Berlin (I am watching Babylon Berlin right now) what's left over are luxury problems, especially if you're in the double income no kids crowd. What the Internet calls "first world problems" but even less "important". Just pull yourself together after all, right? (the answer is no, this will of course break you, or anyone, in the long run but that's a huge off the rails discussion).

What side project can I have? How can I fill my day with something useful instead of gaming? There is a profound emptiness for some people. The vast majority of jobs aren't as amazing as you are supposed to pretend in interviews. You stop feeling useful and doubt your place in society. Educated, trained but not applied to something that makes sense.

Do I have to feel guilty about gaming because I am not productive after 6pm or should I invest time to develop myself because HN tells me to? After spending 8 exhausting hours at my job that lines someone else's pockets?

This is where your mental game is played after the "real" problems are not a threat anymore. It's hard for struggling hard working people who bust their asses to pay rent to understand. I know because that's been me. I have seen both sides.

Going to bed anxious because some huge bill just arrived. Now I am going to bed thinking: "what am I even here for?"

And I actually enjoy my job. But in the end I am doing something shallow, something useless. Not advancing humanity or something.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#76

Post by vegardx »

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…

Some people argue that what we're today are calling ADHD should be referred to as emotional impulsiveness. The argument is that lack of emotional control causes all kinds of symptoms, like inattentiveness or irritability (shocker!). Dr. Russell Barkley makes a compelling argument for it in a number of talk and papers. I highly recommend looking it up, you should be able to find some of his talks on YouTube.

I'm diagnosed with both bipolar disorder 2 (rapid cycling, the one that gives you hypomania) and ADHD (inattentive type). It was a lengthy process to be diagnosed since they are overlapping so much, especially the hypomania part. They are also kind of rarely seen as co-morbid disorders, but apparently it happens and both needs to be properly addressed for anything to have any effect.

(If you're suffering from ADHD or BP2 and feel that you're not seeing that much effect from medication or other treatment it's worth checking out. At least people diagnosed with BP2 and medicated, seeing as the medication usually is very effective.)

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#78

Post by pdbrito »

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…

I had a similar conversation with myself recently. In the spirit of sharing coping mechanisms...

What I found helpful was to dig deeper into why I enjoyed playing the genres of games that I do.

My favourites are MOBA/ARPG/MMORPG and there was quite some overlap in what I was enjoying.

Stuff like:

    - MOBA
        - Skill based gameplay
            - You get better over time
            - You get to play with/against people better than you and learn from them
            - There exists an optimal strategy for each encounter you can discover
        - Team based gameplay
            - Work with others to secure objectives
            - Win/lose as a team
            - Sense of camaraderie
            - Ability to be altruistic
        - Winning/Losing streaks
            - Easy to track
            - Easy to turn into a short-term goal "Win the next game"
        - Short turnaround time
            - Games last between 15-30 minutes
        - Little downtime between games
            - Very easy to get back "into the action"
Now I'm trying to organise my programming activities to give me the same sort of satisfaction:

    - Programming
        - Skill based gameplay => Skill based progression
            - You get better over time
            - Join a slack/discord and ask questions to learn from others
            - There exists an optimal strategy for each task you can discover
        - Team based gameplay => Community
            - Join a slack/discord
                - Sense of camaraderie (E.g. "We're all gophers!")
                - Ability to be altruistic (Help newbies)
            - Start something//Contribute to open source projects to work with others
        - Winning/Losing streaks => Commit streaks
            - Easy to track on github
            - Easy to turn into a short-term goal "Commit once today"
        - Short turnaround time => Short coding sessions
            - Setting a timer for 5/10/15 minutes and following a tutorial
        - Little downtime between games => Try to minimize distractions
            - Move straight from one tutorial from another
It's been working well for me.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#79

Post by sambe »

I can't believe the state-of-the-art thinking was genuinely that it's a time management problem. Surely some self-awareness of the mental battle goes a long way to quashing that quickly. I'm not thinking "I estimate this will take 1 hour". I'm thinking "I don't want to do this", and there's a tension between inevitability and the unpleasantness.

Re: Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

#80

Post by TeMPOraL »

tarruda wrote: post #65
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…

> 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. I'm also videogame addict. I've found that listening to game music/soundtracks (mostly instrumental) while programming really helps me achieve the similar feelings and even motivates me to get stuff done.

Are you listening to music just from games you've played, or game music in general?

I do listen a lot to music from games, movies and series for that emotional boost, but it always has to be something I've already played/watched and engaged with emotionally in the past. The music doesn't generate new emotions in me, it pulls on the past experiences. Listening to arbitrary soundtracks wouldn't work on me.

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