When I procrastinate, it stems from the thought, 'I don't really want to do this (right now|at all)'.
So one way to jump that hurdle is consider the consequences of not doing it, and how that makes me feel. For example, learning French. I would like to speak French. The consequence of not putting in the hours conjugating verbs means I will not be able to speak French. That makes me sad. I consider that sadness, and conclude I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
Some consequences are not obvious, but cumulative. I don't really want to go to the stand-up meeting. What happens if I don't go today? Probably not much. But what happens if I don't go for the rest of the week, or my attendance is patchy? It'll be noticed, and I'll have to explain why I am not on the calls. The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.
> I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
But it's not better than catching up on sleep, netflix and/or a great meal with a fantastic conversational partner.
> The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
My mind would answer: "I'll take the 10min akward explanation for 5 missed meetings mr Gibbins. No problem."
Why not go to the calls because it is your duty? If nothing else, it makes you dependable and you can be proud of your virtuous follow-through.
Doing things only to prevent the penalty feels like a negative way of looking at things and, for my monkey mind, one that is ultimately doomed to fail. Instead of aiming for the stars, my mind just gets better at dealing with the penalties. It might just be me though.
I agree, doing things to prevent a penalty is probably worse than classic positive reinforcement/conditioning, doing things to get a reward. It's not healthy in the long-term.
However some things are generally pretty awful (such as standups) and don't really have a positive outcome that's easy to focus on and identify as a reward - not in my place of work anyway, YMMV!
So yes, in this case I could go because it's my duty (and try to feel proud of that!) but arguably forcing myself to turn up by focusing on what happens if I don't is also pretty effective, and is basically just like jump-starting a car - as other commenters have noted, merely beginning the undesirable thing is the biggest hurdle.
This breaks down when you stop caring about things. Say I want to learn French but ... not enough to put in the work. Give it up right? Say I want to look like a responsible and professional programmer but I still can't be bothered to show up to meetings. Why does it matter anyway? This yields a cycle of self-loathing and powerlessness.
So I prefer to focus on positive rewards for doing things instead of the consequences of avoiding them. And build from there.
For me when a task is overwhelming enough that I have been procrastinating on it for a while, or have attempted to start it a few times unsuccessfully, the thought of working on it for a whole hour is usually too much. But I can usually identify some trivial first step and say to myself “I’ll spend 15 minutes on that first step”. If I can get into the task, 15 minutes can easily become hours, at least until I find some decision overwhelming again.
J’aimerais bien trouver un cours en classe. J’en ai ras-le-bol de la formation sur internet. Malheureusement l’Alliance Française la plus proche est a 2h de chez moi. Je m’étais inscrit à un cours intermédiaire d’une autre organisation locale, mais il a été annulé car il n’y avait pas assez d’étudiants.
Thank you, this is news to me, I've been using the 'Learn French with Alexa' series on YT, plus a French dictionary and some magazines etc. I'll check it out!
The weighting you describe is very interesting, I follow the same process semi consciously. I'm dealing with that right now on multiple front (job, family) and I'm curious to see what it yields to push things around as I see fit.
All this makes me wonder about the art of negotiating.. at the existential level. You only have to do things you didn't refuse in a way (figure of speech). Too often I said yes without asking more details, or said yes to things I didn't really like..
This doesn't work for me or probably some other ppl. My brain's attention would be dragged to the consequences and still won't do the work.
What I find useful is the vomit writing technique. I will just drag myself to get started no matter how horrible the work I am doing in the beginning. But once I started doing, I won't feel so bad. This basically solved my problem.
