I think basically everyone with ADHD discovers this eventually; e.g.,
> Sympathetic Procrastination Rotor: a technique for Time and Task Management.
> To aid in the fight against procrastination, arrange all of your tasks in a cycle, such that the natural opportunity for procrastination is always another task on the roadmap. In this essay I will
I started writing a book as a form of procrastination, and after I had written the first (exceptionally bad) draft, suddenly finishing that book rose to the top of the list. Haven't worked on it since.
> Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation.
This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect: People with severe, general procrastination problems have a high chance of having (usually undiagnosed) AD(H)D. This is a neurobiological disorder (more precisely, a spectrum), not something you can trick away by reading self-help books/writings. There is effective medication available for those patients.
I too struggle with procrastination. I have a big personal project that is nearing completion & very important to me, but also turning into a bit of a slog. However, because I'm procrastinating working on said project, I managed to do many other things that are also important to me, such as writing more & sharpening some skills.
Worst periods for me were when I had one clear, important goal, not particularly hard but hairy, and nothing else to do, sometimes because I myself cleared it up. I could spend months doing nothing useful, and end up very, very tired and burnt up.
I also several times had a conversation with managers, whom I told that I'd rather work on something very urgent, or otherwise give me something NOT (really) urgent and a big murky area of things to clear out which no one else knows how to deal with. That something won't probably be done, but that area will be improved a lot in creative ways. Typical managers' responses have been trying to micromanage my time up to personal hourly schedules, morning and evening personal reports, and scold me if I did anything out of the order of the list of priorities they imposed on me. Exactly the opposite of what's needed for me to be productive. And of course "let's just try that, and I'm not asking."
Next time I'll see such a response, I probably will quit on the spot; this is unbelievably cruel.
But it looks like the secret of the author is: just work in academia.
i've always wondered why I eagerly jump in to some big tasks whereas others fill me with anxiety and trigger procrastination, and recently I've come up with a working theory:
if the task requires requires leaving a stable equilibrium and moving to another, I will procrastinate. So things like "fixing these bugs" or "build a prototype" are fine, but "migrate this system from X to Y" are a problem.
It's because these are the tasks where you know things are going to get worse before they get better.
When I work, I want to fix things and shrink my to-do list (why yes, I am an inbox-zero kind of guy). These big migration tasks are the type of work where once you start, your to-do list gets bigger.
This is a latent stress reduction mechanism which takes over to do many things which may be located is to relax automatically. This gives a physical we!!being.
> The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
This is the reason this method has never really clicked for me, despite coming across the concept in various procrastination blogs. It's the more important tasks that need doing the most, and this method aims to avoid doing those in favour of less important tasks. Yes, the article acknowledges this:
> At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.
But the offered solution is to put fake important tasks to the top of the list: tasks which have deadlines and appear to be important but really aren't. I don't think the human brain is stupid enough to trick itself in this way. If I put a fake task at the top of my list, I'm going to know its fake (because I deliberately put it there for the reason that it's fake!), and it's going to be the actual important tasks which get neglected instead of the fake one.
I had fun reading this. Unfortunately the infinite list of tasks doesn't work for me, because in the end they fade into oblivion but are still somehow important to keep track of, putting them in some sort of no-man's land ...
I swear this is how I've gotten good at most of my hobbies. Playing guitar for 20 years has gotten me to a great level for a hobbyist, but not at all because of any virtues like discipline, self control, or routine.
Rather, every day whenever other more important chores or duties loomed, I'd notice one of my guitars laying around, in my couch or my bed or leaning next to my desk. And most times, I'd give in. There's always a new skill, technique, lick, or song that I'm working on, or something I've recently mastered that gives me joy to play.
If anything I think discipline would have hurt my guitar skills over the years.
I did this for many years, but pretty much just got worse. There's probably a threshold of skill you need to reach on an instrument. I decided that if I pick up guitar again, I'll be sure to do a few months of structured lessons, because I'm tired of noodling around on the same two scales!
I feel like this seemed a plausible strategy when I first read it as a serial procrastinator struggling through university 17 years ago.
Now, after many years of applying stuff like this successfully for a couple months only to immediately regress at the first sign of life disruption, after an ADHD diagnosis & a bunch of therapy, this all seems like a fairly immature avoidant coping strategy in retrospect. I'm now fairly productive & don't procrastinate much (relatively speaking) and tbh I wish I'd read less of this crap in the past: I might've gotten help earlier.
I felt this when I decided to do dev work while going to school. The structure of work was a break from the chaos of school, and the novelty of school was a break from the monotony of work.
I want to understand the mechanism and purpose behind procrastination. It seems like there's a reason evolution chose for ADHD to exist.
In my experience, sometimes the frustrating signal telling me not to do the superficially "productive" thing is a defense mechanism against doing meaningless shit. It's a voice screaming at you, informing you of your mortality.
