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How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model

804 points by vitabenes 6y ago

m1117 6y ago
"Application error" helped with my procrastination. I thought, I'll come back later.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  It's back up! Try again and see if it actually helps.
deleted 6y ago
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corty 6y ago
Yes, every website returning "application error" is one less chance for procrastination. However, since it is rather hard convincing everyone to break their website for me, I'll continue using a browser extension to keep me from procrastinating. ;)
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Working on that error. Sorry about that.
vitabenes 6y ago
Sorry, it will be up in a moment!
bdamm 6y ago
This is a nice read and a useful, practical model. Thank you!
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Happy to help!
sna1l 6y ago
For things that I don't have the motivation to do (things I procrastinate), my strategy is to start doing the smallest possible unit of that thing as I can. Recently I started meditating, something I've tried to get into, but never have. I downloaded this app Balance which encourages daily practice (reminders, 3,5,10 guided meditations, etc). I am still not "motivated" to do it, but I don't need to be because it is just part of my schedule. The reason I say this is that I feel like "building motivation" is kind of the wrong attitude. You won't like everything that you do (go to the gym, pay your bills, etc), but building a repeatable habit makes it so you don't need to feel motivated. This might be a nitpick, but the big change in thinking for me was around not having to be motivated to do something.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  It's a good point. We do easy things even though we're not motivated. B J Fogg talks about motivation waves - motivation comes and goes like a wave. When you're riding high, Fogg recommends taking a hard action that will make future actions easier (register for a yoga class, go for a long run after months of not running). When motivation is low, take the easiest step possible. Over time, what we're familiar with (daily routines) become habitual and we don't need motivation.
  - balfirevic 6y ago
    > We do easy things even though we're not motivated. Ah, I see you are, at best, an amateur level procrastinator :)
    - vitabenes 6y ago
      I used to be a pro, but blocking out distractions (the easiest, most "fun" activity) helped me do more. I know you didn't ask for advice, but if I were to give you just 1 bit of it, it's to block distractions in the browser (or unplug wifi) and put your phone in another room. Then you'd get bored for a while, and then you'd take the easy work-related actions despite not being motivated.
kaonwarb 6y ago
This is nicely summarized. Bookmarking as a resource for helping team members who are new to relatively unstructured work. Thanks.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Awesome! Happy to help
pkphilip 6y ago
Thank you. Will read this later.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Not sure if this is a classic procrastination joke or a promise, but either way, please do :)
  - pkphilip 6y ago
    :) yes
deleted 6y ago
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oxfordmale 6y ago
I will adopt the Fogg behaviour..... tomorrow.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  What about a tiny step today?
DecayingOrganic 6y ago
You can read the paper itself [0]. It was originally introduced as a behavior model for persuasive design, later on has become quite popular in self-help field. To summarize, it states: "The FBM asserts that for a person to perform a target behavior, he or she must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) have the ability to perform the behavior, and (3) be triggered to perform the behavior." The author then makes the case that since any attempts to modify the motivation level of an agent is hard and often fails, one can focus on modifying the ability of a task, thus making it easier for the agent to perform. Let's say you want to start flossing your teeth, following the FBM, you can modify the required ability to perform the task by saying "I only need to floss one tooth." By doing so, you compensate for your low motivation and increase the likelihood of doing it. [0]: https://captology.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Behavior-Model-for-Persuasive-Design.pdf https://captology.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Be...
- dboreham 6y ago
  You have to select a random different tooth every day though.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    Or just repeat the small task 26 times
- wccrawford 6y ago
  "Just 1 tooth" sounds silly, but "just the teeth that feel like they need flossing" doesn't sound as silly and is a lot more manageable because of it, IMO. And once you're in there doing those teeth, there's a good chance you'll do all of them. And if you don't do them all, and only do the ones that you think need it, at least you did that much. It's certainly better than none.
- tagh 6y ago
  Not strictly related to procrastination, but the "just one tooth" method didn't work for me. Stuck with it for a few weeks, and then my motivation just tapered off. What worked was permanently bundling flossing with brushing. That meant that if I _really_ didn't want to floss I didn't have to, but then I also had to skip brushing. Not brushing feels gross to me, which is why I think it worked. There are now a few nights a year where I don't brush my teeth... but overall it's a huge win.
njsubedi 6y ago
I have this constant feeling that some post on HN will motivate me more, or just teach me to be less of a procrastinator. That’s the reason I check HN frequently, and click on these kinds of links. Then I see the post is too long, and scroll-skim it. Nothing really changes about procrastination; we don’t do shit until some other shit is on fire.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Check out the browser extension on our site! That might help, if an article won't. I used to check Twitter 100-150 times a day, but with the use of the extension, I got it under 20 times. Try the Focus Zones feature. Try it, let me know if it works. I'll give you 3 months of Pro features for free if you shoot me an email.
  - edcrfv 6y ago
    What's your site?
    - vitabenes 6y ago
      The one with the article linked in the original post.
- mementomori 6y ago
  Agreed! Fear and despair are strong motivators for me. The trick is that fear sits in only when time becomes scarce. "How to start noticing something should be done before it's too late" is a good thing to have.
SeanFerree 6y ago
Love this! My favorite is the Simple Timeline. Definitely a deadline helps me. Also keeping tasks simple and completing them step by step is better than taking on huge tasks all at once. If I feel overwhelmed my motivation declines.
m3kw9 6y ago
Added to the reading list for later.
georgespencer 6y ago
It’s clearly not the case for everyone, but I struggled for an extended period of time with a few things in my personal and professional life: 1. Remarkable focus in topics which interest me and remarkable lack of focus in topics which do not. 2. Leaving “must do” tasks in areas of little interest until the very last moment, resulting in a predictable lack of excellence in execution. 3. Periodic deep dives into topics which go beyond the aforementioned “areas of interest”. 4. Driven by a motor in meetings: itching to get up and walk around as we talk, feeling more comfortable with any kind of low level motor action happening concurrently to my thinking and speaking. Also led to me leaping to the end of a person’s sentence and others experiencing me as highly impatient / excitable at times. 5. The need to have a TV show or other media playing as I fall asleep. Ideally something I’ve seen before and which is enjoyable but not too engrossing. Almost like one of the cores in my processor couldn’t be idle — it actually made it hard to sleep. (Conversely I always fell asleep watching films with my partner.) 6. Various odd elements of disorganisation — never at work but eg. losing my keys and documents. If you’re reading this and hearing elements of your own experience, and in particular if this is familiar to you from childhood (“Why can’t you apply yourself to X like you do Y?!”) then I would encourage you to speak to a serious psychiatrist about the possibility that you have ADHD. Not everyone has it and I accept that many are probably misdiagnosed with it. My experience of clicking every link on HN with hacks for focusing and not procrastinating was actually a very sad one and I didn’t realise how profoundly it had affected me until I sat in the office of a psychiatrist and he rattled off a range of specific experiences he wagered I had had during my life. It’s been a remarkable process for me of feeling emotional relief as well as receiving medication which improves my life. Again if you’re looking for a productivity hack you do not need to consider that you have any sort of chemical disregulation, but I did not consider the possibility of a medical condition and found myself often in rabbit holes of productivity hacks feeling deeply unproductive.
