I used to think I had a problem with procrastination.
I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with myself: I’m not doing x because I don’t want to and I accept the consequences of not doing it, or, I’m doing x even though I don’t want to.
Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation of the former. I don’t want to do x, but I also don’t want to accept the consequences of not doing it, so I’ll bullshit myself and pretend I’m doing it by calling it procrastination.
Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my mind and do it later. Practically it’s the same, but this way I’m being honest with myself.
I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our individual capability for vision.
Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure
This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that).
One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion.
Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others.
>This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything
No, it's also wrong, as the whole luxury of choice the parent pretends to be the ideal situation, is based on a whole lot of other people supporting them (from parents throughout childhood, to social structures, technology, resources, and infrastructure, security, to healthcare, someone else whipping their ass in some nursing home when they're 80 and so on).
not sure what you're saying, that you can only imagine support networks in societies through this current system - seems like both a limit of the imagination and a lack of looking at where that's been demonstrated (in likewise post agriculture, large scale society). I didn't elaborate in my OP on solutions, I only offered some ways of evaluating how healthy/"advanced" a society is (not just looking at individual potential)
Imagination of some future utopia is a dime a dozen. Scenarios that actually work are much less easy to find.
>in likewise post agriculture, large scale society
I don't see any post agriculture "large scale society". I see an even more increased role of agriculture, amidst food and resource wars, and society dropping in numbers (and scattering to smaller dwellings), what with climate change, and all.
Perhaps its a western perspective, but I think you might be oversubscribing this as individualism.
A common phrase is about how you don't choose your family. But you often choose your friends, and many can choose certain communities to actively be in.
I think that you can have a sense of community, of some sort of greater good, of buy in, when you have that choice. For example, someone who has the choice of moving across the country to go to a school that interests them, to help out with an organization that aligns with what they are interested in, to work in an industry that they appreciate.
When society is built in a way to provide people the ability to move around, then those inside it will understand the value of it, and will be active participants in the societal effort. and they will be way more onboard with the "demands" from the society as a whole as a result. Though of course this is a question that can come up at every scale.
At least that has been my experience. I care a hell of a lot more about society when it has given me the opportunity to be part of communities that make sense to me, and to see how others get this opportunity as well. And so I gladly pay my dues, even if I might complain a bit.
Okay, and as a counterpoint: being able to up and leave your community on a dime to choose another one leads to filter bubbles, mutual distrust, easy "othering" of communities not your own, and makes more challenging any work to improve dialog, communication, and mutual understanding and respect across society and across class because: why bother repairing or bettering your community when your BATNA [1] is "I'll never have to see these people again"?
I'm not advocating for the alternative, in the slightest -- being forced to be part of a community that doesn't respect you the way you are (as was true for MANY pre-internet, including anyone who wasn't part of the heteronormative or neurotypical hegemony) is horrible, toxic, abusive, etc., and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. But the dramatic filtering of American society into factions that mirror political parties with shockingly separate information worlds that frankly describe completely different realities is made much easier because it is so easy to silo yourself.
the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture, where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today. current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy), I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
The freedoms you list: whether you can relocate, disobey community orders (norms?), or “keep” most of the value of your labor, are fundamentally rooted in a notion of the individual as separable from the community or society they exist in.
It sounds like you are saying that these values are very important, and that missing them is a “severe … social illness”.
I’m not making any historical claims here, nor any claims of relative correctness or value (though plenty of others in this thread are) — I’m just noting that these are a specific set of values and not universal ones, and I’d caution you about universalizing your notion of individual by characterizing the lack of these freedoms as a “social ill”. For example, one might easily value connectedness, belonging, mutual aid, and social support above the ability to relocate, etc. — in most societies the freedom to relocate is not the freedom to relocate your social support — and giving up social support by relocating in order to “keep” more of produced value is a big trade-off that many don’t choose to make.
And as you note, other societies have had other notions of the individual across history throughout the world.
yeah these are not traditional ones, I'm paraphrasing from ones that graeber/wengrow suggest we use over other measures of societies we've used traditionally (such as how economically successful they are, how much production, etc - the types of measures that obviously favor capitalism as the measure of success)
> (I) the freedom to move away or relocate from one's surroundings; (2) the freedom to ignore or disobey commands issued by others; and (3) the freedom to shape entirely new social realities, or shift back and forth between different ones.
these are proposed as more meaningful ways of evaluating how "advanced" a society is in its liberties. which is interesting for reevaluating current conditions, (post agriculture, large scale) human societies of the past (that may have been dismissed as primitive before), and for imagining where we can go from here.
Yes, my point is that using those as a measure of liberties is a particular definition of liberties that makes assumptions about what humans value most.
Not everyone values these — nor even liberties in general — and describing their lack as a “social illness” as you did originally universalizes them in a way that may not be warranted. I have no doubt that other cultures have these values — the point is that not all cultures do, and not everyone does even within cultures that do.
>I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
And how are these revelevant to a modern, much more elaborate, society, if it wants to also keep certain things (like production, technology, education, infrastructure, etc.)?
"without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that they will be devalued automatically by collective, which will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
I’m extremely confused by how the lesson you drew from Wengrow and Graeber is that the notions of freedom to relocate, disobey your community, and keep the value of your labor are actually universal and not based in a specific notion of individualism.
