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Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and Succeed Long-Term
- meesterdude 11y agoThis is all well and good, except when you procrastinate over things you want to do. It also throws discipline into the wind in favor of just procrastinating. It's true, some things you can put off, and nothing bad happens. Other things, you put off, you lose your job or your house. Ideally you can separate the two, but maybe not. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, or don't feel like doing. And that's life. Rarely do things get better by procrastinating about them, though more often they get worse.
- gpvos 11y agoYou are apparently not in the target audience of this article.
- meesterdude 11y agoAs someone who battles procrastination and other avoidant behavior, I was under the impression I was.
- gpvos 11y agoIn that case I understood you wrongly, I read it as you being not a procrastinator. My apologies.
- Retra 11y agoI feel like you might be ignoring the possible benefits of "waiting for inspiration" on some things. Usually, when I'm procrastinating, I'm just waiting for a time when I would enjoy the work. Without that, I often don't enjoy it. Oftentimes I'll get out of bed with an unbearable drive to accomplish a single task that I've been putting off. And when this happens, I usually feel that I am more creative, dedicated, and much faster working. When you put that together, if you are trying to maximize work speed and creativity (ignoring deadlines), this kind of procrastination is optimal. But ignoring deadlines to maximize speed and creativity is basically a way of maximizing personal fulfillment in the work. It certainly isn't maximizing any external factors.
- Torn 11y agoArchive.org mirror from Aug 29th: https://web.archive.org/web/20150829043424/http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150829043424/http://www.struct...
- t_fatus 11y agoYou just gave me an excuse for not doing my work and feel good about it by doing something else instead of just reading random posts on HN !
- occam65 11y agoThus began the Day of Unproductive Hackers, as the number of cat photos on the internet grew by a significant 1%.
- drb311 11y agoThere's an old saying: "If you want something done ask a busy person." Busy people always come through for you. I used to think this was because they were super efficient, super disciplined. But maybe your task is a welcome distraction from something even worse? And besides, everything we do is a distraction from the most looming, vaguest, most intractable deadline of all. The End.
- jwmoz 11y agoYou went too deep.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- arbitrage 11y agoNo, you didn't.
- rdudek 11y agoThis actually makes sense. I seem to be more efficient at getting things done when I have multiple things to do, but can never get something done if it's one and only thing left. I get easily distracted by other things that keep me away from accomplishing that one task or goal.
- ninkendo 11y agoIt's a bit of selection bias though, isn't it? It seems like you're bad at only having one thing to do, but it's likely that by the time you only have one thing left, that very thing is what you've been putting off the longest. And you may have been putting it off for a reason (you don't want to do it, it's hard, it hasn't been thought out, etc.)
- etingel 11y agoCould it be that we humans are afraid of running out of things to do? After all, if we finish that last task, it would seem that we no longer serve a purpose. As long as we have one task left, there is still hope that we can find more to do. Of course, that is a poor way of thinking since all it does is make you lose your sense of purpose before you actually run out of tasks, but the human brain is weird like that sometimes.
- kctess5 11y agoThis sort of strategy has worked quite well for me over the years. It takes a bit of practice to get right, and probably isn't for everyone. For me, it's mostly about knowing the things that I have to do, and just doing them whenever I feel like it. So long as I feel like it some time before the due date, it works out great! In the case where I never feel like it, then I force myself to start with sufficient time before the deadline and power through in one sitting. I find that so long as you know what I need to get done, and give myself enough lead time to stay ahead of my deadlines, it's a workable strategy.
- luos 11y agoI think I have the same problem. For example I knew that I want to look for a new room. I couldn't start it because I did not know how much time it would take. This makes it really hard to start. When I finally started I just said that I'll do it until 8 pm or something. This makes it easy to not stop cause "oh it's only 30 minutes I have to do this then I can go take a shower". This is why I think techniques like pomodoro can really help someone. It's just hard to start something, and more you do it, more you know what's left. Usually this stops the fear for me.
- vpegado 11y agoMaybe I'll read this later.
