[HN Gopher] Taxonomy of Procrastination
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Taxonomy of Procrastination
Author : DerekBickerton
Score : 214 points
Date : 2023-05-15 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| breckinloggins wrote:
| > Is there a failure mode from having too much willpower?
|
| Yes.
|
| I was a terribly undisciplined child and carried much of that
| with me into college and early adulthood, so I spent over a
| decade doing "self discipline workouts".
|
| I'm happy to report that it worked: I now have the ability to
| tell myself "you need to do X" and I will indeed do X. No matter
| how unpleasant. No matter how long it takes.
|
| I'm unhappy to report that it worked: I can willpower myself into
| burnout easily and only notice how unhealthy I was being when I
| force myself (or my partner gently forces me) to take a vacation.
|
| Overall I'm happy with the tradeoff, but it _is_ possible to
| become an incredibly unhealthy version of yourself by
| overcorrecting on procrastination.
| jgauth wrote:
| What is a self discipline workout?
| breckinloggins wrote:
| Someday I should write an entire blog post about that, but
| basically:
|
| 1. Promise yourself you will do thing tomorrow
|
| 2. If you do thing tomorrow, make another promise and repeat
| (but maybe a more challenging thing)
|
| 3. If you fail to do thing tomorrow, make another promise and
| repeat (but a WAY less challenging thing)
|
| Example:
|
| 1. I will do 1 pushup tomorrow
|
| 2a. Tomorrow happens, I do pushup. I promise myself I'll do 2
| pushups tomorrow.
|
| 2b. Tomorrow happens, I don't do pushup. I promise myself
| I'll bend my knees in something vaguely resembling a
| squatting stance tomorrow
|
| I definitely recommend books like "Atomic Habits" and "The
| Power of Habit" for getting ideas that might work for you.
| tpoacher wrote:
| "Someday"
| breckinloggins wrote:
| Nobody's perfect, and besides... I haven't promised
| myself yet, so technically it isn't procrastination! :)
| dylan604 wrote:
| When someday arrives, I'm going to be really friggin'
| busy
| kworks wrote:
| I used (and use) a similar approach to develop the habit of
| writing everyday.
|
| For example, if I'm scheduled to write for 3 hours and I
| feel too much resistance, I write for less time. Maybe 2
| hours. If I'm super resistant, I invoke the 'nuclear
| option' and write for no more than 30 mins, or even less.
|
| Much more important than hitting some predetermined target
| is writing everyday no matter what. To be forthright, it's
| not particularly difficult once I get going. The writer in
| me wants to write; that guy just needs a little coaxing
| sometimes.
|
| I learned of the 'nuclear option' from an unfortunately
| titled book by Jerrold Mundis called 'Break Writer's Block
| Now'. The title is pretty cheesy but the book is gold. It's
| designed to be read (and applied) over an afternoon,
| perhaps 3-4 hours. It works. The proof is me. I've been a
| professional screenwriter for several years now as a result
| of daily effort.
|
| I guess the most important thing I've learned is that
| punishment doesn't work (at least for me). But gentle,
| consistent practice does.
| imhoguy wrote:
| 0. I am going to start that workout tomorrow. /s
| dkarras wrote:
| how does it work though? sounds like you are being rewarded
| for not holding your own end of the promise (next day you
| do less challenging thing). I'm not saying punishment
| should work better but curious how it works.
| breckinloggins wrote:
| > sounds like you are being rewarded for not holding your
| own end of the promise
|
| That's a risk, but I find that overall I pick things just
| hard enough to be challenging but just easy enough to
| make myself do. Then I do those things consistently until
| they become my new baseline and I increase the challenge.
| (2 pushups, 10, 20 pushups + putting on jogging shoes,
| ...).
|
| The big idea is to pick things that you're almost certain
| you'll do. Falling back to smaller promises should be the
| exception.
|
| > curious how it works.
|
| Slowly, with lots of restarts, but the advantage of this
| method is that no matter how many times you fall off the
| wagon (and no matter how far you fall) you have something
| simple to start again.