It seems like you’re making an argument about hierarchy, rather than individualism. Yes, hierarchy is not universal. But I’m not sure what that has to do with the above freedoms you describe? Taxation? The existence of laws? Please enlighten me.
If anything the lesson from The Dawn of Everything is exactly that there are no universal or even “native” notions of society, collective, hierarchy, etc.
sorry for paraphrashing sloppily, I wrote the OP hastily because usually this kind of anti-capitalist stuff is unwelcome here and gets downvoted lol, I didn't expect this attention
this is the specific passage of what they suggest as new measures of social liberty:
> (I) the freedom to move away or relocate from one's surroundings; (2) the freedom to ignore or disobey commands issued by others; and (3) the freedom to shape entirely new social realities, or shift back and forth between different ones.
> “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others.
How is respect defined here? One man's definition of respect will clash with another's. Some define respect as cult-like devotion, some as a recognition of one's boundaries, some as a transaction at a specific price, some as engaging in an expected cultural performance, etc. Freedom from control or, more precisely, imposition and interference is well-defined. Desires for respect can balloon into wishful thinking, if not self-delusion.
Respect is defined by the respecter, not the respectee. How someone shows respect is up to them as an individual, mediated by societal norms. On the other hand, if someone feels disrespected it’s because they have detected either insincerity or outright hostility/antagonism directed towards them.
Of course, some people may have more or less difficulty detecting sincerity in others but that’s no different from other social skills.
So in short, your view is that respect is simply the sum of the subjective expectations of countervailing forces (i.e. respector, respectee, and society)? If so, that doesn't provide a clear definition for the term. Instead it leaves the act of defining to interpersonal power plays.
there’s plenty of power play mind game “respect” abuse that doesn’t neatly fit into your categorization imo, which unravels the rest of what you’re talking abt
>How is respect defined here? One man's definition of respect will clash with another's.
Respect shouldn't be entirely up to the invididuals to define what action (note: what action/stance/etc, not which person) deserves it -- otherwise it's not respect, it's just a personal whim.
That is the point I am trying to get across. As a side note,
whim isn't limited to mere individuals. Whole societies can and do build their morals on cargo cults and arbitrary delineations of what are and aren't respectable practices.
Given our agreement that whim should not define respect, then what is it defined by exactly? If the individuals themselves are not the ones to determine what constitutes a "respectful act", then where does one obtain the ability or authority to draw the line as to what qualifies as respect and what doesn't?
I really dislike calling these kinds of attitudes "western". Asia has plenty of hyper-individualistic behavior, even (or especially?) where nominally socialism or communism rules.
It is a philosophical framework that grows directly out of Western culture per philosophical tradition during the Enlightenment era. Western culture had much more of an effect on this tradition than Eastern cultures did.
It's not about where the philosophy exists in individuals, but about what socio-systemic forces brought those modes of thinking into being. Ironically this mirrors the point above about how the framing of this issue itself is rooted in individualist perspective.
Somewhat orthogonal to your point, but it is interesting to me how easily some will dismiss perspectives or ideas by referring to them pejoratively as "western".
I think you’re projecting. I’m not sure how I could have caveated my statement more than I did — I am not dismissing the perspective I describe as “western” at all, merely noting the existence of alternatives that may offer other perspectives on the question at hand.
I’m all ears if you have a better descriptor for philosophies emerging from enlightenment-era thought in Western Europe. (Sure, I could say all that but it’s a mouthful!)
The point is, these behaviors clearly did not emerge only there as we have plenty of examples in completely unrelated cultures. There is no point in calling something "western" only because it's happening there as well - you have the same thing everywhere else, so why not call it "eastern" or "southern" instead - or why use meaningless names at all?
In this case, the name is really only indicative of where the current canon of philosophical thought identifies the first recordings of these notions as explicit philosophical notions, and has nothing to do with “these behaviors” as were not even talking about behaviors.
The name isn’t meaningless — and I’m not using it from a belief that “western” people are more “individualistic” or something than others, as you and others seem to be implying. Obviously there are plenty of individualistic behaviors in people across cultures.
But the notion of the individual with agency creating a state to protect individual agency is recorded explicitly by Kant and enlightenment rationalism, collectively typically referred to as “western” by philosophers. The OP here was discussing freedoms and values, and I was pointing out that they seem to derive from this notion of the individual, which is only one among many.
Do you also open discussions of Newton’s Law of Gravity with a critique that it’s misnamed because gravity is present everywhere?
Apologies to anyone triggered by this jargon, it wasn’t my intent.
That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator.
The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch.
But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing.
Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
I read this and say that it sounds fair, but I remind myself that it all hinges on compensation and freedom. I am not comfortable with the notion that they are all equally trapped in their burdens.
CEO and The World Changing Content Delivery Guy can always apply to be the sanitation worker, every day until they land that job, in order to rid themselves of the nagging feeling that they could be consuming more content.
Trash Guy might be able to pursue his dream, hanging off the outside of a truck at 4am, of becoming a World Changing Content Access Guy but only if he has the funds and time to do so.
I fall into this trap myself, wondering if I should have just delivered packages for a living, but I forget that lower wages never decrease stress, and very rarely buys freedom.
