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Procrastination is Not Laziness

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Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#141

I'm reaching out here because I really need some advice. This is a great thread, but I think it only semi-applies to me. I am 24 years old, and I seriously struggle with motivation to do... just about anything. I have a midterm tomorrow in Dynamics (a mech engr course), and I have pretty much neglected the class entirely, and I am most certainly going to fail it, and I'll have to withdraw. This isn't surprising, beca…

Hi, I can relate to your situation, I feel like you are describing my life. My experience is this: all the psychological/organizing tips won't help. Problems is somewhere else. It's not about being lazy, not about being afraid of failure, needing latest organizing spreadsheet or anything like that. It's about brain chemistry and people around just don't get it as they try to understand your behavior assuming their st…

[deleted]

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#142
post #40
post #23

Let me second the OP and recommend Neil Fiore's book "The Now Habit". There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as: The Unschedule * a weekly calendar of committed recreational activities and breaks, meals, etc * productive periods of work are recorded after they are accomplished * encourages starting earlier on projects once you see how much time is already committed * 30 minute chunks of productive work…

Thank you for this. It's easy to think you'll have something similar in your head, but actually seeing it makes it harder to ignore. My procastination is usually due to a stupid case of OCD. I say it's stupid, because I can see how blatantly counter-productive it is... and yet, it's still there. I keep my OCD down to "mild" levels by purposely flinging my socks as soon as I come home. This, in a way, breaks the cycle…

So I've found that exactly one thing helps me focus on work -- boredom. I am definitely not OCD, but I still find that I can't just work on something at any time for any length of time. I have to be in the right mood.

I'd also add that procrastination and perfectionism is something I've seen a lot of, and which has always struck me as particularly insidious. I managed to finish my PhD by 26, but the reason is because I was comfortable with turning it in imperfect (and expected to do so from 24 on, after initial grad student optimism was burned out of me). I've had friends who spent years on a thesis past when it was done by any sane definition of the word just because they wanted it to be perfect. And since "perfect" was unattainable they spent all their time playing video games instead.

Last, I have spent over a decade carefully cultivating a mentality of not attaching myself to the outcomes of my projects but instead focus on enjoying the process. If I don't enjoy the process, the product is sort of irrelevant (at least for long periods). If I do enjoy the process, the product will be the best I can do. I'm currently running two startups, working part time at a third, teach karate, and am at least nominally pursuing romantic and social relationships. I often find myself using the mantra "it will turn out how it turns out" to help myself sleep on anxiety ridden nights. I also more formally say "I release " when I find that I am dwelling on something in meditation and visualize myself no longer being emotionally attached to that thing. Particularly helpful for tentative romantic relationships. Worry there seems to be cause inevitable failure.

Dunno if that helps anyone, but it helped me a ton.

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#143

I'm reaching out here because I really need some advice. This is a great thread, but I think it only semi-applies to me. I am 24 years old, and I seriously struggle with motivation to do... just about anything. I have a midterm tomorrow in Dynamics (a mech engr course), and I have pretty much neglected the class entirely, and I am most certainly going to fail it, and I'll have to withdraw. This isn't surprising, beca…

I would suggesting seeing a psychologist. I hesitate to offer advice given the huge variability in brain chemistry I've encountered. People are just inherently wired differently a lot of the time.

That said, and take this with the grain of salt that I don't know you, stop judging your progress against your peers. Everyone has their own life, and the best thing you can possibly do is to find some activity that you honestly enjoy and do that. Who cares if your high school friends are in top law schools? Some of the most interesting people I've ever known didn't bother graduating because they just basically weren't into it.

Unfortunately, your resources are probably limited, but if you can I'd suggest taking some time off to travel to a new environment (if you're social enough to interact with people there). A change of environment seems to do wonders for a lot of people with similar motivational issues.

