Hacker News Reader

Comment by silverbax88 | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry to disagree, but I do. My own battle with procrastination is completely due to laziness. No one likes to do difficult things, and sometimes even things we kind of enjoy. The reality is that we, as humans, never procrastinate when we really, really want something. Not once in my life did I have to "trick" myself into playing a video game a few extra minutes or watch a big basketball game.

In short, we accomplish what we want to accomplish (meaning, the 'fun' stuff), unless we push ourselves.

View on HN

Silverbax, thanks for your comment.

What makes you really want to play a video game and dislike doing the dishes? Is it something objective about the thing to be done, or does it have to do with your mental framing of the task at hand? I feel it is the latter. A friend of mine reviews video games professionally, and he procrastinates on playing games. I think it's because he is told to play games. An authority figure is pushing him to do something and he rebels by putting off playing.

Pushing ourselves only leads to ourselves pushing back.

Cheers, Edo

Anything that we perceive as hard or boring is a task for procrastination. We simply don't want to do it because it isn't fun. I am not a games tester; therefore video games are still fun. But when I was first starting as a programmer, I did it because I was having a blast, and it made me successful. It has nothing to do with being told to do something, and it has everything to do with our brains - especially creative people - being bored and only wanting to satisfy our ID. We really do want to dream all day. But as I've gotten older I've learned to reign that in and also how to balance it out.

We must push ourselves if we want to improve. We must ask ourselves the hard questions. I have often called this 'throwing myself to the wolves' when I embark on a new endeavor...I know it will be hard. I know I will fail, badly. I know the established community will tear into me. But I will push myself and keep fighting and eventually, what was once hard will become easy.

Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.

One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step.

Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.

how often do you procrastinate on making the list? by the time you've started making the list, you weren't going to procrastinate any longer anyway.

it turns out, never. Making a list is one of the things we, or at least I, do as 'busy work' to avoid real work. In this case, it turns out that once we have a detailed step-by-step course to resolution, hard tasks suddenly seem quite easy.

That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting...

That doesn't sound like a well examined state; go looking for why you fear "not knowing what to do", there's bound to be one or many things hiding behind that description.

Going along with the thread that was started here.

When I play a video game, it's the game I want to play at the time I want to play it and with the goal that I picked for that session.

If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. The goal is to review the game rather than go for whatever I might want out of the game.

The reality of our lives force us to do things which don't always align with what we really want to do. That's when I procrastinate.

If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me.

Which plays into the whole "authority figure" thing that OP is talking about.

My immediate reaction was to be skeptical, but I am starting to think OP makes quite a bit of sense.

I think, for me, procrastination has to do with projecting complication into things. So, if I want to cook something new, I imagine needing to find the perfect recipe with the perfect ingredients, for example.

But, then, there are times when I just decide to do it even if I'm missing ingredients or have not come across a recipe which makes sense to me. Powering thru.

I think for the video game tester, if I were them, I'd project difficulty onto it. Finding the bugs, etc. Feeling like I might not be up to finding anything interesting. It's a bit of a fear of failing, in a way, till I felt, "I'm up to the task now."

Need to... or else what? Instead of forcing onwards, ask yourself why you don't want to go forwards...

Else fail. A kind of set up fear of failing, I guess.

That doesn't go far enough to do any good as an answer. What happens after (or during, or because of) failing that you are afraid of. What is it about failing that you are afraid of?

(I'm not asking so you can tell me, I'm prodding you to ask yourself. To think "hey, I don't really know the answer to that. I wonder why I do feel this way?)

This sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence. It's also possible (and more likely) that your friend finds it harder to play a game with the greater rigor needed for reviews. Note taking and exploring all the boring stuff most people skip can take the joy out of gaming.

Edo,

You ever practiced something like Tai Chi?

To further your video game example - psych studies have shown that if you pay someone to do something they like, they start liking it less. Great post, edo.

I don't think its about if something is hard or boring. I enjoy hard things more than easy things, for example.

I think its about the goal: doing the dishes stands in the way of the goal of having clean dishes. Playing video games, on the other hand, is the goal itself. Sure, there may be a goal within the game, the same as there will be obstacles and also boring things in the game, but playing the game itself is fun, and a goal in itself. Dishes are purely an obstacle to a goal.

I find I procrastinate a lot over the obstacles, but rarely over the goal itself.

Like gexla said (and like you said in the OP), its about being in control. I have little choice in doing the dishes - if I don't do them, they pile up and the place looks dirty, but I never really decide I want to do them. On the other hand, if I play video games, this is my choice and I'm in control. I can just as easily not play. Thats my choice. On the other hand, if, like gexla said, I had to review a game, then its out of my control and I could see myself potentially procrastinating over it (unless it happens to be a game I wanted to play anyway).

I think we should also discuss two widely recognized fears which, in my experience, are frequently related to procrastination: fear of failure and fear of success.