- elchief 6y ago
  If you suffer ADHD, I strongly recommend reading Scattered Minds, by Gabor Mate. I found it enlightening
  - 6y ago
system2 6y ago
There is nothing can stop procrastinating but only if we do things we love. I remember being passionate about little electronics projects when I was young, I would spend 10+ hours per day without getting bored. Now if In need to do anything I will find something to postpone or do it half assed while doing something else at the same time. Do something you love and wouldn't get bored of. Like gardening or something. Something simple. When there are more parts and added steps in the process (like a web app) you will eventually stop doing it because of the complexity.
- non-entity 6y ago
  The problem is I spend 8+ hours a day doing something I don't care about and by the time I can work on the things I love I'm mentally exhausted and just sleep for hours.
  - epicureanideal 6y ago
    See my other comment in this thread. I think the model's lack of consideration for "mental exhaustion" means it's incomplete.
aplusbi 6y ago
I have started subscribing to the believe that it is not about motivation, it's about discipline. There is only so much you can do to motivate yourself to do a tedious or onerous task. But if you have discipline, you don't need the motivation. I still struggle a lot with procrastination, but I find this reframing to be helpful.
- dtjohnnyb 6y ago
  I think one issue with discipline is that there's a value judgement attached, so that when I procrastinate, I'm an undisciplined slob, I feel worse, more procrastination, spiral. As you said, having discipline reframed into triggers and motivation allows more objective reasoning. You do the task because you have a well created system of triggers that you follow regularly because you know the _why_ of what you're doing at a big picture level. If I procrastinate, it means my system or my why isn't working for me, and I need to reevaluate.
komali2 6y ago
The Trigger one really resonated with me. I've been desperately struggling with getting tasks done - I thought it was Motivation mostly (and a good deal of the issue is, quarantine is sucking my energy). But when I think back to all the times I was successful, it was the presence of good triggers. For example, I did a coding bootcamp, and it was the most productive part of my life, because in my opinion of the powerful triggers. I show up, I do a coding challenge. Every day. That's how it worked. Then at 9:30 or whatever there's a lecture. I go to it and I take notes. Then there's a pair programming excercise... etc. All I had to do was plug myself into the schedule, and the motivation and ability basically came for free. It was a sort of freedom - sorry brain, we don't really have a say in this, gotta follow the schedule. Recently I've been struggling to work out as frequently as I did when I was working. Before, I'd bicycle to the gym, and then go from there to the office. Obviously right now that wasn't happening - but functionally I had more time to work out now. I have more freedom, so why am I working out less? Then I talked to a therapist about depression etc, and she said "well before we can do anything else, you need to start working out again. 30 mins cardio a day, elevated heart rate and sweating." Suddenly it was easy. Suddenly it was like Freedom again. Sorry brain, we gotta just run, doctor's orders. Interestingly, for the first time in my life (big weightlifter, never a big cardio guy), I could do a 30 minute run without stopping. Sure, a pace of 11.5 minute mile, but before I couldn't even do 20 minutes without interspersing walking (about 12.5 or 13 min mile for a 2 mile run). But day 1 after doctor's orders, I just did it? It's completely fascinating. I obviously always had the ability, the restriction was entirely mental. So I really like how this author put the Trigger into words. It reflects my own personal experience.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Happy to articulate it for you! Without a trigger (also called a prompt), there is no behavior. We need someone (ourselves, others) or something (alarm, calendar) to take action.
stakkur 6y ago
I generally disagree with these kinds of models. Not because motivation, triggers, etc. aren't real things, but because they couch the problem as being either outside of us, or quasi-genetic (ADHD, etc.), instead of a choice that we make and own. Taking action has varying degrees of difficulty for every person. The factors are numerous. But in history, in life, in every scenario I've ever read or studied or watched, there's only one factor that matters: regardless of conditions, health, limitations, weather, whatever--the person made a decision and took action, over and over. In my experience, it's as boring as that. No mental hack, no shortcut--decision and action. Sure, you can work on 'clearing obstacles' to getting things done--mental models, physical problems, whatever--but you don't wait for this to be 'solved'. You have to act. And do it again until you're done.
- Funes- 6y ago
  I agree. What anyone needs to keep procrastination at bay is strong enough resolve. It's the only thing that's ever helped me take action.
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    Do you never find yourself doing things that after you’ve done it, you realise you shouldn’t have? I find procrastination is sometimes a sign that my subconscious has realised i’d be better delegating or rejecting something rather than doing it BUT my consciousness hasn’t realised that yet. Resolve is my last choice for things i’m procrastinating. It comes after questions like: maybe i really do want to do this and i just haven’t considered why
    - vitabenes 6y ago
      We often say to our clients that procrastination is a teacher, an indicator. What does it indicate? Could be: * you don't like a type of work * you don't have sufficient skills to match the task * it's not important enough for you * you don't believe you can do it ... We teach them to ask themselves: why am I procrastinating? Resolve often isn't the issue.
pmoriarty 6y ago
Some time back, I read all I could on procrastination, and watched dozens of videos on it, and by far the best thing I found on it was this video by Tim Pychyl: [1] It focuses particularly on procrastination in graduate school, but is widely applicable elsewhere. One of the key insights that Pychyl, a psychologist who studies procrastination, had is that procrastination is not (as is commonly believed) a time management problem but a problem with managing negative emotions. He has lots of really useful, practical tips for overcoming procrastination in the video, which I highly recommend. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Yes, Pychil's work is incorporated in our materials. This is the recipe for procrastination (according to us): 1. Think about a task - "I have to do _____." 2. Have an automatic negative reaction 2a. Negative thoughts - "I hate doing this,"... 2b Negative feelings - Feeling stressed, afraid,... 3. Procrastinate - Do something else to feel better. Procrastination is all about escaping negative emotions. Something makes you feel bad, you do something else to feel better. Feeling better (reduced discomfort) is the short-term reward engaging in procrastination. That's why procrastination can become addictive and automatic)
  - epicureanideal 6y ago
    I still think this is too limited. Analogous to how Keynes said classical / Ricardian economics discussed distribution of goods given a fixed level of production, the linked article doesn't consider that the maximum productive output on any given day is not the same, even when the 3 variables considered are maximized. "Behavior" here seems to be a boolean, "why we take action or not take action at any given moment", but I think many people who ask how to be more motivated or productive are asking about total output, not just about the ability to begin a task. They might be able to sit down at their desk and start working, for example, but not be able to continue long even after doing all the tricks. In my experience, there is some sort of "mental energy reserve", and as that is exhausted it becomes increasingly difficult or maybe impossible to do any further productive work. If you are doing a strength training workout in the gym, no amount of "motivation" is going to let you continue lifting heavy weight indefinitely. I haven't seen much research to quantify that "mental energy reserve" or quantitatively measure how different tasks exhaust it. There also seems to be some task-related inertia.
altonzheng 6y ago
I’d add removing inner resistance, which could be expanded under motivation in the formula. Increasing motivation isn’t simply an additive process — you can introspect on the things limiting your motivation, eg. fear of failure, and address them. After that, you have more cognitive space, and a difficult task might suddenly seem much more tractable. It’s about letting go of the thoughts/emotions holding you back. In my experience, tackling this has been most rewarding, not to say the practices in the article don’t help.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  True. I think that could fall under "improving ability" in the Fogg model.
robmerki 6y ago