|
| Starting over at the proverbial "1 pushup" after you've
| spent time and effort building it up to so much more than
| that definitely sucks, but it's far better than other
| alternatives I've tried (such as waiting until I have the
| massive motivation needed to restart from exactly where I
| stopped).
|
| Edit: I think it works for me because it slowly builds up
| self trust, which then becomes a positive feedback loop.
| elefanten wrote:
| I can corroborate this method and perspective on why it
| might work. With a backstory similar to yours but earlier
| in the journey to transformation / success, I've found
| that locking in "wins" and completing the cycle of intent
| to follow-through turned out to be much more valuable and
| helpful than I ever imagined when I was slogging through
| the long era of seeking change but preemptively
| dismissing all visible paths.
|
| Thanks for sharing and thanks for putting possible future
| obstacles / challenges on my radar!
| natdempk wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what did you do as "self-discipline
| workouts"?
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| This sounds similar to the book 'atomic habits'
| nvarsj wrote:
| Hah this sounds familiar. My life is a series of waves of high
| productivity and career growth, followed by troughs of burnout
| and depression. I just don't know if I'm wired to be hyper
| productive, or if anyone is, really.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Looks interesting, i ll save it to read later.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'll happily buy this skill off you - it's still better than
| attempting to willpower myself into doing anything _and
| failing_.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You just need to find the right loot box to upgrade your
| abilities
| comet-engine wrote:
| [dead]
| trabant00 wrote:
| I have this weird conspiracy theory based on absolutely nothing
| that all the procrastination hype is sponsored by state actors of
| the western world who are worried we are falling behind the east
| in terms of productivity per capita.
|
| I mean I'm sure some people suffer from real procrastination, but
| these cases are quite easily identified: horrible junk filled
| houses, terrible hygiene and health, no job, things of the sort.
|
| Except these extreme cases, yeah, everybody could do more of
| everything and be more productive. But think about it, no
| organism wants to burn energy unless absolutely necessary. Any
| effort you undertake costs you something. A broken back and a
| broken mind are not exactly rare for heavy workers. If you have
| your needs covered why would go with "more is better"? There's no
| undertaking without risk or cost.
| lazide wrote:
| I'm not sure you're talking about the type of procrastination
| people complain about.
|
| It seems more like you're saying 'you don't need to be working
| on that second side gig'. Which, sure (Assuming someone isn't
| on the edge of insolvency due to lack of income, anyway and has
| tried cutting back on expenses.).
|
| But what typically causes people to complain are things like -
| procrastinating looking for a job because the market is tight
| and scary. Or procrastinating on doing the taxes because ugh,
| or procrastinating on finding that weird production data
| corruption bug that is going to suck.
|
| Which have consequences, and cause a lot of stress avoiding
| them, and realistically aren't actually optional.
|
| Like ADHD meds, the tools can help someone go in the wrong
| direction 'harder' if used without thinking about it or if
| someone has a bad plan.
|
| A shitty environment and unrealistic workload isn't going to
| NOT result in burnout if it doesn't get better, no matter how
| much Adderall someone takes, or how good they get at tackling
| procrastination.
|
| But if taking care of something (like looking for a better
| job!) will produce a better outcome, but someone is
| procrastinating, then the tools can help.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| Procrastination feels absolutely terrible, just like binge
| eating. You know it's wrong but you keep doing it because you
| are not in a good place mentally.
|
| Even if ending procrastination led to no increase in
| productivity it would still be a good achievement for mental
| wellness
| geye1234 wrote:
| Neil Fiore's book _The Now Habit_ helped me quite a bit with
| procrastination (I saw a recommendation on HN years ago, but
| haven 't heard it mentioned much since). One key point to
| remember is that procrastination is first and foremost an
| emotional problem, not a time-management problem.
| akhayam wrote:
| Nicely written.
|
| Before taxonomies and remediation, I would watch Tim Urban's
| absolutely legendary TedX talk that humanizes procrastination--
| despite all its ills--and how to empathize with procrastinators
| (inside and around you):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU&pp=ygUacHJvY3Jhc...