Both usually go, somewhat amusingly, hand in hand, but I think they should be linked to the "mastery" discussed in the topic. Fear of both failure and success are, in short, fear of change, fear of losing control, fear of not being a master anymore.

It is indeed quite common to trade a, sometimes illusory, feeling of easiness with the known current situation for the potential uneasiness of an unknown situation given as one the possible outcomes of the failure/success. Particularly in the last case, I have seen that it is not unusual to rationalize that we have already gained achieved should not be "gambled" against the changes that would result from the success of the activity we are procrastinating.

In short, the "I'll do it tomorrow" is usually a "I'll do it when I will feel confortable with outcomes I now consider most likely". I personally have discovered that focusing in the positive aspect of the outcomes I consider most likely, even in case of failure, is usually my best weapon against procrastination.

I agree with this, but would also like to expand on it with something I've observed in myself and others that I believe is the root of fearing failure/success.

That thing is a lack of comfort with vulnerability. I believe this is because most of us hold onto dysfunctional value systems and we also live in reactionary state where we make decisions based on avoiding invalidation from our peers and authority figures, rather than striving to receive validation by becoming "better".

This is good. Brains are engines of prediction and they avoid doing things which will cause us harm.

The only answers to procrastination are "are you motivated to do it?" and "is that overridden by a negative motivation against doing it"?

Avoiding invalidation is much more of a strong and personal negative override than I ever thought years ago. It can hit you as the OP implies - fear that if I'm not in control of my life people will think I'm a weak and submissive person, or if I'm not in control thats like my childhood and makes menfeel invalidated by comparison to a helpless child - or like other people in this thread are replying - fears about doing something well (will people think me a swot?) or doing badly (my spouse will scorn me?) or all sorts.

The most common factor among the replies here is stopping asking he question "what bad thing am I avoiding by procrastination" far far too soon, and/or accepting far too vague and unhelpful 'answers' as soon as they are thought of without realising they are unhelpful.

You have surrendered to the ideology of laziness. But there is no such thing.

The energy enters you, you transform it and then you use the transformed energy to suit your needs.

In this chain, something is broken. People tend simplify this by calling it laziness when they need to put a tag on someone they don't like.

But the real reason for you inability to accomplish tasks at hand is that something in the chain I have described earlier - is broken.

You either struggle to get enough energy (food, sleep, emotion), or you struggle to transform it (usually abundance of low-quality energy sources and inability to improve their quality)

The only way out of this state (which is not permanent) is to revise your routines and methods. Improve and rationalize everything you do, so it won't call to those 'woeful' associations when you start working on something.

No, again, it's completely because humans have a desire to avoid things that are not considered interesting. We must get our kids to school on time, so we push ourselves to get up early, get them ready, and either drive them to school or get them to the bus stop. What all of us would rather do is read, or play games, or watch TV. Laziness is part of our human makeup, and our success in combating it makes the difference in our lives.

You actually don't "have to" do any of that. If you don't wake up early tomorrow or take your kids to school, you will not be hauled off to jail and the world will still go on.

What you're really doing, if you stop and think about it, is making a deliberate choice - between the cost/benefit of sleeping in and taking it easy, and the cost/benefit of employment/income/future of your children. You may not think of it as a choice, but it is. Plenty of people decide its not worth it, and don't take their kids to school or hold a job. For you, the inconvenience of your morning is offset by the value of a more secure future.

So when you say you "have to" do these things, that's false. I wouldn't even call it "pushing" yourself. You actually want to do it, because you value it on some level. The fact that its not pleasurable or emotionally exciting doesn't even enter into the equation of deciding.

The most effective combat tactic is not to struggle, but to make things in your life _interesting_.

One of the tactics is to simplify exercises, the other involves rationalization. When I feel in control - I do not need to force myself to do something, I just do it because fills the structure of my life and because I understand how consequences of my actions build this structure by relying upon each other.

So I do not respect the success in combating laziness only through sheer will, I prefer to divide big tasks and find meaning in small ones.

Not once in my life did I have to "trick" myself into playing a video game a few extra minutes or watch a big basketball game.

I can't speak to what's going on inside your head, but I think people trick themselves into playing those few extra minutes all the time. I know I do:

- "I've got plenty of time. A few extra minutes won't hurt."

- "I didn't really need to get that done today anyway."

- "If I stay focused I can catch up."

- "If I blow off some steam now I'll be able to focus better later."

- "I can do this and watch the big game at the same time."

Those are all rationalizations to allow us to do or continue to do what we really want.

This thread has devolved into semantics.

The OP had an original and insightful point about motivation and the process of getting things done. OTOH, you're contradicting him without, I feel, adding anything to the discussion.

I think you've dismissed his point without showing that you actually considered it. Your conclusion that you're lazy and need prodding is exactly the thing Edo is talking about. He laid out a passionate account of procrastination and self-talk, and compelled his readers to consider that it's not productive to berate one's self for failing to accomplish goals in a timely manner. That perhaps there are better ways to relate to yourself and your goals.

