Procrastination Has Nothing to Do with Self-Control
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I know one woman who smokes. She says: “It’s not that I have to smoke; I choose to. I could easily give it up any time I wish to, but I see no reason why I should. But I can assure you, I could if I wanted to.” Her husband says to her: “That's only a rationalization! You couldn’t give up smoking even if you wanted to. You are not strong enough to give it up; you have to smoke. So to make yourself feel better, and to avoid having to confess your own weakness of character, you fool yourself into believing that you choose to. But it’s only a rationalization!” I know another woman who smokes. She says: “It’s not that I want to smoke; I can’t help myself! I have tried several times giving it up, but I have failed! I'm afraid I just don’t have a very strong character. I would love to stop, but I simply can’t.” Her husband says to her: “That's only a rationalization! You certainly could stop immediately, if you really wanted to. No, you choose to smoke (after all, nobody is making you) and you feel ashamed and guilty for doing that which you know to be harmful. So to avoid any moral responsibility for your acts, you fool yourself into believing that you ‘can’t help it. But this is only a rationalization.” My only question about all this is: “Why are people so incredibly stupid?”
Pity he didn't expand on the last line, but I think deep introspection is required to understand what is really under our control
(1) if someone says "I want to do X" we can take them at face value. We don't have to argue that "they secretly don't and only say it because they can't quit". That's BS.
(2) if someone says "I want to quit X, but can't", we also take them at face value. Sure, they might enjoy X, but there's nothing to make us believe they are lying when they say they want to quit X or only say it because they feel ashamed.
Now, what we want to do as a rational plan (e.g. quit smoking) and what we want to do as an impulse (e.g. smoke another cigarette now) is not the same thing.
And the impulse can be far more powerful than the rational plan.
So, no need to second guess anyone. We can both taking them at face value (when they say they want to quit for example) AND understand that there might be impulses in them beyond what they rationally want.
Self-control is an important part of short-term vs long-term thinking. Perhaps a more important point is whether (during the times when you want to quit X) you change things so that the times when you want X are less frequent.
If you say you want to quit X, but you choose not to do the things that make it easier for you to quit X (for example, for someone wanting to quit eating between meals, not buying and keeping snacks in their house, so that giving in to their impulses is more effort) then it's reasonable to doubt your intention to quit X.
People do lie, especially about their reasons for doing things, and taking them at their word would be negligent if you're a doctor who needs the truth to do your job, or even if they're just someone you want to help.
I don't think so. There's a qualitative difference. The "want over larger timescale" is a conscious decision. The impulse can be felt even at a gut level (and can even be tied to addiction mechanisms).
Compared to "I want to quit cocaine", "I want a hit" is not the same thing in a "shorter timescale" at all.
It's not just that "most of the time they want to quit, but for short periods of time they want X more than they want to quit". The impulse at those "short periods" is of a different kind too.
And even for much less addictive issues, smoking, obesity, procrastination, exercise, etc, the two are different, and even involve different parts of the brain.
The best explanation I've seen of this, at least psychologically, is from The Mind Illuminated by John Yates. He says we are in control of our intentions, and nothing else. (Although I would say that language is also misleading, because people are sometimes not very good at distinguishing false intentions that are generated unconsciously.) The right intention, perhaps repeated persistently enough, is what leads not only to action but also to internal expressions of "willpower" or effort. Right intentions are not "good intentions," where you mean for good things to happen. A right intention is directing your focus to the thing that helps you most in whatever you're trying to do.
It's certainly possible to never notice any of this, especially if you don't take up activities that make the process more obvious. If you lift weights, for example, it's easy to notice all the effort that a set takes and think "I did that." In reality most of your control over the set was exerted before you even started. I think this explains the utility of many spiritual practices like meditation and prayer.
I really wanted to quit, but I couldnt "chose to quit" - so I went a different route that worked well for me, but with an odd cost:
I convinced myself that "smoking will make you nauseous" -- and then, when I attempted to smoke, I would feel sick to my stomach, and I would gag a lot.
This worked for me - and I was able to quit nearly cold turkey.
The cost, is that now, any time I smell cigarette smoke, I begin to gag and I cant control it. Further, now my gag reflex is so strong that brushing my teeth makes me gag heavily....
Likewise, if potato chips are served with a meal -- if I ate them I'd get some marginal pleasure from it, but I can think of 20 ways to get more pleasure from the same number of calories.
Mentally, I'm not denying myself pleasure; I'm banking it for future pleasure. The overall effect is I have fewer low-yield calories and fewer calories overall.
The best way to avoid the temptation to each junk food is just not to buy it, or the best way to avoid defaulting to something is making it impractical.
I really had to drastically up my game because my old strategy of not eating what wasn't there didn't cut it anymore.
It would be helpful if my spouse was as strict as I am but that's not always possible. Not to mention step parents and grandparents who are purposely sabotaging to the healthy food plan.
