[HN Gopher] A systems model of anxiety-driven procrastination
___________________________________________________________________
A systems model of anxiety-driven procrastination
Author : CiceroCiceronis
Score : 277 points
Date : 2022-07-17 10:45 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (axle.design)
(TXT) w3m dump (axle.design)
| closedloop129 wrote:
| The previous article [1] has these paragraphs:
|
| >I have always been a bad procrastinator. I think my
| procrastination habits are rooted in anxiety.
|
| >As you might guess, comprehensive exams are very anxiety-
| provoking. So, when I first began preparing, I had a lot of
| trouble. I tried to draw on best practices--breaking down the
| task, defining the end goal, practicing mindfulness--but I was
| struggling.
|
| >One of the things I would use to procrastinate was Shortcuts.
|
| >Then, one day, I realized: why not build an automation that
| guides me through these best practices to conquer
| procrastination?
|
| >That's where Mise en place came from. The name is stolen from
| the French culinary concept of "setting in place" everything you
| need before you begin cooking.
|
| >The core concept of the Mise en place shortcut is simple: lead
| me through a preparatory ritual to reduce anxiety, and then add
| some check-ins to help catch me in the act if I go too far off-
| task.
|
| [1] https://axle.design/automation-for-augmented-cognition-
| mise-...
| vegesm wrote:
| This rings so true with me. I have a side project [1] that I try
| to promote and it always feels hard. Where do I start? Should I
| post comments in random subreddits? Should I write blog posts
| that may nobody read in the end? Start doing ads? I think having
| the multiple options kinda freezes me and it is so hard to start
| doing something.
|
| [1] https://androidcalculator.com/
| user3939382 wrote:
| I used to think I had a problem with procrastination.
|
| I realized what was really happening was, I'm sometimes compelled
| to do something I don't want to do.
|
| In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with
| myself: I'm not doing x because I don't want to and I accept the
| consequences of not doing it, or, I'm doing x even though I don't
| want to.
|
| Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation
| of the former. I don't want to do x, but I also don't want to
| accept the consequences of not doing it, so I'll bullshit myself
| and pretend I'm doing it by calling it procrastination.
|
| Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my
| mind and do it later. Practically it's the same, but this way I'm
| being honest with myself.
| n31s0n wrote:
| I also had a problem with that. In the University I had to deal
| with it. The books Eat that Frog and Getting Things Done,
| helped a lot. And Getting Things Done as what lead to my use of
| emacs. Because I started to use org mode on Emacs. My anxiety
| improved. I only felt anxious near exams.
| lazide wrote:
| Personally I've also found myself so exhausted and shitty
| feeling that even if I consciously know that thing should be
| done (and there will be negative consequences for not starting
| right now on it) I can't will myself to do it.
|
| It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late
| at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and
| knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make
| the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point,
| would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not
| trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not
| have been an option either.
|
| As I've gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping
| enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various
| experiences and emotions so things don't get as 'stuck' all
| help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and
| help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be
| blocking me before it blocks me.
| dboreham wrote:
| > I'm sometimes compelled to do something I don't want to do.
|
| In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want
| to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems
| to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as
| fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with
| reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a
| reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems
| like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct
| operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that
| task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful
| tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do
| some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm
| asked to do something legit.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe
| and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by
| others. How often are we ordered to do something by another
| person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how
| easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another
| community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from
| you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our
| individual capability for vision.
|
| Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to
| other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it
| is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it
| feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized
| failure
| muzani wrote:
| That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not
| behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to
| eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-
| filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash
| and the worms to an incinerator.
|
| The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed
| complaining about how there's too many choices on his
| streaming service but nothing to watch.
|
| But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that
| the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at
| night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On
| Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million
| dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the
| same thing.
|
| Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I
| could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at
| procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO
| making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes
| up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at
| 7 PM.
| mancerayder wrote:
| The CEO only needs to do this for a year or two to have
| enough resources to become financially independent, that's
| the difference with the other characters in this story.
| Everyone else is working as part of lifestyle. And that's
| what's troubling so many people, the lifestyle around
| obligation blows.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| oh my bad, I forgot that's how it works
| csouza-f wrote:
| Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the
| conversation here.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense
| while being more helpful - here's a compelling realm of
| research that they're evidently missing out on and not
| speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably
| avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
| uptime wrote:
| I read this and say that it sounds fair, but I remind
| myself that it all hinges on compensation and freedom. I am
| not comfortable with the notion that they are all equally
| trapped in their burdens.
|
| CEO and The World Changing Content Delivery Guy can always
| apply to be the sanitation worker, every day until they
| land that job, in order to rid themselves of the nagging
| feeling that they could be consuming more content.
|
| Trash Guy might be able to pursue his dream, hanging off
| the outside of a truck at 4am, of becoming a World Changing
| Content Access Guy but only if he has the funds and time to
| do so.
|
| I fall into this trap myself, wondering if I should have
| just delivered packages for a living, but I forget that
| lower wages never decrease stress, and very rarely buys
| freedom.
