"Once you lose track of the specific items that are causing you stress, you tend to regard it all as one big ugly entity that you want to avoid"
This. I vividly remember when some problems got completely out of hand and my life turned downhill, this is exactly what it felt like. On shitty days, I tell myself, 'well, at least it wasn't as bad as that'
I had an epiphany today that the biggest solution to this problem and other feelings of "shittiness" is to just tackle it with nonjudgmental awareness, breaking the problem down and analyzing exactly what parts of it are making me feel that way. It's then easier to reframe and put the smaller parts into perspective than it is to deal with one blob of stress, which is an illusion anyway.
You are not your thoughts. You are not your actions. Your are not your memories, your past, or your future or your abilities.
However, you are part of a process. You don't own the process and even you do everything perfectly things might not turn out right, but you can understand what happened and how to influence things for the better in the future.
On a smaller scale, I often observe a general feeling of uneasiness without knowing why, and can usually trace it back to something I was thinking about in the most recent 10-20 minutes.
I get this too. I found if I trace the thoughts back, and write down briefly why I'm worried or upset, the feeling dissipates. Usually it's something trivial.
I have found that the act of free writing whenever I'm stressed out or procrastinating results in an inevitable question that needs answered, and for whatever reason I was avoiding it at the time. Once it's on paper and I can look at it, I can answer the question and move on, and I notice I almost immediately feel better. Figuring out the right question is sometimes not the most obvious thing either, it takes some writing to get to it. Even if I don't act on the question immediately, knowing the question makes the stress go away and then I start thinking about how to resolve the problem.
I don't know, it's something about the act of writing for me. It's getting it out of your head, but going along the lines of what the OP says, there's zero judgment. It's also forcing yourself to not just endlessly think about ambiguities. Writing it down forces you to focus it more narrowly and address specifics. You break the problem down into smaller steps and from there it seems easier to tackle.
I've read some blog posts about procrastination, but this one I think really hits the mark. Good read!
"You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything."
First paragraph in the text that stuck me so deeply. And it's not like I fear criticism (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361495), but my urge for perfection is killing my performance and this in fact is indeed literally killing me.
I associate my performance in everything with my own value as a person, to an absurd extent. If I'm playing a multiplayer game such as Starcraft or Street Fighter and I make a mistake, I can't help but think "Wow, I'm really stupid". It's silly, but I can't help it. You can imagine how I feel in regards to things that actually matter.
"You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything."
I disagree.
My reasons for procrastination go like this:
1. I don't know yet how to tackle the problem. (and I munge on it in the back of my mind while procrastinating)
2. I am tired, but don't want to admit it. (and procrastination is faux rest)
3. I'm pushing off committing to doing X because finally jumping in is scary. (it closes options to doing something else and humans would rather do nothing and have many options than do something and have no options)
4. X just isn't that important to me right now. (it's much easier to clean the kitchen before cooking, than randomly in the middle of the day)
Those all sound like some form of fear to me. 1 sounds like fear of incompetence: You don't know how to solve the problem, but that's just because "you aren't really thinking about it", so you protect yourself from the idea that you might actually be clueless. #2 happens to me a lot, and it's being afraid that resting/sleeping will prevent you from getting work done (which may be true, but if a nap is going to make things late, it's already too late)
No, it's not a fear of incompetence. It's seriously just a problem of working out what exactly I want to do.
Good case in point from this week: "Write a book chapter on d3 layouts".
Now that's a very vague task and it takes some thinking to even get started on it. You have to even decide what the first step towards a solution is and once you do have it, you then have to do the creative part of figuring out how to write about it.
Creative tasks in particular do not resolve themselves with a focused step-by-step approach, you must solve them by procrastinating (ie. slowly thinking about them freely).
I disagree as well. My reasons for procrastination tend to fall around artificially creating a high stress situation. You see, I perform very well (very high productivity) under stress, to the extent that high performance may actually be a stress coping mechanism for stress.
I certainly do not procrastinate because I'm lazy, or have poor work ethic, or even risk averse. You can ask my family about that one. None of them would describe me as risk averse.
For me, it really comes down to stress as a motivator. Procrastination means doing things at the last moment, which creates an artificially stressful situation.
It may also be interesting to note that I do not suffer from any traditional high stress related health issues. My doctor recently commented that I am in exceptional health for my age (mid-thirties)
Usually the 'work better under stress' is a fallacy that procrastinators use. Timothy Pychyl puts it this way: 'It's not that you work better under pressure, it's that you only work under pressure.'
But - I like your coping mechanism theory, that's worth exploring.
Well, maybe you're not a procrastinator, but simply a lazy person? :) [just kidding]
1. I see it differently. I usually know/see some first approximation that could be easy to do (and fixed later when better solutions comes up), but I'm totally resisting to do what I perceive as inferior solution. My procrastination may be even about finding this better solution and the problem is that I am holding the progress at all just because I'm fiddling with getting something super right atm, which is rarely really needed (almost never). My performance is perceived by others as non-existent, because I'm paying attention to details that may not even really matter.
2. This one is the obvious one, but it's not the main procrastination problem. 10% at most. Well, until you're constantly working at night for instance (because of your procrastination) and you're becoming constantly tired through the day - then you're making being tired a sad routine. It's procrastination force feedback, but again, it's not the main reason for procrastination as I see it.
3. Starting doing real job is somewhat "scary", true, but it's often simply the effect of 1.
4. If you can postpone something, it's obviously not that important to you right now or you feel that there is enough time to do it a bit later (and you feel it will be a quick thing, which isn't always the case, many times also because of the perfection factor).
In the end, despite aiming for perfection, I often have to make cuts, go with worse (in my eyes) solution, because there is no time for "playing" and deadline is already behind me. This is the worst.
Completely agree on point 3; fear of success is a big issue when it comes to side projects and the like, or in another form, fear of what the future/task looks like once the project is underway. There's also an aspect of enjoying the planning stage more than the execution stage, which is common in "analysis paralysis" type procrastination situations.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned ADD/ADHD yet; continually starting and not following through is a classic behaviour, though procrastination is a slightly different beastie, I can see a relationship here. In that case I would characterise it less as procrastination for your, or the OP's, reasons; and more procrastination because the brain cannot grab on and commit to the task, so it goes and does something (ten things) different instead.
