[HN Gopher] Structured Procrastination (1995)
___________________________________________________________________
Structured Procrastination (1995)
Author : rnjailamba
Score : 102 points
Date : 2022-02-10 21:00 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.structuredprocrastination.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.structuredprocrastination.com)
| tandav wrote:
| 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.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| 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.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| 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.
| tandav wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| xpe wrote:
| > 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?
| gms7777 wrote:
| 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.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| 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.
| ngold wrote:
| 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.
| grammers wrote:
| 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!
| gaoshan wrote:
| Does medication help you? I've found that it is not actually
| the magical panacea that it is often touted to be.
| zuhayeer wrote:
| 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.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| 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-...
| mrjangles wrote:
| 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.
| jll29 wrote:
| 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.)
| cma wrote:
| I think that people really aren't working on their taxes in the
| background while procrastinating on taxes.
| jpthurman wrote:
| 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.
| dang wrote:
| 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)
| ycmjs wrote:
| "Author practices jumping rope with seaweed while work awaits."
|
| This caption under the photo cracked me up.
| cowpig wrote:
| 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.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-10 23:00 UTC)