Procrastination is the intentional avoidance or delay of a task. I have ADHD and assumed I was procrastinating a lot. Nope. These type of models never worked for me.
sudhirkhanger 6y ago
I can develop habits by working on them a piece by piece. But even after having developed the habit in 3-4 months I usually end up dropping them. One such habit is exercising. I can't figure out what might possibly be wrong.
ctur 6y ago
This post just seems to be to draw semi-sensational attention to a self-help book. The site isn't generally referencing primary sources or otherwise giving signals of why it should be trusted. It also doesn't identify the authors. It's hard to take the site seriously when it equates gaming to being an alcoholic (while later in the same post backpedaling it): https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/should-i-quit-video-games https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/should-i-quit-video-ga...
- vitabenes 6y ago
  We'll you got a point. We could link to primary sources more often and add our faces to more places. Also: we equate gaming addiction (addiction being the key word) to alcoholism, not gaming as such. Have a great day!
untilHellbanned 6y ago
overly complicated. Nike Behavior model is easier: just do it.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  Doctor: "don't be sad." Patient: "thanks I never thought of that. i am cured." ...said no one ever.
owenshen24 6y ago
Fogg has some good thoughts on positive behavior change. James Clear, who wrote Tiny Habits, is another good person in this space who writes reasonable stuff. Self-plug for an overview on research into the habit formation literature that I recently cleaned up. Covers many evidence-backed interventions (of varying quality) for habit formation and removal. https://mlu.red/52436366310.html https://mlu.red/52436366310.html
- aryamaan 6y ago
  Just a small clarification "Atomic Habits" is the name of the book written by James Clear. Also, Tiny Habits is another book which also discusses the same space.
  - owenshen24 6y ago
    Yeah, my bad. I mis-remembered. Thanks for clarifying!
dsubburam 6y ago
I find concepts like "procastination" problematic, including associated ones in the comments like "resolve", "discipline", and separately, "weak will". Take the case of "resolving" to watch just one episode of your favorite TV show after dinner. You then end up binge-watching three episodes. Why is this a case of "weak will" when it is simpler to explain it as a change of mind? After all, there is "new data" post the first episode; maybe an increased curiosity into what happens next, or still feeling wide awake. The idea of "free will" is well motivated. I am not so sure about "weak will" etc. Is there some other way to characterize the applicable cases?
leptoniscool 6y ago
Some libraries are clearly better than others, what we need is a better rating system to differentiate the good ones from the bad.
marta_morena_25 6y ago
Oh cool, so basically this is about finding a way to cheat your brain into doing things it doesn't want to do. Maybe a good approach would be to find something you actually like to do instead and reflect on your choices and priorities in life? It's amusing that you need a professor to tell you how to convince yourself that your life doesn't suck. A more natural approach might be to change what you are trying to do in the first place... Guess what, the brain was not made to earn money.
- progman32 6y ago
  Not bad advice, though sometimes we have to play the game with the cards we're dealt. I have to trick myself into not procrasti-forgetting my utility bills, but I don't really see a downside to that.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Yup. I mean we do have to make money, and deal with the administrative complexities of modern life, and we should find strategies to cope with that. At the same time though, our brains are not somehow defective or lazy for wanting to do more interesting stuff.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  With any job, there's a part of work that we enjoy and a part that we don't. This article and others on our site are meant to help people with the latter. In the long term, we always advice people to look for work that is naturally engaging for them. But in the meantime, a couple behavioral adjustments can turn "I hate doing this, I don't want to do this" into "Okay, let's do this one small bit".
Konohamaru 6y ago
tl;dr: someone who can pay for a coach, or a grad student to keep him company, etc... has only two obstacles to overcoming endeavors instead of three.
chrisandchips 6y ago
If motivation and ability are both already there, I usually find the easiest way to move past procrastination is to choose a small-mid sized task and set a 15 minute timer. Committing to working on that task for 15 mins, even if I really dont feel like it, is usually enough to get the ball rolling.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a simple technique that we also recommend. Our extension has a timer for that reason.
snow_mac 6y ago
Sounds interesting but I'm going to have to read this later...
chpmrc 6y ago
What if procrastination was the simple act of postponing something just because...you can. Erase the 9-5, the arbitrary deadlines, the impossible requests of a boss, a client or a partner. Poof! Procrastination conceptually ceases to exist. It's ok to do nothing for 2 days and then put in 12 hours straight of purely productive coding, if you are not supposed to follow a specific timetable. It's ok to be a few days late on a deadline if that deadline has no reason to exist (which, let's be honest, most don't). It's ok to spend a few weeks on a project then abandon it for a few weeks only to rediscover the joy of working on it afterwards if there is nobody constantly asking "is it ready yet?". Because, let's face it, nobody in their right mind procrastinates if their livelihood is on the line or if it means letting someone down. We only procrastinate when we can. And if it gets so bad that you just can't get around to doing something, no matter how hard you try, congratulations! You've just found something you hate doing :) What if it was all that simple?
- parsley27 6y ago
  I don't think that is the case for many people, myself included. There are two sides to this not being the best way to think of it for some: - slipping on deadlines becomes cumulative and does affect your career or business; the more work that is delayed, the most difficult it seems to be to ever catch up - there is a fast-approaching deadline for all of us, and I don't want to look back on what may be my last decade of high productivity and realize I spent most of it on Netflix and Steam As said by others, procrastination is often a symptom of negative visualization of a task; if you can train yourself to drop the fixation of a task being unpleasant, you can overcome most procrastination. That has worked for me; now, when I miss deadlines, it's more due to overestimating my energy than falling victim to my own procrastination.
  - chpmrc 6y ago
    What if you framed those 2 problems (having to catch up and not wanting to realize you watched too much Netflix) as self imposed goals? Then you'd have to answer the question: why do you feel the need to catch up (unless not catching up leads to consequences that would make you feel even worse and from which you cannot recover)? Why do you feel like spending most of the time on Netflix or Steam is a waste of time? What if the need to set an arbitrary goal and the need to achieve it were just a way to cope with the fact that we are not genuinely interested in having any (at the moment)? And what's wrong with that?
avindroth 6y ago
The human mind is far more complex than a lot of these models or frameworks suggest. A model or a framework can mean any structured representation, but I am explicitly talking about the market of psychological frameworks. The ‘supply’ of that market consists of pretty bad models that do more harm than good (e.g. Mindset by Carol Dweck, CBT, Fogg Behavior Model, or anything based on behaviorism). I don’t recall fully, but ‘The Mind’ by Andre Kukla has a great exposition on this. What I recommend for people is directly observing your mind with autonomy. Or if you don’t feel like observing your mind, following your impulses, whether it’s ‘bad’ or not. This kind of self-exploration is the only real way out, especially when most times people attempting to help (sadly) impose upon rather than liberate people’s minds.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Why are growth mindsets bad? Challenging yourself seems pretty common sense no, the idea that you can get there.
  - avindroth 6y ago
    Not only did it fail replication studies (as most psychology experiments do), but on a model analysis level it vastly oversimplifies things. The mind is a lot more complicated than growth vs. fixed mindset. https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1283631188608004097?s=20 https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1283631188608004097?s=2...
  - 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