If the kitchen is dirty, I'd rather order in. When I absolutely have to clean dishes (so we can eat), is when I hate it the most. Plus, I hate knowing that the kitchen will be dirty again straight after cooking. I'd rather do them some where in the middle, start or end of the day when there's no pressure and I can just use the time cleaning to think over my thoughts.
The direct attack on procrastination... has been postponed until Monday. :)
I really liked the article, as I'm almost exactly like the way the op described himself. Hot proof: my tax returns were due 15 days ago and here I am, eagerly discussing the issue of procrastination. Much of the last two weeks was also spent watching the second leg of the Champions League football matches (ah, Barca, you recovered magnificently from a two goal deficit - well done!).
It's a really big problem.
There was another article recently on HN which I really liked [1]. I tried it. Yelling "You're an ANIMAL! You're an ANIMAL!" at myself as I perused my tax documentation. It hasn't worked yet and I've now scheduled another session. For Monday.
Interesting theory but I'm not sure it's the whole picture.
Personally, while I definitely identify with the "fear of failure" personality trait, I find my procrastination is down to two things: depleted willpower and inertia.
To help with willpower, I try to keep my home environment as tidy and organized as possible (which doesn't come naturally). There's not too much I can do about my dayjob other than minimize my emotional investment (which also doesn't come naturally).
I find inertia is the most important and possible variable to change. A yoga teacher told me once: "it's not so hard. Just start... then continue". Once I actually push past the hurdle of starting a project, and make sure I put some time into it weekly (even if it's only 30 minutes), over time my mental resistance aka procrastination diminishes, and I start to enjoy myself.
Yes, some people may procrastinate due to fear of failure, but it seems clear that it's not universal. I know I'm not procrastinating on filing my taxes right now because I fear failure somehow. There's not much failure to be had, and I'm comfortable with the process and have a great accountant who helps me through it. I just don't feel like doing it right now, because the process itself is painful. I'd rather have silly conversations on the internet than dig through paperwork. It seems to simply be a matter of valuing immediate rewards more highly than distant ones. And this applies almost everywhere. The immediate reward of eating a donut can be far more prominent than the delayed reward of eating healthy. The immediate reward of spending money on dinner delivery outweighs the delayed reward of saving money. This seems to me a far more fundamental and interesting problem than fear of failure.
This is an interesting point, but I think it's important to take 'fear of failure' the right way, which is not [always] literally a fear of failing at task X; but instead as a trained predisposition to not attempt things. In the same way that a basketball player can habitually and automatically pull up for a jump shot every time he drives left; or a person can open the refrigerator every time he comes home and throws his keys on the counter, so one can habitually and automatically defer doing things because the consequences of poor performance have burned that delaying tactic into one's behavior.
Or so the theory goes -- as someone said up-thread, Piers Steel did an extremely thorough meta-analysis on the topic (gated article here, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900...; he eventually turned this paper into a book) that denies this perfectionistic explanation and instead breaks the issue down in terms of utility theory and temporal discounting.
Which is fine; but I'm not convinced that the two may not be describing the same phenomenon from different levels of abstraction, in the same way that you can describe bird flocking behavior at the level of Newtonian mechanics, but describe it a lot more succinctly and meaningfully using Craig Reynolds's Boid model.
I think you better expand this in blog post :) I really enjoyed OP post, but your comment is what genuinely I believe most people have as procrastination, it is normal and your way of handling it is very good.
I would add indecision to the list of sources. I can't pinpoint where I first heard this, but it rings true to me. If can break down a large todo into its constituent pieces, each of which either has a trivial answer or has a clear path to finding the answer, I can mow all of them down. Bam bam bam.
My downfall is when I forget that specificity works (when I get lazy). Exactly like me and TDD. You will eventually check all the boxes; enumerating them beforehand removes the crap.
I find for me I don't really identify with the "fear of failure", yet I do have a problem with procrastination.
I find tasks that I enjoy, or tasks where I am working towards a goal, easy to start and do. I find it hard to work on tasks where the task leads nowhere (the example of doing taxes is the perfect example)
Ego depletion is largely a myth on a day-to-day basis, anyway. It's not a fixed reserve, it's a skill. Practice doing things that are difficult and you will get better at doing things that are difficult.
"You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything."
What's most cutting reading that paragraph is how true it is, and how much of my self-worth I feel diminished by admitting that.
I've got better recently, but that post really hit home.
My biggest source of procrastination is the fear of making a change that can't be undone. I find this particularly challenging on projects around the house like putting in a new door, and having the door ready to be hung on and knowing if I screw up the hings placement I need to get a new door. Blam! I procrastinate the crap out of taking the irreversible step of routering in the hinge mounts. I have to sit down and give myself permission to buy a new door if I screw up, and even then it's painful to move forward.
I never really thought of it as a judgmental problem (self worth related) so much as a sort of efficiency problem (hate to have wasted all that resource (time, money, whatever)). One of the weird things about quitting World of Warcraft was that I played hours on that game, so I could pretty much do anything and it would be less wasteful of my time than that. So for a while that was a great crutch, "We'll hey, I didn't get much done but if I had been playing WoW I wouldn't have gotten anything done."
The fear of screwing it up, coupled with the knowledge that I really am not good at things like carpentry, and rounded out with a lack of funds to hire others, have played havoc on my ability to finish my basement or my back yard.
Ironically, I have managed to keep my washer and dryer going for 16 years. But that's all thanks to the Internet. :)
all goes for me also.
but
For some bigger things I need extra prepare time. Specially communicating with strangers, its mentally exhausting. So phone call might take me 24h instead of 10 minutes, but then I am not out of energy, after that call. I am really good at talking with strangers and organizing and nobody knows, but it takes huge amounts of energy.
