A Pretty Good Mathematical Model of Perfectionism | Hacker News Reader

A Pretty Good Mathematical Model of Perfectionism

jessegalef.com

170 pointsfreefrancisco32 comments

For folks finding this model/analysis compelling: many of these observations and coping skills are common in undiagnosed ADHD. It’s not a perfect circle venn diagram, but pretty close. Any kind of paralysis without progressive validation or structured achievement is very likely associated with dopamine release and absorption.

In adult-diagnosed ADHD cases, we often find ourselves discovering cleverly invented milestones and achievements or even convenient self deceptions that produce dopamine when it would naturally be a long way away. Speaking for myself, I allow myself personal congratulations and merits for utterly insignificant and pointless details for any task that feels “too big” or “too daunting” to make them achievable for my brain. I can take several hours to get my laundry going, a couple minutes work in all, and I allow myself to celebrate getting the dirty laundry into a basket, then another getting it into the laundry room. Usually by this point following through is automatic and doesn’t require more workarounds.

But ultimately the concept is the same. If the reward feels far away, and far away is demotivating, giving yourself rewards along the way opens pathways to keep going when it doesn’t feel feasible otherwise.

I thought I came up with the idea of attaching symbolic importance to otherwise menial tasks so I can complete them. Things like mail, paperwork, printing materials I make up some kind of scenario where completing the task is of critical importance and reward myself somehow after. I don’t otherwise recognize myself as ADHD though. I think rather its odd people can easily interrupt their day to do this stuff.

I didn’t recognize myself as ADHD either. I was diagnosed at 37. If I hadn’t taken a (seemingly separate) mental health dive I probably would never have known. It turns out almost all of my anxiety and quite a bit of my depression are easily traced to dopamine deficiency and (sometimes unhealthy) coping strategies. The way I explain the laundry thing to people who don’t experience it is... almost exactly your wording: if I have a “big” task and a “small” task that have time overlap, stopping the “big” one to do even a few minutes of something else is extraordinarily stressful. I can’t interrupt one for the other. On really bad days, both block each other, like a deadlock. Recognizing that it’s happening and creating basically fictional arbitrary rewards helps.

Obviously I’m not in any way qualified to say one way or the other, but if things like this meaningfully impede your life I’d recommend reading about adult ADHD, see if things feel like they have explanations you’ve never known you needed... and if you do, seek diagnosis.

For my experience when I finally had enough confidence that there was really something to it, I had to read a lot of non-diagnostic literature to really understand how to navigate that process. The DSM criteria are almost entirely designed around diagnosing children, and almost entirely around misbehavior. Adults will not relate to most behavior descriptions and will have developed so many coping alternatives that the answers often form as “well, no, but here is how I’ve learned to compensate”.

Edit: I’d be remiss not to credit the actual human on the internet who gave me the most insight into this and ultimately prompted me to seek diagnosis. For anyone looking for someone who speaks extensively and knowledgeably about adult ADHD, I highly recommend following Erynn Brook on twitter.

> It turns out almost all of my anxiety and quite a bit of my depression are easily traced to dopamine deficiency

In cases like yours, are dopamine levels in brain actually tested (measured in a lab) in patients or is it just conjecture?

Testing ADHD is based on symptomatic and diagnostic analysis, as well as behavioral testing. Not chemical. Medicinal treatment aids validation of the diagnosis: if stimulants work well and don’t produce the kinds of side effects that people with “normal” brains experience, it can be inferred that the chemical imbalance exists and can be addressed by further treatment.

After my initial diagnosis, my first doctor who treated me said that if I’m being treated appropriately I should be able to sleep while the stimulants are active. Not only could I sleep, when I first started meds, I started taking daytime naps for the first time in my adult life. Even “taking” is an understatement. About an hour after the stimulant (at this time it was ritalin) kicked in, I would zonk so hard that I needed to sleep for anything between 15 minutes and an hour.

Thanks for talking about the deadlock! That's what I've been facing the past years...

I hope you have developed good coping strategies for this. It’s really hard to navigate in the moment! But if you have a good structure for how you approach it, it can really help. For me personally:

- I have a very large set of (recurring, time specific, urgent, and lax) reminders

- I have very clear expectations of removing myself physically from situations that make me feel stuck, and taking dedicated and time bounded breaks

- I have a very internal/non-verbal separate monologue for forgiving myself, particularly when the harm I may have done or be doing is to myself (I’m a very verbal internal monologue person otherwise)

- I reset and recalibrate goals/ambitions/expectations frequently

- I find ways to allow myself helpful fictions and know I’m lying. (Side note: it’s worth noting that many neurodivergent disorders commonly overlap; I’m not diagnosed ASD but strongly suspect I’ll get a positive diagnosis when I’m able to seek one; lying to myself is generally only possible when I acknowledge the falsehood somehow)

- And as mentioned, I create artificial rewards that unblock when I feel blocked. Being (now based on comment feedback) hesitant to describe this as relating to literal dopamine... I give myself invented victories and milestones that are only meaningful and exciting to me, so I can carry on to the next step or stage of a thing I need or want to do

I have no idea if any of this will help. But even just getting external validation of your experience can help. It’s awful to feel like something other people find easy is difficult, when you know you’re generally a capable or even talented person.