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| "Why does Jim exist?" Forgive me for being blunt, but I think it
| might be winter.
|
| Using resources to chase low-probability goods in a sharply
| resource constrained environment is a lethal strategy. See also:
| why being rich makes it easier to strike oil when investing, aka
| the Risk Premium.
|
| We've had such a fortunate run the last few decades that we've
| forgotten just how potent a skill "holing up" was, and likely
| will be again. Psychological illnesses like depression, maybe a
| similar reason for passing the great evolutionary filter.
| piyh wrote:
| Depression sticking around isn't a sign it's evolutionarily
| fit.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| Oh! Not now, no. No it is all bad. Definitely maladaptive.
| But how did it make its way through the millennia without
| killing everyone it touched and disappearing? Because a lot
| of the carriers survived, and maybe because of it, or - more
| likely - because of some trait related to it, like fat
| metabolism or some form of environmental tolerance. Sickle
| cell is the poster boy for this kind of thing - we though it
| was just all bad, it turned out to be adaptive for a
| particular environmnt.
| twoquestions wrote:
| If my understanding of history is reliable, there are times
| when being in such a state can help your odds of survival,
| like if your country is occupied by an insane murdering
| tyrant. Your body wants to keep you alive much more than it
| wants to keep you happy.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > If Jim thinks the reward on effort is too low, he puts a "tax"
| on that activity.
|
| Actually, considering how old a mechanism this is, his name is
| not Jim but Grug.
|
| And Grug no see point in doing tax when Grug belly full and cave
| warm.
|
| We evolved to feel tired an out of energy when our minds asses
| that a task has a low probability of success. But chores, taxes,
| phonecalls and moving tickets in JIRA are very recent things from
| an evolutionary perspective, so it errs on the side of caution.
|
| Personally I use this to fall asleep faster.
| muhaaa wrote:
| Jim is the collective around you. Jim is a mirror of your
| position in your social environment. Jim is always looking for
| clues about your position in your social environment. Jim is
| looking which role you are playing in society right now.
|
| Jim is there when you are a baby and picking your nose. Jim is
| reflected in the face of your mother when you wanted to eat the
| big fat booger and her warm and smiling face turned into an angry
| and disgusted grimace. There is Jim. Jim turns from an observed
| behavior as baby to an internalized behavior as adult. If you
| want to change your behavior there is Jim.
|
| Jim is at the edge of your comfort zone. Jim is at the edge to
| the unknown. If you venture into new behaviors you will suck at
| it and Jim will tell you to go back. Jim says its comfortable
| where you came from.
|
| Watch 1977-1983 Star Wars (which is full of eternal wisdom). Luke
| fought his Jim before he could fight Darth Vader.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qiDuHCKSc8
|
| The same as Luke fought his Jim, we all have to fight our Jims.
| And as Luke kills dark-side Darth Vader, light-side Anakin
| Skywalker is reborn. I told you. Star Wars is full of eternal
| wisdom. The same will happen to you. As you fight, your dark-side
| you will uncover your Jims light-side. Because Jim is the mirror
| image of you.
|
| It is your damn RESPONSIBILITY to create the best Jim there is.
| It is your damn JOB to fight Jim everyday. It is your
| RESPONSIBILITY and JOB to uncover his light-side one tiny bit
| each day. Jedi, its our job to save the galaxy from the dark-
| side. Its worth to die for!
| muhaaa wrote:
| Here is a nice interepretation on Darth Vader -> Anakin
| Skywalker transformation.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPtdJuNn1oA
| tikkun wrote:
| Another interesting article from the same author:
| https://dynomight.net/air/
|
| Another related article on the same topic:
| https://alexvermeer.com/limit-procrastination/
| litoE wrote:
| Procrastination is a good thing. Don't put it off until tomorrow.
| augustk wrote:
| One strategy that never fail me is the The Pomodoro Technique. I
| usually only do one and then I stay motivated to complete the
| task.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
| Scarblac wrote:
| It's also good to remember that _Jim is often wrong_.
|
| Last week I found myself procrastinating for hours because
| something was going to be hard, was vaguely defined, wasn't going
| to work... and in the end it turned out to be _five minutes work_
| to try the first thing that came to mind, which was enough to
| solve the problem.
|
| So in order to fool Jim, don't think about doing that whole big
| thing you need to do. Just tell yourself you'll only work on it a
| little bit for, say, ten minutes. Jim can hardly object to that.