I don't have a good specific strategy but if you keep focused eventually willpower gets stronger.
The result is a build up of acetaldehyde in the body which results in flushing, nausea and vomiting when drinking.
Was discovered when workers in a tire factors would get sick when drinking. The sulfur compound added to tires was being absorbed.
I wish I could do this with other bad foods.
I've tried telling myself coffee would make my heart hurt/race uncomfortably (as an added bonus, it actually does after a while). But mostly thinking about coffee makes me want more coffee, even if it's negative.
I've tried redirecting my good feelings to something else by telling myself exercise would make me feel warm, good and alert. It works. Now I exercise AND drink too much coffee. OTOH I've never had problems motivating myself to exercise (which I do daily) so I guess... partial win?
Anytime i "tried" to smoke i would choke myself to near blackout.
After 20 years im happy i did that. I was not the "cool smoking kid" but at least im addiction free now.
I was so disgusted with myself that I quit in disgust...successfully. Not sure how I tricked my brain this way, and the previous successful "stop but not quit" experience surely helped, but essentially successfully quit within 36 hours of my first attempt.
We fool ourselves if we think that either we are completely in control or that we are completely powerless.
The wind and the waves are powerful forces indeed, but we still have a rudder and sails.
Notifications are the reason we are addicted to our phones. Checking whether something that arrived is important is like a slot machine. Notice that there is no way to put a different sound for "urgent" notifications. That's because apps and companies are all competing for a limited resource - your attention. It's the tragedy of the commons!
I like this better than turning off all notifications. The difference is that like GP said, I control when to look at my phone (which admittedly I still do often), but also I don't lose track of the occasional actually-important notif (granted this is rare outside of messaging).
It's also nice for messaging apps -- I can see who messaged me without even unlocking my phone and then I can decide whether to unlock my phone to respond if it's something/someone more urgent or important.
A couple of years ago I would worry about missing calls, but the nice thing about the text-era is that all my friends message me now and no one actually calls, and when services and stuff actually calls you, they leave a voice mail. So this is a natural way to solve spam calls for me -- I just don't hear them at all and they become missed calls.
I've found this reduces the incidents of me opening any particular app.
My productivity takes a hit every time I get a slack message because that insistent clacking notification noise and the little red visual indication of pending messages distract me from my immediate task. Worse yet, the message often starts "Hey". So I reply, "I'm here". Then I set there for 40 seconds with "<other person> is typing" while I wait for their real question to arrive, as there is no way I can go back to my flow for 40 seconds and get anything done.
Even people who prefer text communication are annoyed by this.
Next, I have a set routine where I check the visual notification. Generally speaking, when I am running my tests, I'll glance at the notifier. I TDD most of the time, so usually that means glancing at the notifier every 2-5 minutes. If I need to put my head down, I start a pomodoro timer (25 minutes) and I'll check the notifier when that goes off.
I don't always check the message when my notification goes. I keep it as a choice. If I need to keep my head down, then I just mentally make a note that I should check the notification when I get the chance. I don't know if it makes sense, but I use the same part of my mental process that I use for making notes of anything -- oh, I should fix that test, I should refactor that function, etc, etc. It's the stuff in the back of my mind that I've chosen to do later. If I get overloaded (as I tend to do now that I'm older) I put it in my TODO list (check slack). Then I can forget about it.
Basically that gives me a response time 2-3 minutes on average if I'm just cranking out code TDD style or on average about 15 minutes if I'm doing something more deep. Since I work remotely, having that "presence" is really important. Not disappearing for hours on end makes people feel more comfortable that you are actually there.
However, the last thing I do is if I really need time to myself, I'll send a quick message on slack saying, "I need to wrestle with X. I'll be away from slack for about 1-2 hours. Is there anything anybody needs before I do that?"
I guess one last thing. At one point in my career, I quit my programming job, moved to Japan and taught English for 5 years. Then I went back to programming. During the 5 years I taught English, I still did my own side projects, however at that time I didn't have any free time to really devote to programming. It had to be 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. I worked hard at developing a technique where I could get in and out of the zone very quickly.
The 2 main pieces of advice I can give is, if you have tests, to always leave yourself a failing test when you switch contexts. If you have good test coverage, this is relatively easily done by simply sketching in some functionality and leaving the tests broken. When you come back, you can see all the broken tests and it will show you what your sketch was doing. Normally it takes me about 2-3 minutes to get back into the flow.
