I used to think I had a problem with procrastination.
I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with myself: I’m not doing x because I don’t want to and I accept the consequences of not doing it, or, I’m doing x even though I don’t want to.
Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation of the former. I don’t want to do x, but I also don’t want to accept the consequences of not doing it, so I’ll bullshit myself and pretend I’m doing it by calling it procrastination.
Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my mind and do it later. Practically it’s the same, but this way I’m being honest with myself.
I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our individual capability for vision.
Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure
This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that).
One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion.
Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others.
That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator.
The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch.
But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing.
Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare.
All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
> How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey
Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture.
Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2].
Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today.
I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself. This helped me really understand what was happening.
Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do. I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I just couldn't start them.
Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating. ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day. They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was burning me out.
I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.
I love this mindset. I did not consciously realize I also needed ‘leisure time’ until I read this - so thank you. Tomorrow I will play soccer and hopefully that will help me accomplish the laundry :-)
As a variation on that theme, sometimes the reason I don't want to do it is because I don't actually know how to do it, or even what to do. While telling myself it should be easy.
Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first", or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop procrastinating.
This is why it takes me a day or two to orient myself towards starting a big task. The sooner I get to the ”I have to make this clearer” part, the sooner I have a roadmap, and the sooner I start coding.
The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.
Personally I’ve also found myself so exhausted and shitty feeling that even if I consciously know that thing should be done (and there will be negative consequences for not starting right now on it) I can’t will myself to do it.
It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point, would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not have been an option either.
As I’ve gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various experiences and emotions so things don’t get as ‘stuck’ all help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be blocking me before it blocks me.
> I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm asked to do something legit.
I also had a problem with that. In the University I had to deal with it.
The books Eat that Frog and Getting Things Done, helped a lot.
And Getting Things Done as what lead to my use of emacs. Because I started to use org mode on Emacs.
My anxiety improved.
I only felt anxious near exams.
Chronic procrastination can be associated with perfectionism, in which case it is the result of fear of failure because of the self-imposed high standards. The reason for the fear of failure is that the failure is perceived as the individual failing to measure up to their ideal self, which threatens their self-worth.
So procrastination is a defense mechanism, but it is a maladaptive one, because the individual ends up feeling ashamed of their procrastination.
Chronic procrastination can also be result of degraded metabolism. This physical issue is often ignored a lot. A component of metabolism is genetic but rest is sustained by body’s anticipated need to perform work. When you procrastinate, you are driving yourself into low energy activities (ex infinite scrolling). The body starts getting adapt to low energy state. There is less need to produce more energy so metabolism shifts into lower gear. You feel need to put aside real work and get on to infinite scrolling because you physically feel tired, drowsy, washed out. You hope that bit of procrastination (aka “rest”) will get your energy levels up again and you will make up with your time. This obviously doesn’t happen. This is recursive cycle leading to chronic procrastination and will happen regardless of your interest in real work. For many people, genetic component is dominant enough that they would never see this effect. However, 40+ population, where metabolism starts declining, is most vulnerable to this. The only way out in this case is literally force yourself with a lot of will power (or have friends or mentor do it for you). No other tricks described here works if chronic procrastination is occurring due to physical biology.
How do you come out of this and break the cycle? I suffer from this and haven't been able to do anything I want.
Is there any steps, guide or help available?
Thanks in advance.
Is it really important that it is perfect? Who really cares?
What do you win by doing this imperfectly (time - to achieve other / more meaningful things, or to rest, or to spend time with people you care about, or for your hobbies)
What do you lose by doing this imperfectly? Not much usually.
Who will notice? Probably nobody.
In the grand scheme of things, why bother anyway?
What are you trying to achieve? This task perfectly, or this task is just a something you need to do to get paid so you can have a meaningful life?
If people do care for a specific aspect/corner, they'll tell you anyway.
They probably prefer seeing something earlier so they can give feedback, so you can achieve an even better result, counter-intuitively.
Besides all this, I think I achieve this by not caring so much and not tying myself personally to much to the task. And by thinking about the outcome. Perfect often leads to worse outcome, and is relative to only you anyway because other people care about other stuff than you.
Of course, it is still important to achieve the task correctly, but as perfectionist we usually need to take a step back.
