Structured Procrastination (1995) | Hacker News Reader

Structured Procrastination (1995)

structuredprocrastination.com

198 pointsrnjailamba37 comments

I have a post-it note in my desk drawer that reads "Don't Prioritize, Just Keep Moving".

With ADHD, executive function is a challenge, and the moment I try to slow down and actually plan out an entire day or I try to force myself to do that one thing, my brain has a tendency to just shut down. The way I get things done is just by doing the next thing my brain latches onto.

Is this ideal? Of course not. But fortunately it (usually) works reasonably well for my job, and the alternative involves being more stressed and getting less done. That's not to say I don't prioritize at all, but I try not to let it get in the way of my flow.

A variation of that I’ve had success with is prioritizing only in a dedicated window and ideally automatically. These days it’s that I work on the most important stuff for a few hours in the morning and drift from there. “Important” in this case will be pretty obvious. Something more structured is I had good luck with spending 30 minutes a day on my oldest tasks. I wrote a script just to pop them up one at a time. It wouldn’t be the most important, but it helped make sure nothing stayed around forever. I’ve also done 30 minutes a day on whatever I least want to do. A small dedicated window is more doable than 8 or 16 hours and is enough to keep things from getting stuck.

As an indy game dev. It is tough to keep on task. I fail miserably all the time. But I'm better than I was.

From my experience, this works with most jobs. Keep in mind that everybody is procrastinating - so as long as you keep moving, you might get more done in a day with your approach than anybody else!

Does medication help you? I've found that it is not actually the magical panacea that it is often touted to be.

I agree. It definitely helps me (and it helps me enough that I'm willing to put up with the bureaucratic hurdles and considerable side effects) but it's far from a "cure".

I wonder if there could be a successful group working strategy in here somehow -- everybody follow this greedy algorithm of just working on what appears to be appealing, then have the coordinator put up roadblocks to funnel the focus toward the most valuable work.

I find it extremely useful to shift focus from "I must get X result" to what actions I can make right now, like within 1 minute.

Thinking about long-term results is stressful, because in reality you only have short term buttons you can push.

It boils down to planning route on graph of small well known actions / api-calls. When the graph does not fit into RAM and you can't find route for too long you feel stressed, and its better to play with small actions just for fun.

Enduring that stress though will develop that very brain muscle of long term planning. I mean, that's essentially our specie's defining characteristic: delayed gratification through logical reasoning. We don't just do the immediate and obvious reaction on instinct, and surely postponing decisive action causes stress in all mammals. It's the pain of knowledge. Having to wait for a better idea when you could just act now for a tangible result.

> Enduring that stress though will develop that very brain muscle of long term planning.

This looks like a metaphor has gone too far.

But I'm open to evidence. On what basis might this claim be true?

Also, I'd like you to argue the opposite: on what basis might this false?

My personal experience applying both methods in creative work currently suggests that persistent long-term planning leads to more significant results overall.

You can spend your time solving problems you have now, or you can anticipate problems you're going to have further down the line. All too often the creative solution to a future problem changes the mission requirements in the present, and thus the criteria of the next task, prompting a different design.

John Cleese's talk on creativity [1] suggests the same, that sticking with a problem after having already solved it produces better solutions the more time you're willing to endure the discomfort of ... deferring execution.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

I believe different people have a different response to this stressor though. In ADHD people perhaps it is greatly magnified.

Of course by nature it is unprovable, much like ADHD itself. But anecdotally speaking I have always had a quite extreme response when long-term thoughts enter my mind. Those that fall under the "you must, or else" category can be quite debilitating, and they never seem to lose their bite. I remember the same response 40 years ago that I have today. I have no problem functioning, but I "eat the elephant" the same way the GP mentioned: one bite at a time. That particular thought gives me great comfort. Elephants are delicious.

When doing short term nearby things for fun I can keep that flow state for many hours which usually gives more profit

If I think about too far goals which I can't break down to simple actions there is high probability I'll start procrastinate for many hours.

Complexity grows anyway as you learn, more advanced actions will become single button to push.

> If I think about too far goals which I can't break down to simple actions there is high probability I'll start procrastinate for many hours.

So think about far goals for many hours breaking them down to simple actions.

Past threads:

Structured Procrastination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24884347 - Oct 2020 (9 comments)

Structured Procrastination (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16941717 - April 2018 (38 comments)

Structured Procrastination: Do Less and Deceive Yourself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13617083 - Feb 2017 (78 comments)

Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151481 - Sept 2015 (79 comments)

Structured Procrastination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2514972 - May 2011 (2 comments)

Structured Procrastination - "the art of making procrastination work for you" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=212590 - June 2008 (3 comments - top comment seems ironic now)

Reading that essay, it sounds an awful lot like "Lean Development"[0], although in my own work I have often found that things that seem super urgent in one particular moment often benefit a great deal from setting them aside as long as you can stand, as that makes the requirements more concrete. It also means that you don't end up doing work on things that probably don't need doing.

I've been putting off (for a long time) one big, complicated user requested feature on my mobile app to do with archiving/managing a local database on the mobile device. It turned out that the things I thought I needed 12 months ago I don't really need at all, so procrastinating about it actually improved the delivered experience.

I do procrastinate, but I think it's a useful trait when you find yourself dealing with a big organisation that tends to throw off useless tasks because somebody feels like if they aren't producing requests, then they aren't being productive (middle management disease).

[0]https://www.planview.com/resources/articles/lkdc-principles-...

I remember reading a very long time ago that someone did some research on this very subject and found that the majority of problems go away if you don't deal with them. They concluded that this could be part of the reason procrastination exists - procrastinators had a genetic advantage in saving a lot of energy.