| pydry wrote:
| There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work
| those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours
| it's because they want to.
|
| There arent really any down sides to being at the top of
| the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they
| want to.
|
| I think the parent post was more a statement about the
| human condition than economic equality.
|
| There are a lot of successful workaholics that are
| unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to
| change their situation, but reality has more barriers.
|
| Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion,
| delusion, and disappointment.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > There arent really any down sides to being at the top
| of the capital hierarchy
|
| Really? What about sacrificing family time?
|
| For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do
| you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a
| father is simply not a priority to him, and that's his
| choice. But it's not his childrens choice, I can
| guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
| muzani wrote:
| Bob Iger did 6.30 AM to 4.30 PM as Disney CEO. And then
| another 8-10 PM. He says it gives him plenty of family
| and solitude time, but it makes me wonder what hours all
| the other CEOs do, especially the ambitious ones who
| neglect family.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's performative in many cases to set standards for
| workers who have less innate reason (no meaningful stake,
| stolen wages) to overwork
| throw827474737 wrote:
| There is so much ill and wrong in this.. true this is how
| it is in a lot of places, but accepting and sating
|
| > That is how society works
|
| is just resignation and ignorance (and sad to read) that it
| could, can and actually is different somewhere else ;p
| vanjajaja1 wrote:
| like an inverse? where the trash guy controls people and
| has an 8 figure salary, but the ceo working 4am to 7pm
| gets paid peanuts?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| yes in ways, there's been findings on (post agriculture,
| much larger than dunbar number) societies in which such
| hierarchical roles were purely seasonal with roles useful
| practically or ritualistically becoming devalued off
| season and tyranny-level powers flipped somewhat in favor
| of the other side, or even ones which have police forces
| that are simultaneously clowns and thus kept from
| overstepping their status with their power (I can
| elaborate more on details on this one if I look up the
| citations again from Wengrow's Dawn of Everything)
| zamfi wrote:
| This is a very western perspective on the role of the
| individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better
| or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the
| interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a
| collective, that maybe don't result in a feeling of "being
| controlled by others" in healthy circumstances (of course,
| there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces,
| communities, etc., and this isn't meant to minimize any of
| that).
|
| One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs
| on the individual is "control" but alternate framings include
| support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. -- again not saying any
| is "better", but I do think the singular conceptualization of
| the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own
| decisions and ultimately outcomes might _cause_ a lot of the
| friction as reality doesn't quite support that notion.
|
| Dan pink's "autonomy, mastery, purpose" trifecta is
| enlightening here, as it illustrates how "autonomy" doesn't
| mean "free from control" but is ultimately about the respect
| an individual feels, regarding their decisions, _from
| others_.
|
| Just some food for thought.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond
| dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture,
| where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today.
| current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic
| option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus
| on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in
| the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy),
| I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking
| mostly about modern research on indigenous societies
| (before europeans arrived or other cases)
| alexalx666 wrote:
| "without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that
| they will be devalued automatically by collective, which
| will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| well, I submitted a new article on the research that
| elaborates if you're interested to learn
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961
| EUROCARE wrote:
| I really dislike calling these kinds of attitudes
| "western". Asia has plenty of hyper-individualistic
| behavior, even (or especially?) where nominally socialism
| or communism rules.
| uoaei wrote:
| It is a philosophical framework that grows directly out
| of Western culture per philosophical tradition during the
| Enlightenment era. Western culture had much more of an
| effect on this tradition than Eastern cultures did.
|
| It's not about where the philosophy exists in
| individuals, but about what socio-systemic forces brought
| those modes of thinking into being. Ironically this
| mirrors the point above about how the framing of this
| issue itself is rooted in individualist perspective.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's a misreading, they're projecting something onto
| societies they evidently haven't read up on
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's funny bc i'm specifically citing research from
| indigenous populations mostly in the americas and asia
| krisrm wrote:
| Somewhat orthogonal to your point, but it is interesting
| to me how easily some will dismiss perspectives or ideas
| by referring to them pejoratively as "western".
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| > "autonomy" doesn't mean "free from control" but is
| ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding
| their decisions, from others.
|
| How is respect defined here? One man's definition of
| respect will clash with another's. Some define respect as
| cult-like devotion, some as a recognition of one's
| boundaries, some as a transaction at a specific price, some
| as engaging in an expected cultural performance, etc.
| Freedom from control or, more precisely, imposition and
| interference is well-defined. Desires for respect can
| balloon into wishful thinking, if not self-delusion.
| chongli wrote:
| Respect is defined by the respecter, not the respectee.
| How someone shows respect is up to them as an individual,
| mediated by societal norms. On the other hand, if someone
| feels disrespected it's because they have detected either
| insincerity or outright hostility/antagonism directed
| towards them.
|
| Of course, some people may have more or less difficulty
| detecting sincerity in others but that's no different
| from other social skills.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| there's plenty of power play mind game "respect" abuse
| that doesn't neatly fit into your categorization imo,
| which unravels the rest of what you're talking abt
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| So in short, your view is that respect is simply the sum
| of the subjective expectations of countervailing forces
| (i.e. respector, respectee, and society)? If so, that
| doesn't provide a clear definition for the term. Instead
| it leaves the act of defining to interpersonal power
| plays.
