[HN Gopher] Good and Bad Procrastination (2005)
___________________________________________________________________
Good and Bad Procrastination (2005)
Author : phgn
Score : 61 points
Date : 2022-01-14 13:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| dhimes wrote:
| I've been working on this lately and I must say this is the first
| time I've seen "working on the highest priority items at the
| expense of lower priority items" framed as procrastination. In
| the literature it's always (that I've seen) the opposite- and
| that's the view I have.
|
| Type C isn't a procrastinator- it's someone who practices good
| time management.
|
| Now, maybe the way the person assigns priorities is wholly
| selfish. Maybe they assign the highest priorities to things that
| benefit themselves the most, and don't tend to think that things
| that benefit others deserve their effort as much.
|
| But that's a different trait from procrastination.
|
| Those people aren't procrastinators. They're assholes.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Yeah, though type C procrastination is also a recipe for being an
| awful roommate or partner or friend. I would say I'm a lot less
| concerned with my obituary than I am with the quality of my life
| and relationships.
| dmane11 wrote:
| Super insightful article. Unfortunately, I think I might be a
| type A procrastinator. Over the last couple of year, I've found
| it especially hard to make any meaningful progress any of my
| side-projects/ideas. Has anyone else been in the same boat? Did
| you get yourself unstuck? If so, how did you do it?
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Training myself, raising a watchdog in my head that
| periodically asks "is this useful?". Whenever I find myself
| refreshing some social medium like hn, I think "is this
| useful?" No, I respond, and I close the tab. I'll just force
| myself to read a bit about something, or at least alt tab to
| the editor, or what have you. Sometimes progress is agonizingly
| slow. But it's progress, and not a _full_ day wasted on the
| net.
|
| It helps to have a to-do list at hand with small, clearly
| defined, reachable goals that I can then immediately start work
| on, such as "read 5 pages of book X" or "finish writing the
| prettyPrintFizzBuzz function".
| afarrell wrote:
| It is worth adding "Is this fulfilling?" or something similar
| as a second question. Going for a walk with friends is hard
| to justify as "useful" per se...but it is fulfilling and
| necessary to a good life.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| I suppose it depends on your definition of "useful". I'd
| say going for a walk with friends is useful, because it
| boosts my mood and strengthens interpersonal relations,
| allows you to get a second opinion on things, etc.
|
| But going on a gaming streak might be really fullfilling if
| the game is good and the players are fun. But it's not
| useful when you actually need to submit an essay due 2
| hours ago.
|
| I guess deep in our brains there is some sort of proto-
| word, from before we had language, that allows us to
| realize whether what we are doing is "good" or not. I think
| we often feel guilty when procrastinating because we are
| willfully going against that proto-good. But my point is to
| let plenty conscious, mindfull moments surface where you
| honestly evaluate what you are doing against that good. And
| to actually kind of discover what that "good" means for
| you.
| 300bps wrote:
| I think your advice is helpful because it prevents the
| thought of, "ok, today is shot. I'll keep wasting time now
| but buckle down tomorrow."
|
| Every moment you thwart procrastination is a win.
| scastillo wrote:
| This seems to be the opposite advice from what pg is talking
| about. The very last paragraph closes saying don't worry
| about the todo just follow your muse.
|
| If you are forcing yourself that much to get it done maybe
| it's not the right thing to be working on anyway?
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I think I might be a type B procrastinator in my personal life
| and a type C procrastinator at work.
|
| I have a Trello board for my personal projects that I started at
| the beginning of the year. There's a list of features that I
| would get real utility from in one column. In the Done column are
| mostly tech things that have dubious value. I've been
| prioritizing unimportant tasks.
|
| At work, I'll often be assigned some task that I view as
| unnecessary or complicated. I procrastinate on that while working
| on simpler things that are immediately useful. This leads to some
| friction since assigned tasks slip and it appears that I'm
| working on the wrong things.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-15 23:02 UTC)