3 ms·

Silverbax, thanks for your comment. What makes you really want to play a video game and dislike doing the dishes? Is it something objective about the thing to

by edo 15y ago

Silverbax, thanks for your comment. What makes you really want to play a video game and dislike doing the dishes? Is it something objective about the thing to be done, or does it have to do with your mental framing of the task at hand? I feel it is the latter. A friend of mine reviews video games professionally, and he procrastinates on playing games. I think it's because he is told to play games. An authority figure is pushing him to do something and he rebels by putting off playing. Pushing ourselves only leads to ourselves pushing back. Cheers, Edo

silverbax88 15y ago
Anything that we perceive as hard or boring is a task for procrastination. We simply don't want to do it because it isn't fun. I am not a games tester; therefore video games are still fun. But when I was first starting as a programmer, I did it because I was having a blast, and it made me successful. It has nothing to do with being told to do something, and it has everything to do with our brains - especially creative people - being bored and only wanting to satisfy our ID. We really do want to dream all day. But as I've gotten older I've learned to reign that in and also how to balance it out. We must push ourselves if we want to improve. We must ask ourselves the hard questions. I have often called this 'throwing myself to the wolves' when I embark on a new endeavor...I know it will be hard. I know I will fail, badly. I know the established community will tear into me. But I will push myself and keep fighting and eventually, what was once hard will become easy.
- kevinstubbs 15y ago
  Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
  - silverbax88 15y ago
    One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step. Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
    - sdoctor 15y ago
      how often do you procrastinate on making the list? by the time you've started making the list, you weren't going to procrastinate any longer anyway.
      - silverbax88 15y ago
        it turns out, never. Making a list is one of the things we, or at least I, do as 'busy work' to avoid real work. In this case, it turns out that once we have a detailed step-by-step course to resolution, hard tasks suddenly seem quite easy.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... That doesn't sound like a well examined state; go looking for why you fear "not knowing what to do", there's bound to be one or many things hiding behind that description.
gexla 15y ago
Going along with the thread that was started here. When I play a video game, it's the game I want to play at the time I want to play it and with the goal that I picked for that session. If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. The goal is to review the game rather than go for whatever I might want out of the game. The reality of our lives force us to do things which don't always align with what we really want to do. That's when I procrastinate.
- hammock 15y ago
  If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. Which plays into the whole "authority figure" thing that OP is talking about. My immediate reaction was to be skeptical, but I am starting to think OP makes quite a bit of sense.
- mc32 15y ago
  I think, for me, procrastination has to do with projecting complication into things. So, if I want to cook something new, I imagine needing to find the perfect recipe with the perfect ingredients, for example. But, then, there are times when I just decide to do it even if I'm missing ingredients or have not come across a recipe which makes sense to me. Powering thru. I think for the video game tester, if I were them, I'd project difficulty onto it. Finding the bugs, etc. Feeling like I might not be up to finding anything interesting. It's a bit of a fear of failing, in a way, till I felt, "I'm up to the task now."
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    I think, for me, procrastination has to do with projecting complication into things. So, if I want to cook something new, I imagine needing to find the perfect recipe with the perfect ingredients, for example. Need to... or else what? Instead of forcing onwards, ask yourself why you don't want to go forwards...
    - mc32 15y ago
      Else fail. A kind of set up fear of failing, I guess.
mkr-hn 15y ago
This sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence. It's also possible (and more likely) that your friend finds it harder to play a game with the greater rigor needed for reviews. Note taking and exploring all the boring stuff most people skip can take the joy out of gaming.
qaexl 15y ago
Edo, You ever practiced something like Tai Chi?
daed 15y ago
To further your video game example - psych studies have shown that if you pay someone to do something they like, they start liking it less. Great post, edo.
dkersten 15y ago
I don't think its about if something is hard or boring. I enjoy hard things more than easy things, for example. I think its about the goal: doing the dishes stands in the way of the goal of having clean dishes. Playing video games, on the other hand, is the goal itself. Sure, there may be a goal within the game, the same as there will be obstacles and also boring things in the game, but playing the game itself is fun, and a goal in itself. Dishes are purely an obstacle to a goal. I find I procrastinate a lot over the obstacles, but rarely over the goal itself. Like gexla said (and like you said in the OP), its about being in control. I have little choice in doing the dishes - if I don't do them, they pile up and the place looks dirty, but I never really decide I want to do them. On the other hand, if I play video games, this is my choice and I'm in control. I can just as easily not play. Thats my choice. On the other hand, if, like gexla said, I had to review a game, then its out of my control and I could see myself potentially procrastinating over it (unless it happens to be a game I wanted to play anyway).