I just need to start doing and do a shit job, then improve it to be less shitty.
maybe another way around it is, 'do I really need it' -> 'and what that need is? how do I create a need for it?'. for language, that could be - applying that language. finding something that you do want to apply it to, that really gets you going and gives you joy. like, talking to someone, watching someone, listening to them talk, watching a stream, trying to talk to someone on that stream, reading, watching some piece of entertainment, in that language. and creating that 'need' for a 'want', and a 'want' itself - 'i want to watch those things and interact and chat with people - so i need language knowledge for that.' and maybe that could move it a bit closer. finding those bits that you might 'want' more readily - and then have those things move your goals into more of a 'need and want' zone, where you'd be both feeling a need of something more tangibly, and feel the joy in those things and possibilities of them more acutely and have that draw you in to do something.
and maybe it's also eh, it's counterproductive, but maybe it's fine to just have those curiosities - and have them just be that. even if it's kinda 'non-committal'
- maybe that's just kinda the dynamic for it, and that's alright. maybe some knowledge of language is just fine, and it's gonna be enough for watching or chatting, and it could be just those little bits of 'knowledge gain' where you look something up (like a word, definition, etc.) as you come across it, and amass some knowledge that way. this - does not help with 'how to do the thing', but hey - maybe there's also isn't really a need to beat yourself down over it either, over some 'thing about it you don't really want to do' when maybe it's just fine without it. (cause maybe that thing could be a buzzkiller that sucks the joy out of it, only further deterring you from it)
> Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.
This filtering is important. Doing X with a block of time means not doing Y, or Z, or any of A through W. I can do anything with this next minute, but that means that I am not doing all the other things with that minute.
So there are a pile of things that I "should" do that I am not doing. Which ones should I get to (even if that takes finding a way to defeat my avoidance), and which ones do I not need to get to, ever? In fact, which ones should I avoid, because they're going to take the time that should go to other things? I need some way to think about those questions.
Most of the time it's anxiety. You'd be surprised how easy it is to start doing something when you don't feel any kind of pressure. Getting rid of it is hard work though, sometimes even harder than doing the thing you're procrastinating about. This gives rise to some interesting cost/benefit discussions. Which only serve to increase the anxiety. Enjoy modern life!
Some anxiety helps people do things, too. This is where you get people who need deadlines, scheduled milestones, check-ins, or other rituals or anticipated events just so they can get it done. (No shame)
IMO the word "anxiety" is now of limited utility as far as human species development goes. Same with "procrastination." People are often caught short by not having appropriately-honed replacements for those words that can help them move to higher heights, while building on what we've all learned about those concepts in the past.
I'm pretty sure my respect for people who sit down at a blank page, or pick up the phone and make a difficult call (or even a call to the guy who was supposed to trim the trees last week) stems from my deep reluctance to do the same. Whether you could blame my reluctance on anxiety, apathy, superiority or sheer laziness really depends on the day... but I really do respect those people who slog through their list of to-do items as if it were a job. And they are better at life than I am.
Put me in front or a concrete problem, and I'm a fucking monster at solving it. Give me someone's phone number to call and I'd rather spend the rest of the week in a bathtub.
In therapy, anxiety is an emotion in the “fear” group, which is one of a few fundamental emotional directions. Once you learn to watch and name your emotions, it becomes pretty clear if you’re anxious or not. So the term itself is correct and universal. But the cause of anxiety is in a big part person-specific and harder to expose. The other part is incorrect brain chemistry, chronic or acute.
That said, we have names for some common fears, e.g. caller anxiety. But again, is it universal?
I'm not sure if you'd call it anxiety then or just... restlessness, control urges, lack of self-discipline, etc; is it healthy to need others on your back to get things done?
I mean I get it, I work better in an office setting vs on my own and I've got a lot of issue to unpack, but I can also rationalize it and see that it's not a healthy condition to be in.
So true... I enjoy coding on weekends for work-related projects just because I feel no self-pressure of being productive. I don't do it often but the feeling is there.
But then I thought deeper and as an adult I realized that there is a cost/benefit to everything that somewhat didn't exist as a child. Most of us cannot escape triggers of anxiety anymore. If you have everything you need, and complete freedom, you still can't escape the arrow of time for example.
I still think zero pressure doesn't work in the way you think it does. It's exactly something someone says when they are pre-occupied most of the time. It's wishful thinking.
>I still think zero pressure doesn't work in the way you think it does. It's exactly something someone says when they are pre-occupied most of the time. It's wishful thinking.
You'd be surprised how much pressure can go down when you have fuck you money and you don't give a fuck about running some business, the "protestant work ethic", or getting more, just spend it and enjoy life. Met a few such types, and they feel zero pressure.
You still have inevitable stuff to worry about like relationships and health of course.