And often, procrastination helps. With bigger plans or things, mind subconsciousnessly tackles problems, while I am "resting". And after that procrastination period, I know the answer I didn't know before.
I think the article "How to Beat Procrastination" on Less Wrong [1] is quite possibly the best thing written on the subject of procrastination on the web in terms of both writing and research quality. It's based on the temporal motivational theory of procrastination, which is so far the one that best explains the experimental data we've got.
Scroll down the page a bit to see "the procrastination equation". Even though I had been exposed to concepts from the temporal motivational theory before I found the equation quite striking the first time I saw it.
> Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay)
> Increase the size of a task's reward (including both the pleasantness of doing the task and the value of its after-effects), and your motivation goes up. Increase the perceived odds of getting the reward, and your motivation also goes up.
> The denominator covers the effect of time on our motivation to do a task. The longer the delay before we reap a task's reward, the less motivated we are to do it. And the negative effect of this delay on our motivation is amplified by our level of impulsiveness. For highly impulsive people, delays do even greater damage to their motivation.
The rest of the article is worth reading. (It's short; 2/3 of the page is footnotes and comments.) Firstly for the examples that root the equation in reality. Secondly for suggestions on increasing the numerator and decreasing the denominator.
Let me second the OP and recommend Neil Fiore's book "The Now Habit".
There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as:
The Unschedule
* a weekly calendar of committed recreational activities and breaks, meals, etc
* productive periods of work are recorded after they are accomplished
* encourages starting earlier on projects once you see
how much time is already committed
* 30 minute chunks of productive work - too small to be intimidating
Leverage Reverse psychology:
* do not work more than 20 hours a week on this project
* do not work more than 5 hours a day on this project
* you must play or exercise at least one hour per day
* you must take at least one day a week off from any work
* do only 30 minute chunks without reward / break
* work for an imperfect, human, first effort
* start small
Builds up an unconscious desire to work more and play less
Schedule only:
* previously committed time - meals, sleep, meetings
* free time, recreation, leisure reading
* socializing
* exercise
* routine events - commuting, classes, appointments
* Fill in periods of productive work only after completing
a 30-minute chunk
* take credit only for 30 minutes of uninterrupted work
* reward each chunk with a break or a change to a more enjoyable task
* track the number of productive hours by day and week.
* always have at least one full day of recreation or enjoyable tasks
* before recreation, take time for one 30-minute chunk of project work
* focus on starting
* think small
* keep starting, finishing will take care of itself
* never stop when you are blocked or at the end of a section;
push through a block or start a new section before stopping
Benefits:
* realistic timekeeping
* avoid feeling overwhelmed
* allows you to experience success
* deadlines are self-imposed
* new-found free time
I also recommend another book (by another psychologist): "The Procrastination Equation" by Piers Steel.
The second book is partly at odds with the first, so I leave it to you to see which better describes what you observe.
Summary of The Procrastination Equation:
Perfectionism does not lead to procrastination - this is well studied. It may be that they are thought to be linked because of the cases where there is this discrepancy in behavior.
Procrastination is a result of impulsiveness. Self-control and delaying gratification are key to controlling procrastination.
Procrastinators suffer from
* weak impulse control
* lack of persistence
* lack of work discipline
* lack of time management skill
* inability to work methodically
Motivation can be modeled by
* (expectancy * value) / (impulsiveness * delay)
* The numerator is Expected Utility Theory in economics
* Expectancy is the perceived likelihood of reward or success
* Value is the perceived value of the reward
* Delay is the perceived delay in receiving the reward
* Impulsiveness is the tendency to (irrationally) pursue immediate reward instead
Expectancy - optimism, expectation of success
* too much pessimism causes procrastination -
low expectation of success keeps us from starting
* too much optimism causes procrastination -
unrealistic ease of success causes delay of starting until the last moment
techniques for improving optimism:
* success spirals - progressive series of successes build
confidence (e.g. earning scout badges). regularly
stretching your limits is important to teach yourself
confidence in your ability to tackle something difficult
* vicarious victory - relating to someone’s success story,
finding inspiration in books, movies, inspirational speakers,
joining a group of inspirational people
* wish fulfillment - visualization of success and contrasting with
where you are now. Visualization that only focuses on th...
Thank you for this. It's easy to think you'll have something similar in your head, but actually seeing it makes it harder to ignore.
My procastination is usually due to a stupid case of OCD. I say it's stupid, because I can see how blatantly counter-productive it is... and yet, it's still there.
I keep my OCD down to "mild" levels by purposely flinging my socks as soon as I come home. This, in a way, breaks the cycle of "can't get down to do this because everything isn't perfectly clean". Ordinarily, something becomes a source of discontent that keeps me from getting things done and the best way (that works for me, YMMV) is a hot shower after a bit of excercise, LOTS of coffee followed by soothing music. "Soothing" in my context is usually Testament or Slayer, but you get the idea.
I also make it harder on myself to get distracted by turning off the ringer on my phone or taking out the battery to make Twitter et al. harder to get to (I don't remember my Twitter password, so I'd have to go into my "mega-list-of-all-passwords" text file which is PGP encrypted).
So I've found that exactly one thing helps me focus on work -- boredom. I am definitely not OCD, but I still find that I can't just work on something at any time for any length of time. I have to be in the right mood.
I'd also add that procrastination and perfectionism is something I've seen a lot of, and which has always struck me as particularly insidious. I managed to finish my PhD by 26, but the reason is because I was comfortable with turning it in imperfect (and expected to do so from 24 on, after initial grad student optimism was burned out of me). I've had friends who spent years on a thesis past when it was done by any sane definition of the word just because they wanted it to be perfect. And since "perfect" was unattainable they spent all their time playing video games instead.