I hope however you navigate this, you know you’re not navigating it alone and the things that seem impossible inexplicably aren’t because you’re doing it wrong.

Just a nitpick: don't say dopamine production when you mean reward. Dopamine may be involved in some feelings of reward, but it's certainly not the only factor, and it also doesn't simply signal "pleasure" or "achievement" to the rest of your brain. IIRC, it's not at all certain that a sense of achievement can be compared to the typical scenarios in which dopamine is mentioned: eating, drugs.

Disclaimer to grandparent: I found your comment a useful read. This is a bit of a nitpick, but one that I thought quite long about.

--- the comment ---

Moreover, you can't actually measure whether it's dopamine, you're simply hypothesizing that it is. And while I'm inclined to believe that dopamine would be involved, you don't strictly know. Saying neuro-terms like "dopamine" may make things sound more real or true, but they aren't more real or more true as you're not measuring your brain.

In that sense neuroscience feels a bit similar to religion (just a bit, from my agnostic perspective). Yes, you use scientific concepts, but since nothing is measured, you as an interested person in neuroscience have no clue what is actually happening in your brain. But it does sound more compelling! Not needing to measure anything while using theories that sound highly convincing to a certain group with certain ideals is how most religion feels like to me (not all though, I can definitely appreciate certain theological discourses of all religions, and I also appreciate religions that don't have a strong emphasis on gods, for example).

So on HN I try to limit my neural babble as much as possible when I talk about my own experiences as my cortisol levels are spiking too much -- ;-) -- when I'm reading neuro-explained anecdotes. I hope that HN'ers see my point or feel that there are convincing counterarguments to this that might make for an interesting discussion.

When people say “dopamine”, I don’t usually interpret as them literally meaning dopamine. I think at this point in common speech it serves as a shortcut for saying “chemically based rewards“.

No, I definitely meant literal dopamine. Just as people who benefit from many conventional antidepressants are chemically benefiting from increased serotonin (reception/production), people who have ADHD chemically benefit from increased dopamine (reception/production). And while medicating the latter is mostly straightforward (most patients benefit from stimulants which improve dopamine reception, many from improved production as well), particularly adult patients have a variety of coping strategies that relieve symptoms and it’s not a wild leap to infer that when those strategies are successful they’re improving dopamine levels specifically.

When I saw this comment this morning I was a little surprised, and I second guessed my own familiarity with my own brain. So I did what I do when challenged on the facts and did more reading. It’s not ambiguous. ADHD is directly related to dopamine (reception/production) deficiency. Medicating ADHD improves dopamine uptake (and production depending on the meds), and that chemical regulation relieves ADHD symptoms. It’s a small but perfectly reasonable stretch to infer that behavioral coping strategies that produce reward experiences which also relieve symptoms are likely producing similar chemical outcomes.

Yes, I've found when I'm stuck like this doing anything that's "constructive" or makes progress in some way can "wake me up" again.

I think that's also why I've been really happy being part of team that does agile. The ticket swim lane thing is surprisingly motivating.

Someone suggested making minor mistakes on purpose to me a while ago, and it turned out to be a pretty interesting kind of pain to lean into~

There's a typo near the end of the post, which made me smile - my first thought was that it was left in intentionally. I recommend following the author's lead. Like any treatment, it's no panacea, but by god was it liberating, and I'm not entirely disabled by perfectionism these days :)

The ~ made me smile.

I find this now commonly believed and endlessly repeated idea that procrastination is primarily due to perfectionism... maybe a little too convenient?

As in: it's almost like those jokes about interview answers: "What's your biggest weakness" / "I work too much".

It it helps people to cope and build some self-confidence then, maybe, it's the mistake that is net-positive. Sort-of like the (apocryphal) story that Columbus made a mistake and believed India to be much closer to Europe, and wouldn't have attempted to cross the Atlantic otherwise.

But my default position would be that any such delusional thought patterns tend to hurt. This, specifically, also has the ugly implication that anybody getting stuff done is sloppy and/or otherwise not at the genius level it takes to never do anything right.

(Spoken as someone who should be working instead of arguing on HN)

I think it's only too convenient if you view perfectionism as people wanting to do great work or nothing. In reality, I experience it more as "unless I can make this work perfectly, it's gonna be crap so it isn't worth it." So it's less procrastination, and more paralysis.

Completely independent of my comment about ADHD... whatever fictions we need to tell ourselves to function well are only damaging if they mask or enable other dysfunction. If people thrive by believing there’s a god or a magnetic force or lucky numbers, it only hurts if there’s some other harm done. I know we nerds like to focus on metrics and evidence. But the evidence is mixed on self deception.

>the genius level it takes to never do anything right

A Freudian slip?