Second, make TODO lists. I use org mode in emacs (and actually moved from vim to emacs with evil mode simply to have a better org mode client!) However, you can use anything, really (markdown is fine too). Just get into the habit of dumping your though process into an editing buffer (I need to do X and then Y and then Z). I tend to try to break up my programming where I'll do 5-10 minutes of coding followed by 1-2 minutes of reflection -- so I force myself to stop and take stock of what I'm doing. This is where I tend to write my TODOs. If I'm doing pomodoros, then usually I'll write TODOs during the 5 minute "rest" period. Not only does it help me get into the flow faster, but I've found that the enforced reflection period helps me jump out of local maxima and save time (i.e. if you get going in one direction and miss a better opportunity). Since I'm 9 timezones away from my colleagues if I'm working while they are sleeping, I can often hand over my work to my colleague and they can finish it off while I sleep. It takes some practice communicating, but if you have a willing partner it's pretty fun tag team like that.
Deal! I will report back in a week. This will be an interesting experiment.
So if a behavior changes the chemicals, it can change what you want, and now both these statements become equivalent: "I could quit if I wanted to, but I don't want to" = "I can't quit smoking."
A more accurate description of addiction is probably something like "I can't want to quit smoking."
That "we are a chemical computer" is one of many possible ways of understanding what we are, and not any kind of certainty.
There are plenty of people who fully understand and appreciate this reductionist view of humanity, but just don't agree with it.
Tampering with a radio produces artifacts in the music playing, and can even cause it to change between a number of different signals, but the source of the music signal, the composition of it, is largely remote to the radio.
To fix the analogy, consider circuit-bending a handheld transceiver. Assuming the "thinking" / "free will" part represents the conversational partner on the other side of the radio link, modifying my transceiver can alter not just how I hear my partner's transmission, but what my partner receives from me as well. Being able to modify the input, I can influence what my partner will say next.
The brain has a lot of inputs (a very important sense group is the so-called "interoception" - the sense of your internal body state), all of which send telemetry completely under the radar of the conscious mind. Only few of those signals surface explicitly for a mind to introspect, but the rest still influences how the mind thinks. For instance, it may take many minutes before you realize your suddenly irrational behaviour is just a sign of hunger.
My conclusion is this: even if you believe (against Occam's razor) in the mind being a separate, remote phenomenon, and the brain being just a transceiver of some information carrier we have no first clue how to detect - the brain still seems to be the single point that collects the inputs and outputs of that communication. Essentially, it could be seen as an electrochemical I/O module, connected to the mind via Magic waves. There is zero functional difference between this model and (simplified, Occam-friendly) the model in which there is no remote mind, and the brain is just the whole computer.
(And, unless you can show that "remote mind" vs. "brain mind" have different testable predictions, there's zero basis to believe in the "remote mind" version, no matter how much more philosophically comfortable it seems.)
The equivalence between those two statements seems to fall apart in the case of a remote “you”, because we can meaningfully distinguish between your abstract intent and various physical impulses I’m not sure we can in the locally physical model — eg, mixing of your “true” signal with a secondary one because the addiction structure adjusts your tuning; addiction would then be your body no longer accurately carrying out your will, which is distinct from you wanting them.
The existence of radios shows that being able to interfere with a signal locally via one mechanism (interfering with the radio electronics) doesn’t entail it’s generated locally by that process — the local process can merely be translating between media, eg light and sound.
Unfortunately, this pokes a hole into the logic that thinking is necessarily local, because it was depending on clinicians interfering locally to show that brains are a local phenomena — but that reasoning doesn’t apply generally, eg, in the case of radios.
You’re correct that we know the brain is going to be doing some kind of transducing, but that doesn’t mean it’s doing the thinking — it could merely be a relaying device between whatever generates thought and the body, like a radio translating between EM and sound.
People are like 20-year-old ERP software. We try to use it to do Extreme Programming in a modern language to ship new product updates in less than a week, and when we can't do that we wonder why our ERP system is so stupid.
We're not stupid, we're just an incredibly complicated legacy system, so doing things we weren't designed for is painful.
I always find these kinds of comments interesting (and I realise that you were not suggesting trying to do this is a good idea). XP has sprints. I have never found a way to make sprints less than 2 weeks and actually have them work well. Whenever anyone has wandered onto my team and assured me that they can do 1 week sprints, I've found that they don't actually do everything that is required for XP to be successful (like planning game, prioritisation meetings, understanding the acceptance criteria for a story before you put it in a sprint, etc, etc, etc). For me 1 week XP sprints are the holy grail: something you covet, but which is unattainable and leads you on a bloody journey of despair if you try to get it ;-)
My own personal opinion is that XP and continuous deployment don't even work particularly well because you can't do true continuous integration (i.e. trunk based development where you are integrating everybody's changes every 5-20 minutes) and maintain a completely sound development structure. That's one of the reasons for sprints: to allow yourself to break stuff for a while and then ensure that it's all working by the end of the sprint.
It's not just XP where I find this. Most of the time, I find that the most popular variant of anything just doesn't work at all: because the "30 minute meal" is full of compromise. It doesn't matter how many times Jamie Oliver says that it's "lovely" and "rustic" -- it's soggy lettuce with completely random salad dressing that you whirred up in your blender.
