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I've long known my procrastination is born out of anxieties centered around the task or myself. But I'm so kind to myself that I forgive myself for procrastina

I've long known my procrastination is born out of anxieties centered around the task or myself. But I'm so kind to myself that I forgive myself for procrastinating before I've even done it - a great example of the many ways/excuses to defeat most anti-procrastination techniques I've come up with :))) I even wonder how much my propensity toward picking up new hobbies (which usually involves spending decent amounts of money aka "shopping") before getting bored, selling everything (which I usually put off until I physically can't accommodate more stuff) and repeating the process is actually just me avoiding doing life stuff like saving for a house and being a responsible adult. I eat takeaway because I "don't have time" but then I don't actually get things I need to do done AND find myself becoming more and more unhealthy. I often get asked "what have you done today?" and it's quite frequent for me to not really even know (or care to admit). Interestingly, I went away on holiday the other week - when I arrived home, before I even paused (shoes still on), I immediately started doing things I'd been putting off for months, like I had an urge despite there being no more time pressure than at any point in the past 12 months that I had regularly ignored. Procrastination, and being with it, is a large part of my life. I find it incredibly interesting but if I could pay a large sum of money to take it away in an instant, I'd hand over the cash immediately. (And thus, this is another example of my aversion to difficult work)

cheerlessbog 7y ago
Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule. The key to defeating your procrastination may be to progressively build up a habit of doing work you prefer to avoid by setting up regular cues. Eg to build a gym habit I set out my gym clothes each night. Then after a week of that I began to put them on before getting in the car to work. Then after a few days I drove past the gym in the way to work. Then went in for 1 minute and so forth. I know this sounds absurd. With these tiny steps I built a habit of the gym that is now 1 hour five times a week. Now I am building a habit of keeping my kitchen clean with the same progression of micro cues. You could imagine similar steps involving preparing your desk, later just sitting down at it, and so forth,all with cues like your first coffee, or you finished dinner etc. The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit. Eventually it is mentally easier to maintain the habit than to break it. Another tip, if you absolutely do not want to fulfill the habit on a particular cue, complete as many micro steps as you can, eg if I have an injury I will still go into the gym for a shower and to change before work.
- CrLf 7y ago
  > Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule. I doubt this is it. Instead, I think that enough time without having to do the tasks that are being procrastinated reduces pressure and makes you less resistant to do them. In a way, procrastination is your brain resisting continuous grind.
- navaati 7y ago
  You are a mad genius. I'll think about your technique, thanks.
- luigi23 7y ago
  I like Terry Crews attitude: “TREAT THE GYM LIKE A SPA. Yes. It has to feel good. I tell people this a lot - go to the gym, and just sit there, and read a magazine, and then go home. And do this every day. Go to the gym, don't even work out. Just GO. Because the habit of going to the gym is more important than the work out. Because it doesn't matter what you do. You can have fun - but as long as you're having fun, you continue to do it.” I’m practicing the same - it’s mostly about the routine, habit, without aiming lofty goals. That’s probably why most of the side projects fail - overachieving and aiming perfection.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    why do we need habit if its already fun. Is fun not really motivation enough?
- dominotw 7y ago
  > The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit. Has this worked for you on long term basis. What is stopping me for ignoring that cue and just chilling.
  - cheerlessbog 7y ago
    For the gym it's worked consistently for several years. The idea is that you build a habit in the brain so that you do it "because that's what you do". Similar to you brush your teeth when you do into the chrome in your pyjamas, you don't make a decision to do it.
_pgmf 7y ago
> And thus, this is another example of my aversion to difficult work Nice. A parallel: "I'd take a pill just to take my procrastination away! Hell I'd take 2." I had some real procrastination issues at work. I mean, I was really beating myself up, praying about it every night and sometimes during the day. Eventually I just had to start in on the tasks I had been putting off. Perfectionism is another facet of this thing: I need to handle x, y and z but that's going to be really tough, especially "z"... Fuck I'll start tomorrow. I had a gnarly data-munging thing for work, one of those "garbage in, garbage out"-type things, except the expectation was "garbage in, $$ out". I couldn't see my way around all the tiny difficulties I foresaw arising. When the pain of procrastinating became greater than the pain of just starting in on the work, I finally was able to make progress. It wasn't as bad as I had been thinking. So pessimism and cynicism seem to also play a role. Anyway, a favorite saying of mine is "god don't do manual labor". I could pray for motivation (or meditate or whatever), but what was needful was for me to tolerate the feelings and get started. Hard to do!
- jolfdb 7y ago
  There are two classic jokes about praying for help: https://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man https://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/1gkcpp/the-lottery-ticket http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/1gkcpp/the-lottery-ticket
  - coleifer 7y ago
    Here's a similar story: A guy is standing on the beach and his clothes and hair are all ablaze. Another guy says to him, "dude go jump in the water, you're on fire!" To which he responds, "I know, just a minute tho, I gotta figure out where this damn fire came from."
- wincy 7y ago
  It’s funny you mention praying! I’ve found that praying about accomplishing a task really helps me. I’m not a regular churchgoer, but praying definitely does something. I feel centered and like my mind becomes less scattered.
wincy 7y ago
