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Why do humans procrastinate?

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Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#41

Post by prawn »

freemarketteddy wrote: post #35
ramanujan wrote: post #30

There was a recent highly cited paper describing the concept of willpower as a measurable, physiological, depletable quantity, strongly affected by glucose levels: http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/Bra... And there was a very interesting Metafilter thread from a few years ago that found that a small amount of alcohol overcame procrastination: http://ask.metafilter.com/22924/Why-does-alcohol-ove…

In addition to all the four in this thread(glucose,alcohol,music and caffeine)...another tool and perhaps the most effective immediately....Adderall. (Warning:I am not a doctor,and you must fully understand the side effects before using even a mild amphetamine)

I use No Doz and find that it just makes me procrastinate at incredible speed.

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#42

Post by prawn »

Mz wrote: post #33
prawn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this Twitter comment: "Suddenly realized the problem with all to-do lists: they are filled with things we don't want to do. Everything else is already done."

Personal anecdote: I once came across some months-old to-do list. It included some furniture rehabbing project. The piece of furniture in question had since been gotten rid of, so I rolled my eyes and removed the project from my to-do list. My sons teased me about being a failure for not accomplishing it.

I found my old Wunderlist account which has stuff on it from at least nine months ago. I've done a lot of related things since, but 90% of the items on the list, I've still not done and still need to do. If anyone ever needs to study procrastination, get in touch because I am a pro.

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#43

Post by Mz »

prawn wrote: post #42
Mz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote: I once came across some months-old to-do list. It included some furniture rehabbing project. The piece of furniture in question had since been gotten rid of, so I rolled my eyes and removed the project from my to-do list. My sons teased me about being a failure for not accomplishing it.

I found my old Wunderlist account which has stuff on it from at least nine months ago. I've done a lot of related things since, but 90% of the items on the list, I've still not done and still need to do. If anyone ever needs to study procrastination, get in touch because I am a pro.

Or perhaps you need a better problem-solving paradigm. If you have too many things that you "need" to do that you can't seem to make yourself do and if life has not simply forced your hand or led to catastrophe after nine months or more of not getting them done, maybe some of those things aren't really as important as you think they are.

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#44

Post by ruang »

funkah wrote: post #27

Simple, scorn of the abstract. The hour spent watching tv is valued more highly, right now, than the consequences that come some point in the future. The tv-watching hour presses the brain's reward buttons harder than the abstract notion of having your work done ahead of time. Taleb's "The Black Swan" has a nice discussion of scorn of the abstract, though not in the context of procrastination.

One manifestation of this is to break down a semi-abstract concept such as "finish coding shopping cart" to concrete tasks such as "install rails gem".

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#46

Post by vanni »

> (...) human motivation is heavily influenced by expectations of how imminent the reward is perceived to be.

Think to startup solopreneurs: their reward is far in time and uncertain. So they often and periodically have motivation drops.

This is why I'm working on a productivity-focused community for startup founders and would-be ones, full of mechanisms that will try to leverage human cognition weaknesses:

http://asaclock.com

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#47

Post by prawn »

Mz wrote: post #43
prawn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found my old Wunderlist account which has stuff on it from at least nine months ago. I've done a lot of related things since, but 90% of the items on the list, I've still not done and still need to do. If anyone ever needs to study procrastination, get in touch because I am a pro.

Or perhaps you need a better problem-solving paradigm. If you have too many things that you "need" to do that you can't seem to make yourself do and if life has not simply forced your hand or led to catastrophe after nine months or more of not getting them done, maybe some of those things aren't really as important as you think they are.

No, they're pretty important, but they aren't absolutely crucial (make or break) and so I can put them off.

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#48

Post by ramanujan »

mmaunder wrote: post #31
ramanujan wrote: post #30

There was a recent highly cited paper describing the concept of willpower as a measurable, physiological, depletable quantity, strongly affected by glucose levels: http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/Bra... And there was a very interesting Metafilter thread from a few years ago that found that a small amount of alcohol overcame procrastination: http://ask.metafilter.com/22924/Why-does-alcohol-ove…

You've just covered my four tools to overcome a slump. I've coded when buzzed. The trick is to not commit and diff the next morning. [Looks like you edited and removed caffeine and "loud thumping music". I recommend streaming ah.fm for the latter]

Yes, for me personally caffeine and loud music also work. Didn't have a cite, which is why I removed it.

But: next time I feel like procrastinating, might self-prescribe a Red Bull with vodka plus some music at 120bpm. Let's see what happens.

Re: Why do humans procrastinate?

#49

Post by dangero »

mih wrote: post #18

An interesting video on procrastination from a chapter of the book 'You are not so smart' http://youtu.be/DJ2T4-rUUcs

That was an amazing hook and I feel like the book was talking exactly about me. It was actually very reassuring to know how normal I am.

Not sure if you're associated with this book, but I think I'm sold.

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