    The big problem with growth mindset isn't the mindset itself, it's the theoretical framework and the broader milieu surrounding it. It would be one thing if the concept were simply put forward as a way of framing and thinking about certain differences in how people learn in certain contexts. But there's apparently now a faction of education experts who have decided that growth mindset is Right and fixed mindset is Wrong, and so we're failing children if we don't "educate" them into having a growth mindset. Even if that means totally ignoring their lived experience and making them fill in a bunch of worksheets that are basically just "Goofus and Gallant" for beliefs instead of actions.
cborenstein 6y ago
For me, the main cause of procrastination was lack of clarity on what needs to be done. I've found that following a rigorous brain-dump process makes a big difference. For my brain-dumps, I start by jotting down a list of everything I can think of that's related to my task. I let ideas flow freely. Then I scan through what I've written and check if there's anything that's not specific and actionable. If so, I zoom in and do another brain-dump on that task. I repeat until I have only very specific items https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-root-cause-of-procrastination-0c37b8d650 https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-root-cause-of-procrast...
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Yeah! Brain dumps are a great tool.
deleted 6y ago
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kkylin 6y ago
I think this is in general quite insightful, but I want to pick one nit (in reaction to "A professor doesn't tell you when to..."): having advised a number of PhD students (in applied math), I think one of the most important parts of the job of an advisor is to coach. That is, help students make decisions, set timelines, figure out when to do what. Most students who get this far are capable of solving well-posed, textbook-sized technical problems. What they have trouble with is how to break a big problem into smaller ones, which of the smaller problems to solve, in what order, how to prioritize, where to compromise, etc. Good advisors help beginning students do this. (Not that I'm good at this -- I've certainly learned this the hard way over the years; just hoping the students didn't suffer too much as a result.)
- benibela 6y ago
  My biggest problem is writing/presenting efficiently. Usually I spend several hours on a single paragraph or beamer slide. Today I spend all my time preparing my defense presentation (besides social media), but only made drafts for two slides. And my advisor is also very busy. He says he will write the introduction for a paper and then finds no time to finish it
  - kkylin 6y ago
    The making of slides (or sentences in a paper) gets easier with practice. The advisor or collaborator or you yourself being too busy is, unfortunately, not something that gets better with time. The most important thing is learning to say "no" to new responsibilities without becoming an irresponsible member of whatever organization (university, research lab, etc) you find yourself in. It's a balancing act.
dang 6y ago
If curious see also 5 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391288 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510871
interfixus 6y ago
Clicked through fully expecting a treatment of the Plileas Fogg model, i.e. place your bet, then without further ado set off on your journey around the globe that very same evening, i.e. Just Do It. Which is propably, all told, more useful advise than any number of overthought musings and bullet lists and schematics to bury myself in before actually, you know, doing it.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  That might also be a fun short article. Imo, the Fogg Behavior Model is not overthought. It can be explained in 2 minutes and yield immediately applicable insights ("Oh, I need a trigger"), I recommend reading Tiny Habits for more nuance on this.
Aerroon 6y ago
When I break problems down into smaller pieces I seem to often not finish the work. Then I'll be frustrated, because I put in all that work with nothing to show for it. If I had procrastinated instead, I could've at least done something more enjoyable. Are there any solutions for that?
praveen9920 6y ago
I've been procrastinating to read this article for a while. Realizing THAT was good enough motivation for me to read the article through.
Ym7K8KUf 6y ago
Currently trying to find a good reason for doing laundry.
RalfWausE 6y ago
I have an a bit different approach: Just stop this "self-optimization" bs and start being a human with all his flaws and failures. I think if you tinker to much with yourself and your flaws you are in danger of loosing yourself and become some sort of machine.
dod9er 6y ago
Does anyone here have solid resources on this topic in german language ?
nmeofthestate 6y ago
I'm not sure what the X's in the headings are supposed to mean.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  Could be replaced with "Deficient". "Motivation-deficient Procrastination", "Ability-deficient Procrastination" and "Trigger-deficient Procrastination".
rgoulter 6y ago
Thanks. This sounds like it might be useful. I'd seen the motivation equation before, but hadn't seen ability, cue. In general, I like to think that a lot of common problems are easier to solve than to identify. I suspect a tough part of this is recognising when you're procrastinating. I think the form of procrastination I encounter the most is the "lack of action from a lack of a cue". -- With programming, if there's some significant delay in getting feedback (build takes too long, tests take too long), I'll get distracted by other things without getting back into it.
trabant00 6y ago
When you get decently good at one thing you discover there are no recipes. There exists an infinite possible issues that can disrupt a working system and applying a few canned solutions is lottery. If you are looking at issues as a linear scale, for example a bolt from too tight or too lose, "making sure all your bolts are tight" (common tutorial type of advice) is not a very good thing. Similarly, "how to stop procrastination". First thing I would ask somebody who would come with this to me in my field is "why do you want to stop, what are you actually trying to achieve?". Is the customer sure he should stop? Maybe he is overworked, maybe his job sucks, and solving procrastination would actually make his life worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem This is just one example of the many questions that should be asked before offering solutions.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  That's what we do in 1-on-1 coaching in our program, but it's somewhat hard to do that in an article.
tsjq 6y ago
that's a nice website. pls add a page to tabulate the differences among the three paid plans listed there: essentials vs producer vs high-performer .
jvanderbot 6y ago
Have I mentioned how I dislike the use of "mental model" for this type of post? Or how X=Y+Z is misleading (set Z to zero, and you still have X). From post: " Behavior = motivation + ability + trigger... According to FBM, there are three things we need to do something: Motivation Ability Trigger" No, addition doesn't mean "You need all three". Multiplication does. B=MAT. AND = multiply OR = add.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Good catch, will change it.
ChicagoDave 6y ago
I’ll check this out later. Sounds promising.
gentleman11 6y ago
I tried Fogg's Tiny Habits once. The basic idea is that the easiest way to begin building up a habit is to start with a behavior that you have no resistance to. Its basically a sound idea, but its an oversimplification. I am not sure what his "behaviour model" is but I assume it evolved from his previous work.
docent8 6y ago
There's a great book called the Procrastination Equation that addresses this, and offers a different equation than Fogg. Motivation = (Expectancy + Value) / (Impulsiveness + Delay) It's useful to know what each of those terms means. Your motivation is for a specific task or goal. Expectancy is your confidence that you can complete a task or reach the goal. Value is the importance you assign to the goal. Impulsiveness is how distractable you are, or your susceptibility to other interesting things that you might do instead of working toward the goal (like writing comments on HN! ;). Delay is the amount of time you have until the task should be completed. The more distractable you are, and the more time until you hit your deadline, the less motivation you have. The more confidence you have in your ability to complete the task, and the more importance you assign to it (eg this is life or death), the more motivated you are. Cedric Chin has a nice overview here: https://commoncog.com/blog/a-user-review-of-the-procrastination-equation/ https://commoncog.com/blog/a-user-review-of-the-procrastinat...
rev0lutions 6y ago
I'm missing the "trigger" piece of this since remote work kicked in. Any tips for effective work triggers when wfh are much appreciated. I've tried the common ones - designated work area, set schedule etc but I end up spending all day (apart from mtgs) surfing the web instead! ugh... I thought I mastered this in grad school
amar-laksh 6y ago
I went ahead and created a very simple yet effective excel sheet based on the blog. https://github.com/amar-laksh/FBM/blob/master/FBM.xlsx https://github.com/amar-laksh/FBM/blob/master/FBM.xlsx