|
| And then much of the time, you made some kind of concrete start
| in that time, and the objections disappear.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| Unfortunately my Jim is very easily able to object to that.
| hoosieree wrote:
| This works well for me. I'm in the middle of replicating
| someone else's research for a paper, so it's fiddly, not very
| exciting (I expect to confirm their conclusions, +/- some error
| bars), and hard to remain motivated. But I tell myself "work on
| this one little part for 30 minutes today" and eventually if I
| stack enough of those parts together it'll be done.
| ttul wrote:
| Procrastination always boils down to one thing: the thing you
| procrastinate about is seen as unpleasant. Whether it's because
| you think you'll suck at it or because you don't think the
| outcome matters that much, you imagine that doing the thing will
| be unpleasant.
|
| Beyond medication, the only thing I've found that works well
| against procrastination is to tell my brain that it won't be as
| unpleasant as I think, so long as I can just get started on it.
| And getting started means literally spending one minute on the
| thing.
|
| Usually if I can get in that first minute, the thing becomes
| interesting and then I can make it happen.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Okay, a question then: what if someone's Jim isn't just a random
| taxman? What if it's raising taxes _for the mob_? What do you do
| then?
|
| My typical interaction with Jim looks more like:
|
| Jim: "Nah, don't like it; if you want it, here is the new rate."
|
| Me: <tries to pay the extortion money>
|
| Jim: "Oh look at you, aren't you hungry? I know you've just eaten
| your dinner, but _AREN 'T_. _YOU_. _HUNGRY_. _RIGHT_. _NOW_.? "
|
| Me: <tries to ignore it and power through>
|
| Jim: "What? Is Bob here squeezing your abdomen too tightly? Your
| chest hurts? He will stop if you stop pursuing this."
|
| Me: "I guess I'd better write a comment on this newest
| procrastination story on HN."
|
| Jim: "Good call."
| Ancapistani wrote:
| The linked article is _good_ , but I've found myself drawn in to
| other of the author's writings. I'm both enjoying them and feel
| like I'm taking something away from them - that's rare in my
| experience.
|
| I don't have a "top-level" comment specific to the linked
| article, but I felt compared to share my impression of the site
| as a whole. If you've got the time, I highly recommend spending
| some of it reading this site.
| antod wrote:
| I found the same thing, already onto reading my third article
| there. You could almost call it procrastinating.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Taxum 3: Even if you successfully did the thing, you don't
| really think it will matter
|
| This is the killer for me. For most of what I need to do, both
| "You think no one else will care" and "You yourself won't care"
| are true. Not only do I think no one else will care, I usually
| _know_ that no one else will care. In cases where they do care,
| it 's short term: They care that the thing gets done, but once it
| is done, they don't care anymore. Because of these things, I
| myself don't care, and it's hard to get motivated to do anything.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I have mild executive dysfunction that only seldomly interferes
| with my work. A strategy to defeating "Jim" as the article
| defines him, for me, is I often have trouble completing tasks if
| the goal/task is too broad. Going with agile methodology terms,
| if something is assigned to me that could be recategorized as as
| an epic with a bunch of sub-tasks or stories, it's very likely I
| procrastinate on that task, because I am not easily able to
| envision the series of steps to accomplish the larger goal.
|
| So, I keep notes and to-do lists. I try to break tasks into as
| small of sequential tasks as possible, and then go back and prune
| this list throughout the week/day/hour, depending on how urgent
| it is and how bad the procrastination is.
|
| Sometimes these tasks are extremely simple. As simple as "turn on
| your computer" sometimes. Completing them and checking it off
| gives that little dopamine burst and the confidence to continue
| the task. All you have to do is make sure that your smaller tasks
| are organized in a way that allow you to complete the larger goal
| (which admittedly isn't always easy).
| sandymcmurray wrote:
| This is me as well. I don't naturally 'see' that a task is
| actually a bunch of smaller, easier tasks. It's easier not to
| start when you're not sure where to start.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I do this, but I honestly don't know if it helps or not; or, to
| be more specific, I don't know if my actually breaking down the
| task is what helps or if it's simply a means of coaxing myself
| into thinking about the task long enough to get "in flow".