The unfortunate thing with procrastination is that the anxiety is bimodal. You avoid doing things because there’s anxiety about fucking it up.
Then as the deadline approaches, not finishing at all is a kind of “fucking it up” that is not at all abstract or hypothetical. So now the anxiety of the deadline is focusing you on the task. It’s exhausting for one, and for another when you get a good review on your work you feel like a fraud, because everyone else took weeks to do this and you slammed it out in 6-10 hours.
Getting rid of what, exactly? The pressure? (Currently procrastinating by the way, on very important things that I keep delaying for some unexplained reason.)
For instance, if you have problems submitting your timesheets on time, it could be due to the fact that you're worried about putting too many hours on the budget. If you remove the worry about putting too many hours on the budget, then you might find yourself doing your timesheets on time.
The answer to your question lies in the "unexplained reason" which can actually be explained, that's the hard part.
I'm reading this while having my mailbox open on my second screen containing various high priority issues that I should _really_ take care of. Ironically the more I have to do, the less I finish.
Luckiyl my adhd meds should kick in in about an hour making it much easier to focus on taking care of things.
It’s interesting that we know and appreciate that there will be more work tomorrow and next week, but when you see it in advance, it pushes you to the bed.
One thing that [somewhat] helps me with it is breaking down the next thing into a list of pretty trivial tasks on paper, while leaving the rest at where it came from. Makes you focus on what’s here and now. Out of sight, out of mind. Doesn’t work 100% but helps a little if I manage to forget the rest enough.
i'm in more or less exactly the same boat, only i got diagnosed officially with adhd yesterday and wont receive any medication for a few weeks. hoping it's not a misdiagnosis and life becomes a little easier.
I wish it was easier to focus on psilocybin because in low doses it absolutely obliterates anxiety. Stress becomes a very distant concept that your brain can just brush aside trivially. You can just kinda relax and exist in the present without being distracted by the future.
I started taking an off-label prescription (meant for depression, works for attention issues) a while back, and at first the dose was too high. I’d think, “the trash should go out”, which for a procrastinator usually starts a whole internal dialog full of bargaining about how the pickup isn’t for two days so I’ll just take it out the next time I put something in the can and it’ll be fine. And then go back to whatever I was doing or not doing.
The first time this happened on the too high dose, the next thing I knew I was standing at the garbage can closing the lid, and wondering how the fuck did that happen? Now I was having side effects too but the feeling of mild disassociation was deeply disturbing, and got stronger when the pills wore off and I could reflect back on the day. So we cut the dose by about 40%.
I suspect half of why it works is that anything that treats depression probably also reduces anxiety and self defeating behaviors, in addition to stringing longer lists of tasks together, which is why it works off label for some classes of notorious procrastinators.
I was talking to my therapist about this a couple weeks ago (I’m trying something different now and it’s not working), and I asserted that a procrastinator - or at least an adult one - will never willingly take a mind altering substance that 100% eliminates the thought of procrastination because while it’s absolutely not the best part of who we are, it is part of who we are. Ideally for me, and I think for many others, you would hit the point were your brain still says, “we could do this tomorrow!” sometimes, but you choose to ignore that voice and do it anyway.
I've never met anyone like this, but imagine if you will someone who can't procrastinate. Not someone who doesn't want to, but someone actually unable to leave something until tomorrow.
I think that would raise questions about their wellbeing and health. That seems like they have lost a healthy part of normal function.
Seriously, going from someone with serious anxiety to the point of agoraphobia, to someone with relatively normal degrees of anxiety is like turning the difficulty knob on life from "hardcore" to "easy". From "doing nothing every day" to "something is off if I didn't accomplish anything today".
Agreed, which is why for me the most effective way of starting it is doing something even harder first, but with less anxiety like taking an ice cold shower or doing a math proof. Afterwards I usually feel less anxious and the wall towards starting the task being small enough to jump over.
It's actually quite simple for me. I typically don't get any satisfaction from starting and completing tasks I am avoiding. Crossing them off doesn't excite me - not in the least - regardless of all the motivational and time-management pseudoscience around. They simply make me tired and leave me with a feeling that I had wasted my time.