| musha68k wrote:
| > How often are we ordered to do something by another person
| in our communities that we can't readily disobey
|
| Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through
| his research and books on pre / post agriculture.
|
| Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through
| territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern
| civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and
| "Civilized to Death"[2].
|
| Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today.
|
| [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn
|
| [2]
| https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern
| readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on
| this topic that has some radically different fundamentals
| than what you've shared - I shared an article that
| elaborates here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
| YZF wrote:
| This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country.
| I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly
| because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to
| have a lot of people that like ordering other people around
| and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be
| ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization
| of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school
| is usually not optional. You _have_ to do your homework. You
| have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities
| and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person
| that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant
| leadership exists here and there but is rare.
|
| All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like
| if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the
| Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels
| people into the military just enslaves all of you.
| k1m wrote:
| I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined
| Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplin
| ed_Minds
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| thanks for sharing. looks like a good companion to
| graeber's bullshit jobs
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other
| people around and we seem to have a lot of people that
| like/want to be ordered around
|
| "Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be
| abused."
| dboreham wrote:
| True Scotswoman.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I've
| decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A
| lot of the time there's some outcome that I want, but one or
| more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some
| kind of toil that I don't want to experience. There's a
| conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term
| comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the
| uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that
| procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection
| method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort
| for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately
| rewarded.
|
| In other words, one might be procrastinating because the
| juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be
| something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do
| might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I
| would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances
| of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes?
| Absolutely.
|
| Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be
| beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that
| is my wanna-be hypothesis.
| Kenji wrote:
| Scarblac wrote:
| As a variation on that theme, sometimes the reason I don't want
| to do it is because I don't actually know how to do it, or even
| what to do. While telling myself it should be easy.
|
| Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first",
| or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop
| procrastinating.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| This is why it takes me a day or two to orient myself towards
| starting a big task. The sooner I get to the "I have to make
| this clearer" part, the sooner I have a roadmap, and the
| sooner I start coding.
|
| The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.
| allenu wrote:
| I had a similar situation recently.
|
| I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my
| moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up
| on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself.
| This helped me really understand what was happening.
|
| Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do.
| I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting
| to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I
| just couldn't start them.
|
| Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It
| wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating.
| ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to
| reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I
| had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was
| some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day.
| They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted
| the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I
| was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and
| there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was
| burning me out.
|
| I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is
| what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was
| able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| I'll look at it tomorrow
| tamsaraas wrote:
| People, instead of visiting a psychiatrist, come up with various
| explanations and explanations that have nothing to do with
| psychiatry. And everyone pretends to be an expert on all issues
| that are far from psychiatry, from the methods of psychiatry,
| from pills and drugs and methods of treatment. But everyone tells
| with great certainty that "you are procrastinating, it is caused
| by X."
|
| I have been procrastinating for over 10 years. And then it turned
| out - that this is a common depression.
|
| Which ruined a lot of life. After starting treatment with a
| psychiatrist and taking pills, my working capacity increased
| significantly. There was a lot of strength and motivation.
|
| My advice to those who feel problems with concentration, with the
| power to force themselves to do something, and so on. Just see a
| professional doctor. Come to the reception. Describe your
| situation. And according to the results, you will be prescribed
| pills that will help you, after a short period of time,
| significantly return what you have lost due to illness.
| passing_through wrote:
| Hey, thanks for this! I've been considering going to the doctor
| for a long time, but never have. I just sent my GP an e-mail
| and hopefully will have an appointment set up soon.
| vanjajaja1 wrote:
| There is an alternate world view that says "if you're
| struggling to make yourself do X, its because you don't
| actually want to do X and you should figure out what it is you
| actually want to do". Going to a psychiatrist for drugs to help
| you do the thing you "don't actually want to do" goes against
| this world view.
| [deleted]
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Hi HN! Exciting to see this model get some attention.
|
| Admittedly, it is mostly a sketch. I created this model in self-
| study but published it just in case it might help someone else.
| As Brene Brown says, I'm trying to get it right, not to be right.
|
| Still, I think there's a few key insights here:
|
| 1. As other replies have suggested, this model might not fit you.
| Procrastination is an umbrella term that describes a variety of
| issues, and sometimes those issues interlock! If you're
| struggling to match intention with action, find your model. Also,
| talk to a counsellor. They really help.
|
| 2. Systems sketching -- in combination with self-study of our
| thoughts and behaviours -- is a really interesting way to
| understand our own cognitive-behavioural problems. In my case, I
| sketched this model after realizing for the first time that
| anxiety might play a role in my procrastination behaviours. It
| helped me see how powerful that role really was.
|
| After creating this model at the beginning of 2022, I engaged a
| counsellor and have been doing a lot more self-study. A work-in-
| progress on a far more involved (and idiosyncratic) model is
| available here:
| https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8
|
| (Oddly enough, this was shared about 24 hours after I finished a
| research paper on all this work. I'll share that via my blog if
| and when it gets accepted by the destination.)
|
| Thanks for a rich discussion -- and thanks Kumu team for
| addressing the traffic spike issues.