| Outside of flow, doing anything else is easier than doing the
| task. Inside of flow, it's just as difficult to _stop_ working
| on it as it was to _start_ working on it in the first place.
|
| Either way, I write things down. I used paper notebooks for
| years before moving to a Markdown-formatted git repository that
| is automatically built into a static site when I push it to the
| remove. These days I've taken to using a reMarkable 2, an
| e-paper tablet. The fact that I enjoy using it adds to its
| utility, but I'm not yet sure if it's something I'm going to
| stick with long term.
| 300bps wrote:
| There's a lot of research out there already that the OP doesn't
| seem to be aware of.
|
| For one very helpful example: the book, "Solving the
| Procrastination Puzzle". One of the best techniques to solving
| procrastination is "Just Get Started". It addresses a lot of the
| objections that the OP brings up because very simply the tasks we
| dread aren't often as bad as we think they will be. If we just
| get started, we often find the challenge even enjoyable. Here is
| ChatGPT-4's summary of the techniques in the book:
|
| [redacted]
| morning-coffee wrote:
| > Here is ChatGPT-4's summary of the techniques in the book
|
| Ugh. Now I need to decide if ChatGPT hallucinated something in
| this summary, or if its otherwise factual.
| dang wrote:
| Users flagged the GP comment. With 300bps's permission, I
| redacted the GPT-generated bit and restored the post.
|
| (HN users are allergic to LLM generated comments, including
| summaries. We don't know yet how the current AI wave is going
| to play out on HN but for the time being the community is
| super sensitive about not letting generated content permeate
| the threads and I think it's the right call for now.)
| jvican wrote:
| > There's a lot of research out there already that the OP
| doesn't seem to be aware of.
|
| You don't need to undermine someone's position to add more
| context. I like the additional context you add, but I believe
| you'd be better off without the judgment. It's unwarranted, and
| being an avid follower of the OP's blog, I'm pretty sure the
| author knows these facts about procrastination.
| [deleted]
| rektide wrote:
| _On having enough socks_ is a very related discussion about
| executive function, which also has an incredible breakdown of why
| we don 't get stuff done. A pretty large discussion happened
| recently, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35812525
| https://gwern.net/socks
| [deleted]
| juris wrote:
| Nahaha, great writing! Though, the irony of reading this and
| articles like these (as they often come up, or maybe that is my
| selection bias)... right now? Thanks, Jim.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Pretty good article and I especially like the end:
|
| > There's also the non-solution: Give up, reduce your ambitions,
| and stop calling it procrastination. The only thing worse than
| not doing the thing is not doing the thing and also beating
| yourself up about it forever. You weren't designed to overpower
| Jim all the time, so don't expect to.
|
| As someone with executive impairment severe enough I can't
| function without medication, it's obvious the presented model of
| procrastination has gaps and the non-solution is a necessary
| addition to the equation that's often omitted.
|
| It has been very hard to accept my body or mind failing me is not
| procrastination and I'm glad it's being mentioned. All of the
| procrastination strategies presented are still very necessary.
| They just don't work as well for me.
|
| The important thing is to find what works for you. The article is
| a good place to start.
|
| Edit: as a side note, I think the ADHD being associated with
| schizophrenia is due whatever causes schizophrenia initially
| presenting as ADHD. Related, a lot of bipolar children have been
| initially diagnosed with ADHD for the that reason.
| ttul wrote:
| This person tells the truth. If you're procrastinating a task
| so hard that it has entered the realm of the ridiculous, then
| perhaps you're not cut out for it. Give up and find something
| that's more fun.
|
| Unless you're living in the third world, you won't die for lack
| of perseverance at some dull task. You might lose your job or
| fail at school, but you won't starve. That's an embarrassingly
| rich situation to be in. Take advantage of it, is my
| suggestion.
| EGreg wrote:
| Or maybe... you shouldn't be doing it alone?
| bobsoap wrote:
| Well written, fun post!
|
| It reminded me of this classic:
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...
|
| (There's also a TED talk, linked in the article)
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(page generated 2023-05-15 23:00 UTC)