Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 281 posts

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#21

Post by elboru »

otikik wrote: post #5

No mention of how to get out of this unhealthy habit. I'm struggling with this myself. Some of my conclusions so far: * When I am sleep-deprived I am less productive. So I spend more time doing "work". Then I have less time for everything else I want to do (family, cooking, sport). So I take more time away from sleep. And the cycle repeats. Sleep deprivation is self-perpetuating. * What I do at night, when I am exhau…

I would recommend reading “Atomic habits” it’s a small and easy book to read. It has a lot of “aha” moments were stuff you already know click in your mind on how to develop good habits and remove bad habits, it provides good guidance.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#22

Post by barkingcat »

underseacables wrote: post #9

It’s interesting the use of the aggressive language “revenge“ And “retaliatory” which seems to have a negative charge. I wonder if it is due to the culture of China, its communist leaning, or something deeper that looks at personal leisure time as a bad thing.

You might have misunderstood. The term that is being described here is kind of like a meme-phrase/word. Like in the article said, it was likely invented years ago, probably in the Chinese version of twitter/social media/etc.

The revenge and retaliatory terms are more subversive than negative.

The retaliation is against losing control of your own time. The revenge is against your corporate-master, your boss, the pointy-haired boss, the Communist political officer, "the Man", late stage capitalism - whatever you want to call it I don't think the sentiment is limited to China and communism, etc. and that's why this article struck a chord enough for it to get onto hnews.

That said, the subversive nature of the wording is very very Chinese. Not just Communist Chinese, but this type of subversive back-talk has been alive for many many generations since the imperial days, where you had to talk in circles in order to not be executed.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#23

Post by dcolkitt »

dusted wrote: post #3

I'm also doing this, big time.. Between a full-time job, building a new home, renovating another and having a wife and kid, there's not any "me" time until past wife+kids bedtime. I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.

> I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.

I certainly understand the sentiment. But I'd question is this actually true? Have you considered doing a Gwern-style self-experiment to quantify the impact?

Maybe try something like your current routine for two weeks, then rigorously maxing out sleep for two weeks. Take systematic surveys of your subjective wellbeing and energy levels throughout the day. Then compare the two periods.

You might be surprised to learn that what you think is giving you energy, is actually taking it away. I think as humans we tend to have very bad introspective intuition about what actually improves our energy and mood. I know I certainly do. Being scientific about it can reveal some surprising results.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#25

Post by anonymousDan »

As a way of breaking this cycle, I've recently been considering going to bed earlier (e.g. 9-10pm), and then getting up at 5-6am, BUT with the proviso I can do whatever I want between 5 and 8, with no pressure to be productive (e.g. binge on Netflix for 3 hours). I just need to convince my wife to do the same :) Has anyone tried something like this?

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#26

Post by gnulinux »

otikik wrote: post #5

No mention of how to get out of this unhealthy habit. I'm struggling with this myself. Some of my conclusions so far: * When I am sleep-deprived I am less productive. So I spend more time doing "work". Then I have less time for everything else I want to do (family, cooking, sport). So I take more time away from sleep. And the cycle repeats. Sleep deprivation is self-perpetuating. * What I do at night, when I am exhau…

I'm the absolute opposite. Mornings are for endless procrastination, what can be done in 10 minutes before sleep can be done in an hour in the morning, even if I drink a lot of coffee. This is a really unhealthy habit as sometimes if the activity proves engaging, it keeps me from sleeping, obviously.

What's weird is psychoactive substance rarely seem to change this productivity dynamic. Even if I'm well rested and drink coffee in the morning, I'm still inclined to procrastinate, whereas in the evening even after drinking alcohol or smoking weed, I can be productive even for intellectual tasks. Obviously I do not condone working while under influence, but if it's a friday and I have literally nothing to do (e.g. during lockdown) drinking a few beers, smoking some pot and programming for my side-projects or playing chess around midnight is really fun for me. In the mornings, I just infinite-scroll reddit for at least an hour before I can even leave the bed.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#27

Post by ajsnigrutin »

sjg007 wrote: post #8

Here’s how you fix this. Go to bed early and wake up earlier. I do honestly believe that young adults naturally stay up later though. I think there’s an evolutionary reason for it, basically to keep the nights watch and ward off predators.

Nah... that sucks if you're trying to actually do something.

When i finish everything (work, home, cook food, eat, cleanup, random household tasks,...) it's usually 8 in the evening, maybe 9. If i want to do something (hobby, personal project....), I start at 9, and work until "too late".

If you go to sleep early, and wake up at (eg.) 5 in the morning, start work at 8, you have (eg.) 1 hour to get ready and commute + 2 hours of free time.

If anything "goes wrong" in my project, i have to debug, retry, fix, cut and cut again (and it's still too short),... doing this in the morning,it means, that you interrupt your pleasure-work at the moment where you're most productive (and where the thing you're doing is most "fun"/fulfiling). I can always go to sleep an hour later, or two, or five... most people are not that flexible with their jobs.

This is just my personal experience and opinion though.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#28

Post by thrav »

rootusrootus wrote: post #18

Not that my situation is anywhere near as dire as a worker on the 996 plan in China, but I do a similar tradeoff. During work I also help the kids get through their school day, so my workday gets a bit longer, then after that I have my own schooling in the evening, and then there's no time left. So I steal it from sleep time or else I get nothing at all. Can't tell you how much I look forward to 1) being done with OM…

I finished OMSCS in April. I was surprised to find that I just oscillated between trying to start the 10 different projects that had been waiting for me to finish, and doing absolutely nothing because I finally didn’t have to.

I ended up going through some material and building a trading bot because I never got a chance to take ML4T.

My wife was incredulous that I was doing more coursework after graduating.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#29

Post by Pet_Ant »

dcolkitt wrote: post #23
dusted wrote: post #3

I'm also doing this, big time.. Between a full-time job, building a new home, renovating another and having a wife and kid, there's not any "me" time until past wife+kids bedtime. I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.

> I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night. I certainly understand the sentiment. But I'd question is this actually true? Have you considered doing a Gwern-style self-experiment to quantify the impact? Maybe try something like your current routine for two weeks, then rigorously maxing out sleep for two weeks. Take systematic surveys of your subjective we…

> You might be surprised to learn that what you think is giving you energy, is actually taking it away.

I feel like you are confusing physical energy with spiritual energy. The stuff that makes you feel motivated and driven and excited, versus just capable of doing work.

Re: The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

#30

Post by InitialLastName »

anonymousDan wrote: post #25

As a way of breaking this cycle, I've recently been considering going to bed earlier (e.g. 9-10pm), and then getting up at 5-6am, BUT with the proviso I can do whatever I want between 5 and 8, with no pressure to be productive (e.g. binge on Netflix for 3 hours). I just need to convince my wife to do the same :) Has anyone tried something like this?

I do this (allocate more unproductive time in the mornings) and it's great. I tend to wake up at about 7 and wake up slowly, browse the news and/or play a game until I start working at about 10. I've operated that way since I was a kid (with some exceptions), and find that every day is much better when the mornings contain no stress.
Post reply on HN