In her book “Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization”, Karen Horney talks about breaking negative vicious cycles by slowly creating positive ones. In this case by lessening the standards of absolute perfection. Quoting from the book:
“Just as vicious circles were at work to entangle him more and more deeply in his neurosis, now there are circles working in the reverse direction. If for instance the patient lessens his standards of absolute perfection, his self-accusations also decrease. Hence he can afford to be more truthful about himself. He can examine himself without becoming frightened. This in turn renders him less dependent upon the analyst and gives him confidence in his own resources. At the same time his need to externalize his self-accusations decreases too. So he feels less threatened by others, or less hostile toward them, and can begin to have friendly feelings for them. Besides, the patient's courage and confidence in his ability to take charge of his own development gradually increase. In our discussions of the repercussions we focused upon the terror that results from the inner conflicts. This terror diminishes as the patient becomes clear about the direction he wants to take in his life. And his sense of direction alone gives him a greater feeling of unity and strength. Yet there is still another fear attached to his forward moves, one which we have not yet fully appreciated. This is a realistic fear of not being able to cope with life without his neurotic props. The neurotic is after all a magician living by his magic powers. Any step toward self-realization means relinquishing these powers and living by his existing resources. But as he realizes that he can in fact live without such illusions, and even live better without them, he gains faith in himself.”
Perfectioism is a complex topic. I highly recommend the book “Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment” by Gordon Flett, Paul L. Hewitt, and Samuel F. Mikail. It won't magically solve the issue, but it will help you gain understading and awareness of the unconscious forces within you keeping perfectionism at work. I believe that awareness is the beginning of change.
I read a book once (which I can't remember the name) that shows you how self-esteem (and lack of) can block us for doing things that matter to us. Like having a toxic partner/family makes you have a low self-steem. So in other words, living and hanging out with people that supports and love you and what you do, have a huge impact.
Edit: six pillars of self esteem is the name of the book
> How do you come out of this and break the cycle?
Probably realizing that even if you live up to your expectations you'll always be a nobody, especially in a world that is about to be populated by 10+ billion humans.
If you think of all the 'greats' : Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Leonardo, Alexander, Aristoteles, JFK, Gandhi...the world was much smaller back then and yet their death was absorbed by the rest of humanity in a nanosecond or even less. The half mast flag and months of grieving imposed from above are just that, people will keep eating and laughing and drinking and partying behind closed doors, not out of respect but out of fear of prosecution.
An other way to talk yourself out of it is to understand that whatever you are after is a great goal indeed, and the self will be elated when you reach it, but the self will be even more elated if you reach it with the minimum effort, and so by thinking about it too much and ruminating on the paths to the goal you are going to automatically deny the 'minimum effort' bit and thus end up with a sub-optimal path due to excessive preparation
what worked for me: practice deliberately doing things not perfect, and reminding myself that perfection is subjective.
This can giving yourself a fixed amount of time for something and declaring it done when time's up (think "pencils down" at the end of a test) wherever you're at.
Though my favorite, even as a mental exercise, is described in one of Eric Maisel's many books on creative anxiety - prepare to make an omelet and right before you put the eggs on the heat, throw in the shells, cook as normal.
There's a section on perfectionism in my book "Rebuilding Blocks", here's a snippet:
"Artisans of many ancient cultures intentionally placed flaws in their works. Whether Persian rugs, Amish quilts, or Navajo pottery, these flaws are marketed as a humbling reminder that they were human and perfection was limited to the gods. Gods who don’t need to get wares to market or have bills to pay. Humans run out of raw material, time, energy, and patience. These restrictions should focus our minds on achieving our largest, most important goals and a few, small flaws are a small price to pay for a conclusion....Perfection doesn't deliver"
You don't need to feel ashamed of the procrastination if you're allowed to completely forget about the thing you're procrastinating on. Pesky society likes to remind people about things like owing taxes, work deadlines, and grades, though.
There also exists the fear of success, which is much less talked about. Equally dangerous to destabilizing a perfectionist identity. And social mobility comes with its own risks. If you suddenly make it big, are you at all prepared to handle that? You may have worked hard to succeed, but then what? Became a millionaire overnight? Prepare to get robbed, conned, or just plain go mad with analysis paralysis.
