Procrastination is connected to perfectionism

Nailed it. With a small caveat. It’s more a matter of executive functioning [1], less one of (strictly speaking) motivation (although that is how it often feels, so I understand why that’s used as a kind of shorthand). I can very easily feel and be motivated to accomplish some task, but still fail to make any progress (or even begin) until it’s deadline time. Then comes feelings of guilt and self-loathing because I just can’t seem to get my shit together (despite knowing that that’s a wildly wrong way of framing it).

It is horrible. But it’s manageable on most days (and yes, I’m medicated and have been since early adulthood). And honestly, having people in your life who understand your condition and can help pick you up sometimes [2], is a huge part of coping.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions

[2] I do not mean do stuff for you. For me, when I’m in that place where I’m so frustrated that the only options are either to primally scream or to sit in the corner and cry, a simple fucking hug is like a miracle drug.

I just saw a simple differentiation between daydreaming (creative/analytic) and detailed planning and execution (productive).

Seen that way you'd need to take care to not fall back into that creative-only daydream mode when you actually need/want to be productive. So you would need to steadily remind you to actually continue with concrete execution planning instead of mentally optimizing models (which of course itself is - and feels - productive and maybe even more important/urgent, but not in the ouput-oriented way you'd like/need to achieve in that actual production task).

Not sure if it actually helps, but besides that perfectionism and "just do it" issue/solution pair it might be a useful perspective and concrete criterion to keep one focused on the task of finishing. I'll try to include it in the repertoire at least.

I had an instructor for a seminar that I took, keep repeating the phrase “We need to know what 'done' looks like.”

Another manager I worked with, said “The #1 feature of this product is 'Ship'.”

In the app we’re about to release, we don’t have any schedule pressure. We can release when we want.

I found that the rest of the team was in “Perma-Tweak” mode. Lots of “Just one more thing.”

I realized that it was never going to ship, so I set an arbitrary date of … today.

In true software development tradition, we’ll be late, but not by much. Also, we have a great excuse. The CEO had a baby (ahead of schedule, but the deadline was quite firm).

In recent years the increase in launching products and updates without in-depth checks and with unfinished features is becoming routine... as if achieving the introduction of low quality products in the market were the goal, under the "productivity" shield.

"Productivity", the abstract word that looks as if it were invented by the "flat-earthers" to sell books. Just a drug for to make the clients to pay for being alpha-testers, without remorse.

Not easy to talk about perfectionism. In the last decade the threshold changed much, unfortunately. The main problem with this is in the retro-feeding, low quality here, there, affect the time needed for to advance in better products because there are more issues to solve, that of course will be "un-productive" to solve, in loop. Enjoy.

> One reason why people procrastinate is perfectionism.

Is it though? Or is it something nice to tell ourselves?

I don’t know if there is correlation here. I have seen poeple procrastinating with no sense of details and the reverse is true too.