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Oh, I forgot to add: Tim Pychyl's work and podcast was such an
| essential resource for me as I started to take my
| procrastination issues more seriously.[1]
|
| Tim's a procrastination researcher out of the University of
| Ottawa, I think. The podcast does a fantastic job of making
| current research on procrastination accessible and engaging.
|
| [1]: https://www.procrastination.ca
| divan wrote:
| Hey! How did you choose Kumu? I'm currently exploring a
| landscape of SD tools, and Kumu seems both cool and unusual,
| but it's not clear if it can be used a replacements for Stella
| Architect, which is prohibitevely expensive. Does it have
| features like feedback loop analysis, for example?
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Admittedly I can only speak to the merits of Kumu. I was
| never really trained in system dynamics, more systems
| thinking, so that plus the wild expense of most SD software
| means that I have never really given them a chance.
|
| The other reason I can't compare them is because once I tried
| Kumu, I never looked back. Kumu is wonderful. It looks simple
| enough, but once you dig into the advanced features and the
| extensive documentation, you can really learn to do amazing
| things with it. I've used it for many years now for many
| clients.
|
| But see again point 1. It isn't made to be a systems dynamics
| modeling tool, so simulation and analysis features you might
| expect to find might be missing.
|
| My suggestion is to choose a problem to work, create a free
| model, and start messing around. My guess is that you'll find
| Kumu great for initial sketches and non-dynamics models, but
| you'll probably want to go elsewhere for simulation work.
| boredemployee wrote:
| I have a mix of low to moderate ADHD, moderate social anxiety and
| moderate general anxiety and have been a world class
| procrastinator. But having a child changed the scenario. because
| I had to force myself to focus in what really matters, stopped to
| be a perfectionist (which sometimes is a excuse to procrastinate)
| otherwhise I'd be in prison (for not paying my kid bills) or
| probably homeless.
| chrsig wrote:
| having a family really reigns in the upper bound of
| impulsivity. it's one of the few things that can hold me back
| from rage quitting or help me do the things I'm avoiding
| boredemployee wrote:
| exactly that. having a few people that depends on me is like
| a driving force to get shit done. we should take it with care
| tho, because it can be unhealthy in a lot of ways (I tend to
| no care with the same intensity about my health/body, dont go
| outside with the frequency that I should to exercise and
| things like that)
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| I hear you on this one. Having a kiddo is what helped me
| realize I needed to take my procrastination issues seriously.
|
| Still, while I thought it'd be a major driver for more
| responsible behaviour, it didn't give me any solutions, and I
| didn't magically stop.
|
| Alas, procrastinating by playing with the kiddo sure is fun!
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| is this satire? the page says "sorry the model could not be
| loaded"
| wawjgreen wrote:
| the model decided to procrastinate, due to the anxiety of being
| put on display.
| bergenty wrote:
| I don't procrastinate. I just don't want to do things I'd rather
| not do. Procrastinate is such a "life is work" term it's almost
| propaganda.
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| This is a fine perspective to have, but it is also possible to
| procrastinate on things you do want to do. That's what I have
| been trying to personally address, anyway.
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| Are these the best solutions? There's got to be something else,
| maybe something more drastic when fighting with your self over
| things that life important.
| jbirer wrote:
| user_7832 wrote:
| I've said it before, and I feel need to say it again. If you
| don't have time to read the whole thing please skip to the
| summary at the end.
|
| There is anxiety, procrastination and task avoidance that
| everybody faces. Everybody has some things they don't like to or
| want to do.
|
| _However_ , what some people facing these issues often don't
| realize is that if it's happening (almost) _everywhere_ , it
| could be something else. Are you struggling with a solid 50% of
| your tasks? Maybe even 100%? That's not normal, I'm sorry to say
| (I'm in this boat myself for what it's worth). Don't feel bad,
| it's very likely not your fault.
|
| Ask yourself - is my life significantly impaired by such
| procrastination issues? Are you missing important things because
| of your "tardiness"? (I have missed a funeral... simply because I
| forgot. Of course I didn't want to miss it.) Perhaps lost a job,
| or strained friendships/marriages because of your forgetfulness?
|
| Do you struggle with long-term plans and their implementation?
| Perhaps have 1000s of unread emails and now no longer care, even
| though deep down you would have loved a zero-inbox?
|
| Do you have more unfulfilled wishes, ambitious desires and crazy
| fantasies but struggle to live in the confines of reality?
| Justifying your inability to do amazing things because "you
| unfortunately live in the real world" and "neither does Bob"?
|
| Well, it might be ADHD. Or autism. Or (C)PTSD. Or brain
| injury/trauma. Perhaps depression. Maybe generalized anxiety
| disorder, or OCD, or OCPD (note the extra letter). It could be a
| combination of those things, or perhaps neither. But if you felt
| some or many of those things to a strong extent, please read up
| more on executive dysfunction along with these conditions.