What hack for me was stop thinking of it as "complete A or finish B". Instead I see it small pieces. "lets just hack this script on SO that will let me wrangle an API". "hey lets build an endpoint that will just take care of authentication"
doing this way I am not working on a dozen things trying to be perfect. rather each work feels just like a coding exercise.
having said that even getting into this mode is a challenge. you get carried away. you make love with your side project. you get attached.
People, instead of visiting a psychiatrist, come up with various explanations and explanations that have nothing to do with psychiatry. And everyone pretends to be an expert on all issues that are far from psychiatry, from the methods of psychiatry, from pills and drugs and methods of treatment. But everyone tells with great certainty that "you are procrastinating, it is caused by X."
I have been procrastinating for over 10 years.
And then it turned out - that this is a common depression.
Which ruined a lot of life.
After starting treatment with a psychiatrist and taking pills, my working capacity increased significantly. There was a lot of strength and motivation.
My advice to those who feel problems with concentration, with the power to force themselves to do something, and so on. Just see a professional doctor. Come to the reception. Describe your situation. And according to the results, you will be prescribed pills that will help you, after a short period of time, significantly return what you have lost due to illness.
There is an alternate world view that says "if you're struggling to make yourself do X, its because you don't actually want to do X and you should figure out what it is you actually want to do". Going to a psychiatrist for drugs to help you do the thing you "don't actually want to do" goes against this world view.
Hey, thanks for this! I've been considering going to the doctor for a long time, but never have. I just sent my GP an e-mail and hopefully will have an appointment set up soon.
Hi HN! Exciting to see this model get some attention.
Admittedly, it is mostly a sketch. I created this model in self-study but published it just in case it might help someone else. As Brené Brown says, I'm trying to get it right, not to be right.
Still, I think there's a few key insights here:
1. As other replies have suggested, this model might not fit you. Procrastination is an umbrella term that describes a variety of issues, and sometimes those issues interlock! If you're struggling to match intention with action, find your model. Also, talk to a counsellor. They really help.
2. Systems sketching — in combination with self-study of our thoughts and behaviours — is a really interesting way to understand our own cognitive-behavioural problems. In my case, I sketched this model after realizing for the first time that anxiety might play a role in my procrastination behaviours. It helped me see how powerful that role really was.
After creating this model at the beginning of 2022, I engaged a counsellor and have been doing a lot more self-study. A work-in-progress on a far more involved (and idiosyncratic) model is available here: https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8
(Oddly enough, this was shared about 24 hours after I finished a research paper on all this work. I'll share that via my blog if and when it gets accepted by the destination.)
Thanks for a rich discussion — and thanks Kumu team for addressing the traffic spike issues.
Oh, I forgot to add: Tim Pychyl's work and podcast was such an essential resource for me as I started to take my procrastination issues more seriously.[1]
Tim's a procrastination researcher out of the University of Ottawa, I think. The podcast does a fantastic job of making current research on procrastination accessible and engaging.
Hey! How did you choose Kumu? I'm currently exploring a landscape of SD tools, and Kumu seems both cool and unusual, but it's not clear if it can be used a replacements for Stella Architect, which is prohibitevely expensive. Does it have features like feedback loop analysis, for example?
Admittedly I can only speak to the merits of Kumu. I was never really trained in system dynamics, more systems thinking, so that plus the wild expense of most SD software means that I have never really given them a chance.
The other reason I can't compare them is because once I tried Kumu, I never looked back. Kumu is wonderful. It looks simple enough, but once you dig into the advanced features and the extensive documentation, you can really learn to do amazing things with it. I've used it for many years now for many clients.
But see again point 1. It isn't made to be a systems dynamics modeling tool, so simulation and analysis features you might expect to find might be missing.
My suggestion is to choose a problem to work, create a free model, and start messing around. My guess is that you'll find Kumu great for initial sketches and non-dynamics models, but you'll probably want to go elsewhere for simulation work.
>I have always been a bad procrastinator. I think my procrastination habits are rooted in anxiety.
>As you might guess, comprehensive exams are very anxiety-provoking. So, when I first began preparing, I had a lot of trouble. I tried to draw on best practices—breaking down the task, defining the end goal, practicing mindfulness—but I was struggling.
