8 ms·

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 _____."

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.
- joekim 6y ago
  Well it is a lot more complicated. There is no "mental energy reserve", but we do get energized by norepinephrine in the brain and once it becomes saturated it it loses its effect. A simple technique to reset it is to activate the "sigh reflex". You just breathe in twice at a normal pace and then slowly exhale through the mouth. Another more powerful reset is to do yoga nidra for 10-20 minutes. Yoga nidra, once you figure it out, will actually deactivate the prefrontal cortex and simulate sleep. Which has a huge boost for your cognitive abilities. Both of these techniques will increase serotonin and dopamine in the brain which will decrease norepinephrine. Once norepinephrine is no longer saturated you can become energized by it again. For example, imagine a football team winning the super bowl. They've been pushing 110%. Suddenly, they're jubilant and jumping all over the place. The dopamine and serotonin pushes out the norepinephrine allowing to return and become effective again.
  - epicureanideal 6y ago
    I'll definitely try this, but do you happen to have any links about this? And yes, I realize "mental energy reserve" isn't a scientific term, it's just a term I'm using for lack of something better to label something I experience. Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more than 10 times (maybe a few more on a good day). Eventually there are physical limits to their ability. Similarly if that team had not slept for 48 hours, or had done non-stop math problems for 18 hours and was asked to continue doing them.
    - joekim 6y ago
      > Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more than 10 times (maybe a few more on a good day). Eventually there are physical limits to their ability. Similarly if that team had not slept for 48 hours, or had done non-stop math problems for 18 hours and was asked to continue doing them. I want to challenge your thought experiment. Consider Navy Seal training. Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible. There needs to be a cycling and restorative process that enables above and beyond grit. Clip of Prof Huberman on "quitting behavior" such as quitting a long bout of work. (Note: Noradrenaline is norepinephrine. It's a weird historical thing where two teams discovered it and nobody agreed on the real name) https://podclips.com/ct/y4Ucji https://podclips.com/ct/y4Ucji Good Joe Rogan with Huberman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo
      - epicureanideal 6y ago
        "Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible." That's exactly what I'm saying. I'll check out the link.
        joekim 6y ago
        > "Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible." > That's exactly what I'm saying. I'll check out the link. What I'm saying is that you can't push your way through Navy Seal training by trying harder. But you can significantly increase your output and down regulate the process around "quitting" by using other techniques that will trigger the norepinephrine reset.
- altvali 6y ago
  I remember reading a study about the mental energy reserve that you speak of, or concentration, proving we have a limited amount, but the people who were informed of this fact were giving up sooner than those who didn't.
al_ak 6y ago
I really do hope your page helps some people with their procrastination issues. But I can't help feel like your whole approach suffers from engineers disease. But maybe that's what will resonate with some folks. A compassionate therapist can also do wonders for procrastination.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Yeah, I know what you're saying. This is more of a clinical disection of procrastination. Many more of our blog posts and book chapters are more about the emotional side of things. Plus, we do coach people 1-on-1 in our program.
  - al_ak 6y ago
    That sounds pretty great actually. I just know what for me, none of this really "clicked" until I had someone to work through these emotions with
    - joekim 6y ago
      Most procrastination is emotional management, a sort of self-medicating from stress. Having a skilled therapist working through it with you sounds fantastic. I really like a technique called the "Sedona Method" for releasing difficult emotions.
      - indigochill 6y ago
        I find it amusing when I look up "Sedona Method" I find lots of blurbs in the search previews about how simple and powerful it is, yet none of them actually give any clue as to what it involves (but you can buy a book that will reveal the secret!). Not a criticism of the technique (since I have no idea what it involves, although I'm curious), moreso of the optics to someone searching for it. As opposed to something like the Pomodoro Technique which a search for does turn up blurbs about what it involves.
        6y ago
hnick 6y ago
Sometimes when I am very emotionally upset or have a very negative task I want to avoid like studying, I will get the sudden urge to clean or work on a similar low-brainpower project (which is not something that comes naturally to me in normal times). If I were merely trying to feel better I'd just go for video games or something like I normally do, but there must be something else going on that directs me to focus on simple and useful ways to feel better in the most extreme cases. It'd be nice to capture that in a bottle.
- edoceo 6y ago
  I have this. I think it's because we're procrastinating on a "productive" thing. So to escape to empty feel good is too far for the brain, cue something mindless, easy but still somehow productive.
  - hnick 6y ago
    I suppose stress-cleaning is a common enough trope, so it must be a real thing. The mindlessness and almost meditative factor seems key like you say.
- vitabenes 6y ago
  Procrastination is an escape from stress, unease, and discomfort. Cleaning provides that escape. It gives you a boost of dopamine as well since you're accomplishing something. In addition to that, it's a visual activity - you immediately see progress. It's a super common procrastination activity.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Feelings are complex. Personally, at any given time, I have two or three of sideprojects, videogames and TV shows I could focus on, each. But when I procrastinate, I end up reading HN or some subreddit or something similar, instead of coding my side projects or playing a game I've been waiting to play for the past year. I've traced that to feelings of guilt. I can't enjoy a videogame if I feel I'm only using it to escape and make my situation worse. I can probably enjoy a TV show a bit, for a while, until my brain realizes that it's just an escape mechanism and I get more stressed. But social media in general, offer you a bite-sized escape. There's nothing wrong in taking 2 minutes break to skim comments on a HN thread, or scroll through some funny pictures somewhere. 2 more minutes won't make a difference either. 2 more? And suddenly it's been 5 hours. So in the end, I don't do the things I have to, and I also don't do the things I want to - all because negative emotions. (Part of my solution to this problem was just blocking certain sites (like HN) on the router during work hours.)
jehlakj 6y ago
Wow that number 3 hit me hard. I’ve always known myself to procrastinate, but I only think about 1 and 2. In retrospect, I have done 3 in a lot of cases. I just never really thought about it. In fact, I am extremely focused on working on the other task that I’ve always wondered where the motivation comes from.
agumonkey 6y ago
a few thoughts: - how much of society is related to driving up or enforcing overcoming these avoidant reflexes - the negative feeling is often due to a social obligation that may be distorded. You could renegotiate smaller chunks or different terms.. the idea is that in a different context you might approach it with lot more will. ps: my current gig is in a national office and I could very well rebrand it as land-of-the-procrastinator. It's an endemic disease where nobody wanted to do things (the way they were asked), any newcomer will be dragged down, ensure a good status-low.
jwdunne 6y ago
This actually looks like the ground work for cognitive behavioural therapy. The idea (grossly simplified) is to take those observations of negative thoughts and build a rational response to those thoughts (cognitive part). Then you build a habit of noticing those thoughts and responding with the rational response. It’s far easier said than done, and perhaps best dispensed by a therapist. But these mental tools have been crucial to improving my own mental health. Some great books on that go into more depth than I ever could include Feeling Good by Burns or Byrne, Overcoming Anxiety and Overcoming Depression.
jazzdev 6y ago
Interesting video. Pychil claims that procrastination is a weakness of will. For another perspective, check out the book, "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" [1], which claims it's not just about will (executive function), but also about tunnel vision and reduced fluid intelligence, all caused by a situation of scarcity--time scarcity in the case of procrastination. And they claim reduced executive function is situational. It's not a fundamental attribute of the procrastinator. [1] = https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebo...

