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One hack I’m doing for my procrastination and perfectionism is to tell myself that “I’ll fix it next year”. So if I’ve made repairs on the house and am not sati

One hack I’m doing for my procrastination and perfectionism is to tell myself that “I’ll fix it next year”. So if I’ve made repairs on the house and am not satisfied that it’s perfect enough, I tell myself, and make a note to “fix it next year.” Usually, when next year rolls around I’m now ok with it...

JimboOmega 8y ago
A fix for procrastination being to decide to do it in the future? That seems counter intuitive
- Sammi 8y ago
  Make it good enough now. Maybe make it perfect in the future, if you still feel it is necessary then. Makes sense to me when stated like that.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    I use a slight variation of that: I can't make the thing perfect right now because of unknowns I can turn into knowns only by doing the good enough version, hence trick myself into thinking the "do it" part is part of the "design for the perfect version" part, and generally discover that my initial vision was too broad and that the good enough version I just completed not only is much closer to the goal than I thought but it's more efficient, easily refactorable, and generally nimble, as well as immediately useful. In a way I'm fighting a natural tendency to excessive generalisation with deceitfully self-imposed serendipity. There is another situation where procrastination kicks in and the above does not work: when I do have some weird, "code smell style" feelings about blind spots in my approach but things need to subconsciously percolate until I get a a-ha moment. In such scenarios I should not work on the thing and do something entirely different as if I try to force myself into it then consciousness and subconsciousness seem to deadlock each other on a shared mutex.
steve_musk 8y ago
How is this a hack? Isn’t it just procrastinating?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Procrastination is meaning to do something and somehow not getting around to it. Explicitly deciding "I'm not going to work on it until X (or never)" is not procrastination, it's making a decision. It may look the same on the outside - the job does not get done - but it's different emotionally, as in the latter case you get to stop thinking about it.
- sp332 8y ago
  No, you do what you can now. If you start to hesitate because of perfectionism, tell yourself that you can fix it later.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  Not if you get motivated and do the stuff that needs to be done, by telling yourself to ignore all the bells and whistles and "postpone" them.

JimboOmega 8y ago

A fix for procrastination being to decide to do it in the future? That seems counter intuitive

Sammi 8y ago
Make it good enough now. Maybe make it perfect in the future, if you still feel it is necessary then. Makes sense to me when stated like that.
- lloeki 8y ago
  I use a slight variation of that: I can't make the thing perfect right now because of unknowns I can turn into knowns only by doing the good enough version, hence trick myself into thinking the "do it" part is part of the "design for the perfect version" part, and generally discover that my initial vision was too broad and that the good enough version I just completed not only is much closer to the goal than I thought but it's more efficient, easily refactorable, and generally nimble, as well as immediately useful. In a way I'm fighting a natural tendency to excessive generalisation with deceitfully self-imposed serendipity. There is another situation where procrastination kicks in and the above does not work: when I do have some weird, "code smell style" feelings about blind spots in my approach but things need to subconsciously percolate until I get a a-ha moment. In such scenarios I should not work on the thing and do something entirely different as if I try to force myself into it then consciousness and subconsciousness seem to deadlock each other on a shared mutex.

steve_musk 8y ago

How is this a hack? Isn’t it just procrastinating?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Procrastination is meaning to do something and somehow not getting around to it. Explicitly deciding "I'm not going to work on it until X (or never)" is not procrastination, it's making a decision. It may look the same on the outside - the job does not get done - but it's different emotionally, as in the latter case you get to stop thinking about it.
sp332 8y ago
No, you do what you can now. If you start to hesitate because of perfectionism, tell yourself that you can fix it later.
PeterisP 8y ago
Not if you get motivated and do the stuff that needs to be done, by telling yourself to ignore all the bells and whistles and "postpone" them.