It doesn't help either that such tasks are often chores or some kind of bureaucratic bs meaning they are basically in infinite supply. Once you finished with one there will be another one moved unconsiously from "would be nice to do" to "I should be doing this" category.
Took a long time for my partner to either understand or just give up on policing my chores. She didn’t understand why I would occasionally clean under the fridge or clear cobwebs if the kitchen or the floors were dirty.
I’m not going to ever get to the bottom of my task list. You know it, I know it, my seventh grade French teacher knows it. But if I don’t randomly do something from the bottom, then it will be five years and nobody has every dusted the blinds or vacuumed out the car or cleaned the cupboard doors because I sweep and mop the same floors that will be dirty again in ten minutes and call it a day.
I won’t clean the car again until the blinds are clear and the freezer has been defrosted, but at least it gets done once in a while.
This should be upvoted more. The main reason we avoid doing these bureaucratic things is that they're useless in the long term. They're just part of the games that we play with each other, but it seems that the subconscious is really good at detecting BS and stopping us from doing that.
For most of my life I thought - I am great on a crisis / hard problems, and performing well under pressure, bad at consistently doing small things without anyone looking.
Like all such self identification, it's a bullshit excuse.
Then I thought that I am just adrenaline driven. What excites me gets crushed. What just needs to get done sometime, doesn't.
(I am "high functioning" - manager in FAANG, multiple graduate degrees, father of 2)
Lately a coach helped me realize. What I don't have is a deliberate practice of giving myself time to sort out the urgent from important. Literally reserving uninterrupted time on the calendar to prioritize and think about what to do (vs, do)
The outcome is this allows me to get excited about things I would have previously been dreading.
Eg - "man, I gotta call X contractor to get a quote" is a drag. Giving myself a chance to reframe it like "I am really excited about upgrading our backyard so the kids can play there better. Calling X is the first step to that, can't wait to do it"
It changes it from annoying task to a part of an exciting project. Because if I wasn't excited about the project then the phone call isn't necessary anyway.
Becoming more religious and developing gratitude has helped.
Waking up every morning and recognizing that my children, wife, home, career are all an incredible gift. And all that work around them is a blessing too - to become a better person etc. Really changes your perspective. I am working on it!
As someone who is also manager as well, this last year i've allocated myself 30 minutes a week for myself to go through jira and notes from meetings throughout the week and really prioritize and scrutinize what's in motion and what's in the near term hopper and it has saved me countless hours of scrambling and rushing around to clarify things now that I have them clarified in my head every week.
I mention this because as someone who loves writing code and building solutions who migrated into management roles, this was the thing I would actively procrastinate doing in lieu of "fun" stuff like writing code and collaborating with the team on various problems. This may be more directed to developers who move into management, but the advice itself is good for everyone - dedicate time to organize, prioritize and really clarify to yourself what is going on - weekly/monthly/whatever your schedules look like.
Forcing myself to have time away from devices in general every single day and not do anything is very, very productive. I can use this time to think about whatever I want, and it often helps motivate me to get off my ass and be productive after I get tired of sitting there and feeling bored.
I managed to progress a long standing side project because of this psychology. Asking ChatGPT how to do what I think is the next step is easy, and it generally spits out a coherent if questionable solution. Finding the issues with its implementation gets me into the mindset to continue working on the problem.
Advice-wise, it's like "Getting fat? Consider looking over what you eat and adding more activity to your days!"
It's actually kind of good advice, but it's hard advice, it's hard to actually follow through.
If you go see a therapist, it's often the type of stuff they have you do (challenging thought patterns, asking the hard 'why's). And it actually works pretty well, you can do it yourself too, but that's even harder.
Speaking as someone who has both successfully lost weight and gone to therapy, btw.
If my inaction was a rational decision, would I be reading an article with a title "How to Do the Thing You've Been Avoiding"?
(And no, I haven't unpacked why I feel sad; I tried it a couple times, which is how I discovered my sadness is stored in a bag of holding[0]; in fact, I suspect the bag actually contains within it a portal to hammerspace[1], explaining why it's always full, no matter how much stuff I pull out of it.)