804 points by vitabenes 6y ago

m1117 6y ago

"Application error" helped with my procrastination. I thought, I'll come back later.

vitabenes 6y ago
It's back up! Try again and see if it actually helps.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

corty 6y ago

Yes, every website returning "application error" is one less chance for procrastination. However, since it is rather hard convincing everyone to break their website for me, I'll continue using a browser extension to keep me from procrastinating. ;)

vitabenes 6y ago
Working on that error. Sorry about that.

vitabenes 6y ago

Sorry, it will be up in a moment!

bdamm 6y ago

This is a nice read and a useful, practical model. Thank you!

vitabenes 6y ago
Happy to help!

sna1l 6y ago

For things that I don't have the motivation to do (things I procrastinate), my strategy is to start doing the smallest possible unit of that thing as I can. Recently I started meditating, something I've tried to get into, but never have. I downloaded this app Balance which encourages daily practice (reminders, 3,5,10 guided meditations, etc). I am still not "motivated" to do it, but I don't need to be because it is just part of my schedule. The reason I say this is that I feel like "building motivation" is kind of the wrong attitude. You won't like everything that you do (go to the gym, pay your bills, etc), but building a repeatable habit makes it so you don't need to feel motivated. This might be a nitpick, but the big change in thinking for me was around not having to be motivated to do something.

vitabenes 6y ago
It's a good point. We do easy things even though we're not motivated. B J Fogg talks about motivation waves - motivation comes and goes like a wave. When you're riding high, Fogg recommends taking a hard action that will make future actions easier (register for a yoga class, go for a long run after months of not running). When motivation is low, take the easiest step possible. Over time, what we're familiar with (daily routines) become habitual and we don't need motivation.
- balfirevic 6y ago
  > We do easy things even though we're not motivated. Ah, I see you are, at best, an amateur level procrastinator :)
  - vitabenes 6y ago
    I used to be a pro, but blocking out distractions (the easiest, most "fun" activity) helped me do more. I know you didn't ask for advice, but if I were to give you just 1 bit of it, it's to block distractions in the browser (or unplug wifi) and put your phone in another room. Then you'd get bored for a while, and then you'd take the easy work-related actions despite not being motivated.

kaonwarb 6y ago

This is nicely summarized. Bookmarking as a resource for helping team members who are new to relatively unstructured work. Thanks.

vitabenes 6y ago
Awesome! Happy to help

pkphilip 6y ago

Thank you. Will read this later.

vitabenes 6y ago
Not sure if this is a classic procrastination joke or a promise, but either way, please do :)
- pkphilip 6y ago
  :) yes

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

oxfordmale 6y ago

I will adopt the Fogg behaviour..... tomorrow.

vitabenes 6y ago
What about a tiny step today?

DecayingOrganic 6y ago

You can read the paper itself [0]. It was originally introduced as a behavior model for persuasive design, later on has become quite popular in self-help field. To summarize, it states: "The FBM asserts that for a person to perform a target behavior, he or she must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) have the ability to perform the behavior, and (3) be triggered to perform the behavior." The author then makes the case that since any attempts to modify the motivation level of an agent is hard and often fails, one can focus on modifying the ability of a task, thus making it easier for the agent to perform. Let's say you want to start flossing your teeth, following the FBM, you can modify the required ability to perform the task by saying "I only need to floss one tooth." By doing so, you compensate for your low motivation and increase the likelihood of doing it. [0]: https://captology.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Behavior-Model-for-Persuasive-Design.pdf https://captology.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Be...

dboreham 6y ago
You have to select a random different tooth every day though.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  Or just repeat the small task 26 times
wccrawford 6y ago
"Just 1 tooth" sounds silly, but "just the teeth that feel like they need flossing" doesn't sound as silly and is a lot more manageable because of it, IMO. And once you're in there doing those teeth, there's a good chance you'll do all of them. And if you don't do them all, and only do the ones that you think need it, at least you did that much. It's certainly better than none.
tagh 6y ago
Not strictly related to procrastination, but the "just one tooth" method didn't work for me. Stuck with it for a few weeks, and then my motivation just tapered off. What worked was permanently bundling flossing with brushing. That meant that if I _really_ didn't want to floss I didn't have to, but then I also had to skip brushing. Not brushing feels gross to me, which is why I think it worked. There are now a few nights a year where I don't brush my teeth... but overall it's a huge win.

njsubedi 6y ago

I have this constant feeling that some post on HN will motivate me more, or just teach me to be less of a procrastinator. That’s the reason I check HN frequently, and click on these kinds of links. Then I see the post is too long, and scroll-skim it. Nothing really changes about procrastination; we don’t do shit until some other shit is on fire.

vitabenes 6y ago
Check out the browser extension on our site! That might help, if an article won't. I used to check Twitter 100-150 times a day, but with the use of the extension, I got it under 20 times. Try the Focus Zones feature. Try it, let me know if it works. I'll give you 3 months of Pro features for free if you shoot me an email.
- edcrfv 6y ago
  What's your site?
  - vitabenes 6y ago
    The one with the article linked in the original post.
mementomori 6y ago
Agreed! Fear and despair are strong motivators for me. The trick is that fear sits in only when time becomes scarce. "How to start noticing something should be done before it's too late" is a good thing to have.

SeanFerree 6y ago

Love this! My favorite is the Simple Timeline. Definitely a deadline helps me. Also keeping tasks simple and completing them step by step is better than taking on huge tasks all at once. If I feel overwhelmed my motivation declines.

m3kw9 6y ago

Added to the reading list for later.

georgespencer 6y ago

It’s clearly not the case for everyone, but I struggled for an extended period of time with a few things in my personal and professional life: 1. Remarkable focus in topics which interest me and remarkable lack of focus in topics which do not. 2. Leaving “must do” tasks in areas of little interest until the very last moment, resulting in a predictable lack of excellence in execution. 3. Periodic deep dives into topics which go beyond the aforementioned “areas of interest”. 4. Driven by a motor in meetings: itching to get up and walk around as we talk, feeling more comfortable with any kind of low level motor action happening concurrently to my thinking and speaking. Also led to me leaping to the end of a person’s sentence and others experiencing me as highly impatient / excitable at times. 5. The need to have a TV show or other media playing as I fall asleep. Ideally something I’ve seen before and which is enjoyable but not too engrossing. Almost like one of the cores in my processor couldn’t be idle — it actually made it hard to sleep. (Conversely I always fell asleep watching films with my partner.) 6. Various odd elements of disorganisation — never at work but eg. losing my keys and documents. If you’re reading this and hearing elements of your own experience, and in particular if this is familiar to you from childhood (“Why can’t you apply yourself to X like you do Y?!”) then I would encourage you to speak to a serious psychiatrist about the possibility that you have ADHD. Not everyone has it and I accept that many are probably misdiagnosed with it. My experience of clicking every link on HN with hacks for focusing and not procrastinating was actually a very sad one and I didn’t realise how profoundly it had affected me until I sat in the office of a psychiatrist and he rattled off a range of specific experiences he wagered I had had during my life. It’s been a remarkable process for me of feeling emotional relief as well as receiving medication which improves my life. Again if you’re looking for a productivity hack you do not need to consider that you have any sort of chemical disregulation, but I did not consider the possibility of a medical condition and found myself often in rabbit holes of productivity hacks feeling deeply unproductive.

