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Procrastination is more about managing emotions than time: study

478 points by prostoalex 8y ago

eberfreitas 8y ago
Are there any (legal) drugs that helps to focus or "inhibit" the amygdala or something in order to be more productive?
- jaggederest 8y ago
  Yes, nearly all of the stimulants prescribed for ADHD increase regulation of emotion.
  - yosito 8y ago
    Are there any safe medications prescribed for ADHD that don't lead to dependence or abuse?
    - allthenews 8y ago
      Amphetamines at therapeutic dosages.
      - yosito 8y ago
        From what I know of amphetamines, you develop tolerance and the dosage has to be increased over time leading to a risk of abuse and addiction.
        pythonslayer 8y ago
        Tolerance levels off pretty quick, and goes back down with short breaks. I’m pretty sure addiction is very rare, and not comparable with other prescription narcotics. I’m not sure what you consider abuse. I guess college kids use it to help them get homework done, which sounds like a congruent context to me; only without the doctor approval. Taking too much has direct and uncomfortable side effects, at least for me. Whenever a I took adderall, I was extra careful to never accidentally taking an extra dose after doing so once on accident.
        RickS 8y ago
        http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor...
        RandomInteger4 8y ago
        I don't think it's so much the tolerance that leads one to abuse Adderall, but rather the confidence Adderall gives you. Can't speak for other amphetamine formulations though, just Adderall IR generic brand. I think abuse can come in two forms; intentional abuse, which is what we think of as abuse, and unintentional abuse, where during the titration period, when you first get on the medication, you titrate it too high, but this feels like the right amount. I think the latter situation happened to me due to life circumstances. The Adderall I was taking was too much in combination with the lack of sleep, because I took too many credit hours and was staying up in the library or bar studying. Diet probably was less than stellar as well. The too much level for me as 30mg / day split into 2x 15mg morning and later afternoon / early evening. If I ever go back on Adderall (assuming I can ever find a doctor that takes new patients on medicaid and doesn't make you wait months to see them), I would take 15mg / day split into 2x 7.5mg On a side note, recently I read something about adderall and neurotoxicity caused by some oxidation reaction, which apparently has been exhibited in very high doses in experiments. Apparently Ritalin doesn't have such neurotoxic effects according to that article. I think there was also something in there about combining ritalin with adderall, which causes the ritalin to counteract the neurotoxic effects of the adderall or something. I think it said that Adderall causes more neurotransmitter to be produced, while ritalin limits uptake of said neurotransmitter.
    - Hada 8y ago
      I've found that Modafinil works for me. Gwern did an excellent writeup here: https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Some studies suggest that supplements help. Stuff like calcium, magnesium and B vitamins. (No, I will not cite a source. It is nearly 1am. I am attempting to be helpful. It is a thing you can look into if you so desire. Or not. Whatevs.)
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I'd love to avoid drugs. My very limited experience hints at meditation (just the simple calm, slow, breathing exercise, thoughtless relaxation nothing more) is very potent. Not enough though but more than enough to keep digging this trail.
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Try taichi or qigong. They can teach you to meditate while standing up, which makes it a lot more practical in daily life. Just having something invisible you can do ('work on your standing') in place of fidgeting or getting stressed out when get stuck waiting for something is remarkably effective. Anxiety and trauma tend to manifest in disassociating your mind from your body. Working to bridge that gap can help a lot in dealing with uncomfortable situations. Also, just stoop to bribing yourself. If I finish doing my taxes today I'll get those headphones or the fancy chocolates or my favorite ice cream. Lots of small wins, even contrived ones, gives you confidence for bigger ones. I have done this small annoying thing ten times. I can do this moderately annoying thing twice.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      I did taichi in college (part of a wushu class) and it was damn amazing. i did the self bribing, it works but not a lot. Hard to be judge and party. For bureaucracy I'm often more proactive to use the system against itself, namely giving them willfully stupid forms so they curate the required data, fill half of it and give me clear directions for the remaining part.
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    Also consider measuring and improving your sleep and doing dual-n-back exercises.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      I did start to think on sleeping, but nothing very precise. Just a regard toward the 90min cycle thing. Which means I try to jump into sleep cycle when they occur (instead of delaying by browsing) and try to get out of bed after a full cycle.
- tbatchelli 8y ago
  Not drugs, but I would recommend Neil Fiore's "Power of Now" because it really helps understand and address some of the psychological underpinnings of procrastination.
  - prostoalex 8y ago
    “The Now Habit”. “Power of Now” is by Eckhart Tolle.
- analbeads01 8y ago
  Amphetamines. SSRIs.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  The problem with drugs that help you focus is that they don't necessarily help you focus on the right things. You could very well be focusing on the wrong things -- that's the essence of procrastination, and drugs that help you focus could exacerbate that.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  Try Glycine. Your body needs huge amounts of it anyway to make proteins, so little help before hard work will be handy. Or eat more meat or other proteins in easy to digest form.
Someone1234 8y ago
Doesn't this article itself kind of undercut the study by showing that the brain can be altered through behaviors? What I am asking is, is the amygdala larger in procrastinators causing them to procrastinate, or did it grow BECAUSE they procrastinated? A leads to B, or A & B go together. As an aside, I'd love to procrastinate significantly. It doesn't make me happy anymore. I've read the books, read the articles, tried the Pomodoro Technique, nothing. I don't think I have ADHD, since I can concentrate fine, just never on what I am meant to be concentrating on.
- groby_b 8y ago
  That could be a boring job, incipient burnout, high functioning ADHD, mild depression, and any number of other things. You might want to spend some time with a therapist to dig into it, if you care to resolve it.
- SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
  Have you ruled out the inattentive ADHD variant? It generally doesn't come with the impulsive hyperactivity that normal ADHD comes with. People with it are generally able to focus on activities that are highly stimulating for them (often obsessively), but have a hard time focusing attention on less stimulating activities.
  - itronitron 8y ago
    I think you just described everybody.
    - SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
      Like many health issues (mental or otherwise), its a matter of degree. Everyone can relate to the experience of lacking the focus to perform an un-stimulating task, and to the experience of procrastination - and so that often leads to the kind of blasé reaction you offer here (no offense). This is a very harmful kind of attitude. Everyone can relate to the feeling of being sad too - that doesn't mean we're all suffering from depression. Most people can relate to the experience of drinking too much. But they aren't all alcoholics. It's when the degree of such behaviors/states-of-mind become so prevalent and unshakable as to be destructive and harmful in a person's life, that they become disorders.
comiskey1905 8y ago
My question regarding this post is, why can't you keep it to yourself?
nopinsight 8y ago
On a related topic, I would add that managing energy is often more important than managing time, especially if your line of work is fairly intense.
dboreham 8y ago
Already well known in the literature.
- jarmitage 8y ago
  Then cite it
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Fair point. So far I haven't found the underlying papers (Google isn't great at turning up papers I know I've read about in books, it turns out..) however the Internet's non-scholarly literature on the subject consistency identifies procrastination as essentially an anxiety disorder, not one of poor time management skills. e.g. : https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-s... https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-been-told-about-procrastination-productivity-n763571 https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-been-t... https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/ https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/ One of the leading researchers in this field is Tim Pychyl. I learned most about the subject by reading his books and listening to all his podcast interviews with fellow researchers. It is possible the papers I'm thinking of are listed on his group's web site. The paper titles tend to be hard to parse, unfortunately: https://www.procrastination.ca/ https://www.procrastination.ca/ If and when I track down the source research studies, I'll follow up here.
ISL 8y ago
The closing lines: "You do have the time. You just need to make it." are demonstrably false. One cannot simultaneously conduct Nobel-caliber research, train as a top-tier professional athlete, be deeply involved with running a serious business, and spend a fulfilling/requisite amount of time with family. There is not enough time. For me, the critical part of dealing with procrastination/perfectionism has been mastering, and executing upon, prioritization. The rest of the tips in the article are useful, but that last one, I couldn't abide (and hence have been delayed by ~5 minutes doing the things I want to do today).
- sdegutis 8y ago
  At the same time, I look back on how much time I wasted by constantly moving the goalpost for any given project, or even about what projects I should spend my time on. And a ton of this was due to me worrying about how to make money, and which projects would make the most money, and all kinds of useless questions like that. But historically, the projects of mine that got the most positive feedback and have the most users, are ones I did purely because I wanted to, because I saw a need and knew how to fill it and knew it would be an interesting and satisfying challenge. So the other night I decided to go back to that. I've got a super cool new app that will make Mjolnir/Hydra/Phoenix/AppGrid look like stone age tools, that I plan to dedicate serious time to. I've also started re-typesetting a very fascinating public domain book printed in 1885, which I found on archive.org, and got Tesseract to do most of the work for me last night in about an hour flat. So yeah, I can get a lot of really cool stuff done in a very short amount of time, as long as I stop worrying so much about how things will be provided for me and trust in Divine Providence to take care of that. That's how all those other cool projects were made anyway, so I have even more evidence against my worrying and overthinking it.
  - itronitron 8y ago
    Same, the course I took in college 'just for fun' ended up being how I got my first real job after graduation. And I did my best work for my previous employer when I deliberately focused on satisfying my own curiosity.
  - 8y ago
hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
I'm definitely a procrastinator. I've noticed three things. First, I get bored with tasks, so I make things exciting by putting them off until the pressure mounts. Second, I have a hard time actually finishing something and being content with it. Papers in school, for example, where I could easily turn an essay into a life-long project, constantly tweaking it, or of course in software with feature creep. Third, I dread the frustration that will come from inevitable disappointment in the outcome. The only thing that has helped me is to break tasks down and use Pomodoros to track time. It creates some accountability and sense of progress that, I guess, provides enough pressure to motivate me. For the disappointment, I just have to remind myself that it almost always takes three tries to get something really right and try to focus on taking satisfaction in learning from errors rather than focusing on the sense of disappointment. Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;)
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;) Amphetamines can help. What they actually do, at least for me, is raise the stakes. Imagine hyper-focusing on procrastinating.
- jonnybgood 8y ago
  > almost always takes three tries I think that's a pretty good rule to incorporate for many cases. After three effortful tries stop working on it no matter what. Learn from it and move on to the next one. I like to remind myself of pottery and quantity over quality [1]. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality...
- sjg007 8y ago
  Based on your description here, you might consider getting screened for ADD.
elorant 8y ago
What helps me from procrastinating is writing excruciating detailed notes on tasks breaking them down to the smallest detail. Then all I have to do is sit down and start coding. It helps me a lot because my mind stays focused on the task at hand without the need to start analyzing things which most times means I lose focus. Furthermore, nothing seems daunting when you compartmentalize it, which I guess is the reason most of us procrastinate in the first place. The one thing that really does the trick though is to get something out there and start having paying customers. Then you know that if you procrastinate you'll lose them and that the best motive to do the work that anyone can find.
- goshx 8y ago
  The detailed notes is one of the principles of Getting Things Done (GTD). I started using it to help me with procrastination and it is really effective.
  - amstown 8y ago
    I love the extensive note taking. I began doing it in high school; I just write down every single word in a textbook or video about what I will be learn in class the next few days. It makes class so much more engaging and the homework is way easier, so I don’t want to put it off as much. I highly recommend it if you have the time.
EZ-E 8y ago
Procrastination comes from anxiety (for me) When I'm anxious about a task it's usually because I don't know where to start OR I'm because afraid I'll be dissapointed by how the result will be.