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#144

I'm reaching out here because I really need some advice. This is a great thread, but I think it only semi-applies to me. I am 24 years old, and I seriously struggle with motivation to do... just about anything. I have a midterm tomorrow in Dynamics (a mech engr course), and I have pretty much neglected the class entirely, and I am most certainly going to fail it, and I'll have to withdraw. This isn't surprising, beca…

You and I are very similar. I wouldn't say that I've got ADD, but I did fall into depression while in college, and have the same difficulty with managing any kind of long-term work or commitment. It also affects my personal finances; unless I set up automatic transfers to saving accounts, I am unable to keep anything for more than week or so.

So I ditched college at 20, was lucky enough to get a good job despite that and work from there, but as I slowly get closer to 30, I find that the world has less tolerance for my problem. I'm moving up in my professional life, and as I do I find that juggling with long term projects is starting to become more and more important to my work.

But anyway, you wanted help or advice.

One of the ways I am coping with it, is trying to make sure I can capture motivation when it happens. I guess my issue is not that I have NO motivation, but more that I am unable to summon it myself. But it happens to pop up at times, so I found that I can get things done if I remove obstacles that would stop me from using it.

For instance: I am trying to learn how to draw these days. It's a skill I always wanted to have and I decided to fix that. But most of the times, I don't feel like doing it. Just because I have free time doesn't mean I'm able to force myself to draw. So I always carry a sketchpad and pencils; whenever the motivation to draw crops up, I can catch it and make use of it.

Another example: I'm taking classes on Coursera. Sometimes I feel like listening to the lectures and doing the class work, sometimes I don't, and I can't really force myself to do it when I don't want to. However, since Coursera works well on my cell phone, I am capable of listening to the lectures anywhere at anytime.

Never underestimate the small stuff like doing the dishes. In my case, two things I would like to do is put some money aside and lose some weight. As ridiculous as it sounds, making sure I deal appropriately with the dishes is crucial to attaining these goals. Why? One of the biggest reasons I can't save money and that I am getting fatter is because I am always eating takeout or delivery. It is both expensive, and unhealthy. I would really like to cook more; I love cooking. But as I said before, you need to remove any obstacles beforehand if you want to be able to capture the motivation when it happens. Having to do the dishes before cooking is such an obstacle. Having to go to the grocery store is an obstacle to cooking. So something as small as a dishes problem, is stopping me from dealing with my cooking problem, which is stopping me from dealing with my money and health problems.

I try to have many hobbies going at once; the more things I have that I could be doing, the more likely that there'll be at least one of those things I'll be wanting to do in my free time.

I also try to keep the work divided in smaller chunks and set small, tiny goals for myself. For instance, like yours probably is, my room is a stupid mess. Worse than a messy teenager's. I would never be able to tackle clearing ALL of it; it's waaaaay beyond any motivation I can muster. But at some point I wanted to use my desk. So when the motivation came up for it, I cleaned up the clutter on desk. Same thing with the laundry; one load at a time. My room is still a stupid mess, but at least there's a few parts of it I'm keeping clean.

That's another tip: keep things clean, clear and done as you go. Never rely on future you, that dude will disappoint you. Most people are able to leave things get a little messy, then clean up for an hour or so and are done with it. You are not. You need make a habit of doing things immediately, on the spot. For instance; do the dishes immediately after eating: all of them, always, even if you have guests. If you let them pile up, no matter how small the pile, that will be one pile you will never really want to deal with until it becomes a problem.

Anyway, good luck. I'm rooting for you.

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#145

I'm reaching out here because I really need some advice. This is a great thread, but I think it only semi-applies to me. I am 24 years old, and I seriously struggle with motivation to do... just about anything. I have a midterm tomorrow in Dynamics (a mech engr course), and I have pretty much neglected the class entirely, and I am most certainly going to fail it, and I'll have to withdraw. This isn't surprising, beca…

Hi, I can relate to your situation, I feel like you are describing my life. My experience is this: all the psychological/organizing tips won't help. Problems is somewhere else. It's not about being lazy, not about being afraid of failure, needing latest organizing spreadsheet or anything like that. It's about brain chemistry and people around just don't get it as they try to understand your behavior assuming their st…

I can relate to all of this as well. Like the above person, I find myself lacking motivation to complete the most basic of tasks. I'm often motivated more by fear of embarrassment or failure, which causes things to pile up and lead to stress in my life. A while back I was on Lexapro for my social anxiety and that seemed to help. But I haven't had health insurance for the last few years and therefore haven't been to a doctor.

