I put this together a few years ago with some similar insights... http://antiprocrastinator.com/
Dear procrastinator
121–130 of 146 posts
Re: Dear procrastinator
#122I'd be interested in exploring the ascetic dimension of procrastination.
That may ring the wrong religious bells but the problem of procrastination in the West was first of all, and there's a lot of documentation surrounding this, a religious problem. Saint Jerome is the first to directly speak of idleness but it's even there in Paul's letters: How do you secure a base of pagans for your Judaic sect in a world swimming with very similar cults and mythologies? Keep em busy with your sect.
This is related to the consistent demand for communal surveillance stretching throgh all the church fathers; everyone should make sure everyone else is busy being faithful. So I wonder how and at what point that discussion of procrastination transforms into the modern formulation?
Re: Dear procrastinator
#123First off, Nice post. But I disagree slightly out of experience from my own toils with procrastination. I find that I, among many other humans simply want to remain in a state of comfort, whatever that means to each person. Every little thing that deviates one from constant comfort becomes a bump in the state of mind, this bump can be smoothed out in 1 of 2 ways, You can do what you should do, the task at hand, or you can put it off in exchange for a moment of instant gratification, or some distraction action. Now in behavioral theory, there is much less mental strife or tension involve in procrastination (initially), and if the competitor action to inaction a mentally or physically longer journey requiring more energy to complete, the natural response would be the shortest of the two. Instant gratification is powerful! Its a tug-of-war calculation between actions, we will do whatever we can do that's easier or more enjoyable unless we fear the outcome of inaction so much so that it out-ways the positives of the other. We are fundamentally powerless against this. For all you fellow entrepreneurs out there, we simply love building things more than anything else. My procrastination for example consists of working on projects or prototyping a new app. I will default to that when countered with options of going to the movies, eating out, or playing video games. One could argue however that fear of failure motivates one above all others to strive for success.
Just my 2 cents.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#124There is not a singular cause for procrastination. I've mentioned it many times on HN, but I think it's again relevant to recommend "Procrastination" by Burka & Yuen.[1] Half the book is spent helping you investigate the root cause or causes of your procrastination, which can include fear about control (losing OR gaining it), as well as fear of success, fear of failure, fear of separation, fear of attachment. They di…
There's something else that's a bit rarer, but not as uncommon as often thought: depersonalization. (Mark my words: depersonalization disorder will be the next ADD/Asperger's/depression as fashionable illness du jour)
In fact, as acute (non-chronic) depersonalization can be a natural response to an anxiety attack, it may be at the core of why "fear of X" can lead to paralyzing procrastination. I've been debugging mine for years with a psychiatrist now, and it's still not clear that I have DPD itself and not depersonalization as a secondary symptom of one of the many things that are wrong with me, but clearly it plays a huge part.
I'm kind of oversharing here, but it's in hope that more people are aware that depersonalization is something that exists, like headaches or muscle cramps, and like ADD (and ED to an extent) is a continuum.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything that we perceive as hard or boring is a task for procrastination. We simply don't want to do it because it isn't fun. I am not a games tester; therefore video games are still fun. But when I was first starting as a programmer, I did it because I was having a blast, and it made me successful. It has nothing to do with being told to do something, and it has everything to do with our brains - especially creativ…
Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step.
Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#126I'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…
Silverbax, thanks for your comment. What makes you really want to play a video game and dislike doing the dishes? Is it something objective about the thing to be done, or does it have to do with your mental framing of the task at hand? I feel it is the latter. A friend of mine reviews video games professionally, and he procrastinates on playing games. I think it's because he is told to play games. An authority figure…
I don't think its about if something is hard or boring. I enjoy hard things more than easy things, for example.
I think its about the goal: doing the dishes stands in the way of the goal of having clean dishes. Playing video games, on the other hand, is the goal itself. Sure, there may be a goal within the game, the same as there will be obstacles and also boring things in the game, but playing the game itself is fun, and a goal in itself. Dishes are purely an obstacle to a goal.
I find I procrastinate a lot over the obstacles, but rarely over the goal itself.
Like gexla said (and like you said in the OP), its about being in control. I have little choice in doing the dishes - if I don't do them, they pile up and the place looks dirty, but I never really decide I want to do them. On the other hand, if I play video games, this is my choice and I'm in control. I can just as easily not play. Thats my choice. On the other hand, if, like gexla said, I had to review a game, then its out of my control and I could see myself potentially procrastinating over it (unless it happens to be a game I wanted to play anyway).
Re: Dear procrastinator
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have surrendered to the ideology of laziness. But there is no such thing. The energy enters you, you transform it and then you use the transformed energy to suit your needs. In this chain, something is broken. People tend simplify this by calling it laziness when they need to put a tag on someone they don't like. But the real reason for you inability to accomplish tasks at hand is that something in the chain I ha…
No, again, it's completely because humans have a desire to avoid things that are not considered interesting. We must get our kids to school on time, so we push ourselves to get up early, get them ready, and either drive them to school or get them to the bus stop. What all of us would rather do is read, or play games, or watch TV. Laziness is part of our human makeup, and our success in combating it makes the differen…
The most effective combat tactic is not to struggle, but to make things in your life _interesting_.
One of the tactics is to simplify exercises, the other involves rationalization. When I feel in control - I do not need to force myself to do something, I just do it because fills the structure of my life and because I understand how consequences of my actions build this structure by relying upon each other.
So I do not respect the success in combating laziness only through sheer will, I prefer to divide big tasks and find meaning in small ones.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step. Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
how often do you procrastinate on making the list? by the time you've started making the list, you weren't going to procrastinate any longer anyway.
Re: Dear procrastinator
#129amazing. eloquently describes some Truth I've been banging my head against the wall trying to explain to people but not able to find the words. It's the same dichotomy of inner-authority and genuine-self that drives people to force themselves to diet and then cheat on their diets etc
Re: Dear procrastinator
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step. Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
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