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Structured Procrastination (1995)

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Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#61

Post by Sammi »

boerseth wrote: post #20

I swear this is how I've gotten good at most of my hobbies. Playing guitar for 20 years has gotten me to a great level for a hobbyist, but not at all because of any virtues like discipline, self control, or routine. Rather, every day whenever other more important chores or duties loomed, I'd notice one of my guitars laying around, in my couch or my bed or leaning next to my desk. And most times, I'd give in. There's…

This is why "follow you passion" is terrible career advise. If you make your passion your work then it stops being your "passion".

Much better career advise I've heard is: What kind you shit are you much better at suffering than other people around you seem to be?

Because work is work. There's a reason you get paid to do it. Sure it might be something that you are good at and care about, but if you need to work on it 8 hours a day, then you will inevitably start to feel the grind. This is why you get paid and go on vacations.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#65

Post by danielbln »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #59
danielbln wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the systems in the world break down eventually. Todo lists, GSD, tickets, notes, accountability plans, mental trickery, and so on. It all seems like a panacea at first, until it doesn't. What really helps the ADHD mind is diagnosis and meds, and these days LLMs. Turns out they make for exceptional personal assistants that can be used to automate all the boring and unexciting stuff that is nevertheless needed, and…

Can you elaborate on LLMs as assistants for ADHD? What are you automating with them?

Anything, really. Structuring work and breaking it into smaller chunks, keeping track on tasks, getting back up to speed on past tasks. Mundane stuff like planning out furniture purchases, having it walk me through the requirements etc. It just lowers the barrier to start, as starting is just a single sentence away and everything else flows from there.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#66

Post by sigilis »

jbstack wrote: post #30
sigilis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Task selection is the tricky bit. It has to actually be important in some dimension. The easiest is something with an amount of social pressure. If someone is waiting for you to do something that you have promised, then it acquires a kind of urgency and importance even if it wouldn’t harm you not to do it in a timely manner. It’s not fake importance, it’s just taking advantage of the fact that you want to be seen as…

> If someone is waiting for you to do something that you have promised, then it acquires a kind of urgency and importance even if it wouldn’t harm you not to do it in a timely manner. I don't agree with this though. If someone is waiting for me to do something that I've promised, and I don't do it, I'm going to suffer the harm of stress, guilt, shame, etc. related to breaking my promise and people thinking I'm unreli…

You are correct. This strategy is not for making you happy with your procrastination. The main goal is to make you an effective human being. As a result, this excludes personal emotional effects from the definition of harm.

Furthermore, what an effective human is also something that you have to define for yourself.

Procrastination is considered a negative trait for a reason.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#68

Post by rjprins »

owenpalmer wrote: post #38

I felt this when I decided to do dev work while going to school. The structure of work was a break from the chaos of school, and the novelty of school was a break from the monotony of work. I want to understand the mechanism and purpose behind procrastination. It seems like there's a reason evolution chose for ADHD to exist. In my experience, sometimes the frustrating signal telling me not to do the superficially "pr…

Evolution is a continuous random branching and selective pruning process. And there is not a lot of pruning going on in the current human explosion. So unless ADHD is an old branch and we see other mammals survive because of their distractability, I remain skeptical.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#69

Post by siva7 »

rikafurude21 wrote: post #36
siva7 wrote: post #6

> Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect:…

Relying on medication to mask the symptoms of ADHD is effective until you have been taking that medication for years and end up depending on it to function at all. ADHD medication is usually just a stimulant, which your brain adapts to rather quickly, and the sense of "needing it to function" is just your body trying to reach a state of equilibrium.

That's true for any medication that treats symptoms (majority of all meds) and where there is no known cure for the underlying issue - in this case a neurochemical imbalance. The medication helps you to get a more neurotypical balance and will often have adverse effects on people without this imbalance (e.g. neurotypical students abusing such meds). There should be no shame attached to taking stimulants to treat a disorder yet we have a deep cultural moral issue here to lump such medications as "bad" because they are generally associated with drug addicts due to a lack of understanding.

Re: Structured Procrastination (1995)

#70

Post by rodrigodlu »

breakingcups wrote: post #44
siva7 wrote: post #6

> Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect:…

I've read enough nuanced takes on ADHD medication that I'm very reluctant to even seek a diagnosis because I'm very sure I don't want to depend on them, for a variety of reasons. It's made me feel like it's not even worth getting a diagnosis because the only clear path forward is medication or eternal struggle with various much-less effective coping strategies. Anyone who can weigh in with their perspective on this i…

You can do what I do.

My doctor let me change my dosage whenever I feel. She trusts me for this. She is also an ADHDer herself.

I've found that depending on circumstances I can do well with 10~20mg of the cheapest generic methilfenidate, non LR/XR/whatever, so in my country is USD 10/20 per month. I went as high as 50mg of the USD 100/mo famous ones.

Over time with my other therapist (psych) I trained myself to have some discipline processing my feelings, etc. Understanding the routines that were lacking.

Here it's common to have regular meetings the psychiatrist/psychologist combo. So different perspectives.

My biggest issues were knowing what to do, but not getting it consistently, like:

- getting x minutes of sunlight during the morning, and be consistent almost everyday

- drink water even on hyper focus moments

- pay more attention to breathing even when I'm in the zone doing a lot of apparently rewarding tasks

- trying to stop on unproductive hyper focus moments, realizing when they come

But the medication is necessary, since changing habits, specially the bad ones is harder.

I use the meds as an opportunity to understand myself and having easier time relearning my habits, and getting rid of the bad ones.

good luck!

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