With that said, in your experience, what is the best type of doctor for visit for this kind of thing?

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#146
Another great read on this topic: http://books.google.com/books/about/Your_Own_Worst_Enemy.htm...

I read it about a decade ago and it changed my life. I still struggle, I always will, but understanding the factors that contribute to procrastination and developing healthy coping/management methods has been infinitely helpful.

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I can relate to your situation, I feel like you are describing my life. My experience is this: all the psychological/organizing tips won't help. Problems is somewhere else. It's not about being lazy, not about being afraid of failure, needing latest organizing spreadsheet or anything like that. It's about brain chemistry and people around just don't get it as they try to understand your behavior assuming their st…

I can relate to all of this as well. Like the above person, I find myself lacking motivation to complete the most basic of tasks. I'm often motivated more by fear of embarrassment or failure, which causes things to pile up and lead to stress in my life. A while back I was on Lexapro for my social anxiety and that seemed to help. But I haven't had health insurance for the last few years and therefore haven't been to a…

My experience with doctors is very negative. Maybe it's because we are (Poland) somewhat behind 1st world. Most doctors assumed everything is ok because I was doing well when it comes to money (I was lucky to find a profession I was very good at despite disorganized lifestyle and putting not so many hours into it) and treated me like someone who makes stuff up. I tried psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists. I even suspected something might be wrong with hormones so did all the tests/check-ups. No doctor even suggested I might try diet change/drugs/supplements for my problems. From what I read it's different in US and other countries where it's easier to find a doctor who try to help you. It was hopeless undertaking here and I wasted too many years trying (most doctors here don't even believe something like adult ADHD/ADD exists let alont other "made up" problems which according to many "comes from bad upgringing and lack of discipline").

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#148
Just my testimonial for the book The Now Habit.

I found it on the library shelf at work. Was skeptical but interested. Borrowed it. Loved it. Told people. Endured their jokes about how long I would take to finish reading it, if ever.

Started using some of its exercises and remedies. Ran out of renewals. Returned it to work. Wanted a hardcover but couldn't find one. Bought it from the Kindle store instead.

Just finished reading it. Am beginning to read it again so I can apply the bits that I haven't yet.

One more thing, given this book you should consider to avoid losing your focus by spending endless time with additional productivity literature, but for my part I use a couple of simple things with it: Mark Forster "Final Version" lists (http://markforster.squarespace.com) and Pomodoro Technique (http://www.pomodorotechnique.com). Final Version leads me to select the task for which I feel the most resistance and tension as the task that I will address (not necessarily complete!) next. The Pomodoro Technique helps me to do what The Now Habit calls "persistent starting": get started, and no matter how many times I get into a slump or come back from a break, just get started again.

Re: Procrastination is Not Laziness

#150
post #40
post #23

Let me second the OP and recommend Neil Fiore's book "The Now Habit". There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as: The Unschedule * a weekly calendar of committed recreational activities and breaks, meals, etc * productive periods of work are recorded after they are accomplished * encourages starting earlier on projects once you see how much time is already committed * 30 minute chunks of productive work…

Thank you for this. It's easy to think you'll have something similar in your head, but actually seeing it makes it harder to ignore. My procastination is usually due to a stupid case of OCD. I say it's stupid, because I can see how blatantly counter-productive it is... and yet, it's still there. I keep my OCD down to "mild" levels by purposely flinging my socks as soon as I come home. This, in a way, breaks the cycle…

I have this OCD tendency to clean up my place before I can sit down to work on my projects, by the time I am done with it all, I am hungry, so I cook then there are the dishes...after everything's done, I feel mentally drained even though all I did was physical activity. I am similarly OCD about working out. All of this coupled with errands and family and social obligations, the desire to please everybody (do something special for birthdays, anniversaries, help out, never saying no)...makes it very difficult to work. Usually, on weekends, it is Sunday evening before I have taken care of everything and am in a good position to work on my projects.
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