Perfectionism is a deeper curse than procrastination. Procrastination can just be laziness, but like Alcoholism, if you cannot stop it, then you have a problem, and then it could be perfectionism.

Perfectionism is not perfection, like Socialism is not social.

I see it the other way around: I should do something (for whatever external reason), i can't and now my brain wants to know why.

Thinking through it and telling you that its not worth it because x makes it better to fit my worldview. But it just might not be relevant at all this part of thinking.

For example: I do like learning but i was sitting in school (with >20) and understood the math teacher, after that we should do exercises. I was blocked. Couldn't do it. I was mentally aware of this block. I started talking ritalin. The block was gone.

I realize this block more often and think more about this blockage than calling it perfectionism or realism.

Another example: I started studing after that and realized quite soon that its fun to read through it and learn things and it feels totally broken how much time you have to invest of sometimes finding good explanation for things. And more complex it got, the chance that i started to forget those things after the exam were high. Knowing how aes works step by step vs. having a rough idea. I always can read quickly through wikipedia to remember enough about aes. I wouldn't needed to study for this.

And the balance was very weird. There were clearly lectures which i was able to do by reading and learning for a week before the exam (i already worked professionally at that time so i had experience) which provided very small peaces of insight vs. math lectures which were interesting to hear, frankly useless to learn due to me never needing it in the future and my studies not getting deep enough so those lectures would have mattered.

What matters is bringing home money which means in the first instance a job is critical. I would love to see who i would become and what i would do and how a live would look like if i wouldn't need to work and still have enough resources available. Or if my job would actually matter.

It also doesn't help to be a software engineer which task it is to do things which multiply.

It also doesn't help that we are now so much more connected.

I don't write software for one person. I often write it for Teams or customers and im efficient when i can automate things.

I do see this every day when i see people or processies and i think very often how inefficient it is.

Concept of good old mail: "useless". Takes ages, a human being has to sort it and has to bring it to you. Or a lot of jobs like all things a computer could do better and faster if we removed humans inbetween and added trust.

My mind tries to analyse things on a meta level which also leads to thoughts of relevance. I'm probably a nihilist for a reason.

My Mantras for the last few years are about the 'normal' things. Like trying out a new recipe .

And at the end of the day, i realize more and more that simple logic isn't working and my influence is very small; Now instead of trying to change something i can't change on a meta level, my goal now is to get away from this all.

I'm wandering through a mist of clarity as everyone else to arrive at the same end: death.

I loved this!

Not only is it a neat, simple model to play around with, but the tone of the article made me smile.

I need more friends like this author!

Thank you for taking the (excessive) amount of time to write this and overcoming the urge to polish out all the "imperfections".

I know, right? I had the same reaction to the article, makes me miss fun intellectual conversations in college.

Her discussions on Twitter and the sorts of people who hang out and talk there are sort of a simulation of this friend set. :)

This resonates with me far, far more than most, if not all, articles, essays, think pieces, etc, about getting things done and procrastination I've ever read. Indeed, I have a serious problem with wanting to have something be perfect when I do it, so often I don't feel like doing it. Ironically, that attitude has the result of sometimes making my work worse, since ultimately I end up having less time to do the work which can lead to sloppy results.

I'll now have that nitpicky attitude in check and remind myself that not completely perfect merge/pull requests are still work that my clients can see, and the feedback loop within them when they're not perfect from the get go doesn't necessarily have a downside, and can in fact improve communication and the flow of work. After all, a request is by definition not necessarily the work completed, but literally a request for feedback, and possibly iterating on the work already done.

I can even use a trick to mentally tell myself it doesn't have to be perfect: I can start work everyday with the expectation that, at the end, I only need to create or update a draft merge/pull request. That will get me even more easily into the mindset that I'm working to ask for feedback, not to deliver the final piece. Who knows, maybe by the end of the day the work will be good enough for a finished request, so it's a win-win situation.

And that's just one idea, that I need to put in action. I'll see how it goes.

My question is whether we speak of a specific deliverable here, or a body of work.

The path is half the battle. Furthermore, getting a [DRAFT] out and interacting with the team has a catalytic effect.

Ain't about me. I'm singular. The team is plural. I'm at my location on the curve, with some leading me, some lagging.

As a contractor, my good work is for the sake of good work, and the knowledge it brings. That immaculately polished cannonball of a deliverable? Going under a bus.

Read Ecclesiastes.

Perfection does not exist in the universe. Imperfections can be found in anything.

Enjoying the process, while fully embracing this realization, is key.

Math is perfection. So, it depends on if you consider math to "exist" in this world.

Not meaning to infringe on the unassailable beauty of mathematics, but the statement that it is “perfect” requires some qualification.

Something like “it achieves exactly what it sets out to do?”

Given your definition of perfection and why math fits it, is there anything else that fits the definition?

Is math the result of a process or is it the framework of the processes themselves.

Don't you consider presence of axioms exactly the opposite of perfection?

Instead, it's the best human mind can muster.

perfectionism can be seen as the search to perfection or the fear of making suboptimal result...

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