>One of the things I would use to procrastinate was Shortcuts.
>Then, one day, I realized: why not build an automation that guides me through these best practices to conquer procrastination?
>That’s where Mise en place came from. The name is stolen from the French culinary concept of “setting in place” everything you need before you begin cooking.
>The core concept of the Mise en place shortcut is simple: lead me through a preparatory ritual to reduce anxiety, and then add some check-ins to help catch me in the act if I go too far off-task.
Is this link up here for the content or for the tech? I don't get it either way - the app is nice, but it's built using another system (and I'd have lots of suggestions to improve how it renders on this site).
In terms of content, it's not clear whether the network model is one taken from the published literature, or something the author created ad-hoc (feels a bit like the latter). And I don't get the point of assigning network centrality measures to topics like "facing fears" without explanation (seems like they came with the app, which was designed for a different purpose, and the author didn't know how to take them out, or didn't bother).
I have a therapist friend who's shown me some very useful, evidence-based cognitive models. They do come with nice visual explanations too, and putting those into a web app has been on the back of my mind since - but they looked quite different.
I hear ya on the rendering. This systems sketch was by me, for me, but I published it with minimal effort just in case it might help someone else. It probably would've been better just to publish a link to the model than to embed it, though.
As for the content, it's ad hoc, albeit not entirely without evidence. It's based on a bit of self-study (e.g., autoethnographic observations of my own thoughts and behaviours and passive reading of the psych literature on procrastination).
The centrality measures shouldn't actually be there... Long, boring story short: they're an artifact of some systemic leverage analysis [1] I was doing on a more involved model[2].
Last, I'd love to see those cognitive models. From what I've found, we understand a great many of the pieces of procrastination, but it still takes work to put them together for any one person's situation.
Thanks for responding, that is some cool content! As I mentioned, I've also been thinking about putting up some related content- feel free to reach out, my email is in my profile.
I have a mix of low to moderate ADHD, moderate social anxiety and moderate general anxiety and have been a world class procrastinator. But having a child changed the scenario. because I had to force myself to focus in what really matters, stopped to be a perfectionist (which sometimes is a excuse to procrastinate) otherwhise I'd be in prison (for not paying my kid bills) or probably homeless.
having a family really reigns in the upper bound of impulsivity. it's one of the few things that can hold me back from rage quitting or help me do the things I'm avoiding
exactly that. having a few people that depends on me is like a driving force to get shit done. we should take it with care tho, because it can be unhealthy in a lot of ways (I tend to no care with the same intensity about my health/body, dont go outside with the frequency that I should to exercise and things like that)
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I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with myself: I’m not doing x because I don’t want to and I accept the consequences of not doing it, or, I’m doing x even though I don’t want to.
Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation of the former. I don’t want to do x, but I also don’t want to accept the consequences of not doing it, so I’ll bullshit myself and pretend I’m doing it by calling it procrastination.
Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my mind and do it later. Practically it’s the same, but this way I’m being honest with myself.
Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure
One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion.
Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others.
Just some food for thought.
The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch.
But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing.
Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture.
Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2].
Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today.
[1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn
[2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death
I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself. This helped me really understand what was happening.
Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do. I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I just couldn't start them.
Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating. ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day. They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was burning me out.
I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.
Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first", or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop procrastinating.
The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.
It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point, would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not have been an option either.
As I’ve gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various experiences and emotions so things don’t get as ‘stuck’ all help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be blocking me before it blocks me.
In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm asked to do something legit.
Well, that's like 60% of life, even if we live it on "our own terms".
Dead Comment
So procrastination is a defense mechanism, but it is a maladaptive one, because the individual ends up feeling ashamed of their procrastination.
Something is better than nothing.
Is it really important that it is perfect? Who really cares?
What do you win by doing this imperfectly (time - to achieve other / more meaningful things, or to rest, or to spend time with people you care about, or for your hobbies)
What do you lose by doing this imperfectly? Not much usually.
Who will notice? Probably nobody.
In the grand scheme of things, why bother anyway?
What are you trying to achieve? This task perfectly, or this task is just a something you need to do to get paid so you can have a meaningful life?
If people do care for a specific aspect/corner, they'll tell you anyway.