- zamalek 11y agoMaybe I'll procrastinate tomorrow.
- jtheory 11y agoNotice that this is just a short essay. A blog post, maybe. But it's also potentially a reason to search for available domain names; to actually register one (after exploring the compromises around what registrar to choose), to find a host (navigating the truly bewildering options), to decide whether wordpress might be the right way to go, and what theme, and what big header image. Plugins? And what if it really goes viral... surely we'd better have some ads in there to capture a bit of value from that, right? All of this can be really quite educational. But in the end it's fairly impressive that it was ever done at all... which suggests that in fact it's not done; there are a ton of other plans for what should be here, and only because of those plans was the writer able to get this far.
- toomeyism 11y agoYou've essentially listed all the tasks that have been/are currently on my mental to-do list. I'm procrastinating by reading about procrastinating. On the plus side- I've now registered for and posted my first HN comment after lurking for the better part of two months. See: PROGRESS!
- sk8ingdom 11y agoI remember stumbling on this site a while ago and the format [1] was completely different. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20150214165654/http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20150214165654/http://www.structu...
- webosdude 11y agoYep I have seen that page 5-6 years ago too :)
- myth_buster 11y agoWell this gave me a good laugh. Brilliant essays by John Perry, defending yet more life choices generally seen as faults.
- atrilumen 11y agoThinking about this lately... I guess I'm not really a procrastinator. What I am is always laser-focused on a project, and not at all impressed by all the other things that the world is trying do demand of me. I'm certainly not averse to hard work. I often choose it. (And somehow the reward is intrinsic.) I'm averse to any work that doesn't seem to directly factor into the success of whatever it is I'm presently obsessed with creating.
- benmanns 11y agoI'm a 10x engineer for a very specific x.
- hellbanner 11y agoJust fucking do the work. If you spend as much time working as you trying to "hack your brain to be more productive", you would have been more productive. Overthinking about thinking can lead to neuroticism. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142283 http://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1936891379/ http://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/19...
- TomSawyer 11y agoDo you have any anecdotal success stories to share related to having read _Do_The_Work_?
- hellbanner 11y agoYeah, I stopped thinking about my projects when I wasn't working on them (letting my mind relax while exercising, cooking, etc), then when I have spare time I stretch for a few minutes sit down and start working. I shipped 2 games + 1 update to Apple last month.
- Loque 11y agoalso an interesting read: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastin...
- vidarh 11y ago> Just fucking do the work. If it was that simple, everyone would just do that. "Just x" usually indicates someone doesn't understand why others have problems with x.
- exelius 11y ago> If it was that simple, everyone would just do that. It's not that simple; but it's also why not everyone is uber-successful.
- rdudek 11y ago
- edw519 11y agoThe trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don’t). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren’t). I did this for years. #1 on my list was proving Fermat's Last Theorem. While I didn't do that, I got a thousand other things done. Alas, someone else has proved Fermat's Last Theorem and now my task list looks like everyone else's.
- jerf 11y agoOh, come on, this list is still full: http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems :) If you need help picking, I'm definitely going to go with P =? NP. That seems likely to keep you busy for a long time....
- dangoor 11y agoThere are other approaches that don't involve self-deception but instead work on your intuition about what you're best equipped to deal with at the time... http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
- moron4hire 11y agoI tend to think of my procrastination not as avoiding important work, but work that is of unknown difficulty. If I don't know how hard something is to do, then I can't predict how long it would take. I could budget 15 minutes for it and it could end up taking 4 hours. That so very rarely ever actually happens, but that is the feeling I get when I stare at my TODO list. The solution is often to create a task just for analyzing the complexity of another task, to be able to break it up into sub tasks. For example: "do taxes" might be broken into "find receipts", "print forms", "fill out form 1 worksheet", "complete form 1", "mail form 1", etc. The more detailed I can get it, the more space it takes in the TODO list, the more it blocks out other things, and the more it keeps the TODO list from stagnating--which is an important component of motivation for me.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoI do this all the time. I find I have tons of energy to work on projects when I'm putting something else off. In my experience, the side projects need to have one key trait, they need to be achievable in chunks of a few hours. I don't mind doing work multiple times in a week, but as soon as I'm expected to work on something 5+ hours in a single session I'll switch to do something else. Also, they need to be one off tasks, I don't like repeating myself. Whilst this may annoy the non-procrastinators, it's just something I've worked out that works for me, though I never gave it a name before. I can still be very productive in short bursts. To whomever wrote the article, thank you.
