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How to minimize procrastination

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Re: How to minimize procrastination

#61

Post by RogtamBar »

dasboth wrote: post #36
kmnc wrote: post #30

What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very natur…

External pressures help. I've been trying to learn more about data science through MOOCs but starting a Masters degree is what really forces me to spend my time engaging with it rather than procrastinating. It's an extreme case but you can create external pressure for most things. For example if you're trying to stop procrastinating on a side project, set up a demo with someone in 2 weeks' time and you'll suddenly fi…

Is there some organisations, say, like Quitters, Inc, but against procrastination?

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#62

Post by sotojuan »

Mithaldu wrote: post #41
ybx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are so naive to waste electricity on collossal scales. I know right? The last time I had to use 20 watts for an extra 5 seconds nearly bankrupted me

That's the kind of naivety i meant. Lots of JS nowadays will have continuous and ongoing activity, keeping the CPU spinning even on tabs that are not in the foreground and actively being used.

Honestly for me it's not even a matter of how much CPU is used. It's a matter of needing JavaScript to display textual information.

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#63

Post by jules »

kmnc wrote: post #30

What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very natur…

There are many techniques that work. The one thing that does not work is relying on willpower. The two main ones that work for me are:

1) Make the path of least resistance the right one. Do a task together with others. Make it just a little bit harder to fall into procrastination. Split up the task into a five minute task and the rest, and do the five minute task. Once you get started it's often easy to continue.

2) Engage in conscious rational thinking. The main problem with procrastination is that you do it unconsciously. Try to form a mental habit where you evaluate what to do rationally. When you detect that you are going to procrastinate stop yourself and think on it for a minute. Is it really necessary to browse reddit, or can you bring yourself to do this five minute task and then browse reddit? Stop yourself and think that through and convince yourself, really convince yourself on an emotional level, that doing the 5 minute task first is what you want to do, not just what you feel you must do.

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#64

Post by darkstalker »

zensavona wrote: post #47
kmnc wrote: post #30

What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very natur…

I actually was at that stage a couple of years ago - I couldn't get anything done, which made me feel bad and depressed, which made me not get anything done. I couldn't even start doing something in a meaningful way. It's such a bizarre thing to think back on that I can't even fully empathise with my former self.. This is what made me realise what was going on and rectify the situation, it all just "clicked". I had b…

This whole site has amazing reads. Thanks for the link.

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#67

Post by J_Darnley »

alfapla wrote: post #48

If you procrastinate a lot, it usually means that you really want to do something different with your life. Go find out what it is, rather than submitting yourself to all sorts of masochist self-discipline schemes.

How can I do that without the billions of dollars you clearly have?

I'd like the self discipline to manage to earn 10 an hour.

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#68

Post by sokoloff »

JadeNB wrote: post #58
jhallenworld wrote: post #43

Procrastination pays: http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-03-22

I don't have your Dilbert-fu, but there is another, I think more recent, comic in which Dilbert is triumphant about how his boss's poor leadership, which resulted in a project's requirements changing, and in the project's final cancellation, didn't affect him because he simply didn't work on the project.

http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-04-08 is similar, but not an exact match.

Re: How to minimize procrastination

#70

Post by galfarragem »

kmnc wrote: post #30

What do you do when procrastination becomes more serious and develops into life avoidance? (You procrastinate on everything, regardless of how you frame a task, regardless of the difficulty of it). In the extreme case procrastination isn't a obstacle to task competition but a learned habit of avoidance. It becomes an addiction in the same way that gambling, drugs, etc do. How do you beat an addiction whose very natur…

Best essay I know on this subject, should be on the list:

http://markmanson.net/procrastination

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