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That title sure promises a lot. I read all the way to the end and this is their solution: 1. Forgive yourself 2. Ignore your feelings about whether you're in

by abalone 11y ago

That title sure promises a lot. I read all the way to the end and this is their solution: 1. Forgive yourself 2. Ignore your feelings about whether you're in the mood to work on it 3. Break it down into small steps I would say #2 is easier said than done for an extreme procrastinator. But, decent article. Sometimes it's good just to hear that change is possible. I would add to it that once you adopt new patterns they can set in and make productivity easier. It's sort of like drinking or other chronic problems.. It's rooted in your DNA and you do have to watch out for it creeping up on you, but the more successful you are the easier it gets. In my case, making really granular todo lists and then crossing things off helped establish a rhythm. It showed me I could in fact accomplish a lot. It does take time to make and prioritize the list, but good prioritization is really important and totally worth it. Wunderlist helped a lot. Made it super easy to add things, prioritize in free moments, and constantly check it and "live by the list". I would still let some high priority stuff live on top of the list for weeks sometimes, but I could forgive myself for those lapses more readily because I could see how overall better I was doing. And that vastly increased my chances of eventually tackling those big scary tasks as opposed to spiraling into a negative feedback loop. As the article notes, it really is about emotional management. Todo lists would be useless without structuring them in a way that lets you build up emotional gratification and self confidence.

manicdee 11y ago
Neil Fiore's "The Now Habit" deals with the emotional baggage and provides techniques (including "time boxing" which is championed by The Pomodoro Technique) for dealing with the emotional baggage. I have found both books very helpful, especially in terms of dealing with my emotional self-sabotage ("why bother starting, you know you're not going to get it right.")
heimatau 11y ago
I was thinking about this article and feel it 'clicked' for me. Especially since HN had another article about procrastination recently [1]. I know abalone is saying it's all about emotional management but...I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management. My big takeaway from this article and the last [1] is that two major ideas are being seen in the research: 1. Forgive yourself. 2. Be kind to your future self. #1 can be done with some mental tricks, if someone is having difficulty. Namely, thinking about 'what if my friend did x [something i just did], what would be my response to them'. This answer is generally positive and procrastinators tend to be hard on themselves, so...looking at how we would treat others would be a mental hack, for us to treat ourselves better. #2 is where I feel something just 'clicked' for me just now. In some ways, it's developing on the idea of 'a procrastinator would be nice to someone else, so be nice to yourself'. Since this 'someone else' is your future you. Self control, emotional regulation, yadda yadda. I think all of those can help but don't help everyone. They didn't help me. These two beliefs and mental hacks have given me insight to my behavior. I hope the next time this issue comes up on HN, that we can have more research into the procrastinator's disassociation between time and self. Because to me, that's the problem, not self-control nor emotional regulation. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675
- abalone 11y ago
  > I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management Those are not in conflict. A clearer analogy would be, you don't tell an alcoholic to just stop drinking. You focus on judgement-free emotional support systems. You go to meetings, you get a chip for making it 24 hours sober, 1 month, etc. I'm glad you didn't need something like that to overcoming procrastination. But a lot of people don't need full-on Alcoholics Anonymous to get their drinking in control either. Hardcore procrastinators probably need more.
  - heimatau 11y ago
    It again seems like you didn't read the article. > [i]Tim Urban points out that the typical advice for procrastinators — essentially, to stop what they’re doing and get down to work, is ridiculous, because procrastination isn’t something that extreme procrastinators feel as though they can control. > “While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean,” Urban writes.[/i] That's a direct quote from the article. The research supports judgement-free internal thought life. Not support systems. AA isn't a solid comparison but it's close. But apples to oranges doesn't help when the problem is apples. Let's stay focused on what the research says. Also, I'd consider myself a hardcore procrastinator. My issue could be a symptom of ADHD or something else but I fall in the 'hardcore' category. And it's something that I still struggle with but 'sucking it up' or 'just stop procrastinating with social support' won't change my situation, something deeper needs to occur, which is why I mention the beliefs. Our beliefs affect our behavior.

by abalone 11y ago

manicdee 11y ago

Neil Fiore's "The Now Habit" deals with the emotional baggage and provides techniques (including "time boxing" which is championed by The Pomodoro Technique) for dealing with the emotional baggage. I have found both books very helpful, especially in terms of dealing with my emotional self-sabotage ("why bother starting, you know you're not going to get it right.")

heimatau 11y ago

I was thinking about this article and feel it 'clicked' for me. Especially since HN had another article about procrastination recently [1]. I know abalone is saying it's all about emotional management but...I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management. My big takeaway from this article and the last [1] is that two major ideas are being seen in the research: 1. Forgive yourself. 2. Be kind to your future self. #1 can be done with some mental tricks, if someone is having difficulty. Namely, thinking about 'what if my friend did x [something i just did], what would be my response to them'. This answer is generally positive and procrastinators tend to be hard on themselves, so...looking at how we would treat others would be a mental hack, for us to treat ourselves better. #2 is where I feel something just 'clicked' for me just now. In some ways, it's developing on the idea of 'a procrastinator would be nice to someone else, so be nice to yourself'. Since this 'someone else' is your future you. Self control, emotional regulation, yadda yadda. I think all of those can help but don't help everyone. They didn't help me. These two beliefs and mental hacks have given me insight to my behavior. I hope the next time this issue comes up on HN, that we can have more research into the procrastinator's disassociation between time and self. Because to me, that's the problem, not self-control nor emotional regulation. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675

abalone 11y ago
> I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging emotional management Those are not in conflict. A clearer analogy would be, you don't tell an alcoholic to just stop drinking. You focus on judgement-free emotional support systems. You go to meetings, you get a chip for making it 24 hours sober, 1 month, etc. I'm glad you didn't need something like that to overcoming procrastination. But a lot of people don't need full-on Alcoholics Anonymous to get their drinking in control either. Hardcore procrastinators probably need more.
- heimatau 11y ago
  It again seems like you didn't read the article. > [i]Tim Urban points out that the typical advice for procrastinators — essentially, to stop what they’re doing and get down to work, is ridiculous, because procrastination isn’t something that extreme procrastinators feel as though they can control. > “While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean,” Urban writes.[/i] That's a direct quote from the article. The research supports judgement-free internal thought life. Not support systems. AA isn't a solid comparison but it's close. But apples to oranges doesn't help when the problem is apples. Let's stay focused on what the research says. Also, I'd consider myself a hardcore procrastinator. My issue could be a symptom of ADHD or something else but I fall in the 'hardcore' category. And it's something that I still struggle with but 'sucking it up' or 'just stop procrastinating with social support' won't change my situation, something deeper needs to occur, which is why I mention the beliefs. Our beliefs affect our behavior.