Didn't have vocab for it, but seems like I have been doing something similar. For example, having a JIRA ticket on my board that I don't want to do will make me finish all the other tickets. I will procrastinate till the last minute -- kind of pitting one ticket against all others for myself to get the stuff done.
Structured Procrastination (1995)
111–120 of 167 posts
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
ADHD definitely doesn't help but I don't find there's a direct link between ADHD & why I procrastinate. The why is personal to me & unlikely to be the same for everyone but I find these kinds of tools & strategies are a means to ignore the why & "get by" without addressing any fundamental issues. One example (of which there are many) is that external validation as a motivator is a big cause of procrastination in some…
I’m coming to see the root is usually some kind of avoidance, always emotional, often subtle. I think this actually is pretty universal but the specifics vary wildly. It’s taken a while to unpack this. For a long time, when I’d about of a task I was avoiding, I’d just get this wave of a feeling of “ughhh” and turn away. There’s something the feeling is trying to warn me about, and sitting with it can help figure it o…
One other thing that trips many people up I think is the idea that they shouldn't be feeling "avoidant" about certain tasks that they love, enjoy & are passionate about (why would you). Often that comes down to being more invested in a perfect outcome for those "passion" tasks which ultimately builds more pressure to do it well & associated anxiety around not living up to ones own invented standards. "It's my passion therefore I must not fall short" can be a massive avoidance trigger.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#113We've been procrastinating for years here...
Structured Procrastination (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36433304 - June 2023 (1 comment)
Structured Procrastination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33515388 - Nov 2022 (4 comments)
Structured Procrastination (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30292440 - Feb 2022 (37 comments)
Structured Procrastination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24884347 - Oct 2020 (9 comments)
Structured Procrastination (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16941717 - April 2018 (38 comments)
Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151481 - Sept 2015 (79 comments)
Procrastination and Perfectionism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287817 - March 2011 (29 comments)
Structured Procrastination - "the art of making procrastination work for you" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=212590 - June 2008 (3 comments)
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#114This is a testament to ADHD in the software industry.
The hallmark of ADHD is an "interest based attention system".
If you have ADHD, it may be completely shocking for you to hear that most people prioritize "extrinsically", meaning, whether or not something is "interesting" is *not* primary information in their prioritizations.
I never knew I had ADHD until I had a baby and had to start prioritizing tasks based on time.
And guess what, I can't easily prioritize on time constraints. Which is one of the two fundamental prioritization dimensions, the other being space (eg you only need one auth backend, pick one). I can do space.
Now I have no problem writing hours for each segment of a project and getting it within 100% error bars.
Where my life breaks down is daily tasks. I used to have a 5-7 PM sink. If I had a good day, I wrapped at 5 or just kept momentum to 7 PM. If I had a bad ADHD day, I just worked to 7, manufacturing urgency.
With a child you don't work til 7, so just lop off 10 of your 25-30 core productive hours for the week, unmedicated.
I suspect as I adjust I will come to see 2-3 PM as "ahh this is urgent because at 5 PM, death". But, at least I am medicated now and can work consistently at 9 AM.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#115I got a perspective on procrastrination by playing chess. Sometimes in the past I would try to do something like write an essay, read a book or, program something. And I would get this heavy feeling in my brain. Thinking would be like running through molasses. No useful thoughts would pop out. I would have read the same sentence over and over, because as soon as I finished reading it I would have forgotten what I just read. And then I would drop what I was doing and "procrastrinate".
Well, I started playing chess. And the same thing would happen, I would get this feeling. And I would start dropping pieces. I would play the opening out of order. I would try my very best to prevent these things and then run out of time. And it made me realize something - because chess is a microcosm model of thinking and knowledge work, more quantifiable and objective - it made me realize that I wasn't being lazy. I had in fact been completely correct when I thought to myself that I can't do this right now. It wasn't an excuse.
But also it made me reflect on my "a-game". It's simply not possible to always be on your a-agame, and you have to plan around that. Somethings are acceptable to do at a lower standard. Maybe it's okay having half-understood the book? Also doing things at your "b-game" is still practice even if the work is garbage.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
This way of working really requires a small company, (and is one of the reasons I think small places have a chance of outsized impact). But at bigger places, either a manager is being judged on a team outcome -> where an individual not on topic is budget not going towards what they get paid to achieve. Or you need seniority enough to work directly with a project director (but most structures expect people at that lev…
I avoid working in big companies, fighting bureaucracy is not my thing. But ordered-micromanaging-managers do happen even in companies of 10 people. One of the worst experiences like that I had in a company of _four_ people, CEO was just insufferable, we actually spent an hour every day creating a schedule for a day for everyone with 15 minutes granularity. One thing slightly bothering me is that I have zero problem…
I have spent a fair amount of time in very large companies (single projects involving thousands of devs). You end up producing a whole lot of management training (and managers) in this environment, just due to its size.
You end up with not exactly an intentional bureaucracy, but one where the idea of fairness from somehow "objective" numbers becomes a focus.
This kind of works at this scale, because you need to have a way to abstract and reason about the capabilitys of far too many people than you can know individually.
The training and materials don't scale down though, so you get someone trying to apply metric driven performance in cases where it just doesn't fit.
It's generally "ok" for big business, because projects at this scale can survive on rigid organisation, simply because achieving anything at that scale is a challenge enough to be valuable.
Occasionally you see inspired leadership, but every level of management it has to go through erodes it. It's part of why it's so rare for a big company to produce anything unusualy good at scale, it takes a real alignment of stars.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#117Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the systems in the world break down eventually. Todo lists, GSD, tickets, notes, accountability plans, mental trickery, and so on. It all seems like a panacea at first, until it doesn't. What really helps the ADHD mind is diagnosis and meds, and these days LLMs. Turns out they make for exceptional personal assistants that can be used to automate all the boring and unexciting stuff that is nevertheless needed, and…
> "Just do it" is about as helpful as "don't be sad". To be clear, I'm not saying "just do it" or suggesting anything quick or easy. Quite the opposite: coping strategies like this are imo the "easy way out". I'm suggesting a much slower, harder path that leads to long term results (& can't be generalised, packaged & sold in a neat article as it's entirely different for everyone).
Oh for sure, I was not referring to what you wrote. It's just that it's a common thing people who are, let's say, executive function challenged get to hear.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the systems in the world break down eventually. Todo lists, GSD, tickets, notes, accountability plans, mental trickery, and so on. It all seems like a panacea at first, until it doesn't. What really helps the ADHD mind is diagnosis and meds, and these days LLMs. Turns out they make for exceptional personal assistants that can be used to automate all the boring and unexciting stuff that is nevertheless needed, and…
Can you elaborate on LLMs as assistants for ADHD? What are you automating with them?
They have helped me a lot with chunking tasks, and guiding me through tasks that I can't hold in focus.
There's a prompt I used while moving out, where I had claude ask me questions, what is in each room. And then once we had this item list, organizing it.
Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)
#120This is a testament to ADHD in the software industry. The hallmark of ADHD is an "interest based attention system". If you have ADHD, it may be completely shocking for you to hear that most people prioritize "extrinsically", meaning, whether or not something is "interesting" is *not* primary information in their prioritizations. I never knew I had ADHD until I had a baby and had to start prioritizing tasks based on t…
I assume you mean the sharing of the article, because the author was a philosophy prof.
Do you have anything I can follow up on for,
> most people prioritize "extrinsically" meaning, whether or not something is "interesting" is not primary information in their prioritizations.
I would have thought the quest for dopamine was pretty universal and there's a good friend in my life who has a serious case of ADHD.