Last, I have spent over a decade carefully cultivating a mentality of not attaching myself to the outcomes of my projects but instead focus on enjoying the process. If I don't enjoy the process, the product is sort of irrelevant (at least for long periods). If I do enjoy the process, the product will be the best I can do. I'm currently running two startups, working part time at a third, teach karate, and am at least nominally pursuing romantic and social relationships. I often find myself using the mantra "it will turn out how it turns out" to help myself sleep on anxiety ridden nights. I also more formally say "I release <foo>" when I find that I am dwelling on something in meditation and visualize myself no longer being emotionally attached to that thing. Particularly helpful for tentative romantic relationships. Worry there seems to be cause inevitable failure.
Dunno if that helps anyone, but it helped me a ton.
I have this OCD tendency to clean up my place before I can sit down to work on my projects, by the time I am done with it all, I am hungry, so I cook then there are the dishes...after everything's done, I feel mentally drained even though all I did was physical activity. I am similarly OCD about working out. All of this coupled with errands and family and social obligations, the desire to please everybody (do something special for birthdays, anniversaries, help out, never saying no)...makes it very difficult to work. Usually, on weekends, it is Sunday evening before I have taken care of everything and am in a good position to work on my projects.
I find it hard to agree with this post. If you are willing to work 40 hrs a week you will receive 40hr/week pay from your employer. If you dont commit (via http://news.ycombinator.com posts) SOMEONE ELSE WILL. Do not fool yourself out of a startup salary, and learn Lisp! (if you have the time!) (There are shortcuts to learning Lisp, but all of these shortcuts are not worth the saved time you spent learning Lisp) (Even if its a dead language, you learned it) (Peace)
Is this a bot in development? Comment history is awfully strange, always linking to http://news.ycombinator.com, suggesting it is a placeholder for later links.
... Maybe I just need my morning coffee... or internetdude313 is high as a kite, with a crush on lisp.
Probably a Markov chain bot written by a Lisp enthusiast. No doubt the bot itself is currently learning Lisp and becoming self aware. Hopefully it will run out of parentheses before it takes over the world.
So instead finding something you would like to do, we must commit to exercises, motivation(discipline), regulations, restrictions in hope that reward will outweigh something we really do not want commit to.
I wonder, is there any website, community or maybe even webservice with book annotations, clear and brief? I think it wouldn't be a big exaggeration to say I'd prefer a quality brief for at least 80% of books I read.
I've read a few self-help books. The problem with many of them is that they try to fix things on the surface level. I have not read "The Now Habit", though. From the summary, it seems to have a lot of good strategies. However, although good strategies may help you break out of bad habbits, they may sometimes be sustaining underlying problems.
I've always had a strong connection between my ego and my achievements. When I got employed by a company with extremely talented people, I developed chronic stress. It's been a serious problem for me for a few years. Lots of procrastination, my health has suffered, and my general life quality has suffered.
What has made a tremendous difference for me, is to develop metacognition. If you are aware of what's going on in your head, you can aim your focus where you want it to be. Over time, old habits will fade.
Most of us think thoughts and feelings are reality. But they're not. They are just events inside us. They're not dangerous. Yet, we often believe they are life threatening. So we react. Strongly.
The first step is to understand that thoughts, the voice in your head, is just that: A voice in your head. It doesn't tell the truth: it tells scary stories, to keep you safe from sable tooth tigers (or the modern equivalents). Since you want to stay alive, it's best to be on the safe side, so this radio broadcasts 80% bad news all day long.
That radio used to take most of my focus. It was very loud. By learning to treat it as background noise(1), I can now better focus on other things. As a result, many problems in my life have just started to fade away, without me actively working on them. Including procrastination.
Also, learning to be aware of feelings (detectable by bodily sensations), and letting them stay without fueling them with thoughts (e.g. "I don't want to feel like this", "this is bad", or "why me!?"), or conciously (or unconsiously) trying to get rid of them, reduces stress levels a lot. Feelings left alone often disappear by themselves within a minute or so. In contrast, if you fuel them with thoughts, or try to get rid of them, they tend to get stronger and may stick around for a long time.
I would recommend looking into ACT. E.g. check out this video by Russ Harris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQTvFdbjlxw . Also, his book, "The Happiness Trap"[1], is well worth reading. This may be all you need.
Before discovering Russ Harris, I developed my awareness of thoughts, as well as my mental flexibility, by doing attention training[2]. For more on this, I would recommend "Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression"[3] by Adrain Wells. (Beware, it is quite heavy, written for psychologists. Don't mind the "Anxiety and Depression" part of the title.)
Furthermore, mindfulness and meditation is good. Just be aware that these are very fashionable nowdays, and there are lots of misunderstandings out there. For example, many mistake them to be about relaxing. Also, getting into meditation and mindfulness may be extremely hard if you're not ready for it, so starting with ACT may be a good idea. To understand (vipassana) meditation, I like this description: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2rd/understanding_vipassana_meditati...
Another good book that covers a lot of the above material, but from a Buddhist perspective, is "Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change"[4] by Pema Chodron. I find it helpful to get different perspectives on these things.
Beware: If you suffer from serious mental illness, or have had traumas, you should be very careful experimenting with this by yourself. I would recommend seeing a psychologist first, preferrably one who is up-to-date on Metacognitive theraphy, ACT and/or mindfulness. Be aware though, that many have an academic interest in these topics, but do not have personal experience, so the concepts are not well integrated in them, making it harder for them to ...
Also: It is important to acknowledge that procrastination is something that everybody do from time to time. It's part of life, and unless it's chronic, we shouldn't make it into a big problem.
Another thing: Our brains did not evolve to solve abstract problems for 8+ hours a day. They evolved to solve small, practical problems in everyday life. We learn from early childhood to work hard, to concentrate, to get good grades. Less focus is on the importance of listening to the signals that the body sends us, e.g. about taking breaks. It is perfectly fine to feel tired, to feel like not doing anything. It's important to rest.
I used to have this problem so bad when I was studying.
I'd just put off everything until the last minute, but I used to get a rush from staying up all night reading a topic for an exam or doing some programming assignment. There was a sort of heroic feeling of "They assigned 3 weeks for this, but it only took me 10 hours".
Of course when I got results back and found that I hadn't done especially well it was easy to rationalize, "well if I'd done it properly after some sleep I'd have got full marks of course".
