How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#1

Post by saroz » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 2:17 AM UTC

How to Procrastinate and still get things done
chronicle.com

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#2

Post by jpulgarin » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 3:28 AM UTC

On a similar note, I have productive things I can do no matter what mood I am. I always have a list of videos, books, blog posts, programs to write, things to plan, and puzzles to do so that no matter how I am feeling there is always something productive I can do.

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#3

Post by subnetvj » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 3:29 AM UTC

I guess a procrastinator would have a hard time thinking about what are the important tasks what not .. Mr Professor might deem that he is a procrastinator, but I think he really is not ..

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#4

Post by puls » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 5:18 AM UTC

You'll be happy to know that this paper won the 2011 Ig Nobel prize for literature: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-nobel-spoof-idU...

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#5

Post by tikhonj » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 6:58 AM UTC

This seems to reflect my experience perfectly--I think the only reason I get some things done is because I don't want to do other, ostensibly more important things.

I think this habit has a couple of interesting results for me: - The amount of stress I feel--and the amount of time I spend "working"--does not go up linearly with workload. I am doing roughly twice as much (in terms of course credit and part-time work) as I was last year, and my classes are harder, but I feel maybe 1.3 times as much stress and still have an effectively similar amount of leisure time. - I am much more efficient than I would have been otherwise. There are two reasons for this: I give myself less time to do things but still finish them and I sometimes procrastinate by learning my tools (keyboard shortcuts, emacs-fu...) and by automating things I do regularly (writing bash scripts or emacs extensions).

Ultimately I do not view my procrastination as nearly as big a problem as others make it out to be. I think I'm happier and more efficient for it; I suspect that I would actually have accomplished less had I not procrastinated all these years.

Of course, this is probably just a result of confirmation bias (I like procrastinating, I think it helps me so I only see the cases where it does) but I don't really care--it works for me.

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#6

Post by kqr2 » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 7:56 AM UTC

The author's website on structure procrastination:

http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#7

Post by micah63 » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 10:06 AM UTC

subnetvj wrote: post #3

I guess a procrastinator would have a hard time thinking about what are the important tasks what not .. Mr Professor might deem that he is a procrastinator, but I think he really is not ..

My thoughts exactly, I have already thought of this theory many times, but I am too lazy to make the list and prioritize it and then try to figure out how to trick myself into thinking that non-important things are top priorities...

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#8

Post by orionlogic » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 10:23 AM UTC

John Perry's in depth talk about procrastination http://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/procrastination

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#9

Post by vilya » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 11:19 AM UTC

This reminds me of a really quite wonderful paper: "Scheduling Algorithms for Procrastinators"

http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~bender/newpub/2007-BenderClTs-JoS-...

Well worth a read when you've got something else you're putting off.

Re: How to Procrastinate and still get things done

#10

Post by chris_dcosta » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 12:17 PM UTC

"begin by establishing a hierarchy of the tasks you have to do"

I bet I could procrastinate about doing this too.