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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

#81

Post by leadingthenet »

rvanlaar wrote: post #63
leadingthenet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am exactly the same, though ADHD medication has helped tremendously in this respect. Terrible context switching, not lack of attention, is the bane of my existence. Have you ever had a test?

Here are a few things I noticed when I started using ADHD medication. I was suddenly able to focus on a task in a way that I wasn't able before. It was such an epiphany to experience what other people call focus. That made me also notice that I'm really good at context switching. It's what I naturally do. It also makes me good at breadth first approaches. Which makes me ask: Are you lamenting terrible context switchi…

The latter. I’ve heard someone explain it this way before, and I think it neatly sums up my own experience: “your brain is like a TV, except there’s 30 channels on at once, and someone else has the remote” (paraphrasing).

If I can just get into “The Zone” things do work out, and I’m finally able to direct my attention towards a single task. Taking Ritalin greatly increases the probability of this occurring, and so does, amazingly, cannabis.

In general, I have trouble both starting, and then consistently doing a task for any reasonable amount of time. I’ll start watching a movie, then 30 minutes in go for a walk, then come home and cook dinner, then forget about it and go back to watching the movie, then remember the dinner and start eating, then... and on an on.

I’ve been told it doesn’t look that bad from the outside, but it gives me great anxiety that I can’t consistently finish anything I start :(

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

#82

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

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…

I heard that story and I did not understand its meaning until today. I wonder how many small insights like that I may be missing.

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

#83

Post by tartoran »

I find myself somewhat procrastinating, I end up reading up HN posts and comments when my work task is utterly boring and repetitive and when I learn nothing new from it. When it’s something repetitive the hardest part is to get myself started. When there is an interesting problem to work on I don’t procrastinate. Can anyone explain to me how is this emotional? I love doing the dishes and that is repetitive too but at least there is a phisical element in it. I think I am alergic to bureaucratic processes but I do somehow see their utility, they’re just not suited for me.

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

#86

Post by wpietri »

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…

Yeah, agreed. For me avoidance of tasks was just the visible problem; the root was avoidance of feelings.

I don't really struggle with procrastination much any more, but it took all sorts of work that would have seemed apparently unrelated to me. E.g., a regular sleep schedule is really helpful, and that required an automated lighting system that helps me keep in sync with the sun. Regular cardio helps keep my baseline anxiety level much lower. Meditation, therapy, medication, food choices, and an awful lot of introspection and self-experimentation were necessary. And time, just a lot of time to unwind the bad habits and bad associations.

I get that it feels hopeless sometimes, but I hope you'll continue. Note that you can't catch up if your baseline is some arbitrary standard. But the right way to measure it is improvement from where you are now. Then there's no "catching up". There's just today, and whether you're going to make things better by one day's worth.

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

#87

Post by solinent »

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…

Diet & exercise have been the cure for me, simple as that.

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

#88

Post by sova »

jimmyjack wrote: post #67
sova wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three years ago a friend and I were looking at different divisions of time -- in one of our Eastern Philosophy books there was a mention of splitting the day into 60 segments. We were puzzled. If there are 60 snaps in a day, how many minutes are in each snap? The answer is delightfully simple: 24 minutes per snap. (60 minutes an hour with 24 hours or 24 minutes a snap with 60 snaps). We have started using the 24-minu…

What book is this if you don't mind me asking?

Myriad Worlds (The Treasury of Knowledge). There is a portion on calculating days and the keyword is "clepsydra measure"

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

#89

Post by leadingthenet »

Tenoke wrote: post #59
leadingthenet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am exactly the same, though ADHD medication has helped tremendously in this respect. Terrible context switching, not lack of attention, is the bane of my existence. Have you ever had a test?

>Have you ever had a test? At university a councilor (or similar) said they believe I have ADHD but it was near the end of a school year so nothing came out of it. For what is worth, I've tried most common adhd meds on my own and while they definitely they also ruin my sleep so I am not convinced that going through the hassle of getting an official diagnosis will help all that much.

I agree, it’s definitely a difficult balance to strike.

I found that even small amounts of stimulant medication does help even if it’s not super obvious in the moment, and the upside is that it doesn’t interfere with sleep too much, but I try hard not to make a habit out of it. Sleep, above all else, is the best predictor of my mood / productivity / physical health.

I try not to take anything after about noon, though. This is especially true about caffeine, for me. I might get a crash in the late afternoon, but it’s a price worth paying for a good night’s sleep.

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

#90

Post by mywacaday »

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 with a verb helps.
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