"Just feel happy instead" does seem to work in certain contexts and frameworks [1]. For instance, if you become decoupled from the current agent, that is, you start paying attention that whatever you call you is just an observer of an implementation of an agent and the feeling of anger, hate, envy, and so on is the care of that particular agent, not an absolute, then you can just switch agents, having whatever feelings the previous agent cared about seem as insignificant as it can get.
In practice, being able to sustain the kind of attention required to catch hold of the underlying agent is strenuous, drugs [2] could maybe help, make it easier to attain the observer state, but its early beginnings.
[1] 2021, Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
The article is more about motivating through excitement than motivating through insight (I call this 'puppy motivation' vs 'insight motivation').
I sometimes have the same reaction to things - I remember once being baffled at the lack of insight in a writing course I was taking, only to begrudgingly admit it was motivating me anyway even tho it was pretty stupid... like a puppy wanting to play.
At least for me I think the root of that comes from a closed mode vs open mode way of thinking [1]. When in closed mode we'll only accept new information whereas in open mode we can be playful and accepting new motivation. Different content demands different states of mind.
Psychiatrists explain this as an evolutionary mechanism keeping us from expending energy on tasks which, in our caveman mind's view, have low probability of success.
Most modern activities are beyond the mind's capabilities in terms of assessing whether it's worth it, so it usually defaults to "no".
One way around it is to imagine the feeling of having this off your back. I found that it helps somewhat.
This is a really fantastic resource. It's basically the content of every ADHD book distilled into a handful of pdfs. They are a bit dense, but the content is golden.
Readit News
So one way to jump that hurdle is consider the consequences of not doing it, and how that makes me feel. For example, learning French. I would like to speak French. The consequence of not putting in the hours conjugating verbs means I will not be able to speak French. That makes me sad. I consider that sadness, and conclude I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
Some consequences are not obvious, but cumulative. I don't really want to go to the stand-up meeting. What happens if I don't go today? Probably not much. But what happens if I don't go for the rest of the week, or my attendance is patchy? It'll be noticed, and I'll have to explain why I am not on the calls. The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.
But it's not better than catching up on sleep, netflix and/or a great meal with a fantastic conversational partner.
> The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
My mind would answer: "I'll take the 10min akward explanation for 5 missed meetings mr Gibbins. No problem."
Why not go to the calls because it is your duty? If nothing else, it makes you dependable and you can be proud of your virtuous follow-through.
Doing things only to prevent the penalty feels like a negative way of looking at things and, for my monkey mind, one that is ultimately doomed to fail. Instead of aiming for the stars, my mind just gets better at dealing with the penalties. It might just be me though.
There's not a lot of pleasure of doing those things if your mind is consumed by the fact you're behind in something else.
However some things are generally pretty awful (such as standups) and don't really have a positive outcome that's easy to focus on and identify as a reward - not in my place of work anyway, YMMV!
So yes, in this case I could go because it's my duty (and try to feel proud of that!) but arguably forcing myself to turn up by focusing on what happens if I don't is also pretty effective, and is basically just like jump-starting a car - as other commenters have noted, merely beginning the undesirable thing is the biggest hurdle.
So I prefer to focus on positive rewards for doing things instead of the consequences of avoiding them. And build from there.
Just spend that one hour right now.
It's the only thing that ever helped me with these blocking situations. Afterwards I'm usually warmed up and curious.
Thanks for reminding me, because I'll only feel the whole overwhelming abstract thing instead if the situation has gotten really bad.
All this makes me wonder about the art of negotiating.. at the existential level. You only have to do things you didn't refuse in a way (figure of speech). Too often I said yes without asking more details, or said yes to things I didn't really like..
What I find useful is the vomit writing technique. I will just drag myself to get started no matter how horrible the work I am doing in the beginning. But once I started doing, I won't feel so bad. This basically solved my problem.