elchief 6y ago
If you suffer ADHD, I strongly recommend reading Scattered Minds, by Gabor Mate. I found it enlightening
- 6y ago

system2 6y ago

There is nothing can stop procrastinating but only if we do things we love. I remember being passionate about little electronics projects when I was young, I would spend 10+ hours per day without getting bored. Now if In need to do anything I will find something to postpone or do it half assed while doing something else at the same time. Do something you love and wouldn't get bored of. Like gardening or something. Something simple. When there are more parts and added steps in the process (like a web app) you will eventually stop doing it because of the complexity.

non-entity 6y ago
The problem is I spend 8+ hours a day doing something I don't care about and by the time I can work on the things I love I'm mentally exhausted and just sleep for hours.
- epicureanideal 6y ago
  See my other comment in this thread. I think the model's lack of consideration for "mental exhaustion" means it's incomplete.

aplusbi 6y ago

I have started subscribing to the believe that it is not about motivation, it's about discipline. There is only so much you can do to motivate yourself to do a tedious or onerous task. But if you have discipline, you don't need the motivation. I still struggle a lot with procrastination, but I find this reframing to be helpful.

dtjohnnyb 6y ago
I think one issue with discipline is that there's a value judgement attached, so that when I procrastinate, I'm an undisciplined slob, I feel worse, more procrastination, spiral. As you said, having discipline reframed into triggers and motivation allows more objective reasoning. You do the task because you have a well created system of triggers that you follow regularly because you know the _why_ of what you're doing at a big picture level. If I procrastinate, it means my system or my why isn't working for me, and I need to reevaluate.

komali2 6y ago

The Trigger one really resonated with me. I've been desperately struggling with getting tasks done - I thought it was Motivation mostly (and a good deal of the issue is, quarantine is sucking my energy). But when I think back to all the times I was successful, it was the presence of good triggers. For example, I did a coding bootcamp, and it was the most productive part of my life, because in my opinion of the powerful triggers. I show up, I do a coding challenge. Every day. That's how it worked. Then at 9:30 or whatever there's a lecture. I go to it and I take notes. Then there's a pair programming excercise... etc. All I had to do was plug myself into the schedule, and the motivation and ability basically came for free. It was a sort of freedom - sorry brain, we don't really have a say in this, gotta follow the schedule. Recently I've been struggling to work out as frequently as I did when I was working. Before, I'd bicycle to the gym, and then go from there to the office. Obviously right now that wasn't happening - but functionally I had more time to work out now. I have more freedom, so why am I working out less? Then I talked to a therapist about depression etc, and she said "well before we can do anything else, you need to start working out again. 30 mins cardio a day, elevated heart rate and sweating." Suddenly it was easy. Suddenly it was like Freedom again. Sorry brain, we gotta just run, doctor's orders. Interestingly, for the first time in my life (big weightlifter, never a big cardio guy), I could do a 30 minute run without stopping. Sure, a pace of 11.5 minute mile, but before I couldn't even do 20 minutes without interspersing walking (about 12.5 or 13 min mile for a 2 mile run). But day 1 after doctor's orders, I just did it? It's completely fascinating. I obviously always had the ability, the restriction was entirely mental. So I really like how this author put the Trigger into words. It reflects my own personal experience.

vitabenes 6y ago
Happy to articulate it for you! Without a trigger (also called a prompt), there is no behavior. We need someone (ourselves, others) or something (alarm, calendar) to take action.

stakkur 6y ago

I generally disagree with these kinds of models. Not because motivation, triggers, etc. aren't real things, but because they couch the problem as being either outside of us, or quasi-genetic (ADHD, etc.), instead of a choice that we make and own. Taking action has varying degrees of difficulty for every person. The factors are numerous. But in history, in life, in every scenario I've ever read or studied or watched, there's only one factor that matters: regardless of conditions, health, limitations, weather, whatever--the person made a decision and took action, over and over. In my experience, it's as boring as that. No mental hack, no shortcut--decision and action. Sure, you can work on 'clearing obstacles' to getting things done--mental models, physical problems, whatever--but you don't wait for this to be 'solved'. You have to act. And do it again until you're done.

Funes- 6y ago
I agree. What anyone needs to keep procrastination at bay is strong enough resolve. It's the only thing that's ever helped me take action.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  Do you never find yourself doing things that after you’ve done it, you realise you shouldn’t have? I find procrastination is sometimes a sign that my subconscious has realised i’d be better delegating or rejecting something rather than doing it BUT my consciousness hasn’t realised that yet. Resolve is my last choice for things i’m procrastinating. It comes after questions like: maybe i really do want to do this and i just haven’t considered why
  - vitabenes 6y ago
    We often say to our clients that procrastination is a teacher, an indicator. What does it indicate? Could be: * you don't like a type of work * you don't have sufficient skills to match the task * it's not important enough for you * you don't believe you can do it ... We teach them to ask themselves: why am I procrastinating? Resolve often isn't the issue.

pmoriarty 6y ago

Some time back, I read all I could on procrastination, and watched dozens of videos on it, and by far the best thing I found on it was this video by Tim Pychyl: [1] It focuses particularly on procrastination in graduate school, but is widely applicable elsewhere. One of the key insights that Pychyl, a psychologist who studies procrastination, had is that procrastination is not (as is commonly believed) a time management problem but a problem with managing negative emotions. He has lots of really useful, practical tips for overcoming procrastination in the video, which I highly recommend. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA

vitabenes 6y ago
Yes, Pychil's work is incorporated in our materials. This is the recipe for procrastination (according to us): 1. Think about a task - "I have to do _____." 2. Have an automatic negative reaction 2a. Negative thoughts - "I hate doing this,"... 2b Negative feelings - Feeling stressed, afraid,... 3. Procrastinate - Do something else to feel better. Procrastination is all about escaping negative emotions. Something makes you feel bad, you do something else to feel better. Feeling better (reduced discomfort) is the short-term reward engaging in procrastination. That's why procrastination can become addictive and automatic)
- epicureanideal 6y ago
  I still think this is too limited. Analogous to how Keynes said classical / Ricardian economics discussed distribution of goods given a fixed level of production, the linked article doesn't consider that the maximum productive output on any given day is not the same, even when the 3 variables considered are maximized. "Behavior" here seems to be a boolean, "why we take action or not take action at any given moment", but I think many people who ask how to be more motivated or productive are asking about total output, not just about the ability to begin a task. They might be able to sit down at their desk and start working, for example, but not be able to continue long even after doing all the tricks. In my experience, there is some sort of "mental energy reserve", and as that is exhausted it becomes increasingly difficult or maybe impossible to do any further productive work. If you are doing a strength training workout in the gym, no amount of "motivation" is going to let you continue lifting heavy weight indefinitely. I haven't seen much research to quantify that "mental energy reserve" or quantitatively measure how different tasks exhaust it. There also seems to be some task-related inertia.

altonzheng 6y ago

I’d add removing inner resistance, which could be expanded under motivation in the formula. Increasing motivation isn’t simply an additive process — you can introspect on the things limiting your motivation, eg. fear of failure, and address them. After that, you have more cognitive space, and a difficult task might suddenly seem much more tractable. It’s about letting go of the thoughts/emotions holding you back. In my experience, tackling this has been most rewarding, not to say the practices in the article don’t help.

vitabenes 6y ago
True. I think that could fall under "improving ability" in the Fogg model.

robmerki 6y ago

Procrastination is the intentional avoidance or delay of a task. I have ADHD and assumed I was procrastinating a lot. Nope. These type of models never worked for me.

