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Structured Procrastination (1995)

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Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#161
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth makes you think you could know what's going on in someone else's brain with such confidence. Wild.

Likely because of own experience and shared experience of others? Medication here is not exactly new.

I'll quote Chris Gethard:

...mental health medications, to my knowledge, that’s the only type of medication that when people find out you’re taking it, they feel this freedom to offer up their entirely unsolicited opinions about it, right to your face, it happens all the time...

Like nobody has ever been diagnosed with diabetes and had their ignorant cousin go, “You’re gonna take insulin?” “For now, right? You’ll get off that shit someday.” No one in human history has ever said the words, “What’s so wrong with your life that you need chemotherapy?”

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#162
post #117
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely my response to many articles, which is why I have many 10s of browser tabs open at any given time.

10 ? LOL My low normal is about 800, median is double that.

Here I am from tomorrow, pruning some tabs and drying my tears

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#163
post #68

I felt this when I decided to do dev work while going to school. The structure of work was a break from the chaos of school, and the novelty of school was a break from the monotony of work. I want to understand the mechanism and purpose behind procrastination. It seems like there's a reason evolution chose for ADHD to exist. In my experience, sometimes the frustrating signal telling me not to do the superficially "pr…

Evolution is a continuous random branching and selective pruning process. And there is not a lot of pruning going on in the current human explosion. So unless ADHD is an old branch and we see other mammals survive because of their distractability, I remain skeptical.

I think of it in terms of explore/exploit. I imagine ADHD is more on the former side of the spectrum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitati...

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#164

I'm doing the same, or at least trying to do it. Worst periods for me were when I had one clear, important goal, not particularly hard but hairy, and nothing else to do, sometimes because I myself cleared it up. I could spend months doing nothing useful , and end up very, very tired and burnt up. I also several times had a conversation with managers, whom I told that I'd rather work on something very urgent, or other…

> I'm doing the same, or at least trying to do it. This post gives me hope as someone with ADD. I have a MTHFR mutation and cross-dominant eye, with a little autism spectrum, psychosis, OCD tendencies, depression, injury, sleep apnea, and insomnia. I recommend eggs, spinach, potentially fasting, walking, and maybe some kind of fidget device. I also recommend giving yourself a little slack. If you’re like me, we don’t…

This is very enlightening.

But I'm curious, why the eggs and spinach?

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A coping strategy is something you turn to to "cope" with a problem when the underlying cause of your problem is beyond your direct control. If you are in a position to address the underlying cause directly, I've found it to be a better option than "coping". Therapy was a big part of identifying the problems. Ultimately, as a sibling commenter mentioned, task avoidance is often a sign of (usually very well disguised…

My problem is that I know the underlying cause is anxiety, and I still can't bring myself to do anything about it. Like, I have to book a flight for travel in a month. I don't much like traveling so I don't do much of it, and I'm traveling by myself. That anxiety, coupled with my anxiety from flying, have had me planning to book this flight for over two months unsuccessfully. There's a good chance I'll just make up s…

> The anxiety is literally crippling.

100% identify with this & I would have made very little if any positive progress alone. I needed external help.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#166
post #120

This 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.

By the way, the difference is not motivation by interest, but dependence on interest to initiate a task or even think about something.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#167

I'm doing the same, or at least trying to do it. Worst periods for me were when I had one clear, important goal, not particularly hard but hairy, and nothing else to do, sometimes because I myself cleared it up. I could spend months doing nothing useful , and end up very, very tired and burnt up. I also several times had a conversation with managers, whom I told that I'd rather work on something very urgent, or other…

This is a latent stress reduction mechanism which takes over to do many things which may be located is to relax automatically. This gives a physical we!!being.
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