I do pay to remove procrastination. I think a great example of the level of procrastination I’m talking about is this — despite getting two tickets, I didn’t renew my tags for my car for a year and a half after their expiration. It’s not like I was broke or busy. I just felt UGH every time I thought about it. I procrastinate things despite the great personal cost it might incur because of the anxiety of something even the most mildly unpleasant. I wouldn’t want to do work at work, so I’d endlessly scroll Hacker News or Reddit for about a year and a half. I’d leave at three because I was bored. I left one job and got fired from another. I take prescription amphetamines now. The difference is night and day. Developers I’ve worked with on the medication think I’m intelligent and diligent. Developers who have worked with me off the medication are baffled I got hired. People have a hard time believing they’re talking about the same person. The reward is great, but so are the costs. I’m really irritable in the evenings, and I struggle to be kind and enjoy time with my wife and daughter whom I’m ostensibly doing this for. I can’t just take some in the evenings, or I can’t sleep. It makes me more distant emotionally. My wife can instantly tell if I’ve taken Adderall, and not in a good way. My sense of humor changes, more cutting and rude. I take a drug that changes what interests me. I don’t take it on the weekends, because I’m terrified I’ll develop a tolerance, as happened once before. Tolerance doesn’t mean all effects (including side effects) are diminished. When tolerant the emotional effects seemed to scale linearly, bizarre things like crying on the kitchen floor because my wife didn’t want to talk about Austrian economics at 6am, but the concentration effect would level off and I’d feel foggy. So I sleep 14 hours on weekends, giving me even less time away from work and with my family. Vacations are the best because my wife says I’m “the man she married again” after a few days off the meds. I feel good but maaan am I unmotivated. I’m not saying I live in some dystopian nightmare. My life is so much better for it. Adderall has made me a firmly middle class citizen, it took me a year and a half of not taking it to realize without it (and propranolol, which reduces anxiety by just a tiny bit), there’s no way I can work a developer job. So every three months I pay the doctor, then pay the pharmacist, and I get a pill that fundamentally alters who I am.
- TheLegace 7y ago
  I've been through what you are talking about, but unfortunately I could not continue using those medications. What worked for me was not forcing structures in the brain to function through chemicals but actually changing them through a breakthrough treatment called Neurofeedback. It is possible to physically and permanently alter the behavior of the brain and achieve far greater results than any drug could possibly do. Along with proper physical/mental training you can come out far ahead and still retain the "you" instead of some artificial version that may never go away. The leading specialist in this field can be found on this website. You can find information about it here[1]. After significant research into the functioning of the brain. I realized that ADHD isn't a focusing problem. It's that the focus networks in your brain haven't been adequately trained and require the use of pharmaceuticals to temporarily induce this along with other negative side effects. [1] http://addcentre.com/ http://addcentre.com/
iSnow 7y ago
Did you get tested for ADHD? I know I always wondered about my procrastination habits, lack of discipline or executive functions (prioritizing and time-boxing tasks) and anxiety. Seems this is very frequently co-morbid with ADHD - and there are different ADHD subtypes, the loud-mouthed and irritable one and the silent, inattentive one. >my propensity toward picking up new hobbies (which usually involves spending decent amounts of money aka "shopping") before getting bored, selling everything (which I usually put off until I physically can't accommodate more stuff) and repeating the process This also is sooo common in ADHD people, just saying...
- jplayer01 7y ago
  I have the exact same issues regarding starting tasks/hobbies and not being able to finish them. I've actually never, in my entire life, managed to stick to anything for longer than a week. Aside from school, but you're basically forced to go through it. I've tried multiple times to get through college, but I could never study consistently or at any length of time without feeling exhausted after a couple of minutes, if not before even starting. People keep talking about getting started is the hardest part... No, not for me. I'm lucky if I can get through 20 minutes before I can't focus and need to do something else for an hour or two. I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure.
  - iSnow 7y ago
    I will not deny that I am biased as I am pretty sure I am afflicted with ADHD and it fucked up parts of my life well and good. So, by all means, take it with a grain of salt and do your independent research. That said: >I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure. This again is not untypical, some call it "hyperfocus" which I hate because it sounds like a superpower while it probably just is what neurotypicals call "flow". Do you get "in the zone" while doing your taxes? Or do you get into it while devouring information, researching things you find super interesting or in the initial phase of a new project? If it is the latter, it fits. ADHD does not mean you are unable to concentrate at all - it means you have troubles concentrating on boring tasks, on extrinsical tasks, on yak-shaving problems. It still allows you to go super deep into some rabbit hole you find interesting in the moment. If I were you, I'd research the symptoms and different presentations (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html) and see how well they fit. If they fit, maybe head over to https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/ to read some personal perspective. The sub is not super high quality, and confirmation bias is an issue, but I felt it is a good resource to check how well I click with others from an ADHD background. And if you still think that maybe there's more to it than being a failure, seek treatment. A bit of Adderall or Ritalin should give you a pretty good idea whether your functioning can be improved by meds. Exercise is extremely valuable as well. Good luck (and no, you are not a failure :)
lifty 7y ago
Try mediation to identify and get more comfortable with the feelings that trigger the procrastination or task avoidance. Once you start on that path and identify the problems you can also make changes in your life, instead of just accepting the feelings.
johnnycab 7y ago
>Procrastination, and being with it, is a large part of my life. I find it incredibly interesting but if I could pay a large sum of money to take it away in an instant, I'd hand over the cash immediately. Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good ─ Søren Kirkegaard https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom-idleness-either-or/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom...