They probably prefer seeing something earlier so they can give feedback, so you can achieve an even better result, counter-intuitively.
Besides all this, I think I achieve this by not caring so much and not tying myself personally to much to the task. And by thinking about the outcome. Perfect often leads to worse outcome, and is relative to only you anyway because other people care about other stuff than you.
Of course, it is still important to achieve the task correctly, but as perfectionist we usually need to take a step back.
“Just as vicious circles were at work to entangle him more and more deeply in his neurosis, now there are circles working in the reverse direction. If for instance the patient lessens his standards of absolute perfection, his self-accusations also decrease. Hence he can afford to be more truthful about himself. He can examine himself without becoming frightened. This in turn renders him less dependent upon the analyst and gives him confidence in his own resources. At the same time his need to externalize his self-accusations decreases too. So he feels less threatened by others, or less hostile toward them, and can begin to have friendly feelings for them. Besides, the patient's courage and confidence in his ability to take charge of his own development gradually increase. In our discussions of the repercussions we focused upon the terror that results from the inner conflicts. This terror diminishes as the patient becomes clear about the direction he wants to take in his life. And his sense of direction alone gives him a greater feeling of unity and strength. Yet there is still another fear attached to his forward moves, one which we have not yet fully appreciated. This is a realistic fear of not being able to cope with life without his neurotic props. The neurotic is after all a magician living by his magic powers. Any step toward self-realization means relinquishing these powers and living by his existing resources. But as he realizes that he can in fact live without such illusions, and even live better without them, he gains faith in himself.”
Perfectioism is a complex topic. I highly recommend the book “Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment” by Gordon Flett, Paul L. Hewitt, and Samuel F. Mikail. It won't magically solve the issue, but it will help you gain understading and awareness of the unconscious forces within you keeping perfectionism at work. I believe that awareness is the beginning of change.
Edit: six pillars of self esteem is the name of the book
Probably realizing that even if you live up to your expectations you'll always be a nobody, especially in a world that is about to be populated by 10+ billion humans.
If you think of all the 'greats' : Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Leonardo, Alexander, Aristoteles, JFK, Gandhi...the world was much smaller back then and yet their death was absorbed by the rest of humanity in a nanosecond or even less. The half mast flag and months of grieving imposed from above are just that, people will keep eating and laughing and drinking and partying behind closed doors, not out of respect but out of fear of prosecution.
An other way to talk yourself out of it is to understand that whatever you are after is a great goal indeed, and the self will be elated when you reach it, but the self will be even more elated if you reach it with the minimum effort, and so by thinking about it too much and ruminating on the paths to the goal you are going to automatically deny the 'minimum effort' bit and thus end up with a sub-optimal path due to excessive preparation
This can giving yourself a fixed amount of time for something and declaring it done when time's up (think "pencils down" at the end of a test) wherever you're at.
Though my favorite, even as a mental exercise, is described in one of Eric Maisel's many books on creative anxiety - prepare to make an omelet and right before you put the eggs on the heat, throw in the shells, cook as normal.
There's a section on perfectionism in my book "Rebuilding Blocks", here's a snippet:
"Artisans of many ancient cultures intentionally placed flaws in their works. Whether Persian rugs, Amish quilts, or Navajo pottery, these flaws are marketed as a humbling reminder that they were human and perfection was limited to the gods. Gods who don’t need to get wares to market or have bills to pay. Humans run out of raw material, time, energy, and patience. These restrictions should focus our minds on achieving our largest, most important goals and a few, small flaws are a small price to pay for a conclusion....Perfection doesn't deliver"
https://arunkprasad.com/log/unlearning-perfectionism/
Thank you.
doing this way I am not working on a dozen things trying to be perfect. rather each work feels just like a coding exercise.
having said that even getting into this mode is a challenge. you get carried away. you make love with your side project. you get attached.
I have been procrastinating for over 10 years. And then it turned out - that this is a common depression.
Which ruined a lot of life. After starting treatment with a psychiatrist and taking pills, my working capacity increased significantly. There was a lot of strength and motivation.
My advice to those who feel problems with concentration, with the power to force themselves to do something, and so on. Just see a professional doctor. Come to the reception. Describe your situation. And according to the results, you will be prescribed pills that will help you, after a short period of time, significantly return what you have lost due to illness.