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.

joekim 6y ago
Well it is a lot more complicated. There is no "mental energy reserve", but we do get energized by norepinephrine in the brain and once it becomes saturated it it loses its effect. A simple technique to reset it is to activate the "sigh reflex". You just breathe in twice at a normal pace and then slowly exhale through the mouth. Another more powerful reset is to do yoga nidra for 10-20 minutes. Yoga nidra, once you figure it out, will actually deactivate the prefrontal cortex and simulate sleep. Which has a huge boost for your cognitive abilities. Both of these techniques will increase serotonin and dopamine in the brain which will decrease norepinephrine. Once norepinephrine is no longer saturated you can become energized by it again. For example, imagine a football team winning the super bowl. They've been pushing 110%. Suddenly, they're jubilant and jumping all over the place. The dopamine and serotonin pushes out the norepinephrine allowing to return and become effective again.
- epicureanideal 6y ago
  I'll definitely try this, but do you happen to have any links about this? And yes, I realize "mental energy reserve" isn't a scientific term, it's just a term I'm using for lack of something better to label something I experience. Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more than 10 times (maybe a few more on a good day). Eventually there are physical limits to their ability. Similarly if that team had not slept for 48 hours, or had done non-stop math problems for 18 hours and was asked to continue doing them.
  - joekim 6y ago
    > Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more than 10 times (maybe a few more on a good day). Eventually there are physical limits to their ability. Similarly if that team had not slept for 48 hours, or had done non-stop math problems for 18 hours and was asked to continue doing them. I want to challenge your thought experiment. Consider Navy Seal training. Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible. There needs to be a cycling and restorative process that enables above and beyond grit. Clip of Prof Huberman on "quitting behavior" such as quitting a long bout of work. (Note: Noradrenaline is norepinephrine. It's a weird historical thing where two teams discovered it and nobody agreed on the real name) https://podclips.com/ct/y4Ucji https://podclips.com/ct/y4Ucji Good Joe Rogan with Huberman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJowTOkZVo
    - epicureanideal 6y ago
      "Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible." That's exactly what I'm saying. I'll check out the link.
      - joekim 6y ago
        > "Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible." > That's exactly what I'm saying. I'll check out the link. What I'm saying is that you can't push your way through Navy Seal training by trying harder. But you can significantly increase your output and down regulate the process around "quitting" by using other techniques that will trigger the norepinephrine reset.
altvali 6y ago
I remember reading a study about the mental energy reserve that you speak of, or concentration, proving we have a limited amount, but the people who were informed of this fact were giving up sooner than those who didn't.