Ha ha... so many nonsequitors. I hope that made some sense... Time for coffee...
The title says that procrastination has "nothing to do with self-control", which is obviously an appealing sentiment.
However, the first paper that they reference says that "...if we have a great deal of self-discipline and dutifulness... we may exert the self-control necessary to engage in the task in a timely manner despite the lack of immediate reward or the negative mood that the task elicits. Procrastination, however, is the lack of this self-control, whether as a state or trait. Procrastination is the self-regulatory failure of not exerting the self-control necessary for task engagement... this failure at self-control may be the direct result of a focus on regulating moods and feeling states in the short term."
Overall, a better argument would be that a lack of self-control isn't the driving force behind our decision to procrastinate. Rather, what causes us to procrastinate are things such as anxiety or fear of failure, and a high degree of self-control is what allows us to overcome these issues.
If anyone is interested in learning more about the factors that can cause us to procrastinate, such as anxiety, perfectionism, and reliance on abstract goals, check out this article: https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/
Hmm, I don't think so. I would say:
What causes us to procrastinate is that we are using it as a _coping mechanism_ for our anxiety (which is related to our fear of failure). But it is an ultimately unsuccesful coping mechanism -- it has short-term alleviation of the negative emotions we wanted to avoid, but in the long-term can make them worse (as well as interfering with accomplishing what we want to accomplish, which can itself trigger anxiety and fear of failure).
Thinking a "high degree of self-control" is what will help us overcome procrastination does not actually help us overcome procrastination -- in fact, it can also trigger anxiety and fear of failure (as we are failing to have enough self-control).
You don't overcome it with "high degree of self-control", you overcome it by recognizing the role it is playing, finding other ways to approach your anxiety (not trying to avoid it by procrastination), and by _self-compassion_, not self-blame for your lack of self-control.
What is in the article matches my experience and observation. It also matches Buddhist philosophy/psychology.
You can _disagree_ with the arguments of the article -- is that what you mean by "finding it a bit misleading"? But they are considered and to some extent evidence-based arguments, that really are intentionally saying it's _not_ about "self-control", and thinking it's about "self-control" and you just need to "try harder" won't get you out of it. That is what they are intentionally saying, it's not misleading if the title makes one think they are going to say that.
What I agree with: actively overcoming your procrastination has more to do with dealing with the obstacles that cause you to procrastinate in the first place. For example, if you’re procrastinating because of your anxiety, dealing with your anxiety is generally going to be a much more effective approach than trying to increase your self-control.
What I disagree with: self-control is without a doubt one of the psychological mechanisms that play a role in our procrastination. That doesn’t mean that we should focus on it when we’re trying to help people stop procrastinating, but it does mean that it's important to understand the role that it plays.
If you look at the research papers that this article mentions, this is something that the researchers themselves are saying. For instance, in the first paper, Sirois and Pychyl say that: “if we have a great deal of self-discipline and dutifulness, commonly associated with the Big Five trait of Conscientiousness… we may exert the self-control necessary to engage in the task in a timely manner despite the lack of immediate reward or the negative mood that the task elicits.”
As such, while I think it’s reasonable for the article to conclude that when it comes to dealing with procrastination, your focus shouldn’t necessarily be on your self-control, I believe that it’s misleading for the title to claim that procrastination has “nothing to do with self-control”, when self-control clearly does play a role in this process.
I see what you are saying. That's in their literature review part.
Other people in this thread have recommended reading other stuff from Pychyl, which I plan to, to get a fuller picture of his framework.
While it has "something" to do with "self-control", the important point being made, including in that paper, is that "just trying harder" is not an effective strategy. I think that's what people think of when they think "it's a matter of self-control", and what the headline/article is meaning to disabuse (which Pychyl I believe would agree should be disabused).
You say "it does mean that it's important to understand the role [self-control] plays" in anxiety -- I'm not sure. I think the thrust here (of Pychyl's research reported in the article, and after skimming that paper) is that it is much more important to understand the role "attempt at emotional self-regulation" plays, in that procrastination is one.
That is, becoming comfortable with experiencing "negative mood" may be a useful direction; trying to increase one's "self-control" is unlikely to be.
At any rate, I don't think the article mischaracterized Pychyl's writing, although you can take issue with Pychyl's arguments or conclusions.
Self-control seems to be a behavior rather than a characteristic, quality, or a skill. When one has controlled oneself, one has exhibited self-controlling behavior by definition. But what causes someone to exert that self-control?
But our language of self-control is about morality, and "lack of self-control" is seen as a character flaw, not a problem that can be solved with repeatable processes.
In other words, "lack of self control" is a failing of society, not a failing of individuals.
Am I exerting self control if I want to do the things that I need to do? Or have I just stumbled into a sort of happy accident?