Good points except I’m not sure about lower wages not decreasing stress. Not in and of themselves. But typically I’ve been happier and lower paid jobs. I’m a highly responsible person, so project work stresses me more than it probably should. I preferred to do a job and just come home like most human beings do. Unless I am the boss collecting all the money, I don’t really see the advantage to project work with long projected schedules and all of the stress that comes with that if you’re a relatively low paid software developer.
The best situation is to get a government job that’s well paid, what usually with a pension, good benefits and healthcare. Even if that is picking up trash. It’s pretty tough to beat. It may not be completely fulfilling but the grass is always greener on the other side and being under stress is healthier than being overstressed.
The CEO only needs to do this for a year or two to have enough resources to become financially independent, that's the difference with the other characters in this story. Everyone else is working as part of lifestyle. And that's what's troubling so many people, the lifestyle around obligation blows.
yes in ways, there’s been findings on (post agriculture, much larger than dunbar number) societies in which such hierarchical roles were purely seasonal with roles useful practically or ritualistically becoming devalued off season and tyranny-level powers flipped somewhat in favor of the other side, or even ones which have police forces that are simultaneously clowns and thus kept from overstepping their status with their power (I can elaborate more on details on this one if I look up the citations again from Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything)
>fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to.
I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality.
There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers.
Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.
Bob Iger did 6.30 AM to 4.30 PM as Disney CEO. And then another 8-10 PM. He says it gives him plenty of family and solitude time, but it makes me wonder what hours all the other CEOs do, especially the ambitious ones who neglect family.
> There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy
Really? What about sacrificing family time?
For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a father is simply not a priority to him, and that’s his choice. But it’s not his childrens choice, I can guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
That’s interesting but I would say that being at the top of the capital hierarchy has no connection with loss of personal time. There’s plenty of people at the top of the capital hierarchy that don’t do anything at all. Or very little. I doubt Paris Hilton is up at 6 AM. Unless it’s to get hammered by some dude that she met at the bar.
I think linking capital to work as a correlation is pretty dangerous. That conversation will only lead to people realizing that they’re not paid according to the value they produce.
They’ll learn that they’re paid according to their ability to demand it. Soon after that, you have unrest. You have workers demanding unionization. Which is the correct answer.
There’s a heavy capitalism realist veil over most of the other comments in this thread. And this does come down mostly to control over one’s own time (you can see it even with the most workaholic CEOs, who on whim can veer off to fancies unrelated to their CEO role or for their personal benefit with ease when they have any need or want to)
This has heavy implications. For example, with the ability for the working class to protest anything; rich business owners are the only ones who can take days off for that without collapsing through meager safety nets
Agreed. I'm essentially out on the streets in a few months if I don't maintain in income. And that's a lot easier done with accumulated capital than it is by labor. Of course we could just chop the legs off many contrived industries like finance, and stop bilking everyone with usury, if we just realized the authority to mint money is the peoples to begin with. We could get loans from our own government. That would stop a lot of implicit or soft abuse.
One commenter said the trash man wants more money, but instead enjoys his weekends. I can't agree. He should be paid more. The books should be open, either through union power or worker's cooperative power. Taking out the trash is a valuable service, if no one does it, it's a pretty big deal very fast. That requires a form of solidarity between workers to exercise that power, but it's all about the trash man's ability to demand it. Employment is predatory if you examine the nature of the employer-employee relationship, and the goal is achieved because people are desperate. Including me, and I'm in software.
Your point about money buying back your time is an important one, because that's your freedom of choice. Freedom of choice does involve Pepsi vs Coke, but it more importantly involves how you spend a very short and finite life.
Simply put, my country (the US), needs more unions. It won't be perfect, no human endeavor ever is, but it will be better.
Otherwise there's blocks of tribalism. Some workplaces are tribalistic - they actually do care for you like family once you get past the initiation rites. Most of it is replaced with faux tribalism though, to squeeze more out of some other party.
the refreshing and recent research from graeber/wengrow showed in detail how we don’t need to collapse back down to small tribal groups to support a healthy society (healthier in terms of freedoms I mentioned) at scale. their work should expand our imagination for future society by looking at what we were able to already demonstrate under similar in useful ways conditions in our past (post agriculture, in large society above dunbar number bs)
sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense while being more helpful - here’s a compelling realm of research that they’re evidently missing out on and not speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare.
All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately rewarded.
In other words, one might be procrastinating because the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes? Absolutely.
Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that is my wanna-be hypothesis.
> How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey
Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture.
Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2].
Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today.
Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on this topic that has some radically different fundamentals than what you’ve shared - I shared an article that elaborates here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself. This helped me really understand what was happening.
Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do. I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I just couldn't start them.
Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating. ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day. They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was burning me out.
I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.
I love this mindset. I did not consciously realize I also needed ‘leisure time’ until I read this - so thank you. Tomorrow I will play soccer and hopefully that will help me accomplish the laundry :-)
As a variation on that theme, sometimes the reason I don't want to do it is because I don't actually know how to do it, or even what to do. While telling myself it should be easy.
Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first", or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop procrastinating.
This is why it takes me a day or two to orient myself towards starting a big task. The sooner I get to the ”I have to make this clearer” part, the sooner I have a roadmap, and the sooner I start coding.
The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.
Personally I’ve also found myself so exhausted and shitty feeling that even if I consciously know that thing should be done (and there will be negative consequences for not starting right now on it) I can’t will myself to do it.
It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point, would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not have been an option either.
