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Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

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Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#71

Post by Accujack »

javajosh wrote: post #36

Well, the difficult emotion is often some form of fear. Fear of failing, of making a mistake, in some cases, of making the problem worse. All of these fears are in a fundamental sense legitimate, but the direct solution is, insofar as it is possible, to prepare and practice. The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is a recent discovery of min…

This may work.... for some people.

Recognize that procrastination based on avoidance of difficult emotions is likely as unique as each individual's emotions.

I'm glad you found a solution for yourself, but please do remember how unique each person in the world is.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#72

Post by and-hi »

mbeex wrote: post #31

My solution is similar (breaking down the problem), the cause is - at least partially - different. If I am procrastinating in software development or research it is (1) for complexity reasons, (2) for foreseeable vast grunt work I have already done and solved in the past. Example (1): I have to choose between at least two fundamental different ways to get ahead in writing software. I know that implications come late,…

I'm familiar with your (1) and I think it fits extremely well with the negative emotion explanation.

At least for me, making a difficult decision that might have far-reaching consequences can be very uncomfortable if I don't have all the information. And it can be very easy to procrastinate because I tell myself that more information might be available in the future (even when that is clearly not true).

So, it's not so much that I search for an optimal strategy and more that I know there isn't one and I don't want to bite the bullet yet and make a decision.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#73

Post by nisa »

Words of warning from a not so young (36) chronic procrastinator with a rather messed up life: Take it seriously. I'm not talking about reading HN in your 7th work hour when doing stupid Excel sheets. I'm talking about messing up years and years of your life. I believe it's a symptom of some deeper issues and it won't go away from alone. Lack of sleep, stress, work overload, information overload amplify the effects but once it crept into your life outside of work it really can wreak havoc. Simple things start to become complicated and you are in a constant negative feedback loop. The worst is that you procrastinate not only work but rather your own existence because you'll constantly attempt to catch up but just can't.

At the moment doing pomodoro and putting everything in kanban charts and devide&conquer seem to work somewhat. I don't really have any clever advice beyond that, it just sucks.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#74

Post by dundercoder »

myth2018 wrote: post #65

I always read here and there people commenting about certain tips not working well on their own procrastination issues. My experience is no different. Some months ago I wrote about how procrastination had harmed my life. I was going through a lot. Thankfully, things have hugely improved since then. Step by step, I'm getting my life together. Way before my ex-wife left me, I had been reading some books on the subject.…

Honestly, I expect most are in this same boat. Humans are very complex at best, and the outside perspective a therapist can offer is hard to overestimate.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#75

Post by mc32 »

mattmanser wrote: post #69
mc32 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ > Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert” That makes sense for some procrastination, but other procrastination is laziness. Mopping the floor, taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn types of procrastination... those are under your own purview and don’t involve big emotions or decisions... So I think it explains some kinds of procrastination but not all.

It's not about just doing the dishes, it's about the sum of all the other chores and things you have to do. It's overwhelming in its entirety, not the individual tasks. When they look at the washing up a procrastinator doesn't just see the washing up, they also see that they have to do a laundry, fix the cupboard creak, do a full clean of the cupboards, clean under the fridge, wash the floors, dust the cobwebs, fix t…

I don’t mean it as an attack. I’m affected by the above too. Sometimes it’s because you look too far down the road as you allude to. But that could be part of an “excuse” mechanism.

Breaking things down into more discrete unconnected units allows addressing neater (less messy) problems/chores.

In myself I do notice over complicating things as an excuse to put them off and waste time. But as others suggest, sometimes you just have to power through and get things done.

And in most cases it’s not a hard or difficult work. The hard part is committing to doing it. Once you actually start it’s mostly a breeze.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#76

Post by mattmanser »

mc32 wrote: post #75
mattmanser wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about just doing the dishes, it's about the sum of all the other chores and things you have to do. It's overwhelming in its entirety, not the individual tasks. When they look at the washing up a procrastinator doesn't just see the washing up, they also see that they have to do a laundry, fix the cupboard creak, do a full clean of the cupboards, clean under the fridge, wash the floors, dust the cobwebs, fix t…

I don’t mean it as an attack. I’m affected by the above too. Sometimes it’s because you look too far down the road as you allude to. But that could be part of an “excuse” mechanism. Breaking things down into more discrete unconnected units allows addressing neater (less messy) problems/chores. In myself I do notice over complicating things as an excuse to put them off and waste time. But as others suggest, sometimes…

Ah, ok, I've removed the first paragraph as I was being too defensive and it didn't really add anything.

I've been personally struggling with this for decades, I've found solutions that work for months, or even sometimes years and had long periods of effective productivity. But they all seem to eventually get forgotten and then don't work the 2nd time round.

It's very frustrating.

It's funny as I can easily work hard for other people and clients, etc.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#79

Post by aisamu »

javajosh wrote: post #36

Well, the difficult emotion is often some form of fear. Fear of failing, of making a mistake, in some cases, of making the problem worse. All of these fears are in a fundamental sense legitimate, but the direct solution is, insofar as it is possible, to prepare and practice. The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is a recent discovery of min…

> The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case.

This is the main operating principle of http://www.structuredprocrastination.com

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#80

Post by ema »

Tenoke wrote: post #37

>'Just get started'? If I could just get started then I wouldn't have a procrastination problem." I thought: fair enough. This never worked for me. I write one sentence or do the small task and then I go off and do something else. Perhaps it's due to my (bad) habit of context-switching but either way I've never benefited much from this approach despite often trying it.

For me it depends strongly on the task whether 'just get started' works or not. With menial tasks like emptying the dishwasher I only have to convince myself to do the minimum possible amount of progress and I will usually keep doing until I'm done. I might even get inspired to do some related task afterwards. But if it is something boring but purely cognitive, like say data entry, I start, congratulate myself for making progress and promptly switch to something more fun.
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