- aethertap 11y agoI'm a big procrastinator, but I finally found a way to get around it. Instead of thinking about the big tasks, I just allot myself a fixed amount of time that I'll be doing something, work on it steadily during that time, and quit at the end regardless of the state it's in. For some reason, it really makes it easier to face big important projects if I just say "I'm going to spend 8 hours putting up siding today, then I'm done" as opposed to "I need to get that siding put up..." I've used that trick to get tons of stuff done around my house as well as to write a book (which hasn't been published yet because I've been putting it off, so I guess there's still room for improvement).
- wasyl 11y agoI think what you're describing is something similar to pomodoro technique (http://pomodorotechnique.com/ http://pomodorotechnique.com/), only on bigger scale (8 hours at once). Maybe you will find it useful.
- awjr 11y agoI tried pomodoro but never sat well with me. I can focus for 1-2 hours happily once I'm into something. I worked in a team where it was pushed as a mantra for working. The issue with that being is that everyone was on a different schedule. I actually considered it a way to attempt to kill social interaction within the team, say going for coffee together. If it works for you, go for it, but I do not work in 25 minute chunks.
- fenomas 11y agoThis is a bit like Raymond Chandler's process for writing: > The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least when a professional writer doesn’t do anything else but write. He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try. He can look out of the window, or stand on his head, or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Write or nothing. He commented somewhere that it works on the same principle as school - you can't force children to learn, but if you prevent them from doing anything else, the bright ones will learn just to stave off boredom.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vinceguidry 11y agoWhat I have found is that the subconscious will resist taking action on something perceived to be important until it's worked out an appropriate approach. As a result one can avoid doing things like planning and preparing and simply query the subconscious as to whether you're ready to work on something. Yes has me start on it and either complete it or hit a snag. If it's a snag, then I'll analyze it briefly and then go back to procrastinating until the subconscious has worked out another approach. No is perceived this as a feeling of "Nope." I've attuned myself to this feeling and have learned to listen carefully to it. Many, many times, especially with work tasks the reason for doing that particular task will have evaporated by the time I'm ready to do it. Other times I find I needed to clear my mind before the subconscious can present to me the right way to go about it. So I'll read articles so as to purge my mind of the attachment (in the Buddhist sense) I'm feeling to the task. Sometimes it takes days / weeks / months for this attachment to clear up. I have a task I've been wanting to do sit in my reminders for 2 months now. It will stay until I'm either comfortable removing it or actually doing it.
- manigandham 11y agoYour first sentence was really motivational for some reason. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my procrastination by making it sound like some kind of cool async hyperthreading approach.
- xlm1717 11y agoHonestly, this sounds like justification to go days/weeks/months just reading articles to me. "Don't worry boss, maybe next week my subconscious will come up with a brilliant solution that will sink our competitors. You'll see." A little planning goes a long way. You can avoid doing things like planning and wait days/weeks/months for your attachment to the task to clear up. You can also plan out what you'll need to accomplish a task and once you're done, your mind can essentially go on autopilot till you either hit a snag (in which case back to the drawing board you go for more planning), or finish the task. You can trust your subconscious to show you the right way and hope it's correct, or you can plan the right way and have more of a guarantee that it's correct.
- 11y ago
- galfarragem 11y agoMaybe it was just me but I couldn't find any juice on this essay.. The best I essay I ever read on procrastination was from mark Manson [1]. [1] http://markmanson.net/procrastination http://markmanson.net/procrastination
- Matumio 11y agoQuote: "The more you care about the outcome, the harder it feels to achieve." This was great to read, thanks for posting it. It focuses more on anxiety. I agree it's more juicy but I think the original article talks about a slightly different topic.