hourislate 8y ago
The following book helped me immensely. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it. I can't say enough about how great this book is. The War of Art - Steven Pressfield http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf If you need some help with procrastination and not moving forward, a must read....
- akavel 8y ago
  Could you try to outline some key insights you got from it? Would be much more helpful and convincing as a recommendation! :)
- VladimirGolovin 8y ago
  Seconding this recommendation. I just read "The War of Art" and "Do the work" (another book by the same author), and I wish I'd read them earlier. As a bonus, these books are a great example of how to write without fluff.
bane 8y ago
One of the counterintuitive things that I've learned is that procrastination is often a side-effect of perfectionism -- but in cases where the "perfect" path isn't obvious. It's better to do nothing at all until the perfect path is understood. Defeating this is a real challenge and requires serious conscious effort. People who have reputation as "doers" often gain it by finding the "good enough" target and driving towards it. Many "do nothings" are really people who have an overdeveloped desire to "do it right" and can't overcome it. It's absolutely a matter of emotional control.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sdegutis 8y ago
  This is exactly my experience too! I've realized it many times and made many amazing things during each of those brief times, but then somehow I forget again and go back to the old habit of "patient perfectionism". I've found that it especially comes from the knowledge of knowing how much work it'll take to undo something that's done the wrong way, and being afraid of that extra work and wanting to avoid it. But every time I've overcome it, it's been because I finally remember how very little time it'll take to do both the mostly-okay solution now and the better solution later, if I just stop worrying about it.
  - bane 8y ago
    I've been controlled by it also. I've been "working" on a story to write for maybe 25 years. But it's not "right" so I don't write anything. On the other hand, getting things out the door has been a major motivator. I'm inspired by the quote "real artists ship" (more than "perfect is the enemy of the good"). If it helps, I'm also try to recite the Dune litany against fear and Gunpei Yokoi's "lateral thinking from withered technology" as mantras to keep me moving forward. Also listening to mp3s, surfing the web, and remembering how they've displaced nearly every other digital format because they're "good enough" is also a useful reminder.
- qaq 8y ago
  Yep happens heavily compounded by working on crappy codebase and/or in crazy dev env.
tonystubblebine 8y ago
Tim Pychyl is my favorite procrastination researcher and this article is so good. It’s the most I’ve ever highlighted a Medium article. https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-solve-the-procrastination-puzzle-6e6a56cdd535 https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-solve... He calls it short term mood repair. Once you realize that, there are a lot of interesting ways to beat it.
danschumann 8y ago
I find procrastination is like trying the walk a cat. The cat rebels, making it as difficult as possible. The cat being your inner child. Ask it what it wants, apologize to it for being a tyrant, offer it some rewards and then don't you dare skimp on the deal. It'll turn more dog-like. "Heal the boy and the man will appear" -Tony Robbins
bertr4nd 8y ago
Where I struggle most with procrastination is when making talks or writing academic papers. I rarely or never procrastinate on coding. I think the key difference is emotional: if I’m writing something for a computer it just had to work. If I’m writing something for a human it has to be judged interesting or worthwhile according to some nebulous criteria that exists in the minds of the readers.
hal-eisen 8y ago
I can't believe no one has mentioned https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti... yet
chmike 8y ago
Emotions are involved, but is it the root cause of procrastination ? My understanding is that fear related emotions are closer to the root cause. Fear of failure, fear of imperfection, fear of wasting time and energy, fear to be rejected, ... I don't think that emotions like Anger, love or sadness are root causes. Fear can worsen through time with new painful experiences. But fear can also be tamed. One way is by adopting the development mindset. Failure is normal when we learn and practice. It is through practicing, and thus some failures, that we get better. No one is borned perfect at something. (See Dr. Dweck's book "Mindset"). Another way is by analyzing and identifying the root cause of fears. I could for instance fear to go in kitchens. That would be very disabling. By searching the root cause, I could find out that I got burned by touching an oven when I was a toddler. Or I could deduce that the kitchen is not dangerous in itself. Only the sharp knives and a hot oven are dangerous. One can then enter the kitchen and avoid the real dangers. Etc.
- posterboy 8y ago
  I don't think it's fear as much as being spoiled. Sure a student dreads failing an exam, but there's a lot of machinery starting up every time that fear is invoked, to find apologies and calm, soothing prospects on how it's going to work out eventually. That machinery existing, not even running through to a satisfying result, is comforting enough to overrule the fear. The oversized emotional attachment the article mentions must relate to the activities done instead of the thing which apparently too little emotion is attached. What is called Fear of Missing Out.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Yeah, I figured out years ago that dealing with my feelings first is the more efficient path forward, basically.
mmanzhos 8y ago
TL;DR Emotions are somewhat studied in terms of how to deal with them, check Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Check out Feeling Good by Burns[1], there are specific chapters addressing perfectionism. And his podcast on this topic "“I don’t feel like doing it!” Quick Cure for Procrastinators""[2] (suggest to find it on iTunes[3]/Spotify to listen with 1.5x speed, episode 053) I'm going through a stage in my life when I don't enjoy doing things anymore. Obviously, if a task is considered somewhat hard and I know I will barely enjoy it, there is very little internal emotional support (motivation?) for doing it, thus procrastination. I did an exercise from the book which was to list tasks I did during the day and mark a satisfaction rate as well as an efficiency rate. All the tasks are like 10% satisfaction, 99% efficiency. Seems like a mismatch. Then I asked myself a question "What would a person who does useful and efficient things tell himself to feel that miserable? What would he think about?". I got the following, which goes really deep into my internal motivations and fears: "All these tasks are worth nothing. I shouldn't be happy with them because I can forget that I don't grow and don't accomplish much in general. I may end up being a silly guy who only chills and has fun but in fact, has nothing meaningful going in his life. I shouldn't forget that things are not that good at the moment and it's too early to relax, to enjoy small accomplishments. A person becomes weak if he always enjoys what's going on around." So if you experience a huge mismatch between satisfaction and efficiency (paradoxically I naturally have lots of fun doing things I am like 0% efficient in because I don't know yet how perfect result looks like), I suggest you to ask the same question "what thoughts could make a person that miserable?". After listing advantages of believing the above and deep appreciation of my beliefs, it became clear that some of them are crazy self-sadistic. Even though they have the best intentions in the universe (making my life better) what they in fact achieved was getting me to the verge of having suicidal thoughts. And now I am doing exercises mentioned in the book and the podcast to give up these beliefs. [1] - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03... [2] - https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-david-i-dont-feel-like-doing-it-quick-cure-for-procrastinators/ https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-david-i-dont-feel... [3] - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-team-cbt-the-new-mood-therapy/id1171155453?mt=2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-tea...
