Yeah, sometimes you can't just think your way out of it.
Hopefully one day we'll have a repeatable, very high success method of letting people get work done when they consciously desire it.
Dear procrastinator
41–50 of 146 posts
Re: Dear procrastinator
#42I'm sorry to disagree, but I do. My own battle with procrastination is completely due to laziness. No one likes to do difficult things, and sometimes even things we kind of enjoy. The reality is that we, as humans, never procrastinate when we really, really want something. Not once in my life did I have to "trick" myself into playing a video game a few extra minutes or watch a big basketball game. In short, we accomp…
I have had several instances in my life where I dived into what were difficult things for me with gusto - for example when I was in school and was trying to write a program in C to calculate all the anagrams , I did not even have a computer but was up almost all night writing it on a piece of paper and rushed in the morning to a place with access to a computer to test my program on paper.That was just an example - I have had several such experiences.Almost makes me think maybe you just can't "trick' yourself into anything but just have to find something genuinely fun for you to do!As long as it is fun - it doesn't matter if it is hard or not!
Re: Dear procrastinator
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, although I think procrastination (just like any psychological problem) is very complex, and I fear that we waste too much time trying to analyze these, therefore making the saying "just do it" or "suck it up" an appropiate response, which as you rightly discovered, got lost on modern parents. Sure, there may be some combination of emotional and logical constructs that will perfectly explain why I'm procrastinati…
"[...] therefore making the saying "just do it" or "suck it up" an appropiate response, which as you rightly discovered, got lost on modern parents" I had a discussion with my mother about this. To make a long story short she raised me this way because her father was a very very strict person. She had to work all the time in the household and therefore did did not have a nice childhood at all. When I was born she dec…
I would be careful about jumping to that conclusion. Perhaps you would procrastinate just as much if you had been forced to do unpleasant chores. No way of knowing for sure.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#44I procrastinate because I can get away with it. Any solution for me is derived entirely from that.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#45I'm sorry to disagree, but I do. My own battle with procrastination is completely due to laziness. No one likes to do difficult things, and sometimes even things we kind of enjoy. The reality is that we, as humans, never procrastinate when we really, really want something. Not once in my life did I have to "trick" myself into playing a video game a few extra minutes or watch a big basketball game. In short, we accomp…
I have had several instances in my life where I dived into what were difficult things for me with gusto - for example when I was in school and was trying to write a program in C to calculate all the anagrams , I did not even have a computer but was up almost all night writing it on a piece of paper and rushed in the morning to a place with access to a computer to test my program on paper.That was just an example - I…
Einstein is an extreme example of such a case - when I read his biography the thing that caught me as very interesting is that he was able to immerse himself in physics irrespective of all the problems in terms of not finding a job, his mothers bitter opposition to marrying his first wife etc.You can hardly trick yourself into such concentration.He must be the lucky few who find such deep interesting topics that life is a pleasure even with all the hardships around!
Einstein's sister, Maja, recalled "...even when there was a lot of noise, he could lie down on the sofa, pick up a pen and paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a problem so much that the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him."
Source;http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/23...
Re: Dear procrastinator
#46Very well written Edo, thanks! While I disagree that this applies to all cases of procrastination, it definitely applies to many, and was very eye (and mind) opening to read. Curious if you have other writings posted anywhere? I'd love to read more about your thoughts on other topics.
Hi makeramen, thanks for your comment, glad it was fun to read.
I have been toying with the idea to write more publicly. If you'll follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/edo) you will be the first to know when I do ;-).
Cheers!
Re: Dear procrastinator
#47VERY rarely do I stop and think "Wow. I was worng!" This is one of those times. GJ!
Eckhart Tolle's ideas have a deep similarity of meaning with your idea: that the mind is part of you, and you are not defined by your mind. You need to control it just like any other part of your body. This concept has helped me immensely in casting off procrastination.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#48[citation needed]
A citation is not needed. It's obvious that he is expressing an opinion. Those who disagree with him can express an opposing opinion. Just because someone says something, doesn't mean that they need to back it up in any scientific way, especially in a community based around discussing ideas and sharing opinions.
At the risk of repeating myself: the "opinion" he is expressing is actually a theory of procrastination. When you make broad statements like "the reason why human-beings procrastinate is to feel in control of their life", you are declaring your belief about why a widespread phenomena occurs of the type which is either right or wrong (or partially right).
Making such statements without providing any evidence for them is not only intellectually vacuous (since if there is no need to provide evidence, then any claim can be made), but it leads to bias in others where people assume that because an argument was not made, that the information is "well known" or the person providing the information is an expert.
There's nothing wrong with sharing opinion. I'm guessing that the reason he came to the conclusions he did was based on personal experience (probably mixed with some reading); if so, then he shouldn't have said "the reasons why human-beings procrastinate is to feel in control of their life", he should've said "I noticed that I seem[ed] to procrastinate not because of (...), but because I didn't feel in control of my life". If his evidence wasn't introspective, then he should have shared whatever his evidence was. If he didn't have any evidence other than plausibility, then he should've framed what he was saying as a hypothesis (and ideally still explained his reasoning).
You don't have to back up everything you say with scientific evidence, but you shouldn't make sweeping claims, especially in fields like this one where the jury is still out, without either providing evidence or qualifying your claim. (And I don't buy the "it's too much extra writing" argument; he could've inserted "I have a hypothesis:" after "Dear procrastinator" and had it completely covered.)
And no, I'm not just being nitpicky; a number of well-known biases like the primacy effect, confirmation bias, the "trusting the confident statement" bias I mentioned earlier (which I can't remember the name of for the life of me), and wishful thinking (in this case, wishing for a solution to procrastination) mean that humans are very vulnerable to forming irrational beliefs when ideas are presented in this way. An ounce of prevention, in the form of stating the reason you believe what you believe at least when you're making new or potentially controversial claims, is surely not too much to ask given how easy it is and how far it goes.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't take claims without evidence as a rule, and he didn't present any evidence. His case is especially problematic because he is making strong claims about a fairly well-studied field in which there is not a clearly dominant theory. If he's not intending to present what he's saying as fact, he should say so.
He is clearly presenting his opinion. You are clearly nitpicking for no good reason other than to nitpick.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#50I'm sorry to disagree, but I do. My own battle with procrastination is completely due to laziness. No one likes to do difficult things, and sometimes even things we kind of enjoy. The reality is that we, as humans, never procrastinate when we really, really want something. Not once in my life did I have to "trick" myself into playing a video game a few extra minutes or watch a big basketball game. In short, we accomp…
I think we should also discuss two widely recognized fears which, in my experience, are frequently related to procrastination: fear of failure and fear of success.
Both usually go, somewhat amusingly, hand in hand, but I think they should be linked to the "mastery" discussed in the topic. Fear of both failure and success are, in short, fear of change, fear of losing control, fear of not being a master anymore.
It is indeed quite common to trade a, sometimes illusory, feeling of easiness with the known current situation for the potential uneasiness of an unknown situation given as one the possible outcomes of the failure/success. Particularly in the last case, I have seen that it is not unusual to rationalize that we have already gained achieved should not be "gambled" against the changes that would result from the success of the activity we are procrastinating.
In short, the "I'll do it tomorrow" is usually a "I'll do it when I will feel confortable with outcomes I now consider most likely". I personally have discovered that focusing in the positive aspect of the outcomes I consider most likely, even in case of failure, is usually my best weapon against procrastination.