This makes even more sense if you consider that the majority of the need to perform tasks in an evolutionary context would have come form other humans. Simply not doing anything while waiting to see who returns more angry to get their stuff done would have obviated the need to keep track of a task list oneself.

"Last responsible moment". The magic, of course, is figuring out when that is.

One thing I did learn as I got older was that, unless an actual life is at stake, somebody elses deadline is usually artificial. None of the things I work on involve life threatening situations and while it's sometimes hard to keep your head when disaster is looming, keeping perspective is important.

So figuring out when the "last responsible moment" is, generally it isn't right now. For me at least.

I first found this website when it was cited in a rather important paper I first read a few years ago, and re-read at least once or twice a year:

"Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation/ Consequences for Future Self"

I first got the paper on SciHub, but... feels like that domain keeps getting whack-a-mole'd. Here's a more private link to the PDF, which i just uploaded: https://p69.tr3.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/llu6APrq/47b6ac...

The paper is _good_. If you procrastinate or might have ADHD, give it a go.

This `structured procrastination` bit is discussed at the end, and totally changed my life. I then clicked through to the above website, and loved it.

In the SOF / military community “prioritize and execute” is a way of life. This works really well on short timelines with clearly scoped tasks. But when timelines become fuzzy and scopes less determinate it becomes an unwieldy mantra. The most important things I have to do require the most consideration - so I find that I work on them in my head - in the margins of time I have between the grind of the day - and then when the timeline becomes critical I have the brainstorming I needed already complete - then it’s time to execute. In the mean time I got a lot of important things done - as the author suggests.

Someone close to me read this early in their career and it had a strong impact on him. I think its effect on his professional life was disastrous.

He is a brilliant engineer whose work ethic is deplorable. He only gets things done if he's either entered a state of excitement about something, or in a state of panic. He's completely unreliable professionally, and notoriously difficult to work with.

I am convinced that my friend would be much happier if he had never read this.

Follow the author's advice at your own peril.

I also read this years ago and it has stuck with me to the point I even remembered the yellow background. However, despite being affected by the idea when I read it and still thinking back to it from time to time I can't say it has really shaped how I decide what to do next. For one thing, it still requires some internal motivation to practice because whatever the next task is will always be competing with just doing nothing productive at all. Unfortunately I don't have an answer to prescribe some better system.

> He is a brilliant engineer whose work ethic is deplorable. He only gets things done if he's either entered a state of excitement about something, or in a state of panic. He's completely unreliable professionally, and notoriously difficult to work with.

Are you sure that your friend started acting this way after reading this, or were his actions much more noticeable so after reading? You describe being unable to work unless exited or panicking, neither of which is a common/normal or comfortable state to be living in during your 9-5. It doesn't sound like your friend is necessarily happy at this time, and at the risk of sounding like an armchair doctor I would highly recommend your friend to talk to a real doctor and ask about A(D)HD. The average person can stop procrastinating if they want to. The ADHD person will get stressed before they stop procrastinating, because their executive function is, well, not very functioning.

(Do note that other conditions like ASD/C-PTSD etc can also show similar symptoms including executive dysfunction which is why a doctor is so important).

The main point of the articles seems to be that we should examine if things need to be done. Many of our tasks nowadays falls into the category of seeming to be very important (but aren't) and has strict deadlines (not really).

All of the examples that the author gave just show that the tasks we think are really important or urgent, are not. In fact, perhaps what might help the most is using an Eisenhower Matrix and taking the time to categorize the tasks on hand. Another thing I noticed is the example of writing the essay for the volume of Philosophy. It's true that he was stressing over nothing as everyone else was late but wouldn't it be better if he didn't have to worry about it all this time.

Perhaps the best way to handle procrastination is to just do the "actual" important and urgent tasks early in the day so that you can do w.e tasks you want later. Also take more breaks. The author himself takes a break when he goes to the dorms and chills with the student. (although he mentions it as procrastination)

Maybe we just need to face the truth that we aren't superhuman. We have a finite amount of resources at our disposal including time, energy, effort (physical or mental) and emotions. We need to rest and recharge. Essentially, it's important to ruthlessly prioritize and frequently take breaks.

This has all been coming together for me in the last two weeks, including the article on "learning to unlearn perfectionism." After 34 years of ADHD (inattentiveness), I'm well versed in all the type A tricks for knocking out tasks, but noticed how they worked in reverse priorty order. Was stubborn to try to adapting, to make it work for me, but this community has helped.

I realized I was "laterally productive" in college when I had an overloaded priority list. I spent a lot of time trying to clear my list up by abstaining from things I liked with the goal of having more time to focus on high priority tasks.

The self deception makes complete sense to me, but I don't know if I can ascribe fake priority to things. Weird wiring, that you have to deprioritize important tasks to do the important tasks.

Inspiration is the most colorful when you first come up with an idea. Which is why the ideas we get dead in the middle of other pressing tasks, are important to act on right away. That’s why I tend to complete my latest ideas first instead of following chronology or any set order.

Procrastination is just a way to enjoy the time passing while the brain in the background solves the task that - on surface observation - is avoided.

(I really shouldn't be on HN, I should be reviewing conference submissions and grading student exams now.)

I think that people really aren't working on their taxes in the background while procrastinating on taxes.

My observation is that many people do the most important tasks first - but do them badly. Doing something well generally requires motivation so it's often better to wait until you're motivated if you care about quality.

Although I don’t explicit follow this strategy, I have noticed that if I only have one big thing to do, I often am much more distracted than when I have several big things to do.

"Author practices jumping rope with seaweed while work awaits."

This caption under the photo cracked me up.

They lost me when they started talking about lists....

Add to the todo list: tidy sandwich wrappers off desk.

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