As I’ve gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various experiences and emotions so things don’t get as ‘stuck’ all help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be blocking me before it blocks me.
> I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm asked to do something legit.
I also had a problem with that. In the University I had to deal with it.
The books Eat that Frog and Getting Things Done, helped a lot.
And Getting Things Done as what lead to my use of emacs. Because I started to use org mode on Emacs.
My anxiety improved.
I only felt anxious near exams.
Chronic procrastination can be associated with perfectionism, in which case it is the result of fear of failure because of the self-imposed high standards. The reason for the fear of failure is that the failure is perceived as the individual failing to measure up to their ideal self, which threatens their self-worth.
So procrastination is a defense mechanism, but it is a maladaptive one, because the individual ends up feeling ashamed of their procrastination.
Chronic procrastination can also be result of degraded metabolism. This physical issue is often ignored a lot. A component of metabolism is genetic but rest is sustained by body’s anticipated need to perform work. When you procrastinate, you are driving yourself into low energy activities (ex infinite scrolling). The body starts getting adapt to low energy state. There is less need to produce more energy so metabolism shifts into lower gear. You feel need to put aside real work and get on to infinite scrolling because you physically feel tired, drowsy, washed out. You hope that bit of procrastination (aka “rest”) will get your energy levels up again and you will make up with your time. This obviously doesn’t happen. This is recursive cycle leading to chronic procrastination and will happen regardless of your interest in real work. For many people, genetic component is dominant enough that they would never see this effect. However, 40+ population, where metabolism starts declining, is most vulnerable to this. The only way out in this case is literally force yourself with a lot of will power (or have friends or mentor do it for you). No other tricks described here works if chronic procrastination is occurring due to physical biology.
How do you come out of this and break the cycle? I suffer from this and haven't been able to do anything I want.
Is there any steps, guide or help available?
Thanks in advance.
Is it really important that it is perfect? Who really cares?
What do you win by doing this imperfectly (time - to achieve other / more meaningful things, or to rest, or to spend time with people you care about, or for your hobbies)
What do you lose by doing this imperfectly? Not much usually.
Who will notice? Probably nobody.
In the grand scheme of things, why bother anyway?
What are you trying to achieve? This task perfectly, or this task is just a something you need to do to get paid so you can have a meaningful life?
If people do care for a specific aspect/corner, they'll tell you anyway.
They probably prefer seeing something earlier so they can give feedback, so you can achieve an even better result, counter-intuitively.
Besides all this, I think I achieve this by not caring so much and not tying myself personally to much to the task. And by thinking about the outcome. Perfect often leads to worse outcome, and is relative to only you anyway because other people care about other stuff than you.
Of course, it is still important to achieve the task correctly, but as perfectionist we usually need to take a step back.
In her book “Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization”, Karen Horney talks about breaking negative vicious cycles by slowly creating positive ones. In this case by lessening the standards of absolute perfection. Quoting from the book:
“Just as vicious circles were at work to entangle him more and more deeply in his neurosis, now there are circles working in the reverse direction. If for instance the patient lessens his standards of absolute perfection, his self-accusations also decrease. Hence he can afford to be more truthful about himself. He can examine himself without becoming frightened. This in turn renders him less dependent upon the analyst and gives him confidence in his own resources. At the same time his need to externalize his self-accusations decreases too. So he feels less threatened by others, or less hostile toward them, and can begin to have friendly feelings for them. Besides, the patient's courage and confidence in his ability to take charge of his own development gradually increase. In our discussions of the repercussions we focused upon the terror that results from the inner conflicts. This terror diminishes as the patient becomes clear about the direction he wants to take in his life. And his sense of direction alone gives him a greater feeling of unity and strength. Yet there is still another fear attached to his forward moves, one which we have not yet fully appreciated. This is a realistic fear of not being able to cope with life without his neurotic props. The neurotic is after all a magician living by his magic powers. Any step toward self-realization means relinquishing these powers and living by his existing resources. But as he realizes that he can in fact live without such illusions, and even live better without them, he gains faith in himself.”
Perfectioism is a complex topic. I highly recommend the book “Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment” by Gordon Flett, Paul L. Hewitt, and Samuel F. Mikail. It won't magically solve the issue, but it will help you gain understading and awareness of the unconscious forces within you keeping perfectionism at work. I believe that awareness is the beginning of change.
I read a book once (which I can't remember the name) that shows you how self-esteem (and lack of) can block us for doing things that matter to us. Like having a toxic partner/family makes you have a low self-steem. So in other words, living and hanging out with people that supports and love you and what you do, have a huge impact.
Edit: six pillars of self esteem is the name of the book
> How do you come out of this and break the cycle?
Probably realizing that even if you live up to your expectations you'll always be a nobody, especially in a world that is about to be populated by 10+ billion humans.
If you think of all the 'greats' : Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Leonardo, Alexander, Aristoteles, JFK, Gandhi...the world was much smaller back then and yet their death was absorbed by the rest of humanity in a nanosecond or even less. The half mast flag and months of grieving imposed from above are just that, people will keep eating and laughing and drinking and partying behind closed doors, not out of respect but out of fear of prosecution.
An other way to talk yourself out of it is to understand that whatever you are after is a great goal indeed, and the self will be elated when you reach it, but the self will be even more elated if you reach it with the minimum effort, and so by thinking about it too much and ruminating on the paths to the goal you are going to automatically deny the 'minimum effort' bit and thus end up with a sub-optimal path due to excessive preparation
what worked for me: practice deliberately doing things not perfect, and reminding myself that perfection is subjective.