I just need to start doing and do a shit job, then improve it to be less shitty.
and maybe it's also eh, it's counterproductive, but maybe it's fine to just have those curiosities - and have them just be that. even if it's kinda 'non-committal' - maybe that's just kinda the dynamic for it, and that's alright. maybe some knowledge of language is just fine, and it's gonna be enough for watching or chatting, and it could be just those little bits of 'knowledge gain' where you look something up (like a word, definition, etc.) as you come across it, and amass some knowledge that way. this - does not help with 'how to do the thing', but hey - maybe there's also isn't really a need to beat yourself down over it either, over some 'thing about it you don't really want to do' when maybe it's just fine without it. (cause maybe that thing could be a buzzkiller that sucks the joy out of it, only further deterring you from it)
This filtering is important. Doing X with a block of time means not doing Y, or Z, or any of A through W. I can do anything with this next minute, but that means that I am not doing all the other things with that minute.
So there are a pile of things that I "should" do that I am not doing. Which ones should I get to (even if that takes finding a way to defeat my avoidance), and which ones do I not need to get to, ever? In fact, which ones should I avoid, because they're going to take the time that should go to other things? I need some way to think about those questions.
IMO the word "anxiety" is now of limited utility as far as human species development goes. Same with "procrastination." People are often caught short by not having appropriately-honed replacements for those words that can help them move to higher heights, while building on what we've all learned about those concepts in the past.
Put me in front or a concrete problem, and I'm a fucking monster at solving it. Give me someone's phone number to call and I'd rather spend the rest of the week in a bathtub.
That said, we have names for some common fears, e.g. caller anxiety. But again, is it universal?
I mean I get it, I work better in an office setting vs on my own and I've got a lot of issue to unpack, but I can also rationalize it and see that it's not a healthy condition to be in.
My first thought was: you're crazy.
But then I thought deeper and as an adult I realized that there is a cost/benefit to everything that somewhat didn't exist as a child. Most of us cannot escape triggers of anxiety anymore. If you have everything you need, and complete freedom, you still can't escape the arrow of time for example.
I still think zero pressure doesn't work in the way you think it does. It's exactly something someone says when they are pre-occupied most of the time. It's wishful thinking.
You'd be surprised how much pressure can go down when you have fuck you money and you don't give a fuck about running some business, the "protestant work ethic", or getting more, just spend it and enjoy life. Met a few such types, and they feel zero pressure.
You still have inevitable stuff to worry about like relationships and health of course.
Then as the deadline approaches, not finishing at all is a kind of “fucking it up” that is not at all abstract or hypothetical. So now the anxiety of the deadline is focusing you on the task. It’s exhausting for one, and for another when you get a good review on your work you feel like a fraud, because everyone else took weeks to do this and you slammed it out in 6-10 hours.
Getting rid of what, exactly? The pressure? (Currently procrastinating by the way, on very important things that I keep delaying for some unexplained reason.)
Modern life indeed.
For instance, if you have problems submitting your timesheets on time, it could be due to the fact that you're worried about putting too many hours on the budget. If you remove the worry about putting too many hours on the budget, then you might find yourself doing your timesheets on time.
The answer to your question lies in the "unexplained reason" which can actually be explained, that's the hard part.
Luckiyl my adhd meds should kick in in about an hour making it much easier to focus on taking care of things.
It’s interesting that we know and appreciate that there will be more work tomorrow and next week, but when you see it in advance, it pushes you to the bed.
One thing that [somewhat] helps me with it is breaking down the next thing into a list of pretty trivial tasks on paper, while leaving the rest at where it came from. Makes you focus on what’s here and now. Out of sight, out of mind. Doesn’t work 100% but helps a little if I manage to forget the rest enough.
The first time this happened on the too high dose, the next thing I knew I was standing at the garbage can closing the lid, and wondering how the fuck did that happen? Now I was having side effects too but the feeling of mild disassociation was deeply disturbing, and got stronger when the pills wore off and I could reflect back on the day. So we cut the dose by about 40%.
I suspect half of why it works is that anything that treats depression probably also reduces anxiety and self defeating behaviors, in addition to stringing longer lists of tasks together, which is why it works off label for some classes of notorious procrastinators.
I was talking to my therapist about this a couple weeks ago (I’m trying something different now and it’s not working), and I asserted that a procrastinator - or at least an adult one - will never willingly take a mind altering substance that 100% eliminates the thought of procrastination because while it’s absolutely not the best part of who we are, it is part of who we are. Ideally for me, and I think for many others, you would hit the point were your brain still says, “we could do this tomorrow!” sometimes, but you choose to ignore that voice and do it anyway.
