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Comment by izgzhen | Hacker News Reader

Not to dismiss this course since I never tried it, but my personal experience is that I procrastinate a lot when I don’t enjoy my work, have a lot of FUD around the project, or simply not passionate about the profession.

On the contrary, when I got motivated by my work and feel excited, I just naturally stop procrastination. In fact, it becomes difficult to pay attention to things beyond work at that state.

My advice to people who suffer from procrastination: first think about the root cause, that is whether pivoting from current job is what you really need to do.

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Agreed, but for me there have been a few more reasons than boredom. Broadly I see 3 reasons I’ve procrastinated in the past.

1. I’m bored, and not learning anything new, just doing the same thing over and over.

2. I don’t see where this is going, or the point of doing it. Felt this a lot with university assignments in particular.

3. I’m afraid. This is the only one where I think it’s worth persisting. Sometimes something is new and scary, like public speaking or deploying to production for the first time. In this case, what I’ve found to work really well is to just sit with the fear, observe the sensations it produces in the body, and then it naturally just sort of weakens.

For 1 and 2, I think the procrastination is actually telling you something important.

There's a view out there (partially promoted by Taleb) that procrastination is good - it indicates that you shouldn't pursue something, that it's not natural for you.

The problem is that while sometimes that applies, sometimes it doesn't, and it's worth overcoming (I fall more on this side of the issue). In any case, I'm a big advocate for reflecting on why people procrastinate. There are many different reasons.

I guess I'll just never clean my home and buy new plates instead of doing the dishes, it's not natural :P

Exactly.

Completely with you on 3. This is the most dangerous one - its like not wanting to hear bad news or give bad news. I have found myself doing this with health issues.

1 and 2 can be helped with a bit of discipline and perseverance.

I also found 3. is a self-reinforcing downward spiral (postponed work piling up creating more anxiety, etc.). This one is important to break early on.

4. I am exhausted or did not sleep enough. Sometimes it is difficult to realise / accept that I simply need some downtime. In that case cut yourself some slack.

5. I start day-dreaming about the root cause of a problem and how there are better ways to solve it. Often leading to some frustration about why there does not exist a better solution for. A good reason to start googling around or have a look at some HN for possible interesting solutions or approaches.

I guess, this is also a kind of boredom.

> just doing the same thing over and over

At that point it's worth considering if the work can be automated or outsourced.

Yep, not enjoying the work in general is definitely one cause, but there are other ones. In our materials, we divide the causes into: behavioral, temporary, and deeper causes. Then we deal with them more specifically.

From personal experience I know that the same work can be daunting or motivating, depending on the personal habits/behaviors and systems. In other words, they are temporary. That's what the course focuses on (not looking for a new job).

In any case, your advice about figuring out the root cause is spot on (and also in the course).

Good advice. Also one thing that has very often worked for me which I learned from a run-of-the-mill Youtube video is just countdown from 5-4-3-2-1 and then do it for 5 minutes. So many times I've ended up working the whole day after that and often enjoyed myself too.

For a lot of people it's like the static friction vs kinetic friction kinda deal.

I like the friction analogy but would have it on an inclined plane to account for the energy produced/consumed once it's started. For example a task which provides its own motivation (once started) would be downhill and may only need an initial push to overcome static friction, then might be self-sustaining. On the other hand, an unrelentingly unpleasant task would be "uphill" and require constant willpower (cf. mechanical power) to finish.

Unless you just think of it like you are the person applying the "force" (to get something done), then the analogy is that you have to keep applying it but less once you get into motion.

Force of will, perhaps.

Yes and no. I usually procrastinate also when the project or even ticket is too big or I'm not that familiar with the topic and I get a form of "writer's block". In that case, pairing with someone else or try to split the task in smaller chunks helps me. But not always, unfortunately.

Same here.

Two things helped here:

1. Doing something else instead. But something that's also valuable. Not just scrolling on your phone, but learning something, building something, training, etc.

2. Put yourself out there. If you do good work and get positive feedback regularly, it is easier to keep going.

I need a catalyst - motivation is fine once I'm going, but my activation energy for most tasks is enormous.

Oh man, I feel exactly the same way. Even if it is something I actually like, just getting started can be so hard.

My only real trick is to try and do something for ten minutes and then I can continue or not as I want. Often I want to continue, sometimes so much I get irrationally angry on the timer because it interrupts my work.

Do you have any other strategies?

The catalyst should also be specific. A smartphone is a very broad-spectrum catalyst that accelerates all kinds of side reactions, depleting your free energy.

You want to have specific catalysts (think enzymes), clean feedstocks, and a good supply of free energy. Also the pressure (physical/mental confinement within one area) and temperature (level of stress/energy/chaos) need to be managed.

Yes, momentum is key. Without it, every little thing seems hard.

I find that I procrastinate the most when I have to write something “required.”

I basically never procrastinate on writing code.

I also don’t procrastinate when I’m writing things for intrinsic reasons, like I want to describe a neat thing I discovered.

But anything that’s required is hard. Writing conference papers for my PhD was horrid. I’d stare at a blank screen for days. I really wish I knew how to get past that, but I never figured it out.

This assumes that procrastination is some sort of a problem. I'd like start from scratch. What is the purpose of doing anything? What is the point of productivity? Is this subjective and materials like these are for people that see it as a problem or is there some generality to it?

Sometimes you don't always have a choice with the task. Eg filing your taxes. You can pay someone to do your taxes but my point is there are plenty of procrastinating triggering tasks in life you can't escape

I agree with your points, having experienced both sides. One other thing that I've noticed helps a lot is to have a starter template. It's a lot easier to not procrastinate when you have a structure to think with even if the structure is bad and you end up changing it completely. I tend to procrastinate more when I have to do something from scratch

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