| Getting diagnosed, and treated - therapy, medications (esp for
| ADHD) - can be very helpful, to put it mildly.
|
| An analogy I like to use is that everybody pees several times a
| day, but if you're peeing 30 times a day you should probably see
| a doctor.
|
| Tldr/summary: A _bunch_ of things can cause procrastination and
| anxiety /feeling bad etc like executive dysfunction ESPECIALLY if
|
| a. You're procrastinating despite not wanting to, and probably
| feeling crappy about it
|
| b. you also significantly struggle with time
| management/organization/long term planning and
| implementation(google its symptoms).
|
| Executive dysfunction can be due to AD(H)D, autism, brain
| trauma/injury, PTSD etc, not just depression/" _being lazy_ ^+",
| so please read up online, get informed, and get an appointment
| with your GP/psychiatrist. And oh, go through this before you
| leave:
| https://comorbidityguidelines.org.au/img/appendices/appendix...
|
| _It 's estimated that anywhere from 5 to 8 to 10% of the
| population has ADHD (and adult ADHD is very undiagnosed), so
| using the metrics of my last ADHD/health awareness post^ (which
| had 11 points), using the 1-9-90%^& internet rule about 110
| people saw that post which statistically implies around 9 people
| with ADHD. You might be one of them, and understanding
| ADHD/whatever you're experiencing is generally life-changing for
| the better._
|
| ^ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31878094 ^&
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule ^+ I don't think anybody
| is truly lazy, there's a solid blog post (and book by the author)
| to read: https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-
| exist-3af27e...
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| Error 500 for me. Looks like it's having trouble.
| bardworx wrote:
| Was the presentation taken down or does it not work on mobile?
|
| Getting 500 error on embedded site & link.
| iammjm wrote:
| 500 Internal Error Sorry, something went wrong on our end. We've
| been notified of the issue and our guys are on it.
|
| Sorry for the inconvenience!
| is_true wrote:
| https://embed.kumu.io/1feca726268dbbda0f905fb7be844e5e#anxie...
| tux3 wrote:
| Maybe they need to spin up a few dozen more VMs on EC2 to
| handle all of the couple thousand visitors a second HN is
| throwing at them.
|
| It's more scalable, you see, you just need to wait until the
| wave has passed before the autoscaler is warmed up.
| flyteuk wrote:
| I've taken a ticket. Please let me know when it's my turn to
| look at the website.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| Your HTTP request is very important to us and will be
| answered in the order received.
| [deleted]
| Linda703 wrote:
| beardedwizard wrote:
| See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32123781 as a great
| example of procrastination disguised as productivity
| t_mann wrote:
| Is this link up here for the content or for the tech? I don't get
| it either way - the app is nice, but it's built using another
| system (and I'd have lots of suggestions to improve how it
| renders on this site).
|
| In terms of content, it's not clear whether the network model is
| one taken from the published literature, or something the author
| created ad-hoc (feels a bit like the latter). And I don't get the
| point of assigning network centrality measures to topics like
| "facing fears" without explanation (seems like they came with the
| app, which was designed for a different purpose, and the author
| didn't know how to take them out, or didn't bother).
|
| I have a therapist friend who's shown me some very useful,
| evidence-based cognitive models. They do come with nice visual
| explanations too, and putting those into a web app has been on
| the back of my mind since - but they looked quite different.
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Author here.
|
| I hear ya on the rendering. This systems sketch was by me, for
| me, but I published it with minimal effort just in case it
| might help someone else. It probably would've been better just
| to publish a link to the model than to embed it, though.
|
| As for the content, it's ad hoc, albeit not entirely without
| evidence. It's based on a bit of self-study (e.g.,
| autoethnographic observations of my own thoughts and behaviours
| and passive reading of the psych literature on
| procrastination).
|
| The centrality measures shouldn't actually be there... Long,
| boring story short: they're an artifact of some systemic
| leverage analysis [1] I was doing on a more involved model[2].
|
| Last, I'd love to see those cognitive models. From what I've
| found, we understand a great many of the pieces of
| procrastination, but it still takes work to put them together
| for any one person's situation.
|
| [1]: http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2888/ [2]:
| https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8#anxie...
| spyremeown wrote:
| We hugged this one real tight.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Ok everyone that's enough I think it's already dead!
| joshgree8888 wrote:
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'm thinking about a combinatorial approach to fight
| procrastination. Look at possibilities, subconfiguration, see
| what is easiest to try, order them in the cheapest way, and then
| just try until there's no more options. It removes the liability
| aspect a bit.
| yamrzou wrote:
| Chronic procrastination can be associated with perfectionism, in
| which case it is the result of fear of failure because of the
| self-imposed high standards. The reason for the fear of failure
| is that the failure is perceived as the individual failing to
| measure up to their ideal self, which threatens their self-worth.
|
| So procrastination is a defense mechanism, but it is a
| maladaptive one, because the individual ends up feeling ashamed
| of their procrastination.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| There also exists the fear of success, which is much less
| talked about. Equally dangerous to destabilizing a
| perfectionist identity. And social mobility comes with its own
| risks. If you suddenly make it big, are you at all prepared to
| handle that? You may have worked hard to succeed, but then
| what? Became a millionaire overnight? Prepare to get robbed,
| conned, or just plain go mad with analysis paralysis.