According to my experience, a good night of sleep is the best cure for procrastination, sadly, our current society don't optimize for sleeping well.
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1: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...
Poor quality sleep never got in the way of me doing the things I wanted to do. Whether it is prepping for a field trip I was excited about or waking up in the middle of the night to watch a livestream of esports game or anything I was interested it. It's only chores, jobs or studying for something I wasn't interested in that I always put off til tomorrow. And things like meetings at works I wasn't looking forward to always contributed to poor quality sleep.
Rather than being the cause, I suspect poor quality sleep is a symptom.
This is attributed to the fact that sleep is crucial when it comes to replenishing the mental resources that you need in order to self-regulate your behavior effectively.
This article contains a summary of research on the topic which came out recently: https://solvingprocrastination.com/study-procrastination-sle...
I'm sure there are many types of procrastinating but this is the most common for me.
I have the desire to play video games (a waste of time), but I wish that I did not have this desire. I want it, but I do not want to want it.
If we do not have strong enough character to regulate our short term desires, our long term goals suffer. This tradeoff is implicit in how we spend every second of our day. Ultimately, actions reveal preferences.
If your long-term goals are unclear, or if your working conditions/ social circle are not congruent to your long-term goals, you will remain anxious over failing to progress towards these goals.
"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Paul of Tarsus, circa 57 a.d.)
That's one way of looking at it. Another is that there's more than one "you", or at least more than one part of you. A part that wants one thing, and a part that wants another. Sometimes the one part gets the upper hand, sometimes another. The part that gets the upper hand might even be fully unconscious, so as far as you're aware you fully want only one thing, yet do something completely different that an unconscious part of you wants (or that you want without being aware of it).
I think Ovid would agree:
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor.
I'm currently going cold turkey on certain social media (Facebook, Twitter). It's hard, because they're so compulsive - designed to be compulsive (I call my phone my "digital crack pipe"). So I'm addressing my habits.
When I come home from work in the evening, I have a habit of going to the kitchen, grabbing a junk food snack, plopping down in my favorite chair, and opening my computer. It's destructive to my eating habits, my productivity, and encourages that nasty social media junkie thing. Even if I'm not on Facebook, I'll be checking Google News, weather, ANYTHING to get my fingers on the keyboard and mouse.
So the habit to change? Sitting in my favorite chair when I get home. If I don't sit down in that spot, I don't have a place to eat junk food. I don't have a computer at hand. I have to go do something else.
Making that change still sounds like a function of character to me.
When I sit in that spot, I tend to get a snack for it. It doesn't matter whether I'm hungry or not... it's just a thing I do. Eating less snacks is a desirable goal. Eliminating a trigger that causes me to eat snacks is a change of habit.
Now, you might say "I want to eat fewer snacks" is a function of character. But without a mechanism, it's about as relevant as "I want a million dollars", or "I want world peace", and only slightly more realistic.
So I examine circumstances in which I eat unnecessary snacks, and try to change those circumstances. That's a process. That's a change of habit. And it's much more likely to be effective than anything about "character". This is not an act of willpower.
I'm thinking a lot about triggers as a way to change habits right now.
It's not like suddenly he would give a magic trick that involves no function of character at all.
Don't you consider HN to be social media?
Could you expand the acronym? I've never seen it and search results aren't helpful.
"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can"
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qM7ydBXaCxPisAsaY/will-as-th...
Lawrence: He can, but he can't want what he wants. (Pinching his chest) This is the stuff that decides what he wants.
-- Lawrence of Arabia (film)
[EDIT]
How strange to see / That I don't wanna be the person that I want to be
-- Amanda Palmer, "In My Mind"
You need to realize that you want or need is not wrong - embrace it. Embrace it and realize there is something you want more; a larger need that subsumes the lesser habit.
No one hates eating cookies and watching tv all day, but there are conflicting desires that lead you to change your behavior - sense of accomplishment, physical health, making money to live, etc.
I brought balance to my life by purchasing an exercise bike and putting it in front of my Xbox.
Now I can play through the entire new Red Dead Redemption game without guilt - 40+ hours over the course of a month or two, as long as I keep the peddles moving while I do it.
Through this pairing I curbed my addiction to video games, and also lost about 10 pounds in the last 3 months. Not only does it cap my session time to about an hour maximum, there are days when I'm just too tired from work to play video games. So I end up going to bed earlier and taking a lot better care of myself than I was previously.
What are your long term goals that suffer from you playing games?
So for me at least, I play video games and accept that it's an important part of keeping myself healthy and not burning out at work, but I also wish I didn't' need to do it. It's sort of like sleep. I make sure I get at least 8 hours of sleep every night, but only because I need sleep to be healthy. If I could somehow replace sleep with more work (paid or on personal projects) without any adverse effects, I would do it, but of course that's impossible too.