- mmirate 8y ago
known 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development can solve procrastination for software developers
- mmirate 8y ago
  (when writing new code)
afarrell 8y ago
For me at least, one of the biggest causes is writing and part of that is having multiple experiences of asking for help and being told to “just write the thing” or “stop overthinking it” in response to my questions. I’ve gotten much better since developing the confidence to say to myself “no really. I need to get the answer to this question.” So if you are procrastinating, consider the possibility that your subconscious still remembers that you need some information but some other part of you is blocking you from getting it.
PeterStuer 8y ago
Purely anecdotal, but observed over a long period and with many different colleagues: (1)I see a direct correlation between how much people care about the outcome of something, and procrastination. People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off, are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never procrastinate. People that care do. I think this goes in the direction of the article. (2) People that are stronger at analysis,able to grasp complex systems and the effects of changes, are much more likely to suffer from procrastination than those that are less apt at this. This is often confused with perfectionism. In my experience procrastinators are not looking for perfection, but are looking for a course of action that will have a reduced negative outcome. This would be in line with the general 'loss-aversion' [1] bias from psychology. Tangent: Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Procrastination is a symptom looking for but not finding good solutions. As such it is a lot more likely to be encountered in engaged, intelligent people. Depression can be a consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process. So you are not procrastinating because you are depressed, procrastination is a precursor to depression [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201803/what-is-loss-aversion https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/20180...
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off, are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never procrastinate. Yeah, I noticed that too, and always was surprised about it. I've never seen a detached 9-5er procrastinate. In the field of programming, the only procrastinators I know are those who show some actual interest in the field beyond getting their paycheck. > Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Depression can be a consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process. That... resonates. It seems that it's usually prolonged procrastination that destroys me emotionally, not bad emotional state causing me to procrastinate.
- mmirate 8y ago
  The essential question, then, is how to not-care enough to avoid procrastination while caring enough to produce sufficiently high-quality work to avoid career stagnation...
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Another HN procrastination topic, yay! I'm late to the discussion, but maybe someone will still answer: I've been a procrastinator for as long as I remember, and have the following problem I struggle with: whenever I try to force myself to do a task - like any task that isn't fun or just following curiosity - I feel this strong emotional block. The more I force myself, the stronger it gets, quite often turning into powerful anxiety, and sometimes even physical pain. Usually the mental pain itself is powerful enough to dumb me down to the level I am not smart enough to complete the task at hand (perils of working with one's head instead of hands...), which means the work won't get done anyway. Is this normal? Is this just lack of discipline, as some would suggest? Does lack of discipline manifest itself with debilitating levels of anxiety? Do people here, who overcame procrastination, suffered from something similar at the beginning and don't suffer from it now? I ask because I've tried the usual tricks - from pomodoros, through commitment schemes (hello Beeminder), imagination exercises, GTD, DeepWork planning, edw519's A/B mode of work... and everything eventually lost to the emotional pain. It's a small miracle that I'm able to get enough stuff done to make ends meet, but I look at how much more I could be doing if I weren't procrastinating that hard, and the very thought of years wasted makes me feel bad. (#HNTherapy once again, I guess.)
- kkreamer 8y ago
  No, it’s not a lack of discipline, it’s not normal, and I think you answered your own question why with your last sentence. It sounds like when you first start a task, you subconsciously decide how likely you are to complete it, based on how fun and interesting it is. For boring tasks, you figure there’s no way to finish it, and that will make you feel bad, and that causes the emotional pain now. The more you push yourself, the worse you feel that you are putting in all this effort and will still end in failure. A suggestion: do the smallest part right now and then look at that as a success. Meaning, don’t worry about planning the whole thing out, with pomodoros and imagination exercises. Those are hurting you because they are keeping your focus on what your mind perceives as a huge mountain of work. Instead, ask yourself, “what is the most stupidly small thing I can do right now?” Have a task to write a new website? First task is to log into your laptop. Once that’s done, next stupidly small thing? Open your text editor. Start with ‘<html>hello</html>’ saved in “index.html”. Keep just doing to most obvious, tiny thing. Then afterwards, the hardest but most important part: perspective. Don’t look at how much more you could have done if you weren’t procrastinating —- look at how much you got done over a baseline of doing nothing. Hey, I got rails stood up saying “hello world”, but with postgres behind it and it all checked into git. That’s several more things done than if I had done nothing at all. Go me!
blarg1 8y ago
I often don't want to write any code before I can think of a good solution, but at the same time I can't come up with a good solution until I've tried a bunch of bad solutions.
eric24234 8y ago
People who were procrastinators and have found a trick or technique that has worked in the long run and have who have made lots of progress please share