This can giving yourself a fixed amount of time for something and declaring it done when time's up (think "pencils down" at the end of a test) wherever you're at.
Though my favorite, even as a mental exercise, is described in one of Eric Maisel's many books on creative anxiety - prepare to make an omelet and right before you put the eggs on the heat, throw in the shells, cook as normal.
There's a section on perfectionism in my book "Rebuilding Blocks", here's a snippet:
"Artisans of many ancient cultures intentionally placed flaws in their works. Whether Persian rugs, Amish quilts, or Navajo pottery, these flaws are marketed as a humbling reminder that they were human and perfection was limited to the gods. Gods who don’t need to get wares to market or have bills to pay. Humans run out of raw material, time, energy, and patience. These restrictions should focus our minds on achieving our largest, most important goals and a few, small flaws are a small price to pay for a conclusion....Perfection doesn't deliver"
You don't need to feel ashamed of the procrastination if you're allowed to completely forget about the thing you're procrastinating on. Pesky society likes to remind people about things like owing taxes, work deadlines, and grades, though.
There also exists the fear of success, which is much less talked about. Equally dangerous to destabilizing a perfectionist identity. And social mobility comes with its own risks. If you suddenly make it big, are you at all prepared to handle that? You may have worked hard to succeed, but then what? Became a millionaire overnight? Prepare to get robbed, conned, or just plain go mad with analysis paralysis.
What hack for me was stop thinking of it as "complete A or finish B". Instead I see it small pieces. "lets just hack this script on SO that will let me wrangle an API". "hey lets build an endpoint that will just take care of authentication"
doing this way I am not working on a dozen things trying to be perfect. rather each work feels just like a coding exercise.
having said that even getting into this mode is a challenge. you get carried away. you make love with your side project. you get attached.
People, instead of visiting a psychiatrist, come up with various explanations and explanations that have nothing to do with psychiatry. And everyone pretends to be an expert on all issues that are far from psychiatry, from the methods of psychiatry, from pills and drugs and methods of treatment. But everyone tells with great certainty that "you are procrastinating, it is caused by X."
I have been procrastinating for over 10 years.
And then it turned out - that this is a common depression.
Which ruined a lot of life.
After starting treatment with a psychiatrist and taking pills, my working capacity increased significantly. There was a lot of strength and motivation.
My advice to those who feel problems with concentration, with the power to force themselves to do something, and so on. Just see a professional doctor. Come to the reception. Describe your situation. And according to the results, you will be prescribed pills that will help you, after a short period of time, significantly return what you have lost due to illness.
There is an alternate world view that says "if you're struggling to make yourself do X, its because you don't actually want to do X and you should figure out what it is you actually want to do". Going to a psychiatrist for drugs to help you do the thing you "don't actually want to do" goes against this world view.
Hey, thanks for this! I've been considering going to the doctor for a long time, but never have. I just sent my GP an e-mail and hopefully will have an appointment set up soon.
Hi HN! Exciting to see this model get some attention.
Admittedly, it is mostly a sketch. I created this model in self-study but published it just in case it might help someone else. As Brené Brown says, I'm trying to get it right, not to be right.
Still, I think there's a few key insights here:
1. As other replies have suggested, this model might not fit you. Procrastination is an umbrella term that describes a variety of issues, and sometimes those issues interlock! If you're struggling to match intention with action, find your model. Also, talk to a counsellor. They really help.
2. Systems sketching — in combination with self-study of our thoughts and behaviours — is a really interesting way to understand our own cognitive-behavioural problems. In my case, I sketched this model after realizing for the first time that anxiety might play a role in my procrastination behaviours. It helped me see how powerful that role really was.
After creating this model at the beginning of 2022, I engaged a counsellor and have been doing a lot more self-study. A work-in-progress on a far more involved (and idiosyncratic) model is available here: https://embed.kumu.io/fc78b8660224a57734e0bb6c52cebbd8
(Oddly enough, this was shared about 24 hours after I finished a research paper on all this work. I'll share that via my blog if and when it gets accepted by the destination.)
Thanks for a rich discussion — and thanks Kumu team for addressing the traffic spike issues.
Oh, I forgot to add: Tim Pychyl's work and podcast was such an essential resource for me as I started to take my procrastination issues more seriously.[1]
Tim's a procrastination researcher out of the University of Ottawa, I think. The podcast does a fantastic job of making current research on procrastination accessible and engaging.
Hey! How did you choose Kumu? I'm currently exploring a landscape of SD tools, and Kumu seems both cool and unusual, but it's not clear if it can be used a replacements for Stella Architect, which is prohibitevely expensive. Does it have features like feedback loop analysis, for example?
Admittedly I can only speak to the merits of Kumu. I was never really trained in system dynamics, more systems thinking, so that plus the wild expense of most SD software means that I have never really given them a chance.
The other reason I can't compare them is because once I tried Kumu, I never looked back. Kumu is wonderful. It looks simple enough, but once you dig into the advanced features and the extensive documentation, you can really learn to do amazing things with it. I've used it for many years now for many clients.
But see again point 1. It isn't made to be a systems dynamics modeling tool, so simulation and analysis features you might expect to find might be missing.