| chrsig wrote:
| You don't need to feel ashamed of the procrastination if you're
| allowed to completely forget about the thing you're
| procrastinating on. Pesky society likes to remind people about
| things like owing taxes, work deadlines, and grades, though.
| sytelus wrote:
| Chronic procrastination can also be result of degraded
| metabolism. This physical issue is often ignored a lot. A
| component of metabolism is genetic but rest is sustained by
| body's anticipated need to perform work. When you
| procrastinate, you are driving yourself into low energy
| activities (ex infinite scrolling). The body starts getting
| adapt to low energy state. There is less need to produce more
| energy so metabolism shifts into lower gear. You feel need to
| put aside real work and get on to infinite scrolling because
| you physically feel tired, drowsy, washed out. You hope that
| bit of procrastination (aka "rest") will get your energy levels
| up again and you will make up with your time. This obviously
| doesn't happen. This is recursive cycle leading to chronic
| procrastination and will happen regardless of your interest in
| real work. For many people, genetic component is dominant
| enough that they would never see this effect. However, 40+
| population, where metabolism starts declining, is most
| vulnerable to this. The only way out in this case is literally
| force yourself with a lot of will power (or have friends or
| mentor do it for you). No other tricks described here works if
| chronic procrastination is occurring due to physical biology.
| vilaca wrote:
| Low energy levels are often caused by depression, which is
| common in the anxious.
| galaktus wrote:
| procrastination and degraded metabolism didnt deliver me
| results in Google. Do you have any sources?
| Venkatesh10 wrote:
| How do you come out of this and break the cycle? I suffer from
| this and haven't been able to do anything I want. Is there any
| steps, guide or help available? Thanks in advance.
| yamrzou wrote:
| In her book _"Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward
| Self-Realization"_ , Karen Horney talks about breaking
| negative vicious cycles by slowly creating positive ones. In
| this case by lessening the standards of absolute perfection.
| Quoting from the book:
|
| _"Just as vicious circles were at work to entangle him more
| and more deeply in his neurosis, now there are circles
| working in the reverse direction. If for instance the patient
| lessens his standards of absolute perfection, his self-
| accusations also decrease. Hence he can afford to be more
| truthful about himself. He can examine himself without
| becoming frightened. This in turn renders him less dependent
| upon the analyst and gives him confidence in his own
| resources. At the same time his need to externalize his self-
| accusations decreases too. So he feels less threatened by
| others, or less hostile toward them, and can begin to have
| friendly feelings for them. Besides, the patient 's courage
| and confidence in his ability to take charge of his own
| development gradually increase. In our discussions of the
| repercussions we focused upon the terror that results from
| the inner conflicts. This terror diminishes as the patient
| becomes clear about the direction he wants to take in his
| life. And his sense of direction alone gives him a greater
| feeling of unity and strength. Yet there is still another
| fear attached to his forward moves, one which we have not yet
| fully appreciated. This is a realistic fear of not being able
| to cope with life without his neurotic props. The neurotic is
| after all a magician living by his magic powers. Any step
| toward self-realization means relinquishing these powers and
| living by his existing resources. But as he realizes that he
| can in fact live without such illusions, and even live better
| without them, he gains faith in himself."_
|
| Perfectioism is a complex topic. I highly recommend the book
| _"Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization,
| Assessment, and Treatment"_ by Gordon Flett, Paul L. Hewitt,
| and Samuel F. Mikail. It won 't magically solve the issue,
| but it will help you gain understading and awareness of the
| unconscious forces within you keeping perfectionism at work.
| I believe that awareness is the beginning of change.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| what worked for me: practice deliberately doing things not
| perfect, and reminding myself that perfection is subjective.
|
| This can giving yourself a fixed amount of time for something
| and declaring it done when time's up (think "pencils down" at
| the end of a test) wherever you're at.
|
| Though my favorite, even as a mental exercise, is described
| in one of Eric Maisel's many books on creative anxiety -
| prepare to make an omelet and right before you put the eggs
| on the heat, throw in the shells, cook as normal.
|
| There's a section on perfectionism in my book "Rebuilding
| Blocks", here's a snippet:
|
| "Artisans of many ancient cultures intentionally placed flaws
| in their works. Whether Persian rugs, Amish quilts, or Navajo
| pottery, these flaws are marketed as a humbling reminder that
| they were human and perfection was limited to the gods. Gods
| who don't need to get wares to market or have bills to pay.
| Humans run out of raw material, time, energy, and patience.
| These restrictions should focus our minds on achieving our
| largest, most important goals and a few, small flaws are a
| small price to pay for a conclusion....Perfection doesn't
| deliver"
| jack_pp wrote:
| This was a good read for me, I'm not cured but it helps.