sudhirkhanger 6y ago

I can develop habits by working on them a piece by piece. But even after having developed the habit in 3-4 months I usually end up dropping them. One such habit is exercising. I can't figure out what might possibly be wrong.

ctur 6y ago

This post just seems to be to draw semi-sensational attention to a self-help book. The site isn't generally referencing primary sources or otherwise giving signals of why it should be trusted. It also doesn't identify the authors. It's hard to take the site seriously when it equates gaming to being an alcoholic (while later in the same post backpedaling it): https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/should-i-quit-video-games https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/should-i-quit-video-ga...

vitabenes 6y ago
We'll you got a point. We could link to primary sources more often and add our faces to more places. Also: we equate gaming addiction (addiction being the key word) to alcoholism, not gaming as such. Have a great day!

untilHellbanned 6y ago

overly complicated. Nike Behavior model is easier: just do it.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
Doctor: "don't be sad." Patient: "thanks I never thought of that. i am cured." ...said no one ever.

owenshen24 6y ago

Fogg has some good thoughts on positive behavior change. James Clear, who wrote Tiny Habits, is another good person in this space who writes reasonable stuff. Self-plug for an overview on research into the habit formation literature that I recently cleaned up. Covers many evidence-backed interventions (of varying quality) for habit formation and removal. https://mlu.red/52436366310.html https://mlu.red/52436366310.html

aryamaan 6y ago
Just a small clarification "Atomic Habits" is the name of the book written by James Clear. Also, Tiny Habits is another book which also discusses the same space.
- owenshen24 6y ago
  Yeah, my bad. I mis-remembered. Thanks for clarifying!

dsubburam 6y ago

I find concepts like "procastination" problematic, including associated ones in the comments like "resolve", "discipline", and separately, "weak will". Take the case of "resolving" to watch just one episode of your favorite TV show after dinner. You then end up binge-watching three episodes. Why is this a case of "weak will" when it is simpler to explain it as a change of mind? After all, there is "new data" post the first episode; maybe an increased curiosity into what happens next, or still feeling wide awake. The idea of "free will" is well motivated. I am not so sure about "weak will" etc. Is there some other way to characterize the applicable cases?

leptoniscool 6y ago

Some libraries are clearly better than others, what we need is a better rating system to differentiate the good ones from the bad.

marta_morena_25 6y ago

Oh cool, so basically this is about finding a way to cheat your brain into doing things it doesn't want to do. Maybe a good approach would be to find something you actually like to do instead and reflect on your choices and priorities in life? It's amusing that you need a professor to tell you how to convince yourself that your life doesn't suck. A more natural approach might be to change what you are trying to do in the first place... Guess what, the brain was not made to earn money.

progman32 6y ago
Not bad advice, though sometimes we have to play the game with the cards we're dealt. I have to trick myself into not procrasti-forgetting my utility bills, but I don't really see a downside to that.
ummonk 6y ago
Yup. I mean we do have to make money, and deal with the administrative complexities of modern life, and we should find strategies to cope with that. At the same time though, our brains are not somehow defective or lazy for wanting to do more interesting stuff.
vitabenes 6y ago
With any job, there's a part of work that we enjoy and a part that we don't. This article and others on our site are meant to help people with the latter. In the long term, we always advice people to look for work that is naturally engaging for them. But in the meantime, a couple behavioral adjustments can turn "I hate doing this, I don't want to do this" into "Okay, let's do this one small bit".

Konohamaru 6y ago

tl;dr: someone who can pay for a coach, or a grad student to keep him company, etc... has only two obstacles to overcoming endeavors instead of three.

chrisandchips 6y ago

If motivation and ability are both already there, I usually find the easiest way to move past procrastination is to choose a small-mid sized task and set a 15 minute timer. Committing to working on that task for 15 mins, even if I really dont feel like it, is usually enough to get the ball rolling.

vitabenes 6y ago
Yeah, it's a simple technique that we also recommend. Our extension has a timer for that reason.

snow_mac 6y ago

Sounds interesting but I'm going to have to read this later...

chpmrc 6y ago

What if procrastination was the simple act of postponing something just because...you can. Erase the 9-5, the arbitrary deadlines, the impossible requests of a boss, a client or a partner. Poof! Procrastination conceptually ceases to exist. It's ok to do nothing for 2 days and then put in 12 hours straight of purely productive coding, if you are not supposed to follow a specific timetable. It's ok to be a few days late on a deadline if that deadline has no reason to exist (which, let's be honest, most don't). It's ok to spend a few weeks on a project then abandon it for a few weeks only to rediscover the joy of working on it afterwards if there is nobody constantly asking "is it ready yet?". Because, let's face it, nobody in their right mind procrastinates if their livelihood is on the line or if it means letting someone down. We only procrastinate when we can. And if it gets so bad that you just can't get around to doing something, no matter how hard you try, congratulations! You've just found something you hate doing :) What if it was all that simple?

parsley27 6y ago
I don't think that is the case for many people, myself included. There are two sides to this not being the best way to think of it for some: - slipping on deadlines becomes cumulative and does affect your career or business; the more work that is delayed, the most difficult it seems to be to ever catch up - there is a fast-approaching deadline for all of us, and I don't want to look back on what may be my last decade of high productivity and realize I spent most of it on Netflix and Steam As said by others, procrastination is often a symptom of negative visualization of a task; if you can train yourself to drop the fixation of a task being unpleasant, you can overcome most procrastination. That has worked for me; now, when I miss deadlines, it's more due to overestimating my energy than falling victim to my own procrastination.
- chpmrc 6y ago
  What if you framed those 2 problems (having to catch up and not wanting to realize you watched too much Netflix) as self imposed goals? Then you'd have to answer the question: why do you feel the need to catch up (unless not catching up leads to consequences that would make you feel even worse and from which you cannot recover)? Why do you feel like spending most of the time on Netflix or Steam is a waste of time? What if the need to set an arbitrary goal and the need to achieve it were just a way to cope with the fact that we are not genuinely interested in having any (at the moment)? And what's wrong with that?

avindroth 6y ago

The human mind is far more complex than a lot of these models or frameworks suggest. A model or a framework can mean any structured representation, but I am explicitly talking about the market of psychological frameworks. The ‘supply’ of that market consists of pretty bad models that do more harm than good (e.g. Mindset by Carol Dweck, CBT, Fogg Behavior Model, or anything based on behaviorism). I don’t recall fully, but ‘The Mind’ by Andre Kukla has a great exposition on this. What I recommend for people is directly observing your mind with autonomy. Or if you don’t feel like observing your mind, following your impulses, whether it’s ‘bad’ or not. This kind of self-exploration is the only real way out, especially when most times people attempting to help (sadly) impose upon rather than liberate people’s minds.

randomsearch 6y ago
Why are growth mindsets bad? Challenging yourself seems pretty common sense no, the idea that you can get there.
- avindroth 6y ago
  Not only did it fail replication studies (as most psychology experiments do), but on a model analysis level it vastly oversimplifies things. The mind is a lot more complicated than growth vs. fixed mindset. https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1283631188608004097?s=20 https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1283631188608004097?s=2...
- 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
  The big problem with growth mindset isn't the mindset itself, it's the theoretical framework and the broader milieu surrounding it. It would be one thing if the concept were simply put forward as a way of framing and thinking about certain differences in how people learn in certain contexts. But there's apparently now a faction of education experts who have decided that growth mindset is Right and fixed mindset is Wrong, and so we're failing children if we don't "educate" them into having a growth mindset. Even if that means totally ignoring their lived experience and making them fill in a bunch of worksheets that are basically just "Goofus and Gallant" for beliefs instead of actions.

