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Comment by tristian | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering if there is anyone here who could refute the claim in this article: that once a chronic procrastinator, always a chronic procrastinator? Someone who has managed to overcome their innate procrastinationess and can be a source of hope for the rest of us.

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I can personally refute the claim that once a cp, always a cp.

Starting off as a biz major, I found classes super easy. Mentally, I knew I could finish projects on time even if I started wayyy late.

Now that I've got the Med School bug in full swing (similar but different to the entrepreneur bug) and have switched to Bio major, I can't do that any more. Almost every single class requires 15 hrs of outside studying per week to really pull an A and retain the info for future classes.

People work up-to or down-to expectations of their environment and the challenges they face.

Usually, a CP will face a sink or swim moment where they will either continue with old patterns or make a clean break. I am an example of the latter.

In "Buffett & Gates Go Back to School" Bill talks about overcoming procrastination after getting out of school. He says it took over a year.

I found Getting Things Done and The Now Habit useful in fixing my procrastination.

Thanks for that, interesting interviews.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3zBfBs-hBc

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ic1Ro4LkKw -- 5.40 minutes into it

I certainly haven't been able to overcome it. If I know I have more time than necessary to complete a task I will most likely put it off and find something else to do first. The workaround for me is to either work on things with unrealistically short deadlines that leave no room for procrastination, or to work on something extremely interesting (at the expense of the third category of important but not interesting or urgent).

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