I think that would raise questions about their wellbeing and health. That seems like they have lost a healthy part of normal function.
It doesn't help either that such tasks are often chores or some kind of bureaucratic bs meaning they are basically in infinite supply. Once you finished with one there will be another one moved unconsiously from "would be nice to do" to "I should be doing this" category.
I’m not going to ever get to the bottom of my task list. You know it, I know it, my seventh grade French teacher knows it. But if I don’t randomly do something from the bottom, then it will be five years and nobody has every dusted the blinds or vacuumed out the car or cleaned the cupboard doors because I sweep and mop the same floors that will be dirty again in ten minutes and call it a day.
I won’t clean the car again until the blinds are clear and the freezer has been defrosted, but at least it gets done once in a while.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34680970
For most of my life I thought - I am great on a crisis / hard problems, and performing well under pressure, bad at consistently doing small things without anyone looking.
Like all such self identification, it's a bullshit excuse.
Then I thought that I am just adrenaline driven. What excites me gets crushed. What just needs to get done sometime, doesn't.
(I am "high functioning" - manager in FAANG, multiple graduate degrees, father of 2)
Lately a coach helped me realize. What I don't have is a deliberate practice of giving myself time to sort out the urgent from important. Literally reserving uninterrupted time on the calendar to prioritize and think about what to do (vs, do)
The outcome is this allows me to get excited about things I would have previously been dreading.
Eg - "man, I gotta call X contractor to get a quote" is a drag. Giving myself a chance to reframe it like "I am really excited about upgrading our backyard so the kids can play there better. Calling X is the first step to that, can't wait to do it"
It changes it from annoying task to a part of an exciting project. Because if I wasn't excited about the project then the phone call isn't necessary anyway.
Becoming more religious and developing gratitude has helped.
Waking up every morning and recognizing that my children, wife, home, career are all an incredible gift. And all that work around them is a blessing too - to become a better person etc. Really changes your perspective. I am working on it!
I mention this because as someone who loves writing code and building solutions who migrated into management roles, this was the thing I would actively procrastinate doing in lieu of "fun" stuff like writing code and collaborating with the team on various problems. This may be more directed to developers who move into management, but the advice itself is good for everyone - dedicate time to organize, prioritize and really clarify to yourself what is going on - weekly/monthly/whatever your schedules look like.
https://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box
For myself, procrastination is usually caused by the fear of how painful it is to get up and running on a new project or task.
Asking an LLM to start the work gets the annoying bits out of the way.
Even if it does most of it incorrectly, at least you've built momentum, and then you can take over from there.
Is your inaction a rational decision?
It's actually kind of good advice, but it's hard advice, it's hard to actually follow through.
If you go see a therapist, it's often the type of stuff they have you do (challenging thought patterns, asking the hard 'why's). And it actually works pretty well, you can do it yourself too, but that's even harder.
Speaking as someone who has both successfully lost weight and gone to therapy, btw.
(And no, I haven't unpacked why I feel sad; I tried it a couple times, which is how I discovered my sadness is stored in a bag of holding[0]; in fact, I suspect the bag actually contains within it a portal to hammerspace[1], explaining why it's always full, no matter how much stuff I pull out of it.)
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[0] - https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4581-bag-of-holding
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace
In practice, being able to sustain the kind of attention required to catch hold of the underlying agent is strenuous, drugs [2] could maybe help, make it easier to attain the observer state, but its early beginnings.
[1] 2021, Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
[2] 2019, Ketamine as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder: a review, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457782/
I sometimes have the same reaction to things - I remember once being baffled at the lack of insight in a writing course I was taking, only to begrudgingly admit it was motivating me anyway even tho it was pretty stupid... like a puppy wanting to play.
At least for me I think the root of that comes from a closed mode vs open mode way of thinking [1]. When in closed mode we'll only accept new information whereas in open mode we can be playful and accepting new motivation. Different content demands different states of mind.
[1] John Cleese's video on creativity is worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g
Most modern activities are beyond the mind's capabilities in terms of assessing whether it's worth it, so it usually defaults to "no".
One way around it is to imagine the feeling of having this off your back. I found that it helps somewhat.