|
| https://arunkprasad.com/log/unlearning-perfectionism/
| boredemployee wrote:
| I read a book once (which I can't remember the name) that
| shows you how self-esteem (and lack of) can block us for
| doing things that matter to us. Like having a toxic
| partner/family makes you have a low self-steem. So in other
| words, living and hanging out with people that supports and
| love you and what you do, have a huge impact.
|
| Edit: six pillars of self esteem is the name of the book
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > How do you come out of this and break the cycle?
|
| Probably realizing that even if you live up to your
| expectations you'll always be a nobody, especially in a world
| that is about to be populated by 10+ billion humans.
|
| If you think of all the 'greats' : Newton, Einstein, Galileo,
| Leonardo, Alexander, Aristoteles, JFK, Gandhi...the world was
| much smaller back then and yet their death was absorbed by
| the rest of humanity in a nanosecond or even less. The half
| mast flag and months of grieving imposed from above are just
| that, people will keep eating and laughing and drinking and
| partying behind closed doors, not out of respect but out of
| fear of prosecution.
|
| An other way to talk yourself out of it is to understand that
| whatever you are after is a great goal indeed, and the self
| will be elated when you reach it, but the self will be even
| more elated if you reach it with the minimum effort, and so
| by thinking about it too much and ruminating on the paths to
| the goal you are going to automatically deny the 'minimum
| effort' bit and thus end up with a sub-optimal path due to
| excessive preparation
| jraph wrote:
| Worse is better.
|
| Something is better than nothing.
|
| Is it really important that it is perfect? Who really cares?
|
| What do you win by doing this imperfectly (time - to achieve
| other / more meaningful things, or to rest, or to spend time
| with people you care about, or for your hobbies)
|
| What do you lose by doing this imperfectly? Not much usually.
|
| Who will notice? Probably nobody.
|
| In the grand scheme of things, why bother anyway?
|
| What are you trying to achieve? This task perfectly, or this
| task is just a something you need to do to get paid so you
| can have a meaningful life?
|
| If people do care for a specific aspect/corner, they'll tell
| you anyway.
|
| They probably prefer seeing something earlier so they can
| give feedback, so you can achieve an even better result,
| counter-intuitively.
|
| Besides all this, I think I achieve this by not caring so
| much and not tying myself personally to much to the task. And
| by thinking about the outcome. Perfect often leads to worse
| outcome, and is relative to only you anyway because other
| people care about other stuff than you.
|
| Of course, it is still important to achieve the task
| correctly, but as perfectionist we usually need to take a
| step back.
| Cjcrew wrote:
| I'd never made that realization before,
|
| Thank you.
| yomkippur wrote:
| What hack for me was stop thinking of it as "complete A or
| finish B". Instead I see it small pieces. "lets just hack
| this script on SO that will let me wrangle an API". "hey lets
| build an endpoint that will just take care of authentication"
|
| doing this way I am not working on a dozen things trying to
| be perfect. rather each work feels just like a coding
| exercise.
|
| having said that even getting into this mode is a challenge.
| you get carried away. you make love with your side project.
| you get attached.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| This thing is unreadable because of the crazy interactive
| animation and whatever getting all messed up, at least under my
| browser and adblock settings. Couldn't they put it on a plain
| readable page? There is a link saying something about a pdf, but
| that gets a 500 error.
|
| Procrastination is a serious issue for some people, and its
| causes can be quite complicated.
| triggercut wrote:
| I thought this was me. Many professionals told me this was me. I
| had a horrible off and on decade fighting it, trying to do all
| the things you're supposed to, feeling guilty for failing and
| hating myself. A decade later someone finally figured out -
| despite the small fortune spent on education and medical
| professionals - that I actually had ADHD and some learning
| disabilities. There was a slightly different model with
| previously hidden forces. Only now, knowing this, have I finally
| been able to effect real positive change for myself.
|
| Make sure you have the right model for you.
| rr808 wrote:
| Actually I read this the other day and its actually great.
| Despite the headline it doesn't actually say how to deal with it,
| only how annoying it is for other people - which actually helps
| me.
|
| _Procrastinators eventually turn up late with their work
| explaining how they were toiling all night to get it done and
| expecting gratitude and sympathy for their incredible dedication.
| Of course, everyone else knows that this self-sacrifice was
| because the person concerned had been scrolling through TikTok
| videos and binge-watching Love Island UK for the previous two
| weeks when they were supposed to be getting it done. There is no
| chance to review the work, no time for a run through, and half-
| baked ideas full of mistakes are presented. We 're supposed to be
| grateful for this. Yes, everyone is late on occasion, but if it
| happens: Every. Single. Freaking. Time. Then there's a problem. _
|
| https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/paul-catmur-how-to-deal-...
| codecurve wrote:
| Sorry for the Kumu 500s! I moved some critical parts of our
| service away from EC2 classic on Saturday morning. One of our
| servers was accidentally recreated with an 8GB volume instead of
| 1TB and the HN hug caused a process to blow through the remaining
| disk space with indexes. Should be back to working order now!
| Quikinterp wrote:
| I struggle with being lazy in all aspects of my life. I have ADHD
| and anxiety. Does anyone know of where I should start looking to
| lower my procrastination and laziness?
