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Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

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Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#141

Post by jimmydddd »

fizixer wrote: post #114
nisa wrote: post #73

Words of warning from a not so young (36) chronic procrastinator with a rather messed up life: Take it seriously. I'm not talking about reading HN in your 7th work hour when doing stupid Excel sheets. I'm talking about messing up years and years of your life. I believe it's a symptom of some deeper issues and it won't go away from alone. Lack of sleep, stress, work overload, information overload amplify the effects b…

Procrastination is a symptom and stuff like pomodoro is the band-aid.

Agreed. I feel like I manage procrastination with a bunch of band-aids. But I will never not have the tendencies.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#142

Post by jimmydddd »

mywacaday wrote: post #90

I have had a weird relationship with procrastination, I find I get more appropriate work done when I'm exhausted. When I have no energy it will take all my concentration to stick to the job at hand but I do stick to it, when I have plenty of energy my monkey brain gets distracted easier. I've also found the the GTD technique of breaking items into smaller tasks, setting a next action and make sure the action starts w…

I've had the same experience. More work gets done when I'm exhausted. Especially if it only requires 80% concentration.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#143

Post by nisa »

mihaaly wrote: post #102
nisa wrote: post #73

Words of warning from a not so young (36) chronic procrastinator with a rather messed up life: Take it seriously. I'm not talking about reading HN in your 7th work hour when doing stupid Excel sheets. I'm talking about messing up years and years of your life. I believe it's a symptom of some deeper issues and it won't go away from alone. Lack of sleep, stress, work overload, information overload amplify the effects b…

It smells like neglecting important things rather than delaying until become acute/urgent (this latter is my definition for procrastination).

Actually it started with delaying until it became acute/urgent and lot's of badly executed last-minute shit was created and that's probably okay, but at some point it changed for me - especially during times when you are not well off anyway and that kick to get it done somehow at the last minute doesn't fire anymore. You are just tired and exhausted.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#144

Post by tryauuum »

dig1 wrote: post #127
nisa wrote: post #73

Words of warning from a not so young (36) chronic procrastinator with a rather messed up life: Take it seriously. I'm not talking about reading HN in your 7th work hour when doing stupid Excel sheets. I'm talking about messing up years and years of your life. I believe it's a symptom of some deeper issues and it won't go away from alone. Lack of sleep, stress, work overload, information overload amplify the effects b…

I'd suggest you to check a book "A Mind For Numbers" [1]. You don't have to be science/math guy to read it, and it covers procrastination among other things. What I like about it is that many facts are backed by science research. [1] https://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra/d...

why the downvotes?

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#145

Post by jimmydddd »

aisamu wrote: post #79
javajosh wrote: post #36

Well, the difficult emotion is often some form of fear. Fear of failing, of making a mistake, in some cases, of making the problem worse. All of these fears are in a fundamental sense legitimate, but the direct solution is, insofar as it is possible, to prepare and practice. The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is a recent discovery of min…

> The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is the main operating principle of http://www.structuredprocrastination.com

After reading that article a while back, I started making longer to-do lists. I found that it's hard for me to do a task on a three item to-do list. But if my list has 20 items, it's somehow easier to pick an item from the middle of the list and bang it out.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#146

Post by sosuke »

Looks like I'm late the party but I submitted a YouTube video talking about this as "The Wall of Awful" emotions and experiences you need to get through in order to start a task that has negative emotions associated with it. It totally changed how I approached my procrastination by simply asking myself "why" I was avoiding a task.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#147

Post by jimmydddd »

aisamu wrote: post #79
javajosh wrote: post #36

Well, the difficult emotion is often some form of fear. Fear of failing, of making a mistake, in some cases, of making the problem worse. All of these fears are in a fundamental sense legitimate, but the direct solution is, insofar as it is possible, to prepare and practice. The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is a recent discovery of min…

> The alternative is to tackle something even harder that includes the thing you want to make as a special case. This is the main operating principle of http://www.structuredprocrastination.com

Amazing that after a distinguished career as a respected philosopy professor at Stanford, Perry's greatest contribution to humanity may be that humorous article on procrastiantion.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#148

Post by sosuke »

nisa wrote: post #73

Words of warning from a not so young (36) chronic procrastinator with a rather messed up life: Take it seriously. I'm not talking about reading HN in your 7th work hour when doing stupid Excel sheets. I'm talking about messing up years and years of your life. I believe it's a symptom of some deeper issues and it won't go away from alone. Lack of sleep, stress, work overload, information overload amplify the effects b…

I haven't been able to find a "final" solution. Most recently I've been writing things down with pen and paper to keep me on task. To make the ethereal physical and break it down into steps and checklists.

Again totally recommend this video on the wall of awful for ADHD procrastination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#149

Post by sjm-lbm »

mywacaday wrote: post #90

I have had a weird relationship with procrastination, I find I get more appropriate work done when I'm exhausted. When I have no energy it will take all my concentration to stick to the job at hand but I do stick to it, when I have plenty of energy my monkey brain gets distracted easier. I've also found the the GTD technique of breaking items into smaller tasks, setting a next action and make sure the action starts w…

Same.

My interpretation is a little different, though: I think that a lot of my emotional struggle with procrastination is some fear of creating something less than perfect (or, for that matter, at least less than what I'm capable of). When exhaustion and/or stress over a very near deadline override that, I end up tossing something together.. and in the clear light of the next day, I usually find what whatever I did is at least a good start at whatever I need to do.

As a side note, I've also found that setting a next action helps - I usually take it a step further and make sure it's a simple and/or easy action, though. Very often, without intentionally making sure to save something easy, I'll knock out anything simple that's in line with what I've been doing. If something is complex enough to think "well, that will take a long time, this is a good stopping point" it's also a task that will be harder to get started whenever I come back to what I'm doing.

Re: Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert

#150

Post by jimmydddd »

Bedon292 wrote: post #138

Its interesting, I never really thought about it like this. In high school I was an extreme procrastinator. Avoiding the boredom of doing the task is certainly part of it, everything was too easy. But when I know I can finish an assignment in two hours the night before its due, why would I ever start it early? There was no benefit to completing things early. But, there was always a high from getting away with procras…

I had the same high school - college experience as you. HS was easy to pull off with no work and last minute efforts. Then it caught up with me in college. Instead of the Marines, I did a restart at a lesser college, and ended up becoming friends with a group of dudes who had had the same exact experience. I think part of it is related to the growth/fixed mindset theory.
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