Why I Procrastinate (2019)

Imagine that brilliant feature isn't just "a break" but the norm... it's not just "when I get bored," it's:

  - In the middle of flow
  - Trying to fall asleep
  - Trying to go back to sleep
  - In the middle of important conversations
  - During meetings - even one's you're leading
  - When you're getting dressed
  - When you're making breakfast (where the hell did I put the 3rd spoon I've pulled from the drawer)
  - When you're in intimate moments with a partner (or by yourself - no judgement here)
  - When you're making lunch (just burned my second grilled cheese because I can't stay on task for 5 minutes)
  - During exercise
  - During free-time and hobbies
  - Between small tasks
  - In the middle of small tasks
  - etc
  - etc
  - etc

The article itself is about the issues surrounding the person's ADHD, not just "procrastination," which for many people is a good thing, because it's a brain break; but for many of us with ADHD it's the norm and a cycle we have to fight instead of embrace.

This isn't saying that __ALL__ procrastination is ADHD, and the other article didn't say that __ALL__ procrastination is emotional. This article is saying that this specific person's procrastination is linked to their ADHD - and even covers some of the emotional response portion (the section on feedback dysphoria).

Most psychologists and psychiatrists worth their salt will tell you that ADHD and Anxiety are kissing-cousins; and will usually look for the other if someone has one of them. Guess what is a great emotional inhibitor to doing things... Anxiety.

More generally, a strong emotional response of any kind could be considered as a chemical imbalance by how you're categorizing ADHD. ADHD isn't as hard and fast assigned a "chemical imbalance" like Depression, and more closely related to Asperger/Autism as an executive function/communication disorder (via DSM 4r9 and all of DSM 5). The reason that some of us are given something like Welbutrin or Proponolol instead of a straight stimulant like Ritalin or Aderall is because ADHD can in many cases be clustered with Depression, Anxiety, or other mood disorders (which are in the "chemical imbalance" group, and knocking out one can help the other).

So, short story long, there's no contradiction; but like with most things, there can be multiple root causes for a single, broadly defined outcome like procrastination.

To try and provide feedback without being critical, the way you bold text from "So What's Up?" and through "Tips and Tricks" is very distracting. Since you use bold text for titles and the list items in that "So What's Up?" section, bold text is structural and serves a purpose to separate ideas. You overload it a bit by bolding long phrases you wish to draw the reader's attention to.

You use bold text well before and after these sections, when you're only bolding a few words at most at a time. Once you start bolding whole phrases your paragraphs start looking like striped lines. It was very distracting to try to follow your sentences when my attention is getting drawn to all the bolded text around me. It almost felt wrong at times to read the plain formatted text.

Your content was very engaging and I relate to it quite a bit. The illustrations are fantastic thanks for posting.

Like with all things, laziness/conscientiousness exists on a spectrum, and it's hard to tell where normal variation crosses over into pathology. I do have to wonder if self-proclaimed laziness among nerdy types comes from a tendency to set very high standards for ourselves and to compare ourselves with extraordinarily productive people. I think the average human being might be lazier than we give them credit for. The author complains about not being able to stop browsing reddit and get out of bed? Well, it seems that's how a great many people choose to spend their time these days if given a choice, so can we really say that's a sign of pathology? You feel like you're not working hard enough on your personal coding/science/art/whatever project? Well, most people don't have any personal projects, they produce very little beyond what is required to make a living, and for the extra amount that they do produce they don't hold themselves to very high standards and they don't care if they ultimately abandon the project, so you're already way ahead of the curve there.

I say all this as someone who has had severe problems with laziness and I empathize with the author of the article a lot, so I'm not trying to make light of the problem. I'm just suggesting an alternative perspective that may be useful.

I sometimes feel like these articles are popular because procrastination is just a universal part of the human condition. I doubt anyone scrolls past these articles and thinks “that doesn’t affect me at all”.

I procrastinate to the point where it’s causing me real problems in life, yet it feels kinda indulgent to say that as if I’m the victim of some disease, when I’m actually just failing to deal with something that’s hard for everyone.

Perhaps this feeling is actually contributing to the problem, because I’m continually frustrated that I can’t just snap out of it like (most) other people.