But yes, nothing feels crappier than doing your best at something and failing.
I seriously just bookmarked this for reading later because I need to take a shower before I go to a party (it's 7:45 PM, I've been procrastinating the shower all day long).
I firmly believe this: Often the source of procastination is just plain trying too hard. Or it's attempting to try too hard and the mere thought of it becomes a crushing burden better alleviate by doing nothing (or so your mind says). Unrealistic or overly demanding expectations, as inflicted on the author, only exasperate the issue.
Laziness is a bit complicated since it's always relative.
Relative to what? What you do normally and have been for a while (in which case, it's usually the laziness we all know) or the mountain that's manifested in front of you? The latter is important as discouragement is also a prime mover for procastination. The mountain may or may not be self-inflicted, but if it exists, your normal coping strategies don't always work.
I have a procastination problem as well, but for different reasons (usually OCD).
From the blog post: "Almost every Sunday night I mourn another blown opportunity to catch up"
The author may also want to consider removing the notion of "caught up" from his vocabulary. Although it's not covered in the Now Habit, it's discussed in other respected books on procrastination and time management.
I used to beat myself up a lot with the idea that there was a (poorly defined) state of having gotten "caught up" on life tasks like those the author describes at which point all would be well.
The problem is that it doesn't really exist - there's always more to do than you can actually do - and denying that fact keeps you from living in the present. There are simply activities you choose to do and activities you choose not to do - that's it.
While it may sound absurdly simplistic, this one change in thinking had a huge impact on both my personal productivity and happiness.
Writing this quickly because I'm about to run out the door, so please excuse the incomplete answer.
In brief, aside from simply recognizing it intellectually (which alone helped me a lot,) I'd start by literally following the advice I wrote above and remove the phrase from your vocabulary. i.e. Don't say things like "I really have to get caught up this weekend." It's a hopelessly imprecise statement that, if you're like me, primarily just engenders stress and shame. Instead use active language re: precise tasks. e.g. "I'm going to fix my bike and go to the store this afternoon."
Fiore does talk a lot about similar language issues in the Now Habit. For example, he stresses the importance of saying things like "I choose to work on this report now" versus "I have to work on this report now."
His argument is that the latter promotes a victimhood mentality leading to resentment and then procrastination.
He also points out that it's simply untrue. If you're going to be precise, there's very little you have to do - there are simply things you choose to do because either you enjoy them, or because you prefer the consequences of having done them versus not having done them.
I read a book in 2006 called Mindset, by Carol Dweck, a Stanford Psychologist. I could see how having a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset might help in this case of life-long procrastination. Just a thought. I'm curious if others on HN have read the book and think it would be helpful. There is a website associated with the book that might also have some useful information: http://mindsetonline.com/
Agreed, this is another good book. I think it explains a lot about behaviors that have puzzled me over the years. I think it can be related to the set of beliefs behind motivation, which is a part of procrastination. It may not help someone with procrastination per se (that may be better addressed by books directly dealing with the psychology of procrastination) but it is part of the puzzle.
In particular it might help with motivation and perception of success/failure.
For those who haven't read it, Mindset sets out 2 main opposing beliefs:
* your abilities are largely "fixed", mostly a function
of innate "talent" that you can't change
* vs. your ability is mostly due to learning,
and you can always learn more
Dweck points out the problems associated with the former point of view, and how a shift in this thinking can transform your outlook on your entire life.
I am surprised sometimes at how controversial this can be when you bring it up.
This is perfectly timed for me, having spent the last two days procrastinating (yesterday, by staring at someone else's code but not really reading it and today by running errands). It feels like the opportunity to be brilliant can so easily slip away until my deadlines have passed and I'm out of time.
The last 2.5 months for me have been nothing but struggling to figure out something that I barely understand. Something that seems to come pretty easily to a number of people I associate with, so it's difficult to retain perspective. To wit, that they've been doing this stuff a lot longer than I have, and that at least I can get some of it (and will someday probably get more of it).
So this rings pretty true for me, as I had just gotten a thing I'd been working on for what seemed like forever to (mostly) function, now it has to be expanded to handle this other thing that I know pretty much nothing about. It seems like either there are far better people who could be doing this than me, or maybe my belief that if I keep smashing my forehead against the spec, it will gain entry to my brain.
So far, starting out on my own with the idea that I could make a product has been lonely and isolating. This work is damned hard. If I fail, I won't be in a bad place, but it's still overwhelming me. My respect for certain people who have the temerity to do this (and I think you all know who I mean) has grown considerably. But don't tell him I said that, because I still need him to take the garbage out from time to time.
Horrible arrow buttons that can't be undone. I want to first apologize for having my thumb slide past the down arrow.
Second, I completely understand the feeling of isolation and loneliness. And it makes it hard, if one's nature is to procrastinate, to push through. I've started talking more about my project with people in an effort to encourage myself to want to show more progress. And, yet, here I am. :/
If you have persistent, severe problems with procrastination, willpower, and organization, don't rule out the possibility of an attention disorder. Smart people can often scrape by -- but proper diagnosis and management could dramatically help and improve your life.
On the contrary, I had it and it did not help me in the least bit. This article is much more useful than many sessions. It all depends on whom you're speaking with, others might be very good at helping you, but it's not always better.
I do agree though that proper diagnosis is better in any case, but it's not the solution to it all.
This is interesting to me from the perspective of being a parent and having high expectations for my children. I think that as a parent it's important to have high expectations, but that there's a tricky line to walk regarding what kind of high expectations to have. I grew up under the expectation of acing everything, and as a result I do feel a lot of what he talks about in the post. However, I'm trying to raise my children with a focus on persistence and confidence even in the face of the unknown. To that end, I'm always trying to find things for them to do that are a bit beyond their ability, but that they can solve with some work.