My suggestion is to choose a problem to work, create a free model, and start messing around. My guess is that you'll find Kumu great for initial sketches and non-dynamics models, but you'll probably want to go elsewhere for simulation work.
>I have always been a bad procrastinator. I think my procrastination habits are rooted in anxiety.
>As you might guess, comprehensive exams are very anxiety-provoking. So, when I first began preparing, I had a lot of trouble. I tried to draw on best practices—breaking down the task, defining the end goal, practicing mindfulness—but I was struggling.
>One of the things I would use to procrastinate was Shortcuts.
>Then, one day, I realized: why not build an automation that guides me through these best practices to conquer procrastination?
>That’s where Mise en place came from. The name is stolen from the French culinary concept of “setting in place” everything you need before you begin cooking.
>The core concept of the Mise en place shortcut is simple: lead me through a preparatory ritual to reduce anxiety, and then add some check-ins to help catch me in the act if I go too far off-task.
Is this link up here for the content or for the tech? I don't get it either way - the app is nice, but it's built using another system (and I'd have lots of suggestions to improve how it renders on this site).
In terms of content, it's not clear whether the network model is one taken from the published literature, or something the author created ad-hoc (feels a bit like the latter). And I don't get the point of assigning network centrality measures to topics like "facing fears" without explanation (seems like they came with the app, which was designed for a different purpose, and the author didn't know how to take them out, or didn't bother).
I have a therapist friend who's shown me some very useful, evidence-based cognitive models. They do come with nice visual explanations too, and putting those into a web app has been on the back of my mind since - but they looked quite different.
I hear ya on the rendering. This systems sketch was by me, for me, but I published it with minimal effort just in case it might help someone else. It probably would've been better just to publish a link to the model than to embed it, though.
As for the content, it's ad hoc, albeit not entirely without evidence. It's based on a bit of self-study (e.g., autoethnographic observations of my own thoughts and behaviours and passive reading of the psych literature on procrastination).
The centrality measures shouldn't actually be there... Long, boring story short: they're an artifact of some systemic leverage analysis [1] I was doing on a more involved model[2].
Last, I'd love to see those cognitive models. From what I've found, we understand a great many of the pieces of procrastination, but it still takes work to put them together for any one person's situation.
Thanks for responding, that is some cool content! As I mentioned, I've also been thinking about putting up some related content- feel free to reach out, my email is in my profile.
I have a mix of low to moderate ADHD, moderate social anxiety and moderate general anxiety and have been a world class procrastinator. But having a child changed the scenario. because I had to force myself to focus in what really matters, stopped to be a perfectionist (which sometimes is a excuse to procrastinate) otherwhise I'd be in prison (for not paying my kid bills) or probably homeless.
having a family really reigns in the upper bound of impulsivity. it's one of the few things that can hold me back from rage quitting or help me do the things I'm avoiding
exactly that. having a few people that depends on me is like a driving force to get shit done. we should take it with care tho, because it can be unhealthy in a lot of ways (I tend to no care with the same intensity about my health/body, dont go outside with the frequency that I should to exercise and things like that)
I thought this was me. Many professionals told me this was me. I had a horrible off and on decade fighting it, trying to do all the things you're supposed to, feeling guilty for failing and hating myself. A decade later someone finally figured out - despite the small fortune spent on education and medical professionals - that I actually had ADHD and some learning disabilities. There was a slightly different model with previously hidden forces. Only now, knowing this, have I finally been able to effect real positive change for myself.
I procrastinate a lot. But when I find an enjoyable, challenging task I go very fast and can’t seem to stop. I’ve just been honest at work about it and very consciously take tasks that seem exciting. It works well for me. Tbh I really procrastinate when I either don’t understand the reason for doing something or when I do and find it bs. So it always helps to spend some time trying to understand a task and subsequently to articulate why I think the task should either not exist or be addressed differently. Sometimes I can get away with not doing the boring thing.
Sorry for the Kumu 500s! I moved some critical parts of our service away from EC2 classic on Saturday morning. One of our servers was accidentally recreated with an 8GB volume instead of 1TB and the HN hug caused a process to blow through the remaining disk space with indexes. Should be back to working order now!
Actually I read this the other day and its actually great. Despite the headline it doesn't actually say how to deal with it, only how annoying it is for other people - which actually helps me.
Procrastinators eventually turn up late with their work explaining how they were toiling all night to get it done and expecting gratitude and sympathy for their incredible dedication. Of course, everyone else knows that this self-sacrifice was because the person concerned had been scrolling through TikTok videos and binge-watching Love Island UK for the previous two weeks when they were supposed to be getting it done. There is no chance to review the work, no time for a run through, and half-baked ideas full of mistakes are presented. We're supposed to be grateful for this. Yes, everyone is late on occasion, but if it happens: Every. Single. Freaking. Time. Then there's a problem.
"What if I do a bunch of work on this project, but because I've chosen the wrong approach, I have to throw it all away and start over? What approach is the right one? Everyone on the web has conflicting opinions!"
The only solution is to give yourself a time limit on background research and then, make a decision, commit and just build something.
This is different from boredom-driven procrastination, which is more of the nature of:
"I have this extremely tedious job to do, which I am not looking forward to, as it will use energy I could much better spend doing other things."