Actions only reveal which preferences prevails. We could still be totally conflicted internally, and wish we did otherwise.
It's not mere theater. Some even go to suicide because of the anxiety of such conflicts between what they wish to be doing and what their pleasure impulses get them to do.
Who knows if you run into a car accident 2 hours later and die? In that case it would've been better to play video games, right? Or maybe it would have been better to call your mom instead and tell her you didn't mean what you said last Thanks Giving?
The thing about life is: It has no meaning besides the meaning you assign to it. It might be okay to prioritize short term goals. It might be okay to suffer for long term goals. It might be more important even to do something completely different. Nobody can tell you.
Therefore I would argue that instead of evaluating things on artificial scales, to simply be aware of the trade-offs, make choices according to the circumstances you encounter and the stuff that you can know (e.g. you can't know if you die in 2 hours in most cases), and be confident due to your awareness that you made the best possible choice for yourself and you might be able to learn something to make an even better choice next time.
I.e. start making sounds by clapping with just one hand.
Very well said. I have been dealing with procrastination issue and this line has hit me hard.
- Your Steam stats show that people have spent <an inordinate amount of hours> playing your game. Doesn't it bother you that they could have employed all that time doing something more useful?
Their answer:
- Well, you know, maybe they were all Hitler. We might be saving the world by destroying their productivity.
It cracked me up and made me buy their game.
There are tasks that really do need to be done. No magical fairy is going to come along and do your taxes for you or some household task that someone really does need to do.
On the other hand, there are projects that aren't time-critical and that, if you hold off doing them, the need for them may really go away or you may otherwise decide that task isn't actually necessary.
And of course, there are always at least two possible paths there -- you can try to change it, or you can decide that you're actually okay with your life-under-procrastination after all.
But sometimes some people are going to find their severe procrasnation is interfering with their ability to do what is important to them, and they want to do something about it. This decision alone does not make it _easy_ though. My observation and experience have matched the articles, that self-blame doesn't help, but that recognizing the relation it has to your anxiety and finding other ways to relate to your anxiety can.
1. https://markmanson.net/self-discipline-youre-doing-it-wrong?...
2. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8529755.Mark_Manson
This sounds very much like meditation, and while it may well be beneficial, someone with a serious procrastination problem may have problems following through with their intention to meditate like this as well, and instead just compulsively do whatever makes them feel better.
That may be what I'm doing with something right now. I have a couple of publishers interested in something I've designed, but I need to update a couple of things first before I submit it, and I keep putting it off, saying I'm too tired, not in the right mindset, I have too much other things going on. Might be because I'm worried they're going to reject me, though, and as long as I haven't submitted it yet they can't reject me.
I do have a lot going on though and it does seem like it's getting in the way. Work is being stupidly demanding of my time, and I had a job interview pop up last week that superceded all other tasks, and I was out of town for half the weekend and needed to pull my weight around the house and bring it back from the sty it got into from the past week of preparing for the interview the other day.
Along with general procrastination and writer's block I also suffer from the closely related coder's block. I address this the same way: instead of free-writing I start "free-coding", where I write code with the intention that it's going to be crap, and I might even start writing gibberish, before I move on to writing code that compiles and maybe runs, but does nothing useful. The goal is just to get started.
In the case of both free writing and free coding, once I start I pretty quickly move on to writing stuff that's decent even if it's not great. That's something I can work with, and once I get in that mode I have much greater resistance to distractions.
To circle back to procrastination, I might use a similar approach. Say I need to clean up my work area, and I just don't want to (even though I also do want to). I need to reduce the scope of the problem to something absurdly simple, or maybe even just absurd. So I decide I'm just going to move all the loose items on my desk to another table so I can dust the desk. But I'm not even going to dust the desk, I'm just going to move the stuff off of it. For the immediate moment that's all I've got to care about it. Just moving stuff around.
But once the desk is cleared, dusting it and wiping it down is easy. It's so easy in that moment that that's all I care about. Then once that's done, I move the stuff back. But as I'm moving the stuff back it's easy to address each item one-by-one. Old papers can go in the trash or recycling, the books can go back to their regular place on the book shelf, the stapler can go back in the desk drawer where it regularly resides, etc. Then I realize now would be a good time to wipe the dust off my monitor, sort through the nearby stack of mail, etc.
Now mind you, I still procrastinate way more than I should, but these techniques work for me and I procrastinate a lot less than I used to.
"Raymond Chandler and I discussed this once, and he admitted to the most bitter reluctance to commit anything to paper. He evolved the following scheme: he had a tape recorder into which he spoke the utmost nonsense – a stream of consciousness which was then transcribed by a secretary and which he then used as a basis for his first rough draft. Very laborious. He strongly advised me to do the same … in fact became so excited that he kept plying me with information for months about the machine that helped him."