I've found that it's hard to break the habit of seeing "good" as synonymous with "right the first time" though, even when I know what the result of that attitude has been for me. I'm hoping that I can help my kids by focusing on the idea of learning from failure and improving by working hard, rather than trying to avoid failure. Any other parents out there working on this problem?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 325 ms ] threadThis. I vividly remember when some problems got completely out of hand and my life turned downhill, this is exactly what it felt like. On shitty days, I tell myself, 'well, at least it wasn't as bad as that'
However, you are part of a process. You don't own the process and even you do everything perfectly things might not turn out right, but you can understand what happened and how to influence things for the better in the future.
It is rather freeing.
I don't know, it's something about the act of writing for me. It's getting it out of your head, but going along the lines of what the OP says, there's zero judgment. It's also forcing yourself to not just endlessly think about ambiguities. Writing it down forces you to focus it more narrowly and address specifics. You break the problem down into smaller steps and from there it seems easier to tackle.
"You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything."
First paragraph in the text that stuck me so deeply. And it's not like I fear criticism (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361495), but my urge for perfection is killing my performance and this in fact is indeed literally killing me.
http://www.raptitude.com/experiment-log-no-11-an-attack-on-p...
I disagree.
My reasons for procrastination go like this:
1. I don't know yet how to tackle the problem. (and I munge on it in the back of my mind while procrastinating)
2. I am tired, but don't want to admit it. (and procrastination is faux rest)
3. I'm pushing off committing to doing X because finally jumping in is scary. (it closes options to doing something else and humans would rather do nothing and have many options than do something and have no options)
4. X just isn't that important to me right now. (it's much easier to clean the kitchen before cooking, than randomly in the middle of the day)
Good case in point from this week: "Write a book chapter on d3 layouts".
Now that's a very vague task and it takes some thinking to even get started on it. You have to even decide what the first step towards a solution is and once you do have it, you then have to do the creative part of figuring out how to write about it.
Creative tasks in particular do not resolve themselves with a focused step-by-step approach, you must solve them by procrastinating (ie. slowly thinking about them freely).
I certainly do not procrastinate because I'm lazy, or have poor work ethic, or even risk averse. You can ask my family about that one. None of them would describe me as risk averse.
For me, it really comes down to stress as a motivator. Procrastination means doing things at the last moment, which creates an artificially stressful situation.
It may also be interesting to note that I do not suffer from any traditional high stress related health issues. My doctor recently commented that I am in exceptional health for my age (mid-thirties)
1. I see it differently. I usually know/see some first approximation that could be easy to do (and fixed later when better solutions comes up), but I'm totally resisting to do what I perceive as inferior solution. My procrastination may be even about finding this better solution and the problem is that I am holding the progress at all just because I'm fiddling with getting something super right atm, which is rarely really needed (almost never). My performance is perceived by others as non-existent, because I'm paying attention to details that may not even really matter.
2. This one is the obvious one, but it's not the main procrastination problem. 10% at most. Well, until you're constantly working at night for instance (because of your procrastination) and you're becoming constantly tired through the day - then you're making being tired a sad routine. It's procrastination force feedback, but again, it's not the main reason for procrastination as I see it.
3. Starting doing real job is somewhat "scary", true, but it's often simply the effect of 1.
4. If you can postpone something, it's obviously not that important to you right now or you feel that there is enough time to do it a bit later (and you feel it will be a quick thing, which isn't always the case, many times also because of the perfection factor).
In the end, despite aiming for perfection, I often have to make cuts, go with worse (in my eyes) solution, because there is no time for "playing" and deadline is already behind me. This is the worst.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned ADD/ADHD yet; continually starting and not following through is a classic behaviour, though procrastination is a slightly different beastie, I can see a relationship here. In that case I would characterise it less as procrastination for your, or the OP's, reasons; and more procrastination because the brain cannot grab on and commit to the task, so it goes and does something (ten things) different instead.
(with you on the other points)
Does anyone else see the problem here?
I really liked the article, as I'm almost exactly like the way the op described himself. Hot proof: my tax returns were due 15 days ago and here I am, eagerly discussing the issue of procrastination. Much of the last two weeks was also spent watching the second leg of the Champions League football matches (ah, Barca, you recovered magnificently from a two goal deficit - well done!).
It's a really big problem.
There was another article recently on HN which I really liked [1]. I tried it. Yelling "You're an ANIMAL! You're an ANIMAL!" at myself as I perused my tax documentation. It hasn't worked yet and I've now scheduled another session. For Monday.
[1] http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130313143038-54...
Personally, while I definitely identify with the "fear of failure" personality trait, I find my procrastination is down to two things: depleted willpower and inertia.
To help with willpower, I try to keep my home environment as tidy and organized as possible (which doesn't come naturally). There's not too much I can do about my dayjob other than minimize my emotional investment (which also doesn't come naturally).
I find inertia is the most important and possible variable to change. A yoga teacher told me once: "it's not so hard. Just start... then continue". Once I actually push past the hurdle of starting a project, and make sure I put some time into it weekly (even if it's only 30 minutes), over time my mental resistance aka procrastination diminishes, and I start to enjoy myself.
Start... then continue.
Or so the theory goes -- as someone said up-thread, Piers Steel did an extremely thorough meta-analysis on the topic (gated article here, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886900...; he eventually turned this paper into a book) that denies this perfectionistic explanation and instead breaks the issue down in terms of utility theory and temporal discounting.
Which is fine; but I'm not convinced that the two may not be describing the same phenomenon from different levels of abstraction, in the same way that you can describe bird flocking behavior at the level of Newtonian mechanics, but describe it a lot more succinctly and meaningfully using Craig Reynolds's Boid model.
"Start... then continue."
It's something that I needed to read and really let it sink in to get my ass into gear. Really appreciate it.
My downfall is when I forget that specificity works (when I get lazy). Exactly like me and TDD. You will eventually check all the boxes; enumerating them beforehand removes the crap.
I find for me I don't really identify with the "fear of failure", yet I do have a problem with procrastination.
I find tasks that I enjoy, or tasks where I am working towards a goal, easy to start and do. I find it hard to work on tasks where the task leads nowhere (the example of doing taxes is the perfect example)
What's most cutting reading that paragraph is how true it is, and how much of my self-worth I feel diminished by admitting that.