cborenstein 6y ago

For me, the main cause of procrastination was lack of clarity on what needs to be done. I've found that following a rigorous brain-dump process makes a big difference. For my brain-dumps, I start by jotting down a list of everything I can think of that's related to my task. I let ideas flow freely. Then I scan through what I've written and check if there's anything that's not specific and actionable. If so, I zoom in and do another brain-dump on that task. I repeat until I have only very specific items https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-root-cause-of-procrastination-0c37b8d650 https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-root-cause-of-procrast...

vitabenes 6y ago
Yeah! Brain dumps are a great tool.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kkylin 6y ago

I think this is in general quite insightful, but I want to pick one nit (in reaction to "A professor doesn't tell you when to..."): having advised a number of PhD students (in applied math), I think one of the most important parts of the job of an advisor is to coach. That is, help students make decisions, set timelines, figure out when to do what. Most students who get this far are capable of solving well-posed, textbook-sized technical problems. What they have trouble with is how to break a big problem into smaller ones, which of the smaller problems to solve, in what order, how to prioritize, where to compromise, etc. Good advisors help beginning students do this. (Not that I'm good at this -- I've certainly learned this the hard way over the years; just hoping the students didn't suffer too much as a result.)

benibela 6y ago
My biggest problem is writing/presenting efficiently. Usually I spend several hours on a single paragraph or beamer slide. Today I spend all my time preparing my defense presentation (besides social media), but only made drafts for two slides. And my advisor is also very busy. He says he will write the introduction for a paper and then finds no time to finish it
- kkylin 6y ago
  The making of slides (or sentences in a paper) gets easier with practice. The advisor or collaborator or you yourself being too busy is, unfortunately, not something that gets better with time. The most important thing is learning to say "no" to new responsibilities without becoming an irresponsible member of whatever organization (university, research lab, etc) you find yourself in. It's a balancing act.

dang 6y ago

If curious see also 5 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391288 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510871

interfixus 6y ago

Clicked through fully expecting a treatment of the Plileas Fogg model, i.e. place your bet, then without further ado set off on your journey around the globe that very same evening, i.e. Just Do It. Which is propably, all told, more useful advise than any number of overthought musings and bullet lists and schematics to bury myself in before actually, you know, doing it.

vitabenes 6y ago
That might also be a fun short article. Imo, the Fogg Behavior Model is not overthought. It can be explained in 2 minutes and yield immediately applicable insights ("Oh, I need a trigger"), I recommend reading Tiny Habits for more nuance on this.

Aerroon 6y ago

When I break problems down into smaller pieces I seem to often not finish the work. Then I'll be frustrated, because I put in all that work with nothing to show for it. If I had procrastinated instead, I could've at least done something more enjoyable. Are there any solutions for that?

praveen9920 6y ago

I've been procrastinating to read this article for a while. Realizing THAT was good enough motivation for me to read the article through.

Ym7K8KUf 6y ago

Currently trying to find a good reason for doing laundry.

RalfWausE 6y ago

I have an a bit different approach: Just stop this "self-optimization" bs and start being a human with all his flaws and failures. I think if you tinker to much with yourself and your flaws you are in danger of loosing yourself and become some sort of machine.

dod9er 6y ago

Does anyone here have solid resources on this topic in german language ?

nmeofthestate 6y ago

I'm not sure what the X's in the headings are supposed to mean.

rgoulter 6y ago
Could be replaced with "Deficient". "Motivation-deficient Procrastination", "Ability-deficient Procrastination" and "Trigger-deficient Procrastination".

rgoulter 6y ago

Thanks. This sounds like it might be useful. I'd seen the motivation equation before, but hadn't seen ability, cue. In general, I like to think that a lot of common problems are easier to solve than to identify. I suspect a tough part of this is recognising when you're procrastinating. I think the form of procrastination I encounter the most is the "lack of action from a lack of a cue". -- With programming, if there's some significant delay in getting feedback (build takes too long, tests take too long), I'll get distracted by other things without getting back into it.

trabant00 6y ago

When you get decently good at one thing you discover there are no recipes. There exists an infinite possible issues that can disrupt a working system and applying a few canned solutions is lottery. If you are looking at issues as a linear scale, for example a bolt from too tight or too lose, "making sure all your bolts are tight" (common tutorial type of advice) is not a very good thing. Similarly, "how to stop procrastination". First thing I would ask somebody who would come with this to me in my field is "why do you want to stop, what are you actually trying to achieve?". Is the customer sure he should stop? Maybe he is overworked, maybe his job sucks, and solving procrastination would actually make his life worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem This is just one example of the many questions that should be asked before offering solutions.

vitabenes 6y ago
That's what we do in 1-on-1 coaching in our program, but it's somewhat hard to do that in an article.

tsjq 6y ago

that's a nice website. pls add a page to tabulate the differences among the three paid plans listed there: essentials vs producer vs high-performer .

jvanderbot 6y ago

Have I mentioned how I dislike the use of "mental model" for this type of post? Or how X=Y+Z is misleading (set Z to zero, and you still have X). From post: " Behavior = motivation + ability + trigger... According to FBM, there are three things we need to do something: Motivation Ability Trigger" No, addition doesn't mean "You need all three". Multiplication does. B=MAT. AND = multiply OR = add.

vitabenes 6y ago
Good catch, will change it.

ChicagoDave 6y ago

I’ll check this out later. Sounds promising.

gentleman11 6y ago

I tried Fogg's Tiny Habits once. The basic idea is that the easiest way to begin building up a habit is to start with a behavior that you have no resistance to. Its basically a sound idea, but its an oversimplification. I am not sure what his "behaviour model" is but I assume it evolved from his previous work.

docent8 6y ago

There's a great book called the Procrastination Equation that addresses this, and offers a different equation than Fogg. Motivation = (Expectancy + Value) / (Impulsiveness + Delay) It's useful to know what each of those terms means. Your motivation is for a specific task or goal. Expectancy is your confidence that you can complete a task or reach the goal. Value is the importance you assign to the goal. Impulsiveness is how distractable you are, or your susceptibility to other interesting things that you might do instead of working toward the goal (like writing comments on HN! ;). Delay is the amount of time you have until the task should be completed. The more distractable you are, and the more time until you hit your deadline, the less motivation you have. The more confidence you have in your ability to complete the task, and the more importance you assign to it (eg this is life or death), the more motivated you are. Cedric Chin has a nice overview here: https://commoncog.com/blog/a-user-review-of-the-procrastination-equation/ https://commoncog.com/blog/a-user-review-of-the-procrastinat...

rev0lutions 6y ago

I'm missing the "trigger" piece of this since remote work kicked in. Any tips for effective work triggers when wfh are much appreciated. I've tried the common ones - designated work area, set schedule etc but I end up spending all day (apart from mtgs) surfing the web instead! ugh... I thought I mastered this in grad school

amar-laksh 6y ago

I went ahead and created a very simple yet effective excel sheet based on the blog. https://github.com/amar-laksh/FBM/blob/master/FBM.xlsx https://github.com/amar-laksh/FBM/blob/master/FBM.xlsx