And your response is essentially, "Nope, I'm lazy -- period, full-stop."

Actually, i do that with reading blogs,books,hacker news(anything involving reading)..always a few more extra minutes.

I think this is exactly what he means. People make excuses to continue playing a video game.

I believe the type of "trick" he's referring to is exemplified by this statement: "just think of working out as a game and try to beat your old score." While I generally like the benefits of working out, it's not something I'm in the mood to do every day when I come home from work. I have to push myself through that invisible barrier sometimes, i.e. I have to 'trick' myself into doing it, even if just for a few minutes.

After a long day at work, the first thing I want to do is play a video game when I get home. I only time I've had to trick myself into playing video games was when training in a fighter game, trying to grind out my reaction times so I could beat my friends.

My version of procrastination is not as simple as 'I'm lazy, I'll do it later'. I think the whole problem is in starting. Starting is key, reason many of use will procrastinate is because we know that we will enter a mode where our muscles (mental or physical) will not be idle anymore. Moving from idle to movement is very hard for our minds sometimes, its deceiving. For example, You are sitting down on our couch watching TV and your girlfriend asks you to get something from the kitchen, you know is super simple but you wont do it immediately, because just standing up puts you a little wall of effort that is impeding you from doing it quickly, but you know that if you where standing up it would be much easier. In terms of work, in many cases people don't start things because their environment is not setup, you have to open these files, close these other ones and enter that different mindset where you are not idling anymore. For me, if you beat the "starting" process you are on your way to getting lots done. So in other words, automating your starting environment to avoid that change of hot water to cold can be your key to beating procrastination.

I have had several instances in my life where I dived into what were difficult things for me with gusto - for example when I was in school and was trying to write a program in C to calculate all the anagrams , I did not even have a computer but was up almost all night writing it on a piece of paper and rushed in the morning to a place with access to a computer to test my program on paper.That was just an example - I have had several such experiences.Almost makes me think maybe you just can't "trick' yourself into anything but just have to find something genuinely fun for you to do!As long as it is fun - it doesn't matter if it is hard or not!

Einstein is an extreme example of such a case - when I read his biography the thing that caught me as very interesting is that he was able to immerse himself in physics irrespective of all the problems in terms of not finding a job, his mothers bitter opposition to marrying his first wife etc.You can hardly trick yourself into such concentration.He must be the lucky few who find such deep interesting topics that life is a pleasure even with all the hardships around!

Einstein's sister, Maja, recalled "...even when there was a lot of noise, he could lie down on the sofa, pick up a pen and paper, precariously balance an inkwell on the backrest and engross himself in a problem so much that the background noise stimulated rather than disturbed him."

Source;http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/23...

You could also argue that Einstein was procrastinating from dealing with the hardships in his life by immersing himself in physics. He was using physics as an escape from the troubles of his life (job, parents, etc).

Not that it really matters, but it is useful to look at the situation in both lights. There have certainly been situations where I stopped procrastinating on one task because a newer, more unpleasant task presented itself. "Boy, I bet I should clean my room instead of deal with these taxes!"

When asked how he simultaneously maintained a law practice; made groundbreaking discoveries in Proto-Indo-European linguistics; maintained fluency in 41 languages; translated many of the major works of Sanskrit literature into English for the first time; and wrote treatises on law, history, botany, poetry, geography, astronomy, and music, Sir William Jones replied: "A change in labour is a species of repose."

I completely agree.

It's far easier for me to sit here and dream about a perfect future than it is to execute with less than perfect results.

I wouldn't say that I am scared of failure, I'm not, but I believe that if I didn't do something correctly that I will have wished that I never tried it at all.

But did you ever really only want to play video games or relax in other ways, or did you sometimes really want to do "real" things? I think your statement becomes tricky quickly once you start thinking about what it means to really want something (unless you define it as things you can do without procrastinating).

Attributing one's own procrastination to mere laziness could also be a way to avoid facing the real issues.

We've built LazyMeter to help with procrastination. We think the main cause of procrastination is an overhwelming to-do list, and therefore a lack of focus. When people know what they're doing, and have a goal for the day that they're working towards, they get a lot more done. I left Microsoft to build LazyMeter because I was a procrastinator and I thought I was lazy; I've learned that I was wrong - I was just overwhelmed. The idea that people are inherently lazy is absolutely wrong. www.lazymeter.com

Off-main-topic, but I tried visiting your site (on my mobile) and was presented with only a login form. What was your purpose in linking to it? I was curious about the tool but will not likely return (if I even remember it later). A reminder (to myself mostly): You usually get one chance; make it count.

Activation energy is a factor. If I'm already playing a video game, it's easy. But I've actually had the experience of not playing video games I'd wanted to try out (Humble Indie Bundle) because it was too much trouble to stop aimlessly reading reddit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com