(from an interview with S. J. Perelman)
I found that whenever I need to get started on some brain intensive task, be it writing or designing a piece of software architecture, being out and about in a social space (a coffee shop, a pub) works wonders.
I have both a lack of distractions (mobile on silent and out of sight) and a drive to do something instead of staring at folks awkwardly.
What's more surprising for me is even in a noisy environment, I still maintain my focus. I tend to favour pubs, so maybe it's the alcohol working its magic :)
Some people do judge, but maybe they shouldn't be so judgmental, as it's not clear how much control people have over their own behavior, and without such control one can't be blameworthy.
Is there more to it than a definition ?
I believe the outlook matters more to deal with it though.
I remember the feelings I had then; there was this feeling of "I'm not stupid, why am I constantly pushing things off to make it seem like I am?", and it became this vicious cycle of "I do poorly because I'm depressed, and I'm depressed because I do poorly". I could definitely see it as an act of "self-harm", as this article describes.
I know I have. I added the noprocrast setting to HN to interrupt this habit and I often try logging out of Twitter so I would actually need to login to use it. But this article rings true that often I'm using that "break" as a coping mechanism to avoid doing something I assume will be hard.
a)read the article so you don't have to do xyz
b)not read the article because learning how to stop procrastinating feels like self sabotage
c)start the article but don't finish it because you have ADD from surfing the internet as a means of procrastinating
d)something else.
edit: e)skim the article and write an HN comment about it.
edit) also lurking in comments is my preferred method of wasting time. Though I'm not wasting time to procrastinate at the moment. I'm just waiting for a scheduled event to start which I prepared for already. I think that's different.
Keeping a daily to-do list (I use bullet journaling, but other processes can work) has done wonders for my procrastination. I have a habit of writing down everything I need to do that day - even if I've already done it. I have a habit to check at the end of the day to complete what isn't yet done. I have a habit of marking things completed. So my to-do list habit leads to not procrastinating. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than where I was.
I also have a habit of taking my journal and a pen with me everywhere. I'd rather be without my phone than without my journal.
I don't use a phone for my reference calendar or (especially) to-do lists, because a cell phone is full of all sorts of nasty bad-habit triggers, many designed by giant corporations that prey on my attention for money. It's basically a digital crack pipe I carry everywhere. So marking my tasks for the day without also checking email, weather, facebook (removed that app entirely and went cold turkey), etc... it's very difficult.
Paper is how I manage my time. It gives me positive habits and positive reinforcement.
"""
We like to refer to that effort as willpower. But, from the point of view of looking at emotions fighting for dominance inside our brains, willpower is simply the strength and effort of the constructive emotions. The emotions which lead to long term happiness and comfort, even at the expense of short term pleasure. Logical, sober thought is one such constructive emotion, and we call it willpower whenever we are able to make our actions agree with the constructive emotions.
Yet… there is such a thing as “destructive” willpower. You might have seen it under the name of “rationalization”. It is what destructive emotions use to take over our action. If people say and think “I’m gonna be OK to drive with one drink,” that’s their drink addiction emotion convincing them to drink. That’s destructive willpower. It’s not the absence of willpower, but the redirection of willpower towards a destructive emotion.
"""
I'm in the unfortunate position of being a layman who disagrees with an expert, but isn't it a bit inaccurate and confusing to call it "self-harm"? Doesn't that term already have a specific meaning?
As I understand it, self-harm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-harm) is a behavior where someone seeks out pain (such as by cutting themselves). It can be because focusing on pain allows temporary escape from other thoughts, or maybe for other reasons, but in any case the pain is something the person seeks out and is an essential part of the process.
It seems like "self-destructive" might be a better term to use when talking about procrastination. If I put off cleaning my bathroom, I'm avoiding something I can't/won't face, and that is going to come with feelings of guilt or shame, but I'm not seeking out that suffering as a tool for dealing with something else. It's just a side-effect of the choice to avoid something.
Or, if it really is (a non-physical form of) self-harm, can someone explain how? Are they saying the feeling of guilt over not cleaning my bathroom alleviates the feelings of unpleasantness associated with having to scrub the shower?
That doesn't seem right, but maybe there are two types of procrastination, a "light" one where the task is just unpleasant and says nothing about you (cleaning the shower) and a "serious" one where the task might reflect on you (learning to do something you don't think you're capable of)? I could imagine how self-harm might fit in with the "serious" form because maybe guilt over not trying could serve a purpose distracting you from the more-unpleasant feeling of doubt over whether you actually can do it.
Not doing something that is good for yourself is doing something bad to yourself, i.e. self harm. If it were phrased as "someone throwing a fit at work and insulting everyone with the intention of getting themselves fired so that they would no longer have a means of income," I think we can both agree that going out of your way to not have a job (not just this job) is definitely self-harm. It's in the same vein.