- hodwik 11y agoI've been using this system for years. I'm pretty sure that deep-down I learned programming to distract myself from writing a novel I intended to write. Now I'm learning electronics to distract myself from programming. Imagine all that we could accomplish if we only procrastinated more!
- mangeletti 11y agoThis is really great stuff. Now, I need to have my boss assign me to Hacker News reading duty, so that I can get my work done.
- phkahler 11y agoMy music teacher once told me that I'd start practicing more when school started up again in the fall. He said it's a common way to avoid doing homework. IIRC he was right.
- arielm 11y agoI like that the article is about hacking your bad habits, but at the end of the day procrastination is exactly that - a bad habit. It isn't who I am, and so I think the best way to fight it is to replace it with a better habit...
- sctb 11y agoPG on procrastination: http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
- NDizzle 11y agoIt took me about an hour and a dozen sessions to get through this article.
- iopq 11y agoWow, I'm going to do this as soon as possible. This seems great. Let me read the comments on the article first though. But then I'm really going to do this.
- codezero 11y agoProcrastination isn't just a bad habit it's a form of anxiety. Keep that in mind. It's not just something you can will away.
- blatherard 11y agoA simple todo list system that I love, and that is built on the idea of structured procrastination, is Mark Forster's "Final Version Perfected" system. It is described here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-version-perfected-fvp.html http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
- paublyrne 11y agoI'll read this later.
- marcusgarvey 11y agoI've found the Getting Things Done method of putting only the "next physical action" on your to-do list to be very helpful. "Write a Masters Thesis" sounds much less daunting when you focus on the NPA which might be something as non-threatening as, "Go to the store and buy index cards."
- gull 11y ago> Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. Or the opposite. Because the subconscious figured out there is something more important to do than what you were doing. Ignoring the pull of the subconscious is equal to self sabotage.
- FLengyel 11y agoStructured procrastination appears analogous to the second-price auction, in which the winner of an auction pays the second-highest bid. This strategy leads the bidders to bid the true value of the auctioned item. One proof of this assertion can be found in the solution to an exercise in Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction (Second Edition), by Herbert Gintis. It appears that structured procrastination is a two-player game that pits the present self against the time-inconsistent hyperbolically discounted future self. The success of this strategy depends on accurately ranking more important things to do. Presumably the rank of the second-most important thing accurately reflects its hyperbolically discounted value far enough in the future to avoid time inconsistency. An assumption seems to be that most important or interesting thing to do now is generally important or interesting for the wrong reason. Also, if the thing I happen to be doing isn't that important, the thing I should be doing can't be that much more important either.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- unabst 11y agoI used to procrastinate on Quora and now I do it on HN. It has done wonders for my writing, my awareness, and my education. As a side effect, I now have far better plans for the projects on my todo list that I haven't been able to do because of all this procrastinating. But if it's making me smarter, I have just justified further not being able to help myself not be able to help myself. For those who procrastinate at the gym enjoy the side effects of being fit and healthy. It's when it's work that we start experiencing sacrifice. There is only joy in procrastination. The author of this essay procrastinates by writing brilliants essays. I did read somewhere that efficient workers sleep a lot and work a lot less. Those who have experience being their most efficient selves work towards that state of mind by sleeping and being lazy. And when they work, they get shit done. At the end of the day, it may very well be a tortoise vs hare race, where those that keep working slowly but surely catch the hares that only work sporadically. But for the same amount of work, the hare gets a life.
- metasean 11y agoI learned about "productive procrastination"[1] at least a decade ago and as a result learned to embrace my procrastination tendencies as long as (a) I am actually being productive at something and (b) there isn't something that must actually get done right now. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=productive+procrastination+-procrastination.net https://duckduckgo.com/?q=productive+procrastination+-procra...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- foobarbecue 11y agoThis is NOT the right advice for anyone trying to finish a PhD.
- bestham 11y agoI found this interesting and wanted to add it to my pinboard, but I had already added it in March 2013. I guess I should read it.