cheerlessbog 7y ago

Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule. The key to defeating your procrastination may be to progressively build up a habit of doing work you prefer to avoid by setting up regular cues. Eg to build a gym habit I set out my gym clothes each night. Then after a week of that I began to put them on before getting in the car to work. Then after a few days I drove past the gym in the way to work. Then went in for 1 minute and so forth. I know this sounds absurd. With these tiny steps I built a habit of the gym that is now 1 hour five times a week. Now I am building a habit of keeping my kitchen clean with the same progression of micro cues. You could imagine similar steps involving preparing your desk, later just sitting down at it, and so forth,all with cues like your first coffee, or you finished dinner etc. The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit. Eventually it is mentally easier to maintain the habit than to break it. Another tip, if you absolutely do not want to fulfill the habit on a particular cue, complete as many micro steps as you can, eg if I have an injury I will still go into the gym for a shower and to change before work.

CrLf 7y ago
> Returning from the holiday meant you had avoided your usual procrastination cues -couch, TV, phone, schedule. I doubt this is it. Instead, I think that enough time without having to do the tasks that are being procrastinated reduces pressure and makes you less resistant to do them. In a way, procrastination is your brain resisting continuous grind.
navaati 7y ago
You are a mad genius. I'll think about your technique, thanks.
luigi23 7y ago
I like Terry Crews attitude: “TREAT THE GYM LIKE A SPA. Yes. It has to feel good. I tell people this a lot - go to the gym, and just sit there, and read a magazine, and then go home. And do this every day. Go to the gym, don't even work out. Just GO. Because the habit of going to the gym is more important than the work out. Because it doesn't matter what you do. You can have fun - but as long as you're having fun, you continue to do it.” I’m practicing the same - it’s mostly about the routine, habit, without aiming lofty goals. That’s probably why most of the side projects fail - overachieving and aiming perfection.
- dominotw 7y ago
  why do we need habit if its already fun. Is fun not really motivation enough?
dominotw 7y ago
> The formula is regular cue + micro progression to build a habit. Has this worked for you on long term basis. What is stopping me for ignoring that cue and just chilling.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  For the gym it's worked consistently for several years. The idea is that you build a habit in the brain so that you do it "because that's what you do". Similar to you brush your teeth when you do into the chrome in your pyjamas, you don't make a decision to do it.

