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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

#221

Post by vorpalhex »

ci5er wrote: post #215
cgs wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also add to give it time and not give up after one or two sessions. It takes time to establish a relationship with a therapist you connect with and to see patterns in your life emerge.

At one point (maybe 15~20 years ago?), I had two sessions/week with a therapist for about a year. 3 therapists in a row. I must be crap at finding therapists. The ones I found were really against being "interventionists" and didn't want to share with me what they were seeing from our very lightly guided conversation (where I didn't even know what I should be talking about). "A little intervention and a little guidanc…

Please don't interpret this comment as against therapy in any way because therapy is an important and useful tool.

But the tape recorder kind of conversations (and you can just do these yourself) is actually a really effective tool when you are feeling overwhelmed. I use a journal instead of a tape recorder but it lets me establish how I am feeling at that moment, and then I can revisit later and evaluate what was going on.

If you're able to do this consistently, it becomes a really valuable tool because you can start to find correlations. "I notice I get depressed when I spend too much time just playing games". Correlations aren't necessarily causation, but even just that simple correlative analysis can be a meaningful tool.

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

#222

Post by ashtonkem »

yamrzou wrote: post #209
zerkten wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend therapy. Generally, men in the US find it difficult to seek out help. Often they think it's a failing and avoid it, especially in the context of relationships. Therapy is something you could almost do for yourself, if you could work out the puzzle. Therapy can do wonders at breaking the initial problem and giving you some things you can work on. Therapists can also provide useful inputs for career…

Practically speaking, what would a therapiat tell me that I can't find or learn on my own?

If you’re extremely self reflective; nothing.

For most of us, a therapist can tell you a lot of things that you could observe about yourself but won’t admit to. Most people have a blind spot the size of themselves.

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

#223

Post by ci5er »

vorpalhex wrote: post #221
ci5er wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point (maybe 15~20 years ago?), I had two sessions/week with a therapist for about a year. 3 therapists in a row. I must be crap at finding therapists. The ones I found were really against being "interventionists" and didn't want to share with me what they were seeing from our very lightly guided conversation (where I didn't even know what I should be talking about). "A little intervention and a little guidanc…

Please don't interpret this comment as against therapy in any way because therapy is an important and useful tool. But the tape recorder kind of conversations (and you can just do these yourself) is actually a really effective tool when you are feeling overwhelmed. I use a journal instead of a tape recorder but it lets me establish how I am feeling at that moment, and then I can revisit later and evaluate what was go…

Thanks for that.

Also I need to find a way to find better therapists! :-)

EDIT: Or maybe just realize that I get more depressed (and anxious) when I drink massive amounts of depressants, and, you know, stop? :-)

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

#224

Post by ashtonkem »

ci5er wrote: post #223
vorpalhex wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't interpret this comment as against therapy in any way because therapy is an important and useful tool. But the tape recorder kind of conversations (and you can just do these yourself) is actually a really effective tool when you are feeling overwhelmed. I use a journal instead of a tape recorder but it lets me establish how I am feeling at that moment, and then I can revisit later and evaluate what was go…

Thanks for that. Also I need to find a way to find better therapists! :-) EDIT: Or maybe just realize that I get more depressed (and anxious) when I drink massive amounts of depressants, and, you know, stop? :-)

Finding a good therapist is both hard, and a very trial & error process.

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

#225

Post by ci5er »

ashtonkem wrote: post #224
ci5er wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that. Also I need to find a way to find better therapists! :-) EDIT: Or maybe just realize that I get more depressed (and anxious) when I drink massive amounts of depressants, and, you know, stop? :-)

Finding a good therapist is both hard, and a very trial & error process.

The founders of NLP used to joke that there are many paths to mental health, but none so lucrative as Freudian psychotherapy.

I tend to try to seek out CBT people, but I found that a lot of them started out as classicists themselves, and then we find our way back into being "non-interventionists".

My mental model now is that the cycle of life goes something like this: Born -> WTF is Going on Here? -> Death

Maybe that's cynical, but it helps me believe that I'm not the only one who is fucked up between the ears .

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

#226

Post by outworlder »

yesco wrote: post #174
laurieg wrote: post #78

Sometimes comments like "Oh I'm procrastinating by reading this article while at work (at my successful software engineering job)" seem a little insensitive. It's like telling a blind man "Yeah, I close my eyes too sometimes".

I'm not sure what you mean, it's not like procrastinating is a mental disorder or permanent disability like being blind. If you are avoiding work that you need to be doing then by definition you are procrastinating, career success has nothing to do with it. It's not like it's insensitive to say you are anxious about something minor when there exists people with more severe anxiety problems. It's just the name of a sy…

> I'm not sure what you mean, it's not like procrastinating is a mental disorder or permanent disability like being blind

It can be symptom of a mental disorder when it impacts normal functioning.

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

#227

Post by heavyset_go »

wpietri wrote: post #86
nisa wrote: post #73

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 b…

Yeah, agreed. For me avoidance of tasks was just the visible problem; the root was avoidance of feelings . I don't really struggle with procrastination much any more, but it took all sorts of work that would have seemed apparently unrelated to me. E.g., a regular sleep schedule is really helpful, and that required an automated lighting system that helps me keep in sync with the sun. Regular cardio helps keep my basel…

> the root was avoidance of feelings.

To put this in perspective, one of the hallmarks of addiction is avoidance of feelings. It's a deeply psychological coping mechanism, and obviously a symptom of a larger problem.

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

#228

Post by mattm »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #171
mywacaday wrote: post #90

I have had a weird relationship with procrastination, I find I get more appropriate work done when I'm exhausted. When I have no energy it will take all my concentration to stick to the job at hand but I do stick to it, when I have plenty of energy my monkey brain gets distracted easier. I've also found the the GTD technique of breaking items into smaller tasks, setting a next action and make sure the action starts w…

My understanding is that, when you are fatigued, you might experience higher levels of dopamine because the brain works in mysterious ways. The reverse also seems true: low levels of dopamine can make you feel tired or sluggish despite being well-rested.

I did come across a study once which argued this. You feel more productive when tired and stressed but in reality you are less productive.

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

#230

Post by Spoom »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #216
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…

> 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 the dripping tap, take out the recycling, decide what to do with those old jars, etc., etc This reminds me: is there a word to describe a related phenomenon, that I fin…

I don't know but I call it "the stack". If the stack gets big enough, it can get overwhelming.

Maybe it would make sense to have a todo list organized like a hierarchical bullet point list for things like these... where you don't have to store the whole dependency graph in your head. I find that that's often why I don't get the actual task intended complete; because in the process of emptying the stack, I forget what got me there in the first place.

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