This kind of procrastination can be levered to get other things done, however. Think of all the things you want to get done, and then do all those things as an alternative to doing that one really tedious, boring task that can then be put off until tomorrow (again).
I notice an odd thing when I want to procrastinate/am feeling overwhelmed: I tend to get tired and fall asleep. Which I guess means I'm not making progress but trying to will my brain to pay attention, so it takes a break.
Maybe you're experiencing the stage of emotional disregulation beyond fight or flight: freeze.[1]
I have been trying to actually take a real break when I get distressed.
Say you've been procrastinating for an hour, and you only have another hour before you need to stop for the day. In the moment, it feels like you can't "waste" fifteen minutes on a break because you just wasted an hour. Truth is, though, it's better to spend fifteen minutes doing something to calm the emotions down and then get a productive 45 minutes in.
It takes practice, but like all good habits, the benefits compound over time.
This thing is unreadable because of the crazy interactive animation and whatever getting all messed up, at least under my browser and adblock settings. Couldn't they put it on a plain readable page? There is a link saying something about a pdf, but that gets a 500 error.
Procrastination is a serious issue for some people, and its causes can be quite complicated.
This rings so true with me. I have a side project [1] that I try to promote and it always feels hard. Where do I start? Should I post comments in random subreddits? Should I write blog posts that may nobody read in the end? Start doing ads? I think having the multiple options kinda freezes me and it is so hard to start doing something.
re: "mental imagery" (imagine yourself after the work has happened) - In my experience imagining myself after the work has happened is a net negative. Once I perform the act of imagining the task/project complete, I receive the dopamine reward of completing the project, and no longer have an interest in actually doing the work. I derive the most satisfaction in conquering a very complicated problem, and if I get it all figured out in my head, then I've got what I need out of it and doing all the actual implementation doesn't bring any new satisfaction to me, so I tend to then move on to the next complicated problem I can work through in my head. When I have a team of developers working for me, the project moves forward under their efforts and something really cool comes to fruition, but when I'm solo, the project stops once I've figured out the solution.
BTW - people are quick to preface with IANAL (109,000 google results), but I think it is equally important for people to start saying IANAP (I am not a psychiatrist, 633 google results). Offering armchair psychiatric advice seems like the risks are greater than armchair legal advice, because people's lives are on the line. See what /u/tamsaraas said in this thread, it is valuable. Time to normalize IANAP.
IANAP - but being exposed to all the discussion on HN about procrastination has helped me realize that I might suffer from executive dysfunction and have ADHD. But I'm seeking therapy to get a proper diagnosis and treatment for it. I appreciate people sharing their experiences, that is valuable, both for what they deal with and what works for them, but people should probably not try to fix themselves without professional help or tell other people what will fix them.
I like "IANAP." Folks should always try to engage professionals when they can. Articles on the internet help you to know what you don't know, but if you think something might be an issue for you, connect with experts on it.
Re: visualization — it's a problematic trope that imagining success helps. Apparently visualizing failure, and especially the consequences of failure, can be more motivating. Andrew Huberman provides a pretty good summary of recent research on the subject.[1]
I struggle with being lazy in all aspects of my life. I have ADHD and anxiety. Does anyone know of where I should start looking to lower my procrastination and laziness?
It doesn't feel like I'm lazy, because I also don't get things done that I WANT to do. I simply do not know why I don't get things done. I don't know if I'm lazy or paralyzed by fear. Trying new things is always hard for me
For me its the overwhelming amount of decision making that prevents me. Imagine for a moment you have to make decisions that impact a lot of people and you can't just do stuff on a whim. Under this model, you would delay an important decision to the very last possible moment.
In addition as engineers, it can feel like you are walking in circles when examining your solution. It's not just writing code that is the issue, its dealing with these valleys and troughs of emotion that comes with undertaking work.
Even labor jobs require a certain level of internal rally cry if it makes sense. It's even more tougher that require constant mental attention and analysis. Which is why the financial buy-side for me was too much. The anxiety alone, the uncertainty aspect of it would make it very tough to execute, especially because there are few variables that is completely out of your control. Many burn out and many only end up collecting the management fee. Few that make it seem to not too sound either.
are you medicated for ADHD? stimulant based ADHD medicines have one of the highest reported effective rates among medicine based psychological treatments.
Finding out how you can break the negative feedback loop of being anxious/distracted -> not get things done -> feel guilty and get more anxiety and building positive momentum is key.
for me things that seem to work are:
doing some kind of exercise, from dancing, lifting weights, bodyweight exercises
going for sauna
short EMDR session seem to be very effective in toning down heightened anxiety levels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DALbwI7m1vM)
or starting to clean my room
I also suggest to try to keep daily journal of how you feel, and keep track of things that worked/ that didn't work, etc. also helps to begin morning journals with clear 3 goals you aim to get done for the day.
Have you considered trialing medication? ADHD medication is among the most effective brain-targeted medication known to medical science. Both methylphenidate and amphetamine-based drugs have a 90% effectiveness rate.
I would love to see how effectiveness was determined. I've seen that stat thrown around here and there, and I find it dubious at best. Even if true, that means 10% of people will find medications ineffective. Sure, there are non-stimulants, but there is a reason they aren't used first, and that would still mean there is an x% of people that are treatment-resistant.
I know that goes for every disease, but the internet likes to paint ADHD medications for ADHD people like it's a literal cure-all.
