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I used to think I had a problem with procrastination. I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. In

I used to think I had a problem with procrastination. I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. In those situations I have to just talk simply and honestly with myself: I’m not doing x because I don’t want to and I accept the consequences of not doing it, or, I’m doing x even though I don’t want to. Calling it procrastination was for me actually saying a variation of the former. I don’t want to do x, but I also don’t want to accept the consequences of not doing it, so I’ll bullshit myself and pretend I’m doing it by calling it procrastination. Better to admit #1 and recognize that I may choose to change my mind and do it later. Practically it’s the same, but this way I’m being honest with myself.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our individual capability for vision. Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure
- muzani 4y ago
  That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator. The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch. But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing. Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    oh my bad, I forgot that’s how it works
    - csouza-f 4y ago
      Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the conversation here.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense while being more helpful - here’s a compelling realm of research that they’re evidently missing out on and not speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
  - pydry 4y ago
    There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      >fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality. There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers. Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      > There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy Really? What about sacrificing family time? For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a father is simply not a priority to him, and that’s his choice. But it’s not his childrens choice, I can guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
- zamfi 4y ago
  This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that). One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion. Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others. Just some food for thought.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture, where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today. current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy), I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
    - alexalx666 4y ago
      "without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that they will be devalued automatically by collective, which will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        well, I submitted a new article on the research that elaborates if you're interested to learn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961
- YZF 4y ago
  This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare. All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    > We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around “Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.”
    - dboreham 4y ago
      True Scotswoman.
  - k1m 4y ago
    I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      thanks for sharing. looks like a good companion to graeber’s bullshit jobs
- musha68k 4y ago
  > How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture. Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2]. Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today. [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn [2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on this topic that has some radically different fundamentals than what you’ve shared - I shared an article that elaborates here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
  - hirvi74 4y ago
    I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately rewarded. In other words, one might be procrastinating because the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes? Absolutely. Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that is my wanna-be hypothesis.
Scarblac 4y ago
As a variation on that theme, sometimes the reason I don't want to do it is because I don't actually know how to do it, or even what to do. While telling myself it should be easy. Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first", or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop procrastinating.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  This is why it takes me a day or two to orient myself towards starting a big task. The sooner I get to the ”I have to make this clearer” part, the sooner I have a roadmap, and the sooner I start coding. The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.
Kenji 4y ago
lazide 4y ago
Personally I’ve also found myself so exhausted and shitty feeling that even if I consciously know that thing should be done (and there will be negative consequences for not starting right now on it) I can’t will myself to do it. It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point, would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not have been an option either. As I’ve gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various experiences and emotions so things don’t get as ‘stuck’ all help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be blocking me before it blocks me.
n31s0n 4y ago
I also had a problem with that. In the University I had to deal with it. The books Eat that Frog and Getting Things Done, helped a lot. And Getting Things Done as what lead to my use of emacs. Because I started to use org mode on Emacs. My anxiety improved. I only felt anxious near exams.
allenu 4y ago
I had a similar situation recently. I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself. This helped me really understand what was happening. Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do. I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I just couldn't start them. Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating. ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day. They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was burning me out. I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.
- weakfish 4y ago
  I love this mindset. I did not consciously realize I also needed ‘leisure time’ until I read this - so thank you. Tomorrow I will play soccer and hopefully that will help me accomplish the laundry :-)
dboreham 4y ago
> I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm asked to do something legit.
coldtea 4y ago
>I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. Well, that's like 60% of life, even if we live it on "our own terms".

wahnfrieden 4y ago

I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our individual capability for vision. Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure

muzani 4y ago
That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator. The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch. But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing. Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  oh my bad, I forgot that’s how it works
  - csouza-f 4y ago
    Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the conversation here.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense while being more helpful - here’s a compelling realm of research that they’re evidently missing out on and not speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
- pydry 4y ago
  There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    >fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality. There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers. Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    > There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy Really? What about sacrificing family time? For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a father is simply not a priority to him, and that’s his choice. But it’s not his childrens choice, I can guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
zamfi 4y ago
This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that). One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion. Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others. Just some food for thought.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture, where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today. current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy), I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
  - alexalx666 4y ago
    "without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that they will be devalued automatically by collective, which will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      well, I submitted a new article on the research that elaborates if you're interested to learn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961
YZF 4y ago
This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare. All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around “Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.”
  - dboreham 4y ago
    True Scotswoman.
- k1m 4y ago
  I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    thanks for sharing. looks like a good companion to graeber’s bullshit jobs
musha68k 4y ago
> How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture. Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2]. Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today. [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn [2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on this topic that has some radically different fundamentals than what you’ve shared - I shared an article that elaborates here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately rewarded. In other words, one might be procrastinating because the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes? Absolutely. Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that is my wanna-be hypothesis.

Scarblac 4y ago

As a variation on that theme, sometimes the reason I don't want to do it is because I don't actually know how to do it, or even what to do. While telling myself it should be easy. Then when I rephrase it as "I have to make this clearer first", or "what's a first step to learn how to do this" or so, I stop procrastinating.

eurasiantiger 4y ago
This is why it takes me a day or two to orient myself towards starting a big task. The sooner I get to the ”I have to make this clearer” part, the sooner I have a roadmap, and the sooner I start coding. The problem is essentially in how tickets are written.

Kenji 4y ago

lazide 4y ago

Personally I’ve also found myself so exhausted and shitty feeling that even if I consciously know that thing should be done (and there will be negative consequences for not starting right now on it) I can’t will myself to do it. It sucks, because when I was younger it was also often too late at that point to just rest or recover enough to do it, and knowing this was going on would cause anxiety that would make the rest and recovery harder. Trying harder, to your point, would just make me hate myself and get more anxious. But not trying at all, depending on the amount of time left, might not have been an option either. As I’ve gotten older, regulation has gotten easier - sleeping enough, getting enough exercise, integrating all the various experiences and emotions so things don’t get as ‘stuck’ all help. Which helps me see situations like this in advance, and help avoid them by properly taking care of what is going to be blocking me before it blocks me.

n31s0n 4y ago

I also had a problem with that. In the University I had to deal with it. The books Eat that Frog and Getting Things Done, helped a lot. And Getting Things Done as what lead to my use of emacs. Because I started to use org mode on Emacs. My anxiety improved. I only felt anxious near exams.

allenu 4y ago

I had a similar situation recently. I've been doing daily meditation and starting to notice my moods and feelings more. On top of that, I've been reading up on CBT techniques and trying to re-frame how I talk to myself. This helped me really understand what was happening. Anyway, one day I had some chores I told myself I "should" do. I kept on putting them off as the day went on. I was starting to feel bad about my inability to accomplish these tasks. I just couldn't start them. Eventually, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't that I "should" do them or that I was procrastinating. ("Shoulds" are something you can rephrase for yourself to reduce guilt and shame.) I looked deeper inside and realized I had been working too hard lately and what I really wanted was some leisure time. Those tasks didn't need to be done that day. They were something I wanted done, more specifically, I wanted the outcome. But they weren't essential to be done that day. I was just guilting myself into accomplishing them right then and there. I was too much in a "get shit done" mode but it was burning me out. I ended up leaving my house to do some fun things, which is what my body needed. Later on, I had some more energy and was able to accomplish some of the chores anyway.

weakfish 4y ago
I love this mindset. I did not consciously realize I also needed ‘leisure time’ until I read this - so thank you. Tomorrow I will play soccer and hopefully that will help me accomplish the laundry :-)

dboreham 4y ago

> I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. In my experience there are some different forms of "don't want to do". One kind operates at the subconscious level and seems to be to do with whether my brain perceives the thing as fitting in with some logical plan, or being consistent with reality as perceived. For example, "write tests" seems like a reasonable task. However if the kind of test requested seems like it isn't really doing much of anything to assure correct operation of the system, I'd feel resistance to complete that task. otoh if these were what I believe to be solid useful tests, I'd code away with enthusiasm. Basically, if asked to do some crazy s*t, I tend to procrastinate much more than if I'm asked to do something legit.

coldtea 4y ago

>I realized what was really happening was, I’m sometimes compelled to do something I don’t want to do. Well, that's like 60% of life, even if we live it on "our own terms".