478 points by prostoalex 8y ago

eberfreitas 8y ago

Are there any (legal) drugs that helps to focus or "inhibit" the amygdala or something in order to be more productive?

jaggederest 8y ago
Yes, nearly all of the stimulants prescribed for ADHD increase regulation of emotion.
- yosito 8y ago
  Are there any safe medications prescribed for ADHD that don't lead to dependence or abuse?
  - allthenews 8y ago
    Amphetamines at therapeutic dosages.
    - yosito 8y ago
      From what I know of amphetamines, you develop tolerance and the dosage has to be increased over time leading to a risk of abuse and addiction.
      - pythonslayer 8y ago
        Tolerance levels off pretty quick, and goes back down with short breaks. I’m pretty sure addiction is very rare, and not comparable with other prescription narcotics. I’m not sure what you consider abuse. I guess college kids use it to help them get homework done, which sounds like a congruent context to me; only without the doctor approval. Taking too much has direct and uncomfortable side effects, at least for me. Whenever a I took adderall, I was extra careful to never accidentally taking an extra dose after doing so once on accident.
      - RickS 8y ago
        http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor...
      - RandomInteger4 8y ago
        I don't think it's so much the tolerance that leads one to abuse Adderall, but rather the confidence Adderall gives you. Can't speak for other amphetamine formulations though, just Adderall IR generic brand. I think abuse can come in two forms; intentional abuse, which is what we think of as abuse, and unintentional abuse, where during the titration period, when you first get on the medication, you titrate it too high, but this feels like the right amount. I think the latter situation happened to me due to life circumstances. The Adderall I was taking was too much in combination with the lack of sleep, because I took too many credit hours and was staying up in the library or bar studying. Diet probably was less than stellar as well. The too much level for me as 30mg / day split into 2x 15mg morning and later afternoon / early evening. If I ever go back on Adderall (assuming I can ever find a doctor that takes new patients on medicaid and doesn't make you wait months to see them), I would take 15mg / day split into 2x 7.5mg On a side note, recently I read something about adderall and neurotoxicity caused by some oxidation reaction, which apparently has been exhibited in very high doses in experiments. Apparently Ritalin doesn't have such neurotoxic effects according to that article. I think there was also something in there about combining ritalin with adderall, which causes the ritalin to counteract the neurotoxic effects of the adderall or something. I think it said that Adderall causes more neurotransmitter to be produced, while ritalin limits uptake of said neurotransmitter.
  - Hada 8y ago
    I've found that Modafinil works for me. Gwern did an excellent writeup here: https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Some studies suggest that supplements help. Stuff like calcium, magnesium and B vitamins. (No, I will not cite a source. It is nearly 1am. I am attempting to be helpful. It is a thing you can look into if you so desire. Or not. Whatevs.)
agumonkey 8y ago
I'd love to avoid drugs. My very limited experience hints at meditation (just the simple calm, slow, breathing exercise, thoughtless relaxation nothing more) is very potent. Not enough though but more than enough to keep digging this trail.
- hinkley 8y ago
  Try taichi or qigong. They can teach you to meditate while standing up, which makes it a lot more practical in daily life. Just having something invisible you can do ('work on your standing') in place of fidgeting or getting stressed out when get stuck waiting for something is remarkably effective. Anxiety and trauma tend to manifest in disassociating your mind from your body. Working to bridge that gap can help a lot in dealing with uncomfortable situations. Also, just stoop to bribing yourself. If I finish doing my taxes today I'll get those headphones or the fancy chocolates or my favorite ice cream. Lots of small wins, even contrived ones, gives you confidence for bigger ones. I have done this small annoying thing ten times. I can do this moderately annoying thing twice.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    I did taichi in college (part of a wushu class) and it was damn amazing. i did the self bribing, it works but not a lot. Hard to be judge and party. For bureaucracy I'm often more proactive to use the system against itself, namely giving them willfully stupid forms so they curate the required data, fill half of it and give me clear directions for the remaining part.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  Also consider measuring and improving your sleep and doing dual-n-back exercises.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    I did start to think on sleeping, but nothing very precise. Just a regard toward the 90min cycle thing. Which means I try to jump into sleep cycle when they occur (instead of delaying by browsing) and try to get out of bed after a full cycle.
tbatchelli 8y ago
Not drugs, but I would recommend Neil Fiore's "Power of Now" because it really helps understand and address some of the psychological underpinnings of procrastination.
- prostoalex 8y ago
  “The Now Habit”. “Power of Now” is by Eckhart Tolle.
analbeads01 8y ago
Amphetamines. SSRIs.
pmoriarty 8y ago
The problem with drugs that help you focus is that they don't necessarily help you focus on the right things. You could very well be focusing on the wrong things -- that's the essence of procrastination, and drugs that help you focus could exacerbate that.
v_lisivka 8y ago
Try Glycine. Your body needs huge amounts of it anyway to make proteins, so little help before hard work will be handy. Or eat more meat or other proteins in easy to digest form.

Someone1234 8y ago

Doesn't this article itself kind of undercut the study by showing that the brain can be altered through behaviors? What I am asking is, is the amygdala larger in procrastinators causing them to procrastinate, or did it grow BECAUSE they procrastinated? A leads to B, or A & B go together. As an aside, I'd love to procrastinate significantly. It doesn't make me happy anymore. I've read the books, read the articles, tried the Pomodoro Technique, nothing. I don't think I have ADHD, since I can concentrate fine, just never on what I am meant to be concentrating on.

groby_b 8y ago
That could be a boring job, incipient burnout, high functioning ADHD, mild depression, and any number of other things. You might want to spend some time with a therapist to dig into it, if you care to resolve it.
SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
Have you ruled out the inattentive ADHD variant? It generally doesn't come with the impulsive hyperactivity that normal ADHD comes with. People with it are generally able to focus on activities that are highly stimulating for them (often obsessively), but have a hard time focusing attention on less stimulating activities.
- itronitron 8y ago
  I think you just described everybody.
  - SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
    Like many health issues (mental or otherwise), its a matter of degree. Everyone can relate to the experience of lacking the focus to perform an un-stimulating task, and to the experience of procrastination - and so that often leads to the kind of blasé reaction you offer here (no offense). This is a very harmful kind of attitude. Everyone can relate to the feeling of being sad too - that doesn't mean we're all suffering from depression. Most people can relate to the experience of drinking too much. But they aren't all alcoholics. It's when the degree of such behaviors/states-of-mind become so prevalent and unshakable as to be destructive and harmful in a person's life, that they become disorders.

comiskey1905 8y ago

My question regarding this post is, why can't you keep it to yourself?

nopinsight 8y ago

On a related topic, I would add that managing energy is often more important than managing time, especially if your line of work is fairly intense.

dboreham 8y ago

Already well known in the literature.

jarmitage 8y ago
Then cite it
- dboreham 8y ago
  Fair point. So far I haven't found the underlying papers (Google isn't great at turning up papers I know I've read about in books, it turns out..) however the Internet's non-scholarly literature on the subject consistency identifies procrastination as essentially an anxiety disorder, not one of poor time management skills. e.g. : https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-s... https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-been-told-about-procrastination-productivity-n763571 https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-been-t... https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/ https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/ One of the leading researchers in this field is Tim Pychyl. I learned most about the subject by reading his books and listening to all his podcast interviews with fellow researchers. It is possible the papers I'm thinking of are listed on his group's web site. The paper titles tend to be hard to parse, unfortunately: https://www.procrastination.ca/ https://www.procrastination.ca/ If and when I track down the source research studies, I'll follow up here.

ISL 8y ago

The closing lines: "You do have the time. You just need to make it." are demonstrably false. One cannot simultaneously conduct Nobel-caliber research, train as a top-tier professional athlete, be deeply involved with running a serious business, and spend a fulfilling/requisite amount of time with family. There is not enough time. For me, the critical part of dealing with procrastination/perfectionism has been mastering, and executing upon, prioritization. The rest of the tips in the article are useful, but that last one, I couldn't abide (and hence have been delayed by ~5 minutes doing the things I want to do today).

sdegutis 8y ago
At the same time, I look back on how much time I wasted by constantly moving the goalpost for any given project, or even about what projects I should spend my time on. And a ton of this was due to me worrying about how to make money, and which projects would make the most money, and all kinds of useless questions like that. But historically, the projects of mine that got the most positive feedback and have the most users, are ones I did purely because I wanted to, because I saw a need and knew how to fill it and knew it would be an interesting and satisfying challenge. So the other night I decided to go back to that. I've got a super cool new app that will make Mjolnir/Hydra/Phoenix/AppGrid look like stone age tools, that I plan to dedicate serious time to. I've also started re-typesetting a very fascinating public domain book printed in 1885, which I found on archive.org, and got Tesseract to do most of the work for me last night in about an hour flat. So yeah, I can get a lot of really cool stuff done in a very short amount of time, as long as I stop worrying so much about how things will be provided for me and trust in Divine Providence to take care of that. That's how all those other cool projects were made anyway, so I have even more evidence against my worrying and overthinking it.
- itronitron 8y ago
  Same, the course I took in college 'just for fun' ended up being how I got my first real job after graduation. And I did my best work for my previous employer when I deliberately focused on satisfying my own curiosity.
- 8y ago

hfdgiutdryg 8y ago

I'm definitely a procrastinator. I've noticed three things. First, I get bored with tasks, so I make things exciting by putting them off until the pressure mounts. Second, I have a hard time actually finishing something and being content with it. Papers in school, for example, where I could easily turn an essay into a life-long project, constantly tweaking it, or of course in software with feature creep. Third, I dread the frustration that will come from inevitable disappointment in the outcome. The only thing that has helped me is to break tasks down and use Pomodoros to track time. It creates some accountability and sense of progress that, I guess, provides enough pressure to motivate me. For the disappointment, I just have to remind myself that it almost always takes three tries to get something really right and try to focus on taking satisfaction in learning from errors rather than focusing on the sense of disappointment. Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;)

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;) Amphetamines can help. What they actually do, at least for me, is raise the stakes. Imagine hyper-focusing on procrastinating.
jonnybgood 8y ago
> almost always takes three tries I think that's a pretty good rule to incorporate for many cases. After three effortful tries stop working on it no matter what. Learn from it and move on to the next one. I like to remind myself of pottery and quantity over quality [1]. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality...
sjg007 8y ago
Based on your description here, you might consider getting screened for ADD.

elorant 8y ago

What helps me from procrastinating is writing excruciating detailed notes on tasks breaking them down to the smallest detail. Then all I have to do is sit down and start coding. It helps me a lot because my mind stays focused on the task at hand without the need to start analyzing things which most times means I lose focus. Furthermore, nothing seems daunting when you compartmentalize it, which I guess is the reason most of us procrastinate in the first place. The one thing that really does the trick though is to get something out there and start having paying customers. Then you know that if you procrastinate you'll lose them and that the best motive to do the work that anyone can find.

goshx 8y ago
The detailed notes is one of the principles of Getting Things Done (GTD). I started using it to help me with procrastination and it is really effective.
- amstown 8y ago
  I love the extensive note taking. I began doing it in high school; I just write down every single word in a textbook or video about what I will be learn in class the next few days. It makes class so much more engaging and the homework is way easier, so I don’t want to put it off as much. I highly recommend it if you have the time.