I've got better recently, but that post really hit home.
I never really thought of it as a judgmental problem (self worth related) so much as a sort of efficiency problem (hate to have wasted all that resource (time, money, whatever)). One of the weird things about quitting World of Warcraft was that I played hours on that game, so I could pretty much do anything and it would be less wasteful of my time than that. So for a while that was a great crutch, "We'll hey, I didn't get much done but if I had been playing WoW I wouldn't have gotten anything done."
Ironically, I have managed to keep my washer and dryer going for 16 years. But that's all thanks to the Internet. :)
And often, procrastination helps. With bigger plans or things, mind subconsciousnessly tackles problems, while I am "resting". And after that procrastination period, I know the answer I didn't know before.
Scroll down the page a bit to see "the procrastination equation". Even though I had been exposed to concepts from the temporal motivational theory before I found the equation quite striking the first time I saw it.
[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/
> Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay)
> Increase the size of a task's reward (including both the pleasantness of doing the task and the value of its after-effects), and your motivation goes up. Increase the perceived odds of getting the reward, and your motivation also goes up.
> The denominator covers the effect of time on our motivation to do a task. The longer the delay before we reap a task's reward, the less motivated we are to do it. And the negative effect of this delay on our motivation is amplified by our level of impulsiveness. For highly impulsive people, delays do even greater damage to their motivation.
The rest of the article is worth reading. (It's short; 2/3 of the page is footnotes and comments.) Firstly for the examples that root the equation in reality. Secondly for suggestions on increasing the numerator and decreasing the denominator.
There are lots of good strategies in that book, such as:
The Unschedule
Leverage Reverse psychology: Builds up an unconscious desire to work more and play lessSchedule only:
Benefits: I also recommend another book (by another psychologist): "The Procrastination Equation" by Piers Steel.The second book is partly at odds with the first, so I leave it to you to see which better describes what you observe.
Summary of The Procrastination Equation:
Perfectionism does not lead to procrastination - this is well studied. It may be that they are thought to be linked because of the cases where there is this discrepancy in behavior. Procrastination is a result of impulsiveness. Self-control and delaying gratification are key to controlling procrastination.
Procrastinators suffer from
Motivation can be modeled by Expectancy - optimism, expectation of success techniques for improving optimism:My procastination is usually due to a stupid case of OCD. I say it's stupid, because I can see how blatantly counter-productive it is... and yet, it's still there.
I keep my OCD down to "mild" levels by purposely flinging my socks as soon as I come home. This, in a way, breaks the cycle of "can't get down to do this because everything isn't perfectly clean". Ordinarily, something becomes a source of discontent that keeps me from getting things done and the best way (that works for me, YMMV) is a hot shower after a bit of excercise, LOTS of coffee followed by soothing music. "Soothing" in my context is usually Testament or Slayer, but you get the idea.
I also make it harder on myself to get distracted by turning off the ringer on my phone or taking out the battery to make Twitter et al. harder to get to (I don't remember my Twitter password, so I'd have to go into my "mega-list-of-all-passwords" text file which is PGP encrypted).
I'd also add that procrastination and perfectionism is something I've seen a lot of, and which has always struck me as particularly insidious. I managed to finish my PhD by 26, but the reason is because I was comfortable with turning it in imperfect (and expected to do so from 24 on, after initial grad student optimism was burned out of me). I've had friends who spent years on a thesis past when it was done by any sane definition of the word just because they wanted it to be perfect. And since "perfect" was unattainable they spent all their time playing video games instead.
Last, I have spent over a decade carefully cultivating a mentality of not attaching myself to the outcomes of my projects but instead focus on enjoying the process. If I don't enjoy the process, the product is sort of irrelevant (at least for long periods). If I do enjoy the process, the product will be the best I can do. I'm currently running two startups, working part time at a third, teach karate, and am at least nominally pursuing romantic and social relationships. I often find myself using the mantra "it will turn out how it turns out" to help myself sleep on anxiety ridden nights. I also more formally say "I release <foo>" when I find that I am dwelling on something in meditation and visualize myself no longer being emotionally attached to that thing. Particularly helpful for tentative romantic relationships. Worry there seems to be cause inevitable failure.
Dunno if that helps anyone, but it helped me a ton.
I feel naked in front of that statement. :(
Is this a bot in development? Comment history is awfully strange, always linking to http://news.ycombinator.com, suggesting it is a placeholder for later links.
... Maybe I just need my morning coffee... or internetdude313 is high as a kite, with a crush on lisp.
I wonder, is there any website, community or maybe even webservice with book annotations, clear and brief? I think it wouldn't be a big exaggeration to say I'd prefer a quality brief for at least 80% of books I read.
But €299 for 12 months was a little bit.. unsuspected.
I've always had a strong connection between my ego and my achievements. When I got employed by a company with extremely talented people, I developed chronic stress. It's been a serious problem for me for a few years. Lots of procrastination, my health has suffered, and my general life quality has suffered.
What has made a tremendous difference for me, is to develop metacognition. If you are aware of what's going on in your head, you can aim your focus where you want it to be. Over time, old habits will fade.
Most of us think thoughts and feelings are reality. But they're not. They are just events inside us. They're not dangerous. Yet, we often believe they are life threatening. So we react. Strongly.
The first step is to understand that thoughts, the voice in your head, is just that: A voice in your head. It doesn't tell the truth: it tells scary stories, to keep you safe from sable tooth tigers (or the modern equivalents). Since you want to stay alive, it's best to be on the safe side, so this radio broadcasts 80% bad news all day long.
That radio used to take most of my focus. It was very loud. By learning to treat it as background noise(1), I can now better focus on other things. As a result, many problems in my life have just started to fade away, without me actively working on them. Including procrastination.
Also, learning to be aware of feelings (detectable by bodily sensations), and letting them stay without fueling them with thoughts (e.g. "I don't want to feel like this", "this is bad", or "why me!?"), or conciously (or unconsiously) trying to get rid of them, reduces stress levels a lot. Feelings left alone often disappear by themselves within a minute or so. In contrast, if you fuel them with thoughts, or try to get rid of them, they tend to get stronger and may stick around for a long time.
