Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time

I hope the cat analogy is helpful to someone. I can't help pointing out an inaccuracy though:

> The system wouldn't work if it only got satisfaction from eating.

Many predators only hunt when they're hungry, and it works fine for them. Housecats are an exception. Humans have bred them to be "good mousers", meaning they don't stop killing when they're no longer hungry.

I think this seems to fall into the exact trap he is talking about. You say it's about emotions, but then you launch into a bunch of time management techniques.

You talk about emotions but seem to have missed the crux of the problem, and then all the techniques you start with are all time management techniques (which he's already said don't work). You do have some emotional advice, but it never head-on confronts the problem.

That it will be uncomfortable to start, but that's ok. It passes.

Nowhere in your guide is this advice of how to just get started:

The next time you’re tempted to procrastinate, “make your focus as simple as ‘What’s the next action – a simple next step – I would take on this task if I were to get started on it now?’”. Doing this, he says, takes your mind off your feelings and onto easily achievable action.

That's about managing emotions.

Your first advice is to start making huge lists of goals, steps, etc., which can be another form of procrastination. That might be useful once you've stopped procrastinating, not now when you're procrastinating. His advice wasn't to get a list of your goals done. It was to simply to pick the smallest task you can think of now. Realise it's going to be uncomfortable, but that's life and it'll (usually) pass in minutes. That's about getting started.

Nowhere do you explain, as the article does, that it's about being able to tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

As a persistent procrastinator that's just got 4 hours of solid work done with the simple little trick described in the article. It worked. Yours doesn't, I've done those lists many times before. Realising that yes, it's uncomfortable, but just do the first small task you can think of, your advice is too BIG. Too MUCH. Start simple, and then build those other things.

> Exurb1a

I am familiar with him and fond of his videos, generally speaking. How much of his 'teachings' I can apply is a separate matter.

> Here's the hard truth: You have conditioned to feel guilty if you don't spend your time either producing or consuming.

True. Despite not being a huge fan of consumerism, I am convinced it is shaping my decisions one way or another. Since our whole system is built around this, there's no telling where the need ends and the mindless shopping begins. For example, if I get a tear in my favorite T-shirt, I'd probably buy a new one, while my grandmother would have tried to repair it.

What is definitely true is that I have conditioned myself to produce. Part of it might be simply societal pressure, part of it might be my personal ambition to 'be someone', but I think a lot of it is the realization that all the dreams I had as a child are slowly becoming crushed by the realities of adulthood, my limited energy, my limited brain. Because of all this, I realize that my existence is not special in any way. I am just some other soul lost in the crowd, not glowing in any way. Some day I will die and the world will not have been better or worse because of it.

Funny you bring up Elon. For all the criticism he is getting lately, I can't help but think of him as the person I want to be. This guy dares to not only think about a future with space exploration and hyperloops in it, but also does something about it. Say what you will, but there are not many people on the same level of audaciousness as him. With that said, I will never even be close to what Elon is and accepting this is hard.

The more I read and learn, the more disappointed I am with the world. I feel like apart from maybe 2-3% of the population, the rest is strictly concerned with how they can impress their friends at an upcoming party, sports, how good or bad the new Avenger movie is, how to remodel their kitchen and so on. The whole world is driven almost entirely by advertising, PR, marketing, influencers. It's driving me mad at times, thinking about how little true achievements are celebrated. Just a random one - China just released some pictures from the moon and seeing them gave me chills. I believe few people would care at all about this.

And I just don't know if this is the way things eventually end up or if the world could have been vastly different with just a few different twists of the historical timeline.

> Well, yeah, sure, but are you actually taking this on because the idea truly resonates with you? Clicks with who you are? Or are you just waking up each morning, secretly resenting the entire thing, because some "thought leader" marketed the idea of "running = road to success" in such a way that you honestly started to believing that?

Thanks, I needed to read this.

Ironically, one of the few areas I don't have this with is running. For one of the unique things that defines me is a talent for it and I run whenever I'm alone and traveling on foot since I'm an impatient fellow.

That reminds me of a quote from Machiavelli that I recently saw on HN: "Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits should be conferred gradually, and in that way they will taste better."

This advice may also apply to one's own spending and activity choices.