EZ-E 8y ago

Procrastination comes from anxiety (for me) When I'm anxious about a task it's usually because I don't know where to start OR I'm because afraid I'll be dissapointed by how the result will be.

hourislate 8y ago

The following book helped me immensely. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it. I can't say enough about how great this book is. The War of Art - Steven Pressfield http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf If you need some help with procrastination and not moving forward, a must read....

akavel 8y ago
Could you try to outline some key insights you got from it? Would be much more helpful and convincing as a recommendation! :)
VladimirGolovin 8y ago
Seconding this recommendation. I just read "The War of Art" and "Do the work" (another book by the same author), and I wish I'd read them earlier. As a bonus, these books are a great example of how to write without fluff.

bane 8y ago

One of the counterintuitive things that I've learned is that procrastination is often a side-effect of perfectionism -- but in cases where the "perfect" path isn't obvious. It's better to do nothing at all until the perfect path is understood. Defeating this is a real challenge and requires serious conscious effort. People who have reputation as "doers" often gain it by finding the "good enough" target and driving towards it. Many "do nothings" are really people who have an overdeveloped desire to "do it right" and can't overcome it. It's absolutely a matter of emotional control.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sdegutis 8y ago
This is exactly my experience too! I've realized it many times and made many amazing things during each of those brief times, but then somehow I forget again and go back to the old habit of "patient perfectionism". I've found that it especially comes from the knowledge of knowing how much work it'll take to undo something that's done the wrong way, and being afraid of that extra work and wanting to avoid it. But every time I've overcome it, it's been because I finally remember how very little time it'll take to do both the mostly-okay solution now and the better solution later, if I just stop worrying about it.
- bane 8y ago
  I've been controlled by it also. I've been "working" on a story to write for maybe 25 years. But it's not "right" so I don't write anything. On the other hand, getting things out the door has been a major motivator. I'm inspired by the quote "real artists ship" (more than "perfect is the enemy of the good"). If it helps, I'm also try to recite the Dune litany against fear and Gunpei Yokoi's "lateral thinking from withered technology" as mantras to keep me moving forward. Also listening to mp3s, surfing the web, and remembering how they've displaced nearly every other digital format because they're "good enough" is also a useful reminder.
qaq 8y ago
Yep happens heavily compounded by working on crappy codebase and/or in crazy dev env.

tonystubblebine 8y ago

Tim Pychyl is my favorite procrastination researcher and this article is so good. It’s the most I’ve ever highlighted a Medium article. https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-solve-the-procrastination-puzzle-6e6a56cdd535 https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-solve... He calls it short term mood repair. Once you realize that, there are a lot of interesting ways to beat it.

danschumann 8y ago

I find procrastination is like trying the walk a cat. The cat rebels, making it as difficult as possible. The cat being your inner child. Ask it what it wants, apologize to it for being a tyrant, offer it some rewards and then don't you dare skimp on the deal. It'll turn more dog-like. "Heal the boy and the man will appear" -Tony Robbins

bertr4nd 8y ago

Where I struggle most with procrastination is when making talks or writing academic papers. I rarely or never procrastinate on coding. I think the key difference is emotional: if I’m writing something for a computer it just had to work. If I’m writing something for a human it has to be judged interesting or worthwhile according to some nebulous criteria that exists in the minds of the readers.

hal-eisen 8y ago

I can't believe no one has mentioned https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti... yet

chmike 8y ago

Emotions are involved, but is it the root cause of procrastination ? My understanding is that fear related emotions are closer to the root cause. Fear of failure, fear of imperfection, fear of wasting time and energy, fear to be rejected, ... I don't think that emotions like Anger, love or sadness are root causes. Fear can worsen through time with new painful experiences. But fear can also be tamed. One way is by adopting the development mindset. Failure is normal when we learn and practice. It is through practicing, and thus some failures, that we get better. No one is borned perfect at something. (See Dr. Dweck's book "Mindset"). Another way is by analyzing and identifying the root cause of fears. I could for instance fear to go in kitchens. That would be very disabling. By searching the root cause, I could find out that I got burned by touching an oven when I was a toddler. Or I could deduce that the kitchen is not dangerous in itself. Only the sharp knives and a hot oven are dangerous. One can then enter the kitchen and avoid the real dangers. Etc.

posterboy 8y ago
I don't think it's fear as much as being spoiled. Sure a student dreads failing an exam, but there's a lot of machinery starting up every time that fear is invoked, to find apologies and calm, soothing prospects on how it's going to work out eventually. That machinery existing, not even running through to a satisfying result, is comforting enough to overrule the fear. The oversized emotional attachment the article mentions must relate to the activities done instead of the thing which apparently too little emotion is attached. What is called Fear of Missing Out.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

Yeah, I figured out years ago that dealing with my feelings first is the more efficient path forward, basically.