In regards to stimulant efficacy, I would love to see the effectiveness rate over a time span greater than a few months to a year. I would like to see 10 and 20 year long studies (I understand the difficulties).
Anecdotally, the medications help, but I would consider them to be like a low dosage of painkillers for a burn victim -- better than nothing.
I have and I do use it, and it helps me a lot. But it still feels like there's an underlying laziness to myself. Maybe I should try other medication because I sort of stuck with the first one I tried, and only trialed the doses after that
There are so many to choose from now and some really ingenious delivery systems. For instance, Concerta is a plastic pill surrounded by a hard dose of MPH (methylphenidate). The outer shell of MPH burns off in your stomach providing an immediate dose of the medication. And inside the plastic capsule, there is more MPH in a liquid form. The inner liquid MPH slowly leaks out by osmosis via a tiny hole in the plastic inner shell.
How anyone thought of this and made it actually work is mind boggling.
The article you linked seems to be talking about how two generic versions of Concerta were pulled because they were not found to be bio equivalent to the name brand medication.
The approved ADHD medications are highly effective and this has been shown through a great deal of well conducted research both by the companies and by independent researchers.
I'm thinking about a combinatorial approach to fight procrastination. Look at possibilities, subconfiguration, see what is easiest to try, order them in the cheapest way, and then just try until there's no more options. It removes the liability aspect a bit.
Are these the best solutions? There’s got to be something else, maybe something more drastic when fighting with your self over things that life important.
This is a fine perspective to have, but it is also possible to procrastinate on things you do want to do. That's what I have been trying to personally address, anyway.
I've said it before, and I feel need to say it again. If you don't have time to read the whole thing please skip to the summary at the end.
There is anxiety, procrastination and task avoidance that everybody faces. Everybody has some things they don't like to or want to do.
However, what some people facing these issues often don't realize is that if it's happening (almost) everywhere, it could be something else. Are you struggling with a solid 50% of your tasks? Maybe even 100%?
That's not normal, I'm sorry to say (I'm in this boat myself for what it's worth). Don't feel bad, it's very likely not your fault.
Ask yourself - is my life significantly impaired by such procrastination issues? Are you missing important things because of your "tardiness"? (I have missed a funeral... simply because I forgot. Of course I didn't want to miss it.) Perhaps lost a job, or strained friendships/marriages because of your forgetfulness?
Do you struggle with long-term plans and their implementation? Perhaps have 1000s of unread emails and now no longer care, even though deep down you would have loved a zero-inbox?
Do you have more unfulfilled wishes, ambitious desires and crazy fantasies but struggle to live in the confines of reality? Justifying your inability to do amazing things because "you unfortunately live in the real world" and "neither does Bob"?
Well, it might be ADHD. Or autism. Or (C)PTSD. Or brain injury/trauma. Perhaps depression. Maybe generalized anxiety disorder, or OCD, or OCPD (note the extra letter). It could be a combination of those things, or perhaps neither. But if you felt some or many of those things to a strong extent, please read up more on executive dysfunction along with these conditions. Getting diagnosed, and treated - therapy, medications (esp for ADHD) - can be very helpful, to put it mildly.
An analogy I like to use is that everybody pees several times a day, but if you're peeing 30 times a day you should probably see a doctor.
Tldr/summary: A bunch of things can cause procrastination and anxiety/feeling bad etc like executive dysfunction ESPECIALLY if
a. You're procrastinating despite not wanting to, and probably feeling crappy about it
b. you also significantly struggle with time management/organization/long term planning and implementation(google its symptoms).
Executive dysfunction can be due to AD(H)D, autism, brain trauma/injury, PTSD etc, not just depression/"being lazy^+", so please read up online, get informed, and get an appointment with your GP/psychiatrist. And oh, go through this before you leave: https://comorbidityguidelines.org.au/img/appendices/appendix...
It's estimated that anywhere from 5 to 8 to 10% of the population has ADHD (and adult ADHD is very undiagnosed), so using the metrics of my last ADHD/health awareness post^ (which had 11 points), using the 1-9-90%^& internet rule about 110 people saw that post which statistically implies around 9 people with ADHD. You might be one of them, and understanding ADHD/whatever you're experiencing is generally life-changing for the better.
Also it's worth noting that these conditions often travel with friends. I have ADHD and the switch to fully remote work nearly wrecked me completely. It took a long time to work it out but although I've always known I have some anxiety related issues I didn't realise to what agree it might have been affecting me. My strategies for getting myself unblocked to that point had always heavily relied on physically talking with a coworker due to the immediate nature of the feedback and in a fully remote setting I found myself really struggling to reach out. My meds had become ineffective and I decided to try and switch and overnight I could push through the pang of anxiety I felt when I needed to reach out and remote working has become not a problem for me.
These things can interact in really subtle and complex ways but when you have effective treatment you realise just how damaging these conditions are to your life and just how not normal the level and degree of your "procrastination" is.
I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do.
In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with myself: I’m not doing x because I don’t want to and I accept the consequences of not doing it, or, I’m doing x even though I don’t want to.
Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation of the former. I don’t want to do x, but I also don’t want to accept the consequences of not doing it, so I’ll bullshit myself and pretend I’m doing it by calling it procrastination.
Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my mind and do it later. Practically it’s the same, but this way I’m being honest with myself.