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At the End of a Procrastinated Day

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Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#31

Post by dudurocha »

angkec wrote: post #21
kbatten wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that working away all your life isn't any better that "wasting away" all your life.

You don't need to work every minute. All you need to do is to not waste it away. So go skiing for a full day is still considered making good use of the current moment than reading reddit. For me, I think not wasting my life away means I'm either contributing to the society by working or I'm making my self a better person by working out, skiing, reading books etc.

The problem is the half-assed work/activities.

I think you have to be fully engaged in any activity you are making. If you want to relax, relax in a full paced way. Not worrying about the work you have to make. If you must work, work in a fast-paced way, and make the job done.

The worst kind of works is the one multi-tasked. You dont get in a 'flow' state that is necessary for the most jobs people here in hacker news makes.

Two books are very good in the matter, The power of full engagement http://amzn.to/vdS1Tc and Flow http://amzn.to/t2bed6

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#32

Post by msutherl »

I found this article on Less Wrong to be extremely useful: "How to Beat Procrastination": " rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/&#62.... The article establishes The Procrastination Equation and outlines some scientifically suggested techniques for increasing Motivation:

                 Expectancy x Value 
  Motivation = -----------------------
                Impulsiveness x Delay
My notes on the article:

  Increase your expectancy of success.
  Increase the task's value (make it more pleasant and rewarding).
  Decrease your impulsiveness.

  Success Spirals:     small successes one after the other
  Vicarious Victory:   watch inspirational things, read books 
  Mental Contrasting:  imagine where you could be vs. where you are now

  Flow:     match the difficult of the task to your ability
  Meaning:  think about what you're doing and make it mean something
  Energy:   sleep, drink water, caffeine, exercise, cold water, music, de-clutter
  Rewards:  reward yourself for success
  Passion:  increase the value of the task

  Commit Now:    commit in advance (tie yourself to the mast)
  Set Goals:     break the ice, then daily goals
  Set Routines:  for instance, exercise every day

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#33

Post by 3pt14159 »

herbivore wrote: post #8

I feel you. I've been procrastinating a project for 3 years already (yes 3 years). I write code maybe half of one day each week. The rest of the time I do as you describe. I'm so ashamed of it I tell no one. Glad to have quite a bit of savings.

I don't mean to come off as a dick, but switch projects. I procrastinated for a month straight on something, as soon as I dropped the project the code flowed.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#34

Post by jules »

herbivore wrote: post #8

I feel you. I've been procrastinating a project for 3 years already (yes 3 years). I write code maybe half of one day each week. The rest of the time I do as you describe. I'm so ashamed of it I tell no one. Glad to have quite a bit of savings.

I'm in the same kind of boat, though to a lesser degree. It's going in the wrong direction however. Perhaps we can try to help sort things out together. If you're interested, my email is in my profile.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#35

Post by angkec »

msutherl wrote: post #30
angkec wrote: post #14

Here's a realization that scared me to death that I don't procrastinate any more: The whole life only exists in the current moment. The reason being that the past doesn't exist any more, and the future has yet to come into existence. Hence all my life exists only in the current moment. This leads to the conclusion that if I procrastinate for even a bit moment, I'm wasting away all my life. This is the most scary conc…

I've spent some time trying to impress this thought into my mind – likewise Steve Jobs' daily reminder that you are going to die – but I just can't make myself care. The issue for me is that wasting away is really quite nice in the present moment. I really do enjoy procrastinating. Sure, I don't enjoy tit as much as doing things that I love when I'm not worrying about something else subconsciously, but it's so much e…

If you just think you will probably die tomorrow it won't really work because secretly you don't believe that. It didn't work for me until I was talking to myself the moment is _all_ my life. If it's not all your life you'll feel fine wasting it because you always have more.

As for external motivations, I guess everyone is different. I sweat on external pressures and I avoid doing them at the last moment then I procrastinate because I feel worse and worse missing the deadline. I guess everyone works differently :)

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#36

Post by angkec »

dudurocha wrote: post #31
angkec wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to work every minute. All you need to do is to not waste it away. So go skiing for a full day is still considered making good use of the current moment than reading reddit. For me, I think not wasting my life away means I'm either contributing to the society by working or I'm making my self a better person by working out, skiing, reading books etc.

The problem is the half-assed work/activities. I think you have to be fully engaged in any activity you are making. If you want to relax, relax in a full paced way. Not worrying about the work you have to make. If you must work, work in a fast-paced way, and make the job done. The worst kind of works is the one multi-tasked. You dont get in a 'flow' state that is necessary for the most jobs people here in hacker news…

Yup, living only in the current moment without worrying about the past or upcoming moments solves this too. Easier to get into work flow, and much more fun when skiing!

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#38

Post by _delirium »

dudurocha wrote: post #31
angkec wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to work every minute. All you need to do is to not waste it away. So go skiing for a full day is still considered making good use of the current moment than reading reddit. For me, I think not wasting my life away means I'm either contributing to the society by working or I'm making my self a better person by working out, skiing, reading books etc.

The problem is the half-assed work/activities. I think you have to be fully engaged in any activity you are making. If you want to relax, relax in a full paced way. Not worrying about the work you have to make. If you must work, work in a fast-paced way, and make the job done. The worst kind of works is the one multi-tasked. You dont get in a 'flow' state that is necessary for the most jobs people here in hacker news…

I can see that being good practical advice for getting things done, but I'm less sure it's good (or at least universal) life advice, especially to follow all the time. My model for a good day spent is a lot of intermingled puttering around, reading, thinking, relaxing, working, to make unexpected connections between things, find new angles on problems, and generally understand how everything fits together better. Like the way a Douglas Hofstadter book "flows". I really, really dislike the "work-hard / play-hard" lifestyle; just doesn't work for me at all.

Re: At the End of a Procrastinated Day

#40

Post by tomjen3 »

kapitalx wrote: post #6

For me, procrastination always come from a lack of having a digestible plan of attack. When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out a single next step for your project, one single feature, or one single task in that feature that needs to be done. If you know what your next step in the project is, you'll have this urge to jump back in and do that task. If you can't find that task, then you need to step back and…

Since monday my home internet hasn't been working. Was told by tech support to call them if it didn't work two hours after rebooting it.

My internet is important to me (and using an iPad with 3g wasn't a great solution). The tech call wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes. I had the time.

Yet I procrastinated making the call. I might have made it, but the connection started working today so I didn't.

The plan was simple. Pick up the phone. Dial the number.

Yet I didn't.

Not really sure why.

Heck I don't have any clean socks. I could easily pick the used one up from my bed, put them in my laundry bag and put them in the machine. Yet I don't. It is not like I don't know how or that I like not wearing socks.

So yeah the plan of attack is one thing, maybe it helps somebody, but it is far from enough.

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