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Admittedly, it is mostly a sketch. I created this model in self-study but published it just in case it might help someone else. As Brené Brown says, I'm trying to get it right, not to be right.
Still, I think there's a few key insights here:
1. As other replies have suggested, this model might not fit you. Procrastination is an umbrella term that describes a variety of issues, and sometimes those issues interlock! If you're struggling to match intention with action, find your model. Also, talk to a counsellor. They really help.
2. Systems sketching — in combination with self-study of our thoughts and behaviours — is a really interesting way to understand our own cognitive-behavioural problems. In my case, I sketched this model after realizing for the first time that anxiety might play a role in my procrastination behaviours. It helped me see how powerful that role really was.
After creating this model at the beginning of 2022, I engaged a counsellor and have been doing a lot more self-study. A work-in-progress on a far more involved (and idiosyncratic) model is available here: https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8
(Oddly enough, this was shared about 24 hours after I finished a research paper on all this work. I'll share that via my blog if and when it gets accepted by the destination.)
Thanks for a rich discussion — and thanks Kumu team for addressing the traffic spike issues.
Tim's a procrastination researcher out of the University of Ottawa, I think. The podcast does a fantastic job of making current research on procrastination accessible and engaging.
[1]: https://www.procrastination.ca
The other reason I can't compare them is because once I tried Kumu, I never looked back. Kumu is wonderful. It looks simple enough, but once you dig into the advanced features and the extensive documentation, you can really learn to do amazing things with it. I've used it for many years now for many clients.
But see again point 1. It isn't made to be a systems dynamics modeling tool, so simulation and analysis features you might expect to find might be missing.
My suggestion is to choose a problem to work, create a free model, and start messing around. My guess is that you'll find Kumu great for initial sketches and non-dynamics models, but you'll probably want to go elsewhere for simulation work.
>I have always been a bad procrastinator. I think my procrastination habits are rooted in anxiety.
>As you might guess, comprehensive exams are very anxiety-provoking. So, when I first began preparing, I had a lot of trouble. I tried to draw on best practices—breaking down the task, defining the end goal, practicing mindfulness—but I was struggling.
>One of the things I would use to procrastinate was Shortcuts.
>Then, one day, I realized: why not build an automation that guides me through these best practices to conquer procrastination?
>That’s where Mise en place came from. The name is stolen from the French culinary concept of “setting in place” everything you need before you begin cooking.
>The core concept of the Mise en place shortcut is simple: lead me through a preparatory ritual to reduce anxiety, and then add some check-ins to help catch me in the act if I go too far off-task.
[1] https://axle.design/automation-for-augmented-cognition-mise-...
In terms of content, it's not clear whether the network model is one taken from the published literature, or something the author created ad-hoc (feels a bit like the latter). And I don't get the point of assigning network centrality measures to topics like "facing fears" without explanation (seems like they came with the app, which was designed for a different purpose, and the author didn't know how to take them out, or didn't bother).
I have a therapist friend who's shown me some very useful, evidence-based cognitive models. They do come with nice visual explanations too, and putting those into a web app has been on the back of my mind since - but they looked quite different.
I hear ya on the rendering. This systems sketch was by me, for me, but I published it with minimal effort just in case it might help someone else. It probably would've been better just to publish a link to the model than to embed it, though.
As for the content, it's ad hoc, albeit not entirely without evidence. It's based on a bit of self-study (e.g., autoethnographic observations of my own thoughts and behaviours and passive reading of the psych literature on procrastination).
The centrality measures shouldn't actually be there... Long, boring story short: they're an artifact of some systemic leverage analysis [1] I was doing on a more involved model[2].
Last, I'd love to see those cognitive models. From what I've found, we understand a great many of the pieces of procrastination, but it still takes work to put them together for any one person's situation.
[1]: http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2888/ [2]: https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8#anxie...
Still, while I thought it'd be a major driver for more responsible behaviour, it didn't give me any solutions, and I didn't magically stop.
Alas, procrastinating by playing with the kiddo sure is fun!
Sorry for the inconvenience!
It's more scalable, you see, you just need to wait until the wave has passed before the autoscaler is warmed up.
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