I meant that certain non-physical, indirectly harmful activities could be interpreted as falling under the category of self-harm while not meeting the classical definition. As I mentioned, if someone with the intention of hurting themselves or causing theirself pain (and not with that just being a side-effect/result) instigated a fight at work to get themselves fired and out of a job, you don't have to squint too hard to see it in that light.
e.g. classic self-harm: someone feels like they don't deserve to be happy or need to feel some physical pain to wake up or what have you, and engages in cutting, directly bringing that harm to themselves.
Someone feels like a fraud (without having engaged in any deception or the equivalent that would objectively result in others labeling them as such) and decides that they don't deserve the job they have with its pay and benefits, and so takes measures to make sure they are out of a job and a livelihood, and end up homeless and eating out of trash bins. Self-harm, no?
Someone gets angry at a boss/colleague and can't restrain themselves from starting a physical altercation and gets fired/loses their livelihood.. not so much self-harm.
So it's a question of perspective.
We are evolved for more immediate concerns. The TPS report lacks the same importance as catching dinner.
Unfortunately in the modern era the TPS report is what you catch dinner with.
What to do.
Admit that our lifestyles are designed to drive the consumption based economy, rather than to actually make life more enjoyable.
The Australian Aborigines has a stable, sustainable civilisation for tens of thousands of years. European “civilisation” is set to make the world uninhabitable within two thousand years of inventing the steam engine.
1- It says we procrastinate against our better judgement. But isn't the science gearing toward the fact that it is not the conscious brain that is controlling our behavior and actions? In that case, you can't solve procrastination by simply being aware of it.
2- Quoting from the article
> We really weren’t designed to think ahead into the further future because we needed to focus on providing for ourselves in the here and now.
Yet, every night I go to bed and I'm dreaming about a better future. Obviously the scenarios I'm dreaming about can't be for tomorrow and are quite distant in the future (better country, top job/career, traveling but mostly a hotter girl with big/nice house).
2- What does your example prove here? The human mind almost always prioritizes immediate needs over future needs and has poor understanding of how to achieve long term goals. This is very well understood by psychologists and sociologists. It's part of why people find game theory so interesting. It's why people act against their own self interests. Saying "I want things in the future" doesn't GET you those things, so you haven't really proven that you're great at planning a future.
But then they dropped this line:
"On the other side of the coin, Ms. Rubin also suggested that we make the things we want to do as easy as possible for ourselves."
So what you're saying is I should tweak my vimrc file to make it easier to write code instead of working on my next project, got it!
Jokes aside though, it's worth a read if you're afflicted by procrastination and its related friends.
For some unlike me perhaps it is true that there is a 'one little trick' to make your brain act rationally. I don't know, maybe it's possible via the brain's sheer neuroplasticity to evolve a dopaminergic flaw from a psychological failure or trauma.
But at the end of the day, procrastination is very much neurological, with a fairly clear pathway and a chemical which is objectively known to drive it.
More people absolutely need to know procrastination has nothing to do with self control, but psychological research like this will always appear to show the issue stemming from a psychological issue when this is known to be virtually always untrue. Treatment of ADHD with psychological approaches like CBT have a nearly non statistically significant effect, but ADHD medication has a 70%+ success rate.
Are you recommending medication for anyone who is displeased with their procrastination?
I don't think the OP is suggesting there is "one little trick", but if, alternately, medication is in fact "one little trick" that worked for everyone, that would probably be welcome news to everyone!
Not exactly, but excessive procrastination is a symptom of ADHD. Managing ADHD requires managing excessive procrastination and medication, so far, is the most effective treatment for ADHD.
The way I see it, there's a spectrum of procrastination issues and those that are explosive enough to be diagnosable get the ADHD label and medication. If you have ADHD symptoms but they're not bad enough to warrant a diagnosis you get nothing.
It's well known that ADHD medication is incredible for procrastination -- statistically speaking any student should be able to tell you that.
For example, suppose you have some electronic item you want to repair but you're horrible at soldering, so you put it off because you don't want to face the negative feelings of failing at soldering again or the negative feelings of destroying that item you think you should have been able to repair. You could get past this by watching some videos on soldering, getting some better equipment, or practicing with a friend who's actually good at soldering. Once you don't suck at soldering, the negative feelings around fixing your electronic item are gone, and you can stop procrastinating. (And you can do it faster and better.)
On the other hand, maybe you need to write a complicated and annoying SQL query that is going to be tricky to get right, and you already know SQL, but you go off on a huge tangent reading SQL documentation looking for a function or trick that will make it easier when there really isn't one. Pretty soon you're just learning about esoteric SQL functions that don't have anything to do with your problem. But maybe one of them could if you read long enough, so you keep reading and reading.
sports to revive mental strength and thoroughness
life rhythm for efficiency
on a higher level: desire to deflect procrastination as a metalevel trick to find pleasure in doing something depth first