The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

- lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/

- lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procrastination/

- http://alexvermeer.com/getmotivated/ - has a pretty neat anti-procrastination poster that I'm still procrastinating about printing out and hanging on the wall

- https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Akrasia

These days, I'm not sure if that's such a great strategy. Why shouldn't we satisfy our present self's needs? Why should we feel guilty for doing what we want to do?

Of course, if you satisfy your present self in the expense of your future self, that's self-destructive, and you'll eventually regret.

Personally, I find myself most motivated when I manage to find something that satisfies both my present self and future self.

For an example, "I should lose weight" is a ridiculously abstract concept to most of your brain. Your talky bit thinks it's saying something concrete: "Get that number on the scale down", but it hasn't actually said enough. It's a half-baked aspiration, not an activity. "I should exercise" is better: It prescribes an abstract activity that would accomplish the goal. It's still terrible though because it's still abstract. What is the value of exercise in the abstract? You don't experience exercise in the abstract: how could you possibly judge whether it is rewarding or not? How can you decide to "exercise" when exercise isn't even a real thing?

"I should run" is even better: You know how running feels. You can feel good running, and you can feel bad running. There are actual experiences and knowledge to draw upon to determine the value of running. Still: Not enough. Should you be running all the time? Verbal brain is being awfully sloppy, and has the gall to blame the rest of the brain for its mistakes. "I should run tomorrow in the morning for 30 minutes when I wake up." And we have arrived at remedy #3 which is called implementation intention. Honestly, what other intentions are actually intentions? If you're not planning concrete actions but abstract classes of actions, you're daydreaming, not planning. Verbal brain likes to talk about how important obligations and commitments are, but avoids doing the work of translating its precious thoughts into something intelligible to the rest of the brain.

The verbal part of your brain is easily convinced: By its own words. It doesn't even know what it has convinced itself of but it is awfully satisfied with itself. You, the ensemble of brain bits, are obviously skeptical of such a gullible entity. When you experience satisfaction or gratification for doing something, that is real knowledge to your brain; you learn what is good and what is bad. Of course you're going to prefer real knowledge over the ravings of an imbecile about the great rewards of not-even-a-real-thing.

This seems like the worst problem because you do 80-90% of the work with 0% of the benefit of accomplishing what you set out to do...

[1] http://biblehub.com/greek/192.htm

I've been doing Pomodoro w/ a timer and finding it helpful. Found a lot of the stuff here related to that process for me.

The first one of the day is still the hardest though. Nothing harder than starting.

By Friday, I feel so great, that the emotional memory of how I felt on Monday is all but entirely faded. What was I so worried about? I've had (basically) a great week, and the weekend is upon me - my phone is going off because people want to go do things and get smashed and spend a load of money listening to wicked music in fun, grotty venues and once that starts, I feel lifted and amazing, the party is great! I'm meeting people, chatting shit, I don't want to stop. Afterparty? Hell yes! Afterparties are for the cool kids and going to them makes me a cool kid!

Then all of a sudden it's 11AM on a Sunday. You've either passed out or all of the substances have worn off, you lug yourself back home, having possibly succeeded at what your altered brain set out to achieve, but have frankly forgotten most of it. You either go to bed Sunday, or get pissed with the people who can't face the idea of returning to normality. Either way, in the case of the former you can't sleep, and in the case of the latter you pass out and wake up on Monday feeling so terrible that Monday is a write off. You are full of self-loathing and duck your boss's calls, then the coworkers your boss thinks you might just be able to handle's calls, then you either somehow manage to get into work to be yelled at at 2PM or you just pass out again, wake up at 4, and then have some dazed sort of day and catch some crappy sleep and possibly salvage Tuesday.

So that was an extreme example (the life I'm trying to change, funnily enough), but the point was that it's really really difficult to change in any long term meaningful sense when your mind is so ready to forget the reasons you're trying to do well. I don't think it's something as specific as alcoholism or drug addiction, as it's a much more broad thing - booze and drugs feel more like a symptom of a certain mindset, as opposed to the things that cause it - I can quite happily (and have, many times) say no to drugs, and I've had liquor on my side for months without touching it (and I can also happily have a few beers without going nuts, too). Perhaps it's a symptom of ADHD, perhaps it's a crippling poor impulse control and lack of self-discipline, perhaps I'm a product of my environment (I live in Brighton which is mental as it is, and my main friendship groups tend to hit things hard) I'm not sure.

I'm just going to keep trying. Each time it gets a little better, despite fluctuating, and each time I get a bit more mature. Just have to hope I nail it before I end up homeless or dead.