mmanzhos 8y ago

TL;DR Emotions are somewhat studied in terms of how to deal with them, check Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Check out Feeling Good by Burns[1], there are specific chapters addressing perfectionism. And his podcast on this topic "“I don’t feel like doing it!” Quick Cure for Procrastinators""[2] (suggest to find it on iTunes[3]/Spotify to listen with 1.5x speed, episode 053) I'm going through a stage in my life when I don't enjoy doing things anymore. Obviously, if a task is considered somewhat hard and I know I will barely enjoy it, there is very little internal emotional support (motivation?) for doing it, thus procrastination. I did an exercise from the book which was to list tasks I did during the day and mark a satisfaction rate as well as an efficiency rate. All the tasks are like 10% satisfaction, 99% efficiency. Seems like a mismatch. Then I asked myself a question "What would a person who does useful and efficient things tell himself to feel that miserable? What would he think about?". I got the following, which goes really deep into my internal motivations and fears: "All these tasks are worth nothing. I shouldn't be happy with them because I can forget that I don't grow and don't accomplish much in general. I may end up being a silly guy who only chills and has fun but in fact, has nothing meaningful going in his life. I shouldn't forget that things are not that good at the moment and it's too early to relax, to enjoy small accomplishments. A person becomes weak if he always enjoys what's going on around." So if you experience a huge mismatch between satisfaction and efficiency (paradoxically I naturally have lots of fun doing things I am like 0% efficient in because I don't know yet how perfect result looks like), I suggest you to ask the same question "what thoughts could make a person that miserable?". After listing advantages of believing the above and deep appreciation of my beliefs, it became clear that some of them are crazy self-sadistic. Even though they have the best intentions in the universe (making my life better) what they in fact achieved was getting me to the verge of having suicidal thoughts. And now I am doing exercises mentioned in the book and the podcast to give up these beliefs. [1] - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03... [2] - https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-david-i-dont-feel-like-doing-it-quick-cure-for-procrastinators/ https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-david-i-dont-feel... [3] - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-team-cbt-the-new-mood-therapy/id1171155453?mt=2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-tea...

mmirate 8y ago

known 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development can solve procrastination for software developers

mmirate 8y ago
(when writing new code)

afarrell 8y ago

For me at least, one of the biggest causes is writing and part of that is having multiple experiences of asking for help and being told to “just write the thing” or “stop overthinking it” in response to my questions. I’ve gotten much better since developing the confidence to say to myself “no really. I need to get the answer to this question.” So if you are procrastinating, consider the possibility that your subconscious still remembers that you need some information but some other part of you is blocking you from getting it.

PeterStuer 8y ago

Purely anecdotal, but observed over a long period and with many different colleagues: (1)I see a direct correlation between how much people care about the outcome of something, and procrastination. People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off, are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never procrastinate. People that care do. I think this goes in the direction of the article. (2) People that are stronger at analysis,able to grasp complex systems and the effects of changes, are much more likely to suffer from procrastination than those that are less apt at this. This is often confused with perfectionism. In my experience procrastinators are not looking for perfection, but are looking for a course of action that will have a reduced negative outcome. This would be in line with the general 'loss-aversion' [1] bias from psychology. Tangent: Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Procrastination is a symptom looking for but not finding good solutions. As such it is a lot more likely to be encountered in engaged, intelligent people. Depression can be a consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process. So you are not procrastinating because you are depressed, procrastination is a precursor to depression [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201803/what-is-loss-aversion https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/20180...

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off, are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never procrastinate. Yeah, I noticed that too, and always was surprised about it. I've never seen a detached 9-5er procrastinate. In the field of programming, the only procrastinators I know are those who show some actual interest in the field beyond getting their paycheck. > Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Depression can be a consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process. That... resonates. It seems that it's usually prolonged procrastination that destroys me emotionally, not bad emotional state causing me to procrastinate.
mmirate 8y ago
The essential question, then, is how to not-care enough to avoid procrastination while caring enough to produce sufficiently high-quality work to avoid career stagnation...

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Another HN procrastination topic, yay! I'm late to the discussion, but maybe someone will still answer: I've been a procrastinator for as long as I remember, and have the following problem I struggle with: whenever I try to force myself to do a task - like any task that isn't fun or just following curiosity - I feel this strong emotional block. The more I force myself, the stronger it gets, quite often turning into powerful anxiety, and sometimes even physical pain. Usually the mental pain itself is powerful enough to dumb me down to the level I am not smart enough to complete the task at hand (perils of working with one's head instead of hands...), which means the work won't get done anyway. Is this normal? Is this just lack of discipline, as some would suggest? Does lack of discipline manifest itself with debilitating levels of anxiety? Do people here, who overcame procrastination, suffered from something similar at the beginning and don't suffer from it now? I ask because I've tried the usual tricks - from pomodoros, through commitment schemes (hello Beeminder), imagination exercises, GTD, DeepWork planning, edw519's A/B mode of work... and everything eventually lost to the emotional pain. It's a small miracle that I'm able to get enough stuff done to make ends meet, but I look at how much more I could be doing if I weren't procrastinating that hard, and the very thought of years wasted makes me feel bad. (#HNTherapy once again, I guess.)

kkreamer 8y ago
No, it’s not a lack of discipline, it’s not normal, and I think you answered your own question why with your last sentence. It sounds like when you first start a task, you subconsciously decide how likely you are to complete it, based on how fun and interesting it is. For boring tasks, you figure there’s no way to finish it, and that will make you feel bad, and that causes the emotional pain now. The more you push yourself, the worse you feel that you are putting in all this effort and will still end in failure. A suggestion: do the smallest part right now and then look at that as a success. Meaning, don’t worry about planning the whole thing out, with pomodoros and imagination exercises. Those are hurting you because they are keeping your focus on what your mind perceives as a huge mountain of work. Instead, ask yourself, “what is the most stupidly small thing I can do right now?” Have a task to write a new website? First task is to log into your laptop. Once that’s done, next stupidly small thing? Open your text editor. Start with ‘<html>hello</html>’ saved in “index.html”. Keep just doing to most obvious, tiny thing. Then afterwards, the hardest but most important part: perspective. Don’t look at how much more you could have done if you weren’t procrastinating —- look at how much you got done over a baseline of doing nothing. Hey, I got rails stood up saying “hello world”, but with postgres behind it and it all checked into git. That’s several more things done than if I had done nothing at all. Go me!

blarg1 8y ago

I often don't want to write any code before I can think of a good solution, but at the same time I can't come up with a good solution until I've tried a bunch of bad solutions.

eric24234 8y ago

People who were procrastinators and have found a trick or technique that has worked in the long run and have who have made lots of progress please share