_pgmf 7y ago

> And thus, this is another example of my aversion to difficult work Nice. A parallel: "I'd take a pill just to take my procrastination away! Hell I'd take 2." I had some real procrastination issues at work. I mean, I was really beating myself up, praying about it every night and sometimes during the day. Eventually I just had to start in on the tasks I had been putting off. Perfectionism is another facet of this thing: I need to handle x, y and z but that's going to be really tough, especially "z"... Fuck I'll start tomorrow. I had a gnarly data-munging thing for work, one of those "garbage in, garbage out"-type things, except the expectation was "garbage in, $$ out". I couldn't see my way around all the tiny difficulties I foresaw arising. When the pain of procrastinating became greater than the pain of just starting in on the work, I finally was able to make progress. It wasn't as bad as I had been thinking. So pessimism and cynicism seem to also play a role. Anyway, a favorite saying of mine is "god don't do manual labor". I could pray for motivation (or meditate or whatever), but what was needful was for me to tolerate the feelings and get started. Hard to do!

jolfdb 7y ago
There are two classic jokes about praying for help: https://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man https://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/1gkcpp/the-lottery-ticket http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/1gkcpp/the-lottery-ticket
- coleifer 7y ago
  Here's a similar story: A guy is standing on the beach and his clothes and hair are all ablaze. Another guy says to him, "dude go jump in the water, you're on fire!" To which he responds, "I know, just a minute tho, I gotta figure out where this damn fire came from."
wincy 7y ago
It’s funny you mention praying! I’ve found that praying about accomplishing a task really helps me. I’m not a regular churchgoer, but praying definitely does something. I feel centered and like my mind becomes less scattered.

wincy 7y ago

I do pay to remove procrastination. I think a great example of the level of procrastination I’m talking about is this — despite getting two tickets, I didn’t renew my tags for my car for a year and a half after their expiration. It’s not like I was broke or busy. I just felt UGH every time I thought about it. I procrastinate things despite the great personal cost it might incur because of the anxiety of something even the most mildly unpleasant. I wouldn’t want to do work at work, so I’d endlessly scroll Hacker News or Reddit for about a year and a half. I’d leave at three because I was bored. I left one job and got fired from another. I take prescription amphetamines now. The difference is night and day. Developers I’ve worked with on the medication think I’m intelligent and diligent. Developers who have worked with me off the medication are baffled I got hired. People have a hard time believing they’re talking about the same person. The reward is great, but so are the costs. I’m really irritable in the evenings, and I struggle to be kind and enjoy time with my wife and daughter whom I’m ostensibly doing this for. I can’t just take some in the evenings, or I can’t sleep. It makes me more distant emotionally. My wife can instantly tell if I’ve taken Adderall, and not in a good way. My sense of humor changes, more cutting and rude. I take a drug that changes what interests me. I don’t take it on the weekends, because I’m terrified I’ll develop a tolerance, as happened once before. Tolerance doesn’t mean all effects (including side effects) are diminished. When tolerant the emotional effects seemed to scale linearly, bizarre things like crying on the kitchen floor because my wife didn’t want to talk about Austrian economics at 6am, but the concentration effect would level off and I’d feel foggy. So I sleep 14 hours on weekends, giving me even less time away from work and with my family. Vacations are the best because my wife says I’m “the man she married again” after a few days off the meds. I feel good but maaan am I unmotivated. I’m not saying I live in some dystopian nightmare. My life is so much better for it. Adderall has made me a firmly middle class citizen, it took me a year and a half of not taking it to realize without it (and propranolol, which reduces anxiety by just a tiny bit), there’s no way I can work a developer job. So every three months I pay the doctor, then pay the pharmacist, and I get a pill that fundamentally alters who I am.

