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How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating, and Love Letting Go

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Re: How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating, and Love Letting Go

#15
post #14

Procrastination comes from lack of motivation. Address that first.

Whoa, sorry, read up about procrastination, it has nothing to do with lack of motivation and often has much more to do with anxiety and failure to account for long term negative consequences versus short term positive gains.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating, and Love Letting Go

#16
You may want to not waste time reading this but instead use that time to read pg's essay on similar ideas, "How to Do What You Love" (http://paulgraham.com/love.html), which, if I had the power, I would have millions of copies printed and have every kid in the world read it. It explains (at least) two simple ideas very effectively:

1. The work versus fun dichotomy is taught very early:

"The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. When I was a kid, it seemed as if work and fun were opposites by definition. Life had two states: some of the time adults were making you do things, and that was called work; the rest of the time you could do what you wanted, and that was called playing. Occasionally the things adults made you do were fun, just as, occasionally, playing wasn't—for example, if you fell and hurt yourself. But except for these few anomalous cases, work was pretty much defined as not-fun."

2. To compare two activities, you have to compare the area under their utility/fun vs. time curves.

"But the fact is, almost anyone would rather, at any given moment, float about in the Carribbean, or have sex, or eat some delicious food, than work on hard problems. The rule about doing what you love assumes a certain length of time. It doesn't mean, do what will make you happiest this second, but what will make you happiest over some longer period, like a week or a month.

Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something."

Re: How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating, and Love Letting Go

#19
post #16

You may want to not waste time reading this but instead use that time to read pg's essay on similar ideas, "How to Do What You Love" ( http://paulgraham.com/love.html ), which, if I had the power, I would have millions of copies printed and have every kid in the world read it. It explains (at least) two simple ideas very effectively: 1. The work versus fun dichotomy is taught very early: "The very idea is foreign to…

Actually, reading any article about conquering procrastination is better than doing actual work :)

(but this article is good and short and it reminded me that your focus should be not on the immediate but on the long term)

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