|
| It doesn't feel like I'm lazy, because I also don't get things
| done that I WANT to do. I simply do not know why I don't get
| things done. I don't know if I'm lazy or paralyzed by fear.
| Trying new things is always hard for me
| ttul wrote:
| Have you considered trialing medication? ADHD medication is
| among the most effective brain-targeted medication known to
| medical science. Both methylphenidate and amphetamine-based
| drugs have a 90% effectiveness rate.
| Quikinterp wrote:
| I have and I do use it, and it helps me a lot. But it still
| feels like there's an underlying laziness to myself. Maybe I
| should try other medication because I sort of stuck with the
| first one I tried, and only trialed the doses after that
| ttul wrote:
| There are so many to choose from now and some really
| ingenious delivery systems. For instance, Concerta is a
| plastic pill surrounded by a hard dose of MPH
| (methylphenidate). The outer shell of MPH burns off in your
| stomach providing an immediate dose of the medication. And
| inside the plastic capsule, there is more MPH in a liquid
| form. The inner liquid MPH slowly leaks out by osmosis via
| a tiny hole in the plastic inner shell.
|
| How anyone thought of this and made it actually work is
| mind boggling.
| treme wrote:
| are you medicated for ADHD? stimulant based ADHD medicines have
| one of the highest reported effective rates among medicine
| based psychological treatments.
|
| Finding out how you can break the negative feedback loop of
| being anxious/distracted -> not get things done -> feel guilty
| and get more anxiety and building positive momentum is key.
|
| for me things that seem to work are: doing some kind of
| exercise, from dancing, lifting weights, bodyweight exercises
| going for sauna short EMDR session seem to be very effective in
| toning down heightened anxiety levels
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DALbwI7m1vM) or starting to
| clean my room
|
| I also suggest to try to keep daily journal of how you feel,
| and keep track of things that worked/ that didn't work, etc.
| also helps to begin morning journals with clear 3 goals you aim
| to get done for the day.
| yomkippur wrote:
| For me its the overwhelming amount of decision making that
| prevents me. Imagine for a moment you have to make decisions
| that impact a lot of people and you can't just do stuff on a
| whim. Under this model, you would delay an important decision
| to the very last possible moment.
|
| In addition as engineers, it can feel like you are walking in
| circles when examining your solution. It's not just writing
| code that is the issue, its dealing with these valleys and
| troughs of emotion that comes with undertaking work.
|
| Even labor jobs require a certain level of internal rally cry
| if it makes sense. It's even more tougher that require constant
| mental attention and analysis. Which is why the financial buy-
| side for me was too much. The anxiety alone, the uncertainty
| aspect of it would make it very tough to execute, especially
| because there are few variables that is completely out of your
| control. Many burn out and many only end up collecting the
| management fee. Few that make it seem to not too sound either.
| [deleted]
| havblue wrote:
| I notice an odd thing when I want to procrastinate/am feeling
| overwhelmed: I tend to get tired and fall asleep. Which I guess
| means I'm not making progress but trying to will my brain to pay
| attention, so it takes a break.
|
| Anyone have advice for this?
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| Maybe you're experiencing the stage of emotional disregulation
| beyond fight or flight: freeze.[1]
|
| I have been trying to actually take a real break when I get
| distressed.
|
| Say you've been procrastinating for an hour, and you only have
| another hour before you need to stop for the day. In the
| moment, it feels like you can't "waste" fifteen minutes on a
| break because you just wasted an hour. Truth is, though, it's
| better to spend fifteen minutes doing something to calm the
| emotions down and then get a productive 45 minutes in.
|
| It takes practice, but like all good habits, the benefits
| compound over time.
|
| [1]: I really like Sarah Schlote's work explaining
| interoception of stress and emotional regulation.
| https://equusoma.com/the-ponyvagal-theory-updates-to-the-neu...
| teekert wrote:
| I procrastinate a lot. But when I find an enjoyable, challenging
| task I go very fast and can't seem to stop. I've just been honest
| at work about it and very consciously take tasks that seem
| exciting. It works well for me. Tbh I really procrastinate when I
| either don't understand the reason for doing something or when I
| do and find it bs. So it always helps to spend some time trying
| to understand a task and subsequently to articulate why I think
| the task should either not exist or be addressed differently.
| Sometimes I can get away with not doing the boring thing.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Anxiety-driven procrastination models:
|
| "What if I do a bunch of work on this project, but because I've
| chosen the wrong approach, I have to throw it all away and start
| over? What approach is the right one? Everyone on the web has
| conflicting opinions!"
|
| The only solution is to give yourself a time limit on background
| research and then, make a decision, commit and just build
| something.
|
| This is different from boredom-driven procrastination, which is
| more of the nature of:
|
| "I have this extremely tedious job to do, which I am not looking
| forward to, as it will use energy I could much better spend doing
| other things."
|
| This kind of procrastination can be levered to get other things
| done, however. Think of all the things you want to get done, and
| then do all those things as an alternative to doing that one
| really tedious, boring task that can then be put off until
| tomorrow (again).
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