If you truly enjoy the procrastination as opposed to fighting it or distracting to another thing - sooner or later you'll want to do the thing you were supposed to do.
Try that out. There is a reason why you don't want to do something and that fundamentally has to do with your mental relationship to the task - the repetition fatigue, the way you think and feel about it etc. needs a reset and enjoying the idle procrastination time gives you that.
IOW Zen mantra - when you procrastinate just procrastinate without resistance.
This is great if you have that freedom, but the person that wrote the article needs to do tasks for their job; other people depend on it. Same with me and my job, I am paid to perform a specific task at the moment. Same with people in a family situation, you can't procrastinate daily routines like picking your kids up from school... which leads to procrastinating about everything else because you have something coming up later so you can't hyperfocus on something else.
I have found that when someone (someone else, not me) asks for help in the work slack and noone replies, the best way to get people engaged is to send a simple "hm..". This seems to trigger colleagues that are actually busy into being "the first to help". Like they don't want me to be the hero.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 74.9 ms ] thread> Sympathetic Procrastination Rotor: a technique for Time and Task Management.
> To aid in the fight against procrastination, arrange all of your tasks in a cycle, such that the natural opportunity for procrastination is always another task on the roadmap. In this essay I will
https://x.com/jmclulow/status/1390544792946237442
This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect: People with severe, general procrastination problems have a high chance of having (usually undiagnosed) AD(H)D. This is a neurobiological disorder (more precisely, a spectrum), not something you can trick away by reading self-help books/writings. There is effective medication available for those patients.
Worst periods for me were when I had one clear, important goal, not particularly hard but hairy, and nothing else to do, sometimes because I myself cleared it up. I could spend months doing nothing useful, and end up very, very tired and burnt up.
I also several times had a conversation with managers, whom I told that I'd rather work on something very urgent, or otherwise give me something NOT (really) urgent and a big murky area of things to clear out which no one else knows how to deal with. That something won't probably be done, but that area will be improved a lot in creative ways. Typical managers' responses have been trying to micromanage my time up to personal hourly schedules, morning and evening personal reports, and scold me if I did anything out of the order of the list of priorities they imposed on me. Exactly the opposite of what's needed for me to be productive. And of course "let's just try that, and I'm not asking."
Next time I'll see such a response, I probably will quit on the spot; this is unbelievably cruel.
But it looks like the secret of the author is: just work in academia.
if the task requires requires leaving a stable equilibrium and moving to another, I will procrastinate. So things like "fixing these bugs" or "build a prototype" are fine, but "migrate this system from X to Y" are a problem.
It's because these are the tasks where you know things are going to get worse before they get better.
When I work, I want to fix things and shrink my to-do list (why yes, I am an inbox-zero kind of guy). These big migration tasks are the type of work where once you start, your to-do list gets bigger.
This is the reason this method has never really clicked for me, despite coming across the concept in various procrastination blogs. It's the more important tasks that need doing the most, and this method aims to avoid doing those in favour of less important tasks. Yes, the article acknowledges this:
> At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.
But the offered solution is to put fake important tasks to the top of the list: tasks which have deadlines and appear to be important but really aren't. I don't think the human brain is stupid enough to trick itself in this way. If I put a fake task at the top of my list, I'm going to know its fake (because I deliberately put it there for the reason that it's fake!), and it's going to be the actual important tasks which get neglected instead of the fake one.
This is wonderful framing. I love it
Rather, every day whenever other more important chores or duties loomed, I'd notice one of my guitars laying around, in my couch or my bed or leaning next to my desk. And most times, I'd give in. There's always a new skill, technique, lick, or song that I'm working on, or something I've recently mastered that gives me joy to play.
If anything I think discipline would have hurt my guitar skills over the years.
But, at the same time I have been procrastinating on getting myself diagnosed. Oh, well.
Now, after many years of applying stuff like this successfully for a couple months only to immediately regress at the first sign of life disruption, after an ADHD diagnosis & a bunch of therapy, this all seems like a fairly immature avoidant coping strategy in retrospect. I'm now fairly productive & don't procrastinate much (relatively speaking) and tbh I wish I'd read less of this crap in the past: I might've gotten help earlier.
I want to understand the mechanism and purpose behind procrastination. It seems like there's a reason evolution chose for ADHD to exist.
In my experience, sometimes the frustrating signal telling me not to do the superficially "productive" thing is a defense mechanism against doing meaningless shit. It's a voice screaming at you, informing you of your mortality.
Try that out. There is a reason why you don't want to do something and that fundamentally has to do with your mental relationship to the task - the repetition fatigue, the way you think and feel about it etc. needs a reset and enjoying the idle procrastination time gives you that.
IOW Zen mantra - when you procrastinate just procrastinate without resistance.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Structured+Procrastination