I would recommend looking into ACT. E.g. check out this video by Russ Harris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQTvFdbjlxw . Also, his book, "The Happiness Trap"[1], is well worth reading. This may be all you need.
Before discovering Russ Harris, I developed my awareness of thoughts, as well as my mental flexibility, by doing attention training[2]. For more on this, I would recommend "Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression"[3] by Adrain Wells. (Beware, it is quite heavy, written for psychologists. Don't mind the "Anxiety and Depression" part of the title.)
Furthermore, mindfulness and meditation is good. Just be aware that these are very fashionable nowdays, and there are lots of misunderstandings out there. For example, many mistake them to be about relaxing. Also, getting into meditation and mindfulness may be extremely hard if you're not ready for it, so starting with ACT may be a good idea. To understand (vipassana) meditation, I like this description: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2rd/understanding_vipassana_meditati...
Another good book that covers a lot of the above material, but from a Buddhist perspective, is "Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change"[4] by Pema Chodron. I find it helpful to get different perspectives on these things.
Beware: If you suffer from serious mental illness, or have had traumas, you should be very careful experimenting with this by yourself. I would recommend seeing a psychologist first, preferrably one who is up-to-date on Metacognitive theraphy, ACT and/or mindfulness. Be aware though, that many have an academic interest in these topics, but do not have personal experience, so the concepts are not well integrated in them, making it harder for them to ...
Another thing: Our brains did not evolve to solve abstract problems for 8+ hours a day. They evolved to solve small, practical problems in everyday life. We learn from early childhood to work hard, to concentrate, to get good grades. Less focus is on the importance of listening to the signals that the body sends us, e.g. about taking breaks. It is perfectly fine to feel tired, to feel like not doing anything. It's important to rest.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_(philosopher)
I'd just put off everything until the last minute, but I used to get a rush from staying up all night reading a topic for an exam or doing some programming assignment. There was a sort of heroic feeling of "They assigned 3 weeks for this, but it only took me 10 hours".
Of course when I got results back and found that I hadn't done especially well it was easy to rationalize, "well if I'd done it properly after some sleep I'd have got full marks of course".
But yes, nothing feels crappier than doing your best at something and failing.
Laziness is a bit complicated since it's always relative.
Relative to what? What you do normally and have been for a while (in which case, it's usually the laziness we all know) or the mountain that's manifested in front of you? The latter is important as discouragement is also a prime mover for procastination. The mountain may or may not be self-inflicted, but if it exists, your normal coping strategies don't always work.
I have a procastination problem as well, but for different reasons (usually OCD).
The author may also want to consider removing the notion of "caught up" from his vocabulary. Although it's not covered in the Now Habit, it's discussed in other respected books on procrastination and time management.
I used to beat myself up a lot with the idea that there was a (poorly defined) state of having gotten "caught up" on life tasks like those the author describes at which point all would be well.
The problem is that it doesn't really exist - there's always more to do than you can actually do - and denying that fact keeps you from living in the present. There are simply activities you choose to do and activities you choose not to do - that's it.
While it may sound absurdly simplistic, this one change in thinking had a huge impact on both my personal productivity and happiness.
FWIW, YMMV, etc.
In brief, aside from simply recognizing it intellectually (which alone helped me a lot,) I'd start by literally following the advice I wrote above and remove the phrase from your vocabulary. i.e. Don't say things like "I really have to get caught up this weekend." It's a hopelessly imprecise statement that, if you're like me, primarily just engenders stress and shame. Instead use active language re: precise tasks. e.g. "I'm going to fix my bike and go to the store this afternoon."
Fiore does talk a lot about similar language issues in the Now Habit. For example, he stresses the importance of saying things like "I choose to work on this report now" versus "I have to work on this report now."
His argument is that the latter promotes a victimhood mentality leading to resentment and then procrastination.
He also points out that it's simply untrue. If you're going to be precise, there's very little you have to do - there are simply things you choose to do because either you enjoy them, or because you prefer the consequences of having done them versus not having done them.
Hope that helps!
"I'm going to clear my inbox vs. I'm going to get caught up on my email"
In particular it might help with motivation and perception of success/failure.
For those who haven't read it, Mindset sets out 2 main opposing beliefs:
Dweck points out the problems associated with the former point of view, and how a shift in this thinking can transform your outlook on your entire life. I am surprised sometimes at how controversial this can be when you bring it up.The last 2.5 months for me have been nothing but struggling to figure out something that I barely understand. Something that seems to come pretty easily to a number of people I associate with, so it's difficult to retain perspective. To wit, that they've been doing this stuff a lot longer than I have, and that at least I can get some of it (and will someday probably get more of it).
So this rings pretty true for me, as I had just gotten a thing I'd been working on for what seemed like forever to (mostly) function, now it has to be expanded to handle this other thing that I know pretty much nothing about. It seems like either there are far better people who could be doing this than me, or maybe my belief that if I keep smashing my forehead against the spec, it will gain entry to my brain.
So far, starting out on my own with the idea that I could make a product has been lonely and isolating. This work is damned hard. If I fail, I won't be in a bad place, but it's still overwhelming me. My respect for certain people who have the temerity to do this (and I think you all know who I mean) has grown considerably. But don't tell him I said that, because I still need him to take the garbage out from time to time.
Second, I completely understand the feeling of isolation and loneliness. And it makes it hard, if one's nature is to procrastinate, to push through. I've started talking more about my project with people in an effort to encourage myself to want to show more progress. And, yet, here I am. :/
I do agree though that proper diagnosis is better in any case, but it's not the solution to it all.
I've found that it's hard to break the habit of seeing "good" as synonymous with "right the first time" though, even when I know what the result of that attitude has been for me. I'm hoping that I can help my kids by focusing on the idea of learning from failure and improving by working hard, rather than trying to avoid failure. Any other parents out there working on this problem?