by edo 15y ago

silverbax88 15y ago

Anything that we perceive as hard or boring is a task for procrastination. We simply don't want to do it because it isn't fun. I am not a games tester; therefore video games are still fun. But when I was first starting as a programmer, I did it because I was having a blast, and it made me successful. It has nothing to do with being told to do something, and it has everything to do with our brains - especially creative people - being bored and only wanting to satisfy our ID. We really do want to dream all day. But as I've gotten older I've learned to reign that in and also how to balance it out. We must push ourselves if we want to improve. We must ask ourselves the hard questions. I have often called this 'throwing myself to the wolves' when I embark on a new endeavor...I know it will be hard. I know I will fail, badly. I know the established community will tear into me. But I will push myself and keep fighting and eventually, what was once hard will become easy.

kevinstubbs 15y ago
Many times, my cause for procrastinating is usually due to a sense of fear. That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... Many times, the quickest way to fix this is just to write a todo list and do a few items. Every few hours I'll just compile a new list and keep going off that.
- silverbax88 15y ago
  One of the best anti-procrastination hacks I ever heard was right here on HN: When you absolutely cannot get motivated to finish something, make a detailed list of exactly the steps needed to finish the task/project. Once the list is complete you will automatically begin working on the first step. Not my idea but it works for me 100% of the time.
  - sdoctor 15y ago
    how often do you procrastinate on making the list? by the time you've started making the list, you weren't going to procrastinate any longer anyway.
    - silverbax88 15y ago
      it turns out, never. Making a list is one of the things we, or at least I, do as 'busy work' to avoid real work. In this case, it turns out that once we have a detailed step-by-step course to resolution, hard tasks suddenly seem quite easy.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  That if I start, I will not know what to do, or that the direction I must take on a task is too unclear for me to feel comfortable starting... That doesn't sound like a well examined state; go looking for why you fear "not knowing what to do", there's bound to be one or many things hiding behind that description.

gexla 15y ago

Going along with the thread that was started here. When I play a video game, it's the game I want to play at the time I want to play it and with the goal that I picked for that session. If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. The goal is to review the game rather than go for whatever I might want out of the game. The reality of our lives force us to do things which don't always align with what we really want to do. That's when I procrastinate.

hammock 15y ago
If I have to review a video game then I have all these choices largely made for me. Which plays into the whole "authority figure" thing that OP is talking about. My immediate reaction was to be skeptical, but I am starting to think OP makes quite a bit of sense.
mc32 15y ago
I think, for me, procrastination has to do with projecting complication into things. So, if I want to cook something new, I imagine needing to find the perfect recipe with the perfect ingredients, for example. But, then, there are times when I just decide to do it even if I'm missing ingredients or have not come across a recipe which makes sense to me. Powering thru. I think for the video game tester, if I were them, I'd project difficulty onto it. Finding the bugs, etc. Feeling like I might not be up to finding anything interesting. It's a bit of a fear of failing, in a way, till I felt, "I'm up to the task now."
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  I think, for me, procrastination has to do with projecting complication into things. So, if I want to cook something new, I imagine needing to find the perfect recipe with the perfect ingredients, for example. Need to... or else what? Instead of forcing onwards, ask yourself why you don't want to go forwards...
  - mc32 15y ago
    Else fail. A kind of set up fear of failing, I guess.

mkr-hn 15y ago

This sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence. It's also possible (and more likely) that your friend finds it harder to play a game with the greater rigor needed for reviews. Note taking and exploring all the boring stuff most people skip can take the joy out of gaming.

qaexl 15y ago

Edo, You ever practiced something like Tai Chi?

daed 15y ago

To further your video game example - psych studies have shown that if you pay someone to do something they like, they start liking it less. Great post, edo.

dkersten 15y ago

I don't think its about if something is hard or boring. I enjoy hard things more than easy things, for example. I think its about the goal: doing the dishes stands in the way of the goal of having clean dishes. Playing video games, on the other hand, is the goal itself. Sure, there may be a goal within the game, the same as there will be obstacles and also boring things in the game, but playing the game itself is fun, and a goal in itself. Dishes are purely an obstacle to a goal. I find I procrastinate a lot over the obstacles, but rarely over the goal itself. Like gexla said (and like you said in the OP), its about being in control. I have little choice in doing the dishes - if I don't do them, they pile up and the place looks dirty, but I never really decide I want to do them. On the other hand, if I play video games, this is my choice and I'm in control. I can just as easily not play. Thats my choice. On the other hand, if, like gexla said, I had to review a game, then its out of my control and I could see myself potentially procrastinating over it (unless it happens to be a game I wanted to play anyway).