TheLegace 7y ago
I've been through what you are talking about, but unfortunately I could not continue using those medications. What worked for me was not forcing structures in the brain to function through chemicals but actually changing them through a breakthrough treatment called Neurofeedback. It is possible to physically and permanently alter the behavior of the brain and achieve far greater results than any drug could possibly do. Along with proper physical/mental training you can come out far ahead and still retain the "you" instead of some artificial version that may never go away. The leading specialist in this field can be found on this website. You can find information about it here[1]. After significant research into the functioning of the brain. I realized that ADHD isn't a focusing problem. It's that the focus networks in your brain haven't been adequately trained and require the use of pharmaceuticals to temporarily induce this along with other negative side effects. [1] http://addcentre.com/ http://addcentre.com/

iSnow 7y ago

Did you get tested for ADHD? I know I always wondered about my procrastination habits, lack of discipline or executive functions (prioritizing and time-boxing tasks) and anxiety. Seems this is very frequently co-morbid with ADHD - and there are different ADHD subtypes, the loud-mouthed and irritable one and the silent, inattentive one. >my propensity toward picking up new hobbies (which usually involves spending decent amounts of money aka "shopping") before getting bored, selling everything (which I usually put off until I physically can't accommodate more stuff) and repeating the process This also is sooo common in ADHD people, just saying...

jplayer01 7y ago
I have the exact same issues regarding starting tasks/hobbies and not being able to finish them. I've actually never, in my entire life, managed to stick to anything for longer than a week. Aside from school, but you're basically forced to go through it. I've tried multiple times to get through college, but I could never study consistently or at any length of time without feeling exhausted after a couple of minutes, if not before even starting. People keep talking about getting started is the hardest part... No, not for me. I'm lucky if I can get through 20 minutes before I can't focus and need to do something else for an hour or two. I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure.
- iSnow 7y ago
  I will not deny that I am biased as I am pretty sure I am afflicted with ADHD and it fucked up parts of my life well and good. So, by all means, take it with a grain of salt and do your independent research. That said: >I've thought about ADHD before, but I'm just not sure. There are plenty of situations where I feel engaged enough to do a single task for a long time. I can read a book in one sitting. I can binge watch entire seasons of GoT (or any number of other series) back-to-back. So it feels like grasping for ADHD is just a cop out of actually learning how to study or how to adult and I feel like even more of a failure. This again is not untypical, some call it "hyperfocus" which I hate because it sounds like a superpower while it probably just is what neurotypicals call "flow". Do you get "in the zone" while doing your taxes? Or do you get into it while devouring information, researching things you find super interesting or in the initial phase of a new project? If it is the latter, it fits. ADHD does not mean you are unable to concentrate at all - it means you have troubles concentrating on boring tasks, on extrinsical tasks, on yak-shaving problems. It still allows you to go super deep into some rabbit hole you find interesting in the moment. If I were you, I'd research the symptoms and different presentations (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html) and see how well they fit. If they fit, maybe head over to https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/ to read some personal perspective. The sub is not super high quality, and confirmation bias is an issue, but I felt it is a good resource to check how well I click with others from an ADHD background. And if you still think that maybe there's more to it than being a failure, seek treatment. A bit of Adderall or Ritalin should give you a pretty good idea whether your functioning can be improved by meds. Exercise is extremely valuable as well. Good luck (and no, you are not a failure :)

lifty 7y ago

Try mediation to identify and get more comfortable with the feelings that trigger the procrastination or task avoidance. Once you start on that path and identify the problems you can also make changes in your life, instead of just accepting the feelings.

johnnycab 7y ago

>Procrastination, and being with it, is a large part of my life. I find it incredibly interesting but if I could pay a large sum of money to take it away in an instant, I'd hand over the cash immediately. Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good ─ Søren Kirkegaard https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom-idleness-either-or/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/14/kierkegaard-boredom...