al_ak 6y ago

I really do hope your page helps some people with their procrastination issues. But I can't help feel like your whole approach suffers from engineers disease. But maybe that's what will resonate with some folks. A compassionate therapist can also do wonders for procrastination.

vitabenes 6y ago
Yeah, I know what you're saying. This is more of a clinical disection of procrastination. Many more of our blog posts and book chapters are more about the emotional side of things. Plus, we do coach people 1-on-1 in our program.
- al_ak 6y ago
  That sounds pretty great actually. I just know what for me, none of this really "clicked" until I had someone to work through these emotions with
  - joekim 6y ago
    Most procrastination is emotional management, a sort of self-medicating from stress. Having a skilled therapist working through it with you sounds fantastic. I really like a technique called the "Sedona Method" for releasing difficult emotions.
    - indigochill 6y ago
      I find it amusing when I look up "Sedona Method" I find lots of blurbs in the search previews about how simple and powerful it is, yet none of them actually give any clue as to what it involves (but you can buy a book that will reveal the secret!). Not a criticism of the technique (since I have no idea what it involves, although I'm curious), moreso of the optics to someone searching for it. As opposed to something like the Pomodoro Technique which a search for does turn up blurbs about what it involves.
      - 6y ago

hnick 6y ago

Sometimes when I am very emotionally upset or have a very negative task I want to avoid like studying, I will get the sudden urge to clean or work on a similar low-brainpower project (which is not something that comes naturally to me in normal times). If I were merely trying to feel better I'd just go for video games or something like I normally do, but there must be something else going on that directs me to focus on simple and useful ways to feel better in the most extreme cases. It'd be nice to capture that in a bottle.

edoceo 6y ago
I have this. I think it's because we're procrastinating on a "productive" thing. So to escape to empty feel good is too far for the brain, cue something mindless, easy but still somehow productive.
- hnick 6y ago
  I suppose stress-cleaning is a common enough trope, so it must be a real thing. The mindlessness and almost meditative factor seems key like you say.
vitabenes 6y ago
Procrastination is an escape from stress, unease, and discomfort. Cleaning provides that escape. It gives you a boost of dopamine as well since you're accomplishing something. In addition to that, it's a visual activity - you immediately see progress. It's a super common procrastination activity.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Feelings are complex. Personally, at any given time, I have two or three of sideprojects, videogames and TV shows I could focus on, each. But when I procrastinate, I end up reading HN or some subreddit or something similar, instead of coding my side projects or playing a game I've been waiting to play for the past year. I've traced that to feelings of guilt. I can't enjoy a videogame if I feel I'm only using it to escape and make my situation worse. I can probably enjoy a TV show a bit, for a while, until my brain realizes that it's just an escape mechanism and I get more stressed. But social media in general, offer you a bite-sized escape. There's nothing wrong in taking 2 minutes break to skim comments on a HN thread, or scroll through some funny pictures somewhere. 2 more minutes won't make a difference either. 2 more? And suddenly it's been 5 hours. So in the end, I don't do the things I have to, and I also don't do the things I want to - all because negative emotions. (Part of my solution to this problem was just blocking certain sites (like HN) on the router during work hours.)

jehlakj 6y ago

Wow that number 3 hit me hard. I’ve always known myself to procrastinate, but I only think about 1 and 2. In retrospect, I have done 3 in a lot of cases. I just never really thought about it. In fact, I am extremely focused on working on the other task that I’ve always wondered where the motivation comes from.

agumonkey 6y ago

a few thoughts: - how much of society is related to driving up or enforcing overcoming these avoidant reflexes - the negative feeling is often due to a social obligation that may be distorded. You could renegotiate smaller chunks or different terms.. the idea is that in a different context you might approach it with lot more will. ps: my current gig is in a national office and I could very well rebrand it as land-of-the-procrastinator. It's an endemic disease where nobody wanted to do things (the way they were asked), any newcomer will be dragged down, ensure a good status-low.

jwdunne 6y ago

This actually looks like the ground work for cognitive behavioural therapy. The idea (grossly simplified) is to take those observations of negative thoughts and build a rational response to those thoughts (cognitive part). Then you build a habit of noticing those thoughts and responding with the rational response. It’s far easier said than done, and perhaps best dispensed by a therapist. But these mental tools have been crucial to improving my own mental health. Some great books on that go into more depth than I ever could include Feeling Good by Burns or Byrne, Overcoming Anxiety and Overcoming Depression.

jazzdev 6y ago

Interesting video. Pychil claims that procrastination is a weakness of will. For another perspective, check out the book, "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" [1], which claims it's not just about will (executive function), but also about tunnel vision and reduced fluid intelligence, all caused by a situation of scarcity--time scarcity in the case of procrastination. And they claim reduced executive function is situational. It's not a fundamental attribute of the procrastinator. [1] = https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebo...