When I procrastinate, it stems from the thought, 'I don't really want to do this (right now|at all)'.
So one way to jump that hurdle is consider the consequences of not doing it, and how that makes me feel. For example, learning French. I would like to speak French. The consequence of not putting in the hours conjugating verbs means I will not be able to speak French. That makes me sad. I consider that sadness, and conclude I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
Some consequences are not obvious, but cumulative. I don't really want to go to the stand-up meeting. What happens if I don't go today? Probably not much. But what happens if I don't go for the rest of the week, or my attendance is patchy? It'll be noticed, and I'll have to explain why I am not on the calls. The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.
> I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
But it's not better than catching up on sleep, netflix and/or a great meal with a fantastic conversational partner.
> The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
My mind would answer: "I'll take the 10min akward explanation for 5 missed meetings mr Gibbins. No problem."
Why not go to the calls because it is your duty? If nothing else, it makes you dependable and you can be proud of your virtuous follow-through.
Doing things only to prevent the penalty feels like a negative way of looking at things and, for my monkey mind, one that is ultimately doomed to fail. Instead of aiming for the stars, my mind just gets better at dealing with the penalties. It might just be me though.
You're probably high on conscientiousness if that's the case though. In which case procrastination is not something you are allowed to talk about because you literally don't know what it is.
Joking of course, but I have quite a few people who score high on conscientiousness around me. I myself am not such a person. I say they have absolutely no idea what procrastionation even means. Being a day late on a minor thing will be an existential threat to them. It is amazing and I watch them as I watch magnificent wildlife. Full of awe and wonder.
Then you have people like me who have to go throw the 5 stages of grief to overcome procrastination.
1. Denial of the importance or urgency of the task, and denial of my future self also lacking desire and willpower to complete said task in the future.
2. Anger that I cannot magically will myself into not procrastinating, or anger that I even have to do the task in the first place.
3. Bargaining how far back I can push a task back a.k.a. "I'll have plenty of time to do it tomorrow."
4. Depression because I always mismanage my time, overestimate my future abilities, and seem to never learn from the past -- "why do I always do this to myself?"
5. Acceptance that I am at the end of my rope, and I have to do the task now or I will face some kind of consequences far worse than actually doing the task itself.
I agree, doing things to prevent a penalty is probably worse than classic positive reinforcement/conditioning, doing things to get a reward. It's not healthy in the long-term.
However some things are generally pretty awful (such as standups) and don't really have a positive outcome that's easy to focus on and identify as a reward - not in my place of work anyway, YMMV!
So yes, in this case I could go because it's my duty (and try to feel proud of that!) but arguably forcing myself to turn up by focusing on what happens if I don't is also pretty effective, and is basically just like jump-starting a car - as other commenters have noted, merely beginning the undesirable thing is the biggest hurdle.
This breaks down when you stop caring about things. Say I want to learn French but ... not enough to put in the work. Give it up right? Say I want to look like a responsible and professional programmer but I still can't be bothered to show up to meetings. Why does it matter anyway? This yields a cycle of self-loathing and powerlessness.
So I prefer to focus on positive rewards for doing things instead of the consequences of avoiding them. And build from there.
For me when a task is overwhelming enough that I have been procrastinating on it for a while, or have attempted to start it a few times unsuccessfully, the thought of working on it for a whole hour is usually too much. But I can usually identify some trivial first step and say to myself “I’ll spend 15 minutes on that first step”. If I can get into the task, 15 minutes can easily become hours, at least until I find some decision overwhelming again.
But I get your point. I wanted to cite the original comment, though. It's true that the entry point has to be chosen according to the individual and the task at hand... as long as that's not something that has to be chosen so wisely that I should take time to reason about first :)
It’s very possible we mean different things by procrastination. I’m describing things I feel enormous pressure to complete, but also feel completely overwhelmed by. In this case I can spend time on the task, but won’t make any progress. Procrastinating is usually done out of desperation, seeking for some way to feel better to hopefully return to the task and make progress. Everything I do is pretty miserable while the task remains to be done. I’m trying to give myself a way to start. “I’ll just do it tonight” would be nearly unthinkable.
Nah, I meant the 15 mins would be even easier to be delayed again. Towards "tonight" right away, because it's just 15 minutes, just to re-schedule it for tomorrow when "tonight"
has arrived. It's just 15 mins after all, right. "Could do it anytime..."
I'd think the definitions seem similar. The avoidance strategies usually have slightly different hotspots, though.
J’aimerais bien trouver un cours en classe. J’en ai ras-le-bol de la formation sur internet. Malheureusement l’Alliance Française la plus proche est a 2h de chez moi. Je m’étais inscrit à un cours intermédiaire d’une autre organisation locale, mais il a été annulé car il n’y avait pas assez d’étudiants.
Please do not think that French is only in France. We use words here that french people won't understand and they do the same. And the aversion to anglicisms varies a lot depending on the person (ie "footing", a non-existing word in english in the sense used, is used in France to say "jogging").
Actually I can’t speak or write it fully, but I can understand you for the most part. I didn’t reach that B1-2 proficiency because I got hired around that time.
Thank you, this is news to me, I've been using the 'Learn French with Alexa' series on YT, plus a French dictionary and some magazines etc. I'll check it out!
I have looked online a little bit, but apart from some cultural centers around embassies not that I can see. They have an official cultural center, but only 80 worldwide vs 1000+ of Alliance Francaise.
Maybe just language centers or local people offering classes might be your best bet. Maybe an Italian aficionado can chip in on this one.
The weighting you describe is very interesting, I follow the same process semi consciously. I'm dealing with that right now on multiple front (job, family) and I'm curious to see what it yields to push things around as I see fit.
All this makes me wonder about the art of negotiating.. at the existential level. You only have to do things you didn't refuse in a way (figure of speech). Too often I said yes without asking more details, or said yes to things I didn't really like..
This doesn't work for me or probably some other ppl. My brain's attention would be dragged to the consequences and still won't do the work.
What I find useful is the vomit writing technique. I will just drag myself to get started no matter how horrible the work I am doing in the beginning. But once I started doing, I won't feel so bad. This basically solved my problem.
I just need to start doing and do a shit job, then improve it to be less shitty.
maybe another way around it is, 'do I really need it' -> 'and what that need is? how do I create a need for it?'. for language, that could be - applying that language. finding something that you do want to apply it to, that really gets you going and gives you joy. like, talking to someone, watching someone, listening to them talk, watching a stream, trying to talk to someone on that stream, reading, watching some piece of entertainment, in that language. and creating that 'need' for a 'want', and a 'want' itself - 'i want to watch those things and interact and chat with people - so i need language knowledge for that.' and maybe that could move it a bit closer. finding those bits that you might 'want' more readily - and then have those things move your goals into more of a 'need and want' zone, where you'd be both feeling a need of something more tangibly, and feel the joy in those things and possibilities of them more acutely and have that draw you in to do something.
and maybe it's also eh, it's counterproductive, but maybe it's fine to just have those curiosities - and have them just be that. even if it's kinda 'non-committal'
- maybe that's just kinda the dynamic for it, and that's alright. maybe some knowledge of language is just fine, and it's gonna be enough for watching or chatting, and it could be just those little bits of 'knowledge gain' where you look something up (like a word, definition, etc.) as you come across it, and amass some knowledge that way. this - does not help with 'how to do the thing', but hey - maybe there's also isn't really a need to beat yourself down over it either, over some 'thing about it you don't really want to do' when maybe it's just fine without it. (cause maybe that thing could be a buzzkiller that sucks the joy out of it, only further deterring you from it)
> Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.
This filtering is important. Doing X with a block of time means not doing Y, or Z, or any of A through W. I can do anything with this next minute, but that means that I am not doing all the other things with that minute.
So there are a pile of things that I "should" do that I am not doing. Which ones should I get to (even if that takes finding a way to defeat my avoidance), and which ones do I not need to get to, ever? In fact, which ones should I avoid, because they're going to take the time that should go to other things? I need some way to think about those questions.
Most of the time it's anxiety. You'd be surprised how easy it is to start doing something when you don't feel any kind of pressure. Getting rid of it is hard work though, sometimes even harder than doing the thing you're procrastinating about. This gives rise to some interesting cost/benefit discussions. Which only serve to increase the anxiety. Enjoy modern life!
Some anxiety helps people do things, too. This is where you get people who need deadlines, scheduled milestones, check-ins, or other rituals or anticipated events just so they can get it done. (No shame)
IMO the word "anxiety" is now of limited utility as far as human species development goes. Same with "procrastination." People are often caught short by not having appropriately-honed replacements for those words that can help them move to higher heights, while building on what we've all learned about those concepts in the past.
I'm pretty sure my respect for people who sit down at a blank page, or pick up the phone and make a difficult call (or even a call to the guy who was supposed to trim the trees last week) stems from my deep reluctance to do the same. Whether you could blame my reluctance on anxiety, apathy, superiority or sheer laziness really depends on the day... but I really do respect those people who slog through their list of to-do items as if it were a job. And they are better at life than I am.
Put me in front or a concrete problem, and I'm a fucking monster at solving it. Give me someone's phone number to call and I'd rather spend the rest of the week in a bathtub.
I think what you do on a daily basis has a huge impact to how you deal with this. When I was mostly focused on a single issue at a time for long strench of time, I used to be reluctant to call people and didn't really plan things for my personnal life. As my job shifted towards more organisational responsibilities and I had to start both carefully planning how I use my own time and spending a lot more time contacting people to get things done, these things started slowly expanding to the rest of my time by cheer force of habit. What is one more call to the guy who should have trimmed the tree when you have spent the day asking people why they are behind schedule?
I think it goes well with the anxiety explanation. You are obviously less anxious about things which are just business as usual. I guess my take away would be that if you want to start doing something you find hard, it will get easier and easier as you stick with it, which is pretty nice when you think about it.
yeah, I've sort of observed this... my gf is in a people-centric / customer service job, and thinks nothing of picking up the phone and making life-related calls in an instant that I would probably procrastinate for days before making.
I've thought maybe it was her job that led her to it. But I've also wondered if it was something in my blood. See, my father was a lawyer. As a kid I'd sit in his office and listen to him make tough phone calls one after another all day. But when it came time to talk to anyone at all at home, he always made my mother do it. I've found myself doing this with my girlfriend if we want to order food or something. Because I'll simply drink all night and delay the phone call.
So when it comes to any work flag that arises, I'll call my clients obsessively until they pay attention to the problem. But if I need someone to do something for me, I basically almost can't make the call.
I used to be in your position. What broke the cycle for me was that my SO realized how anxious I would get every time I had to make a phone call, so he assigned all phone-related household tasks to me until I lost the phobia via exposure/practice. It sucked until it didn’t anymore. I’m now one of those people who prefers to make a call rather than use a web form!
I don't like making calls, going to appointments, job interviews and things like that. But in terms of the effort it takes me to do it, I noticed the first is usually the hardest one. So now I just procrastinate on purpose any calls or appointments I need to make that I can defer with little negative consequences. Eventually something shows up that I know I shouldn't delay, like an appointment with the doctor, or the dentist, or something like that. I force myself to do it and take it as an opportunity to do everything I had piled up, since I know once I make the first call it'll be easier to do the others. It can cause me to have a very frantic week when it happens but after I can relax again.
In my worldview, when you state that, you don't really believe that. If you did, you would do these things that you think make them better with no effort. If you drop wishful thinking, look at the situation, then it's clear that if you think they are better at life, then the actions they do are better. But if you really believed that you would choose to do them, effortlessly.
Now I know there's plenty of frameworks you can look at things through and plenty of rationalizations, I'm just presenting another one.
So whenever you think it would be better if you would be doing something right now which you are not doing, you have some cognitive dissonance. It's possible to debug it. Sometimes it can go pretty deep, but if you are honest with yourself then after you do the debugging, you should either arrive at the conclusion that it is not better after all, or be doing it.
We are able to hold tons of contradictory beliefs, but only if we don't bring them together to our attention. Then it's just impossible. Cheapest way to resolve these, which often appears automatically, is quick rationalization - creating a special case, "yes, but", "this is different" etc. But when you are honest with yourself and observe yourself, do some debugging, it's impossible to not be doing something you want to be doing (and vice versa).
For me, it often means not that now I want to do these tasks and I'm going at them, rather, I understand that e.g. I think there are more important things in life to me given the wider context and I'm perfectly fine not doing them.
I have not been doing anything I wouldn't want to be doing right now for years. I sometimes needed to question my very basic values and choices to debug it.
Remember that it requires dropping wishful thinking. Wanting sky to be green is just madness, only after you accept that reality is how it is you can find out what you want.
Anxiety can be debugged away.
(Yes, I know - brains, neurotransmitters, amygdala, this is just a random dude's framework, a tool)
I don't do things I don't want to do - I've also set my life and career up to prioritize that. Being overly accustomed to that mode may be part of the problem, because inevitably there are things you have to do that you don't want to do - and those things seem harder, even if they're trivial, when you really want to master your own time. Yet I'm pretty good at getting those out of the way.
That's not my specific problem with phone calls. Phone calls always open up a Pandora's box of more problems. Perhaps if you feel like armchair diagnosing this: I clean my house almost obsessively every day; my desktop has only two text files on it called "Immediate" and "Todo"; my inbox is always cleaned out by 5 or 6pm before I let myself relax. Then I go get fucking wasted and make new friends and end up drinking in parking lots.
But I can't call the fucking tree guy or the mechanic or the accountant. It's not the conversation I'm worried about. It's that I know there will be one new thing on the list.
When the list is cleared, I will be free. I will take my clothes off and walk naked to the airport.
[edit] I just want to clarify: I do think that I'm good at life in my own peculiar way. Just not "good at life" as most people would define it ;)
Seems like you want to avoid calls if possible. If not then to me it helps to think in packages. So there is no "I need to make a phonecall". There's option A - "I make a phonecall and the then I have this" or "I don't make a phonecall and there are those consequences". What's the key to me here is that both options are perfectly fine. I.e. "suffering + some reward" or "no suffering and no reward". Or sometimes both options require some suffering. That is not a problem though, that is life.
But suffering is really something different without anxiety. If it's unavoidable anyway there's a peace about it.
And I'm sorry if I come off as an armchair diagnostician, I have no clue about your life obviously, it's just that this kind of thinking made such a big difference to me that it feels bad not sharing it.
no, I think it's quite interesting to diagnose this from a code point of view... this is why it really sucks that I have literally no one in my life who writes code or understands my job (or can chop things up into logical if/else statements like this ;) I probably should look at my own messy internal call stack from this pov a bit more often.
My best friend as a kid was raised in Zen Buddhism and we learned to code together. This is the kind of way he would look at it. So I appreciate it.
> If you did, you would do these things that you think make them better with no effort.
There is a whole lot of assumptions in that sentence. To start, why would doing the right thing be effortless?
Add to that, if you are in a bad state you are likely to be pessimistic of the outcome of the task which makes it even harder. And fighting that is anything but effortless.
You could argue that when you are in a perfect state stars will align but even if you truly believe that the effort to get to that place will often be nothing but heroic and most people will never achieve it.
So it just feels like moving the goalpost? Which is fine if framing it like that gets you closer to where you want to be. But I'd need more convincing to believe that would be easier (for me).
the underlying assumption is that there is no tension between satisfying the world and satisfying your own need for tranquility.
[edit] I haven't done a lot of therapy, but I sought out an existential therapist in Buenos Aires and saw her weekly for a year while I was there and severely depressed. It helped me get over seeing myself as the center of the narrative, and made me realize everyone else was too trapped in theirs to notice most of the flaws I saw in myself. It also helped me come to terms with how the world being fucked up is neither my fault or something I can fix.
But the real, true house on the cliff is unattainable. In the darkest and most honest moments, I'd admit it's not even what I want. As my ex's mother once said, I thrive on crisis. She didn't mean it well.
> To start, why would doing the right thing be effortless?
Because doing things you want to do does not require effort.
Real life example from the past - sewage system problem - I have shit all over the floor in my basement. It's late night next days are some celebrations. I can have this shit all over my floor it can wait for somebody to clean it, or it can just stay there, or I can clean it. You would think cleaning up shit is just that, it sucks regardless. But my experience is different. If you keep repeating to yourself false narration "I don't want to be doing this" that's hell. But after accepting the situation, deciding which option do you want, doing what you want to do is really effortless. Out of all the things this is what I want to be doing right now. If not, I'm not doing it.
Narration matters a lot and it seems pretty straightforward that when you think you don't want to be doing the thing that YOU decided and are doing right now, you have some cognitive dissonance.
(remember - no wishful thinking - thinking I want to have it clean but without doing any actions is no different than taunting yourself that you have no wings)
> no tension between satisfying the world and satisfying your own need
There isn't any. It's enough to try to satisfy your needs and doing what you want. But be observant and introspect.
People who are perceived as egoists are not optimizing for their own well being. You can't be happy when you are surrounded by people who are not happy.
When you want to support some charity and do something for the world, where does it come from? It's you, it's your need. It feels good. Not just a fleeting high, but like a feeling about your life in general. We seem to have that built in.
I mean regardless of the source, just look how it's unnecessarily nested narration. Your needs vs needs of others, where needs of others is what you feel is needed to do for others. It's still your needs, if you think you should be helping others it's you who feels that.
I am a bit envious of your apparent lack of akrasia. I read a similar argument to yours by Abraham Maslow ("Motivation and Personality" I believe?) and have the same reaction then as I do now. The inner worlds of different human beings can be radically different. Sometimes we forget that and assume our experiences or ways of experiencing are universal. Some people have aphantasia, others (more lucky perhaps) don't have akrasia or at the very least can sufficiently overcome it by bringing to mind whether or not one wants to do the task at-hand. Not all of us are so blessed, although all of us could probably benefit from weighing the costs and benefits of doing tasks that we believe need to be done but still have resistance to doing.
Akrasia is like anxiety. It's not that I don't have it. It's just that I would debug quickly (and after some time it happens somewhat automatically). So 80% of time I indeed won't do the task that's been waiting for long. But I'm not anxious about it. I just realize that this isn't what I want to do right now.
When you look at akrasia, the problem is not that you are not doing something. It's this painful cognitive dissonance. Unresolved conflict in your narration. Both doing the thing is fine and not doing it is fine. But suffering by doing it while telling your self you don't want to do it or not doing it while telling yourself that you do is completely avoidable.
And yeah, I agree about different experiences. Which makes communication funny - same words but two very different contexts and interpreters. Which is why I'm so verbose about the thing I was describing.
I don't think we have the same definition of effort.
All options regarding sewage in your basement takes a lot of effort. Identifying and doing the least sucky option doesn't make it not suck.
I agree that it is helpful to frame it in a way that you choose to do it because its the best way forward. But that has absolutely nothing to do with effort and trying to recalibrate is as effortless does nothing but dilute and dismiss the effort you are putting into it.
Lots of things take effort, some things like workouts can (as with most things, in moderation) be more meaningful the more effort is provided.
> Narration matters a lot and it seems pretty straightforward that when you think you don't want to be doing the thing that YOU decided and are doing right now, you have some cognitive dissonance.
It is just a matter of perspective. You choose to do it because you want it done. It is an axiom. Not liking the situation does not equal cognitive dissonance.
If it helps you to not obsess about something, great. But that is a whole other topic.
Yes, I agree. What I meant by effort is this context is using your willpower.
To me there's a huge mental shift once you decided 100% on something and there's no questioning it. It may be tiring, but it just flows. This is what I call effortless in this context. Because it does not require any willpower to do it, even if it requires thinking or strength. You are locked in.
I mean whether it's coding or gym, surely you must have experienced it. When you are in the middle of the activity and you are not questioning whether you should be doing it or not.
The state of flow is familiar to most coders. Coding is nice because your mind is so busy building the castle that there is no place to be thinking about yourself. There is just code. So you are not questioning whether coding is something that you currently want to be doing. The same state can be achieved doing just about anything and to me the trick is to make narration without contradictions. Out of all things in the world, given my current life context writing this comment is the thing I want to do the most. Even if nobody reads it.
Btw I don't have that luxury 100% of the time. I can get hang up on the question of what do I actually want (in my case it usually drops down to not being honest with myself regarding the fact that what I really want is more sleep).
Regarding not liking situation, one that you choose to be in. I've had big mental shift from thinking in patterns of "lesser evil" and choosing what you want packages from the reality you are in (i.e. dropping wishful thinking). IT seems subtle but it's not.
"You choose to do it because you want it done. It is an axiom." is the right track. But not liking it, is the same as not liking that the sky is not green. It's fair, you might have preferred the green sky by a lot, but it's so ridiculous that you wouldn't experience anything negative because of that. It's the same with reality you are in and options available to you.
For some reason you want to do them. It's not like some dummy algorithm to decide what you do right now. What you want is a very complex computation which is basically already done and takes into account everything you know. There's no reason to try to outsmart yourself. If you are excited about the future associated with some task (or about the future in general) you are excited about doing the task. Some grim outlook on the future makes it rational to optimize short term results. E.g. sleep deprivation gives a glimpse of that.
Basically seems pointless to fight with yourself. Maybe you don't really want the long-term task + result package. Or maybe wishful thinking is causing you to fantasize about getting a result without doing the task. (I'm sorry about using second person, seems most straightforward way to communicate it).
I guess there's also some element of narration creating fictional character - e.g. I can't stop playing chess - playing chess is who I am. Which basically is daydreaming again.
And btw it all sound pretty analytical but in practice is mostly value driven. But if necessary, I will debug the stack deeply. Honesty is required. It goes deep and into intimate places. I would leave my wife and kids if I wouldn't want to be with them (and I think that's best for everybody). Given that I do and want them to be happy a lot of stuff follows effortlessly. I think many people are afraid to question these deep assumptions. But it's worth doing it. Otherwise it's castles on sand.
Back when I was starting with debugging I once deeply considered our marriage since I needed to take some trash out :))
In therapy, anxiety is an emotion in the “fear” group, which is one of a few fundamental emotional directions. Once you learn to watch and name your emotions, it becomes pretty clear if you’re anxious or not. So the term itself is correct and universal. But the cause of anxiety is in a big part person-specific and harder to expose. The other part is incorrect brain chemistry, chronic or acute.
That said, we have names for some common fears, e.g. caller anxiety. But again, is it universal?
I'm not sure if you'd call it anxiety then or just... restlessness, control urges, lack of self-discipline, etc; is it healthy to need others on your back to get things done?
I mean I get it, I work better in an office setting vs on my own and I've got a lot of issue to unpack, but I can also rationalize it and see that it's not a healthy condition to be in.
So true... I enjoy coding on weekends for work-related projects just because I feel no self-pressure of being productive. I don't do it often but the feeling is there.
But then I thought deeper and as an adult I realized that there is a cost/benefit to everything that somewhat didn't exist as a child. Most of us cannot escape triggers of anxiety anymore. If you have everything you need, and complete freedom, you still can't escape the arrow of time for example.
I still think zero pressure doesn't work in the way you think it does. It's exactly something someone says when they are pre-occupied most of the time. It's wishful thinking.
>I still think zero pressure doesn't work in the way you think it does. It's exactly something someone says when they are pre-occupied most of the time. It's wishful thinking.
You'd be surprised how much pressure can go down when you have fuck you money and you don't give a fuck about running some business, the "protestant work ethic", or getting more, just spend it and enjoy life. Met a few such types, and they feel zero pressure.
You still have inevitable stuff to worry about like relationships and health of course.
The unfortunate thing with procrastination is that the anxiety is bimodal. You avoid doing things because there’s anxiety about fucking it up.
Then as the deadline approaches, not finishing at all is a kind of “fucking it up” that is not at all abstract or hypothetical. So now the anxiety of the deadline is focusing you on the task. It’s exhausting for one, and for another when you get a good review on your work you feel like a fraud, because everyone else took weeks to do this and you slammed it out in 6-10 hours.
As someone with ADHD, this is a constant in my life. In an ironic way, the anxiety when shit hits the fan is what makes me deal with stuff. But it's absolutely exhausting.
Getting rid of what, exactly? The pressure? (Currently procrastinating by the way, on very important things that I keep delaying for some unexplained reason.)
For instance, if you have problems submitting your timesheets on time, it could be due to the fact that you're worried about putting too many hours on the budget. If you remove the worry about putting too many hours on the budget, then you might find yourself doing your timesheets on time.
The answer to your question lies in the "unexplained reason" which can actually be explained, that's the hard part.
> The answer to your question lies in the "unexplained reason" which can actually be explained, that's the hard part.
Having struggled with this for almost 20 years now, with little to show for it, I'd say "'unexplained reason' can actually be explained" seems to belong to the same category as "P != NP can actually be proven". Good luck and Godspeed.
Maybe I'm more of a clinical case, but for me, whatever I think the source of anxiety is in any given scenario, it's never that. I can eliminate potential sources one by one, dig in recursively, but it only provides very short-lived feelings of relief, lasting seconds to minutes, before anxiety restarts. To make matters worse, the more I spend time on such investigations, the more anxious I get about not working on the actual thing I wanted/was supposed to.
The most accurate model/explanation I have for this is: anxiety always comes, unconditionally; any "reason" behind it is just desperate post-hoc rationalization. The only reliable defense I know of is to be doing something so interesting or stimulating that it captures all of the brain's compute and starves the "anxiety process" entirely. Of course, that process will restart as soon as resources for it become available.
> For instance, if you have problems submitting your timesheets on time, it could be due to the fact that you're worried about putting too many hours on the budget. If you remove the worry about putting too many hours on the budget, then you might find yourself doing your timesheets on time.
I have problems submitting my timesheets on time. It's mostly because it's a boring, mind-dumbing chore, done using a GUI designed to prove that evil exists in this world. Like all modern timesheet tools, this one resists automation too. It's an annoyance that distracts me from the actual work I'm already behind on thanks to anxiety, and thus compounding the latter.
Yes, the task takes maybe 5 minutes. Would, if I could focus. But my focus window for mind-dumbingly boring tasks and routines is around 30 seconds; anything more than that requires ongoing, conscious effort. In reality, those 5 minutes usually turn into one hour, by the end of which I'm all dripping from stress-induced sweating.
I mean, I could've done my timesheets for the last two weeks four times over, in the time it took me to write this comment. Yet somehow, this comment is up, and the timesheets are not.
I am diagnosed. Meds help a lot, but it takes time to catch up with 33 years of dysfunctional coping strategies, some of which interact in surprising (i.e. bad) ways with the sudden improvement in executive functions.
If you don't mind me asking, can you give some examples of how your coping strategies are clashing with your improved executive function? One I've noticed for myself: I used to leave things until late at night, because I was more "awake" then and the house was silent. The medication's basically forcing me to be a morning person, and that's a hard one to learn.
1) As I got used to finally being able to decide to do something, and then actually follow through without first having to win a mini-boss fight in my head, my perception of whole classes of tasks shifted - things I assumed were hard, or instinctively avoided, became things I knew I could do. This is good and how it should be, but what I didn't realize is that this state of things is still quite fragile. At some point I overloaded myself with responsibilities, and as I hit my limit, I started to slip up, which cracked my newfound trust in my own reliability - and things quickly spiraled down from there. Even though things got better, and they are better than they were before I was diagnosed, my self-image got seriously damaged. Even after half a year, I still haven't fully recovered.
2) I am a night person. Always have been. Whatever the reason underlying the reasons for this is, the meds didn't do much about it. What they did, however, is allow me to get away with much less sleep. This was super useful when my second daughter was born, as it made it easy for me to take the "first shift", feeding and changing the baby and letting my wife sleep more. Shift the meds schedule around to have one dose at 23:00, and I could do some work and care for the kid until 02:00, then sleep some 5 hours, and feel well-rested in the morning. Of course, this was not sustainable; there were two major bad consequences:
- "Sleep debt" kept accumulating, but since it was masked by my carefully-tuned med schedule, it took me way too long to notice I'm getting slower and less focused at everything.
- The whole experience broke my internal rhythm that told me when to go to sleep. And with overall improved executive functioning, it only became easier to stay up late.
3) It also took me a while to realize that the meds are "sticky". That is, they make it easy to stay on course - wherever that course lead. While they also make it easier to switch tasks, the improved focus makes it harder to notice that I should switch. As a result, whatever I'm doing when the meds kick in, is what I'll most likely continue to be doing for the next couple hours. Whether that's work, or writing HN comments.
3a) This "stickiness" also makes it easier to waste time going too deep into low-value tangential tasks. Like e.g. that time when I was working on a bug that turned out to be a regex issue - specifically, someone assembled a regex by concatenating some string constants, and didn't notice a subtle bug. As I fixed it, I decided to make sure such bugs don't happen again. I started writing some utility functions, and... few days later, I ended up committing a small library for making regexes via composition, which structurally prevented the class of bugs like the one I was originally fixing. Suffice it to say, those few days could've been better used on some other tasks. After that experience, I learned to pay attention to early signs of going too far off tangents. That's definitely a med problem - before diagnosis, my procrastination would've stopped me from pursuing such tangents too far.
(Or, in other words: meds make it easy to do the tasks that, before, I had to fight myself to do - but that fighting also served as a filter, forcing me to repeatedly consider whether the thing is worth doing at all.)
All in all, I'm still adjusting. Many of the changes - both positive and negative - take a long time to become apparent.
Thanks, that meshes with my experiences. There's definitely a theme of "unlearning" for me.
I don't see it as stickiness, I see it more as effortlessness, because it's so easy to continue working on something, but I recognise the description. I'm dealing with it by exporting the "what am I doing?" question to text - in other words, being really really explicit about my thinking by writing it down. I have a log running in a Slack window that often has things like "ok, we're gonna take a step back, and think about the steps we need to take to accomplish the goal. First we X, then we Y, etc". I'm essentially rubber ducking my executive function.
Huh, I'm doing the exact same thing, though off-line - I keep a "running log" in Org Mode. A new file every month, and in that file, a new heading for every day, and under that heading, I just type. 90% of it is just me talking with myself. I do it both at work and for personal stuff (two different set of files on two different computers, of course). It's the only thing that I know can reliably ground me, that can keep me focused to at least some degree, no matter how bad I feel, and that can help me process and deal with emotions.
I'm reading this while having my mailbox open on my second screen containing various high priority issues that I should _really_ take care of. Ironically the more I have to do, the less I finish.
Luckiyl my adhd meds should kick in in about an hour making it much easier to focus on taking care of things.
It’s interesting that we know and appreciate that there will be more work tomorrow and next week, but when you see it in advance, it pushes you to the bed.
One thing that [somewhat] helps me with it is breaking down the next thing into a list of pretty trivial tasks on paper, while leaving the rest at where it came from. Makes you focus on what’s here and now. Out of sight, out of mind. Doesn’t work 100% but helps a little if I manage to forget the rest enough.
I do a similar hack: when I feel especially "procrastinaty" and can't seem to get into doing the thing I'm supposed to I break things that I have on my plate down to lists with sublists that often have sublists (that often have sublists, recurse).
It's not always useful, but it does eventually consume enough resources to starve the anxiety thread and some of these lists end up as the (pre)analysis for the tasks I'm supposed to be working on.
Sometimes I don't get a good list for the task I'm currently expected to solve but I make progress on some other thing that piqued my interest. This helps me justify spending the time on just making lists because not all of it is useless and lessens the anxiety about not getting anything done.
When I do get a good enough list for the thing I'm supposed to be doing I usually feel less anxiety about doing it because I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.
Another hack : just pick one thing from the list and do that really well. All the rest is a bonus.
Another one : learn to say no -and this is a big one and difficult in some cases- but setting boundaries can help. Some people just never communicate that they are swamped. Ask your manager or higher up on what they consider a good days work and how it differs from your experience.
There's a ton of different tips and everyone's different. In my case no amount of list making has ever really helped because I still got easily distracted, either by external factors ("Hey, could you have a quick look at this?") or by myself ("Fiddlesticks, I completely forgot that I wanted to do x an hour ago!" repeat ad nauseum)
The meds help me to actually stay focused on a single thing instead of every distraction completely throwing me off and not getting any work done at all because I'm doing 6 things at once and constantly starting them from beginning
i'm in more or less exactly the same boat, only i got diagnosed officially with adhd yesterday and wont receive any medication for a few weeks. hoping it's not a misdiagnosis and life becomes a little easier.
People with ADHD might have benefit from working together. It’s called doubling and originally made for people with ADHD. One of them is https://www.caveday.org/.
If I was going to be taking meds I would be hoping life becomes a LOT easier, considering the risks to disrupting the body's natural equilibrium. You should be very cautious of any drugs, especially mind-altering that must be taken frequently.
To those who come across this, ignore the ableist bullshit. ADHD medications are generally very effective. The biggest side effect is the asinine stigma they bring from people with zero understanding of ADHD or basic biochemistry.
This is very defensive. Of course they are effective, but there are very few studies on the long term effects. Common sense says that dosing your body with neurotoxic amphetamines over a long period is not good for your central nervous system. Take it everyday if you want, but don't pretend to know about the safety of long term use.
There's very little evidence it causes any problems. Some of these medications have been in use since the 60s and most have at least 20 years of data behind them.
>neurotoxic amphetamines
That's deliberately loaded terminology. Amphetamines are neurotoxic but not at the doses used therapeutically (obviously). Everything is neurotoxic at a high enough dose.
>The drugs own warnings are pretty bad
All drugs have pretty bad warnings:
Each year, the side effects of long-term NSAID use cause nearly 103,000 hospitalizations and 16,500 deaths. More people die each year from NSAIDs-related complications than from AIDS and cervical cancer in the United States.
I wish it was easier to focus on psilocybin because in low doses it absolutely obliterates anxiety. Stress becomes a very distant concept that your brain can just brush aside trivially. You can just kinda relax and exist in the present without being distracted by the future.
I started taking an off-label prescription (meant for depression, works for attention issues) a while back, and at first the dose was too high. I’d think, “the trash should go out”, which for a procrastinator usually starts a whole internal dialog full of bargaining about how the pickup isn’t for two days so I’ll just take it out the next time I put something in the can and it’ll be fine. And then go back to whatever I was doing or not doing.
The first time this happened on the too high dose, the next thing I knew I was standing at the garbage can closing the lid, and wondering how the fuck did that happen? Now I was having side effects too but the feeling of mild disassociation was deeply disturbing, and got stronger when the pills wore off and I could reflect back on the day. So we cut the dose by about 40%.
I suspect half of why it works is that anything that treats depression probably also reduces anxiety and self defeating behaviors, in addition to stringing longer lists of tasks together, which is why it works off label for some classes of notorious procrastinators.
I was talking to my therapist about this a couple weeks ago (I’m trying something different now and it’s not working), and I asserted that a procrastinator - or at least an adult one - will never willingly take a mind altering substance that 100% eliminates the thought of procrastination because while it’s absolutely not the best part of who we are, it is part of who we are. Ideally for me, and I think for many others, you would hit the point were your brain still says, “we could do this tomorrow!” sometimes, but you choose to ignore that voice and do it anyway.
I've never met anyone like this, but imagine if you will someone who can't procrastinate. Not someone who doesn't want to, but someone actually unable to leave something until tomorrow.
I think that would raise questions about their wellbeing and health. That seems like they have lost a healthy part of normal function.
The procrastinator in me wants to agree unreservedly with you. But I know that guy better than anything and I can’t trust him.
I suppose that “never procrastinating” could end up looking like a weirder form of stream of consciousness, distracted behavior? Where you mean to go out for drinks but you get stuck yak shaving and then it’s midnight. I’d worry about that guy too. He is wound up way too tight and I think he ends up with a .308 on a clock tower some day.
Seriously, going from someone with serious anxiety to the point of agoraphobia, to someone with relatively normal degrees of anxiety is like turning the difficulty knob on life from "hardcore" to "easy". From "doing nothing every day" to "something is off if I didn't accomplish anything today".
Agreed, which is why for me the most effective way of starting it is doing something even harder first, but with less anxiety like taking an ice cold shower or doing a math proof. Afterwards I usually feel less anxious and the wall towards starting the task being small enough to jump over.
It's actually quite simple for me. I typically don't get any satisfaction from starting and completing tasks I am avoiding. Crossing them off doesn't excite me - not in the least - regardless of all the motivational and time-management pseudoscience around. They simply make me tired and leave me with a feeling that I had wasted my time.
It doesn't help either that such tasks are often chores or some kind of bureaucratic bs meaning they are basically in infinite supply. Once you finished with one there will be another one moved unconsiously from "would be nice to do" to "I should be doing this" category.
Took a long time for my partner to either understand or just give up on policing my chores. She didn’t understand why I would occasionally clean under the fridge or clear cobwebs if the kitchen or the floors were dirty.
I’m not going to ever get to the bottom of my task list. You know it, I know it, my seventh grade French teacher knows it. But if I don’t randomly do something from the bottom, then it will be five years and nobody has every dusted the blinds or vacuumed out the car or cleaned the cupboard doors because I sweep and mop the same floors that will be dirty again in ten minutes and call it a day.
I won’t clean the car again until the blinds are clear and the freezer has been defrosted, but at least it gets done once in a while.
This should be upvoted more. The main reason we avoid doing these bureaucratic things is that they're useless in the long term. They're just part of the games that we play with each other, but it seems that the subconscious is really good at detecting BS and stopping us from doing that.
For most of my life I thought - I am great on a crisis / hard problems, and performing well under pressure, bad at consistently doing small things without anyone looking.
Like all such self identification, it's a bullshit excuse.
Then I thought that I am just adrenaline driven. What excites me gets crushed. What just needs to get done sometime, doesn't.
(I am "high functioning" - manager in FAANG, multiple graduate degrees, father of 2)
Lately a coach helped me realize. What I don't have is a deliberate practice of giving myself time to sort out the urgent from important. Literally reserving uninterrupted time on the calendar to prioritize and think about what to do (vs, do)
The outcome is this allows me to get excited about things I would have previously been dreading.
Eg - "man, I gotta call X contractor to get a quote" is a drag. Giving myself a chance to reframe it like "I am really excited about upgrading our backyard so the kids can play there better. Calling X is the first step to that, can't wait to do it"
It changes it from annoying task to a part of an exciting project. Because if I wasn't excited about the project then the phone call isn't necessary anyway.
Becoming more religious and developing gratitude has helped.
Waking up every morning and recognizing that my children, wife, home, career are all an incredible gift. And all that work around them is a blessing too - to become a better person etc. Really changes your perspective. I am working on it!
As someone who is also manager as well, this last year i've allocated myself 30 minutes a week for myself to go through jira and notes from meetings throughout the week and really prioritize and scrutinize what's in motion and what's in the near term hopper and it has saved me countless hours of scrambling and rushing around to clarify things now that I have them clarified in my head every week.
I mention this because as someone who loves writing code and building solutions who migrated into management roles, this was the thing I would actively procrastinate doing in lieu of "fun" stuff like writing code and collaborating with the team on various problems. This may be more directed to developers who move into management, but the advice itself is good for everyone - dedicate time to organize, prioritize and really clarify to yourself what is going on - weekly/monthly/whatever your schedules look like.
Forcing myself to have time away from devices in general every single day and not do anything is very, very productive. I can use this time to think about whatever I want, and it often helps motivate me to get off my ass and be productive after I get tired of sitting there and feeling bored.
I managed to progress a long standing side project because of this psychology. Asking ChatGPT how to do what I think is the next step is easy, and it generally spits out a coherent if questionable solution. Finding the issues with its implementation gets me into the mindset to continue working on the problem.
Advice-wise, it's like "Getting fat? Consider looking over what you eat and adding more activity to your days!"
It's actually kind of good advice, but it's hard advice, it's hard to actually follow through.
If you go see a therapist, it's often the type of stuff they have you do (challenging thought patterns, asking the hard 'why's). And it actually works pretty well, you can do it yourself too, but that's even harder.
Speaking as someone who has both successfully lost weight and gone to therapy, btw.
If my inaction was a rational decision, would I be reading an article with a title "How to Do the Thing You've Been Avoiding"?
(And no, I haven't unpacked why I feel sad; I tried it a couple times, which is how I discovered my sadness is stored in a bag of holding[0]; in fact, I suspect the bag actually contains within it a portal to hammerspace[1], explaining why it's always full, no matter how much stuff I pull out of it.)
"Just feel happy instead" does seem to work in certain contexts and frameworks [1]. For instance, if you become decoupled from the current agent, that is, you start paying attention that whatever you call you is just an observer of an implementation of an agent and the feeling of anger, hate, envy, and so on is the care of that particular agent, not an absolute, then you can just switch agents, having whatever feelings the previous agent cared about seem as insignificant as it can get.
In practice, being able to sustain the kind of attention required to catch hold of the underlying agent is strenuous, drugs [2] could maybe help, make it easier to attain the observer state, but its early beginnings.
[1] 2021, Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
The article is more about motivating through excitement than motivating through insight (I call this 'puppy motivation' vs 'insight motivation').
I sometimes have the same reaction to things - I remember once being baffled at the lack of insight in a writing course I was taking, only to begrudgingly admit it was motivating me anyway even tho it was pretty stupid... like a puppy wanting to play.
At least for me I think the root of that comes from a closed mode vs open mode way of thinking [1]. When in closed mode we'll only accept new information whereas in open mode we can be playful and accepting new motivation. Different content demands different states of mind.
Psychiatrists explain this as an evolutionary mechanism keeping us from expending energy on tasks which, in our caveman mind's view, have low probability of success.
Most modern activities are beyond the mind's capabilities in terms of assessing whether it's worth it, so it usually defaults to "no".
One way around it is to imagine the feeling of having this off your back. I found that it helps somewhat.
This is a really fantastic resource. It's basically the content of every ADHD book distilled into a handful of pdfs. They are a bit dense, but the content is golden.
Many of the comments here are about procrastination (and are all very good contributions to the topic).
However the article is more about expanding our thinking and challenging limitations that are self-imposed, which then prevent us from taking certain actions that can be highly significant (if not downright pivotal) for the goals we're pursuing in life.
Personally, one of my favorite phrases is "what if?", in a dreamy, anticipatory mindest of wondering what might be possible. Sometimes this allows me to see that an "evident" limitation can indeed be overcome.
I used to get quite a lot of anxiety with replying to emails, which was absolute nonsense. I would procrastinate and then it would become this huge monster I needed to deal with because on top of the email now I had to apologize for my tardiness. This problem extrapolated to many parts of my life, and I had to fix it. Now, I always try to read emails, especially ones I am scared of, quickly. As you do it you will have less of a negative connotation with the whole thing. You can even give yourself a snack after or something, but getting started is key.
Yours is the only comment I see that recognized this. I may have a false consensus, but I feel like everyone either skimmed the article or only read the title. The title reads as if it is about procrastination and completing tasks, but instead TFA discusses exploring activities you would hesitate to do, and asking those around you for insight if it’s a good idea.
I have a report where the actual project work done is not exactly what was planned, so that's triggering some avoidance. It was hard to start with directly writing the report.
So what I did is the classic 'break it down' but with a pinch of artificial compartmentalization from the part triggering the avoidance:
I tried to focus only on what was actually done (significant in volume of work) switched to itemizing everything that was done first, not directly working into the report template.
I report on each of these items in isolation first, without reference to the plan, which gives me momentum since the pages fill up fast.
The last part is sorting the pages into the report template, according to the work items they fit best with.
Edit: The idea being that the momentum from the documenting of the work in isolation, will carry me through producing relatively little text referring to the plan.
ADHD is one of those "invisible disabilities". It is the same problems other people have: everyone gets frustrated, is averse to unpleasant tasks, gets bored, has to put in effort for executive function, seeks pleasure, et cetera.
I think of it like a mixing desk in a music studio. Where these sliders have all been pushed to varying levels of extremity.
This is why, when you explain it to a more neurotypical person, they will most often say, "oh yeah me too!". But it's like an Olympic sprinter saying that they can sprint, and an average joe saying, "oh yeah me too!". It's a matter of degrees.
> This is why, when you explain it to a more neurotypical person, they will most often say, "oh yeah me too!". But it's like an Olympic sprinter saying that they can sprint, and an average joe saying, "oh yeah me too!". It's a matter of degrees.
You excellently summed up something I've struggled a lot with since being diagnosed a couple of years ago.
This thing (ADHD) has permeated every aspect of my life in incredibly significant ways since I was a kid, and life made much more sense post diagnosis. Much much more. But, one of the hardest things to deal with - which I didn't expect - is that everyone I told would just respond, "yeah me too" (relating to the "symptoms", not saying they had a diagnosis) - essentially (without them intending to) invalidating my diagnosis. Or at least that's what it felt like - to the point that I've just stopped bringing it up. (Apart from in random HN threads... :)
And I totally get it, because I would probably have said the same thing if a friend told me they had OCD. I now know that my "OCD" tendancies are very clearly "not OCD" and to describe them as such risks trivialising the challenges for people who genuinely have this condition.
So I don't blame anyone really, but it does add to the "invisibility" of dealing with what from the inside feels like a very real and challenging condition and from the outside often just makes you look and act like a "bad impression of a human".
A difference of degree can turn into a difference of kind.
Lose 5% of your leg strength? You might not even notice. Lose 95%? You can't walk.
This is what it's like for ADHD people. The impairment is enough to make it difficult to keep a job, difficult to maintain relationships and difficult to keep up with pretty much any complex aspect of adult life.
The executive function deficit that comes with ADHD means that you don't have as much control over those emotions. The discomfort of the task is overwhelming and so you avoid and procrastinate. The fact that avoiding the task is rooted in emotion isn't exacerbated by ADHD, it is ADHD.
Really well said. It's really hard to describe to neurotypicals because while they experience avoidant behavior and lack of motivation, doing the dishes doesn't feel like being tasked with penetrating a foot thick tungsten wall using only your teeth. They just think you should be able to do waves hands something involving bootstraps so therefore you're just stupid and lazy.
At the worst of times, when I had a university assignment I would sit at my desk to do the assignment and physically feel a repulsive force from my work. Like a really strong gust of wind.
And now I have unlocked middle school memories of staying up all night, alternating between lying down from exhaustion to forcing myself to sit and write a few words each round for my English essays that day.
Yes and it often be a physical response too like my arms will start to have phantom aches when forcing myself to do something my adhd is screaming against.
This. For me it's occasional chest pressure, and constant phantom hunger. It's like my un/subconscious mind decided to go to war with the conscious part, and is using bodily sensations as weapons.
Medication made a life changing difference in my case. It's no longer a problem at all doing the things I want or need to do, like getting deeper into hobbies or starting on work projects I'd been dreading.
It was surprisingly easy for me - I went to adhdonline, took a long questionnaire, next day got a diagnosis back from a doctor who reviewed my responses, and the day after that I had a 30 minute zoom call and a prescription to pick up the same day. Not sure where you are but this service is available in almost every state in the US.
A low dose stimulant like the methylphenidate I got isn't the same as getting high on meth. For someone with ADHD it just brings them up to feeling normal. I have a family history of drug abuse too but I don't think it's a good reason to avoid legitimate medical treatment.
That service sounds kinda fucked to be honest. With the right crank doctor, I can get most anything honestly - see everyone on Tik Tok on steroids.
>A low dose stimulant like the methylphenidate I got isn't the same as getting high on meth. For someone with ADHD it just brings them up to feeling normal. I have a family history of drug abuse too but I don't think it's a good reason to avoid legitimate medical treatment.
How about I'll make the call on what drugs I put in my body, thank you. You don't know me, my family, or my history. If you think I'm taking mental health advice from someone on hn with a My Little Pony fetish, you're fucking crazy.
It's his brand, though—of course he'd be that way for an interviewer.
Which leads to the next slightly annoying bit—author was reluctant to follow up because Jimmy Fallon is a celebrity, which isn't said explicitly but is essentially the crux of the whole article.
Apart from that, "Hey, ya never know" is not terrible advice, but it's also a lottery slogan.
I've read a lot of ideas about how to do the thing I've been avoiding. I'm fairly convinced that the only way to do it is hire someone to get on my case and not let up until I get it done. Pay up front so that I can't get out of it by stopping the payments. If I get a friend or family member to do it, it'll sour the relationship and I don't want that. If I get a machine to do it, I can ignore or turn off the machine and that defeats the purpose.
But heck, I'm not gonna spend money on that. So here I am.
This actually worked surprisingly well for me. I hadn't gone to the gym in months and it was always a question of: why is this day going to be the day I start?
I used this personalized chat-based service, where I said I will pay 1000$ if I don't go tomorrow. Like magic, there was no way I wouldn't go.
I also used it for shipping a small side-project in 1 week. I procrastinated for 3 days, and then felt this real panic-inducing pressure 2 days before the deadline which forced an incredible moment of focus (like cramming before an exam).
This approach is great when you need ignition from a cold-start to provide that initial momentum which is so important.
Required knowledge and skills. Required knowledge and skills to get on my case are much easier to find than required knowledge and skills to do the thing I need to do.
If you are lucky your spouse is that right person. 24x7x365 of being on the case. It worked for me. The challenge is, I told avoid telling her things that I want to avoid. :)
Not doing something is actually neutral because it can happen for healthy reasons as well as not so healthy ones. Labelling someone as "lazy" implies that not doing stuff is wrong and is a moral failure of sorts.
In my understanding, "lazy" literally means "one who does not do what he ought to". It is completely descriptive, provides absolutely no new information beyond the obvious, and is only used to assign a value judgement to someone.
And yet people use it in circular arguments all the time: he is not doing homework because he's lazy. If we expand "lazy" to "does not do what he ought to", we get: he is not doing homework because he does not do what he ought to. So sky is blue because all skies are blue... Not really useful for anything except guilt tripping a person, because laziness is bad.
I think there's more to it than that. "Lazy" implies that you don't have a reason for not doing what you ought to do. For example, I might not do something for a myriad of reasons:
- I might have more important things to do
- I might be ill
- I might be missing some prerequisite
- I might be resting because I need my energy for something else
- Someone told me not to do the thing I ought to do
In all of these cases, I'm not doing what I ought to do, but I'm not lazy. Lazy implies that there is nothing preventing me from doing what I ought to do.
If that's the case, lazy is something that never ever happened. There is always a reason. Here are a few more of them:
- I don't want to do it, but I'm afraid to tell you this;
- It seems the task requires a degree of sustained focus that is beyond my capacity;
- What? I'm hyperthyroid;
- I'm busy being afraid of something that could happen to me soon, over which I have no control, or the only control I have is to turn a probable bad thing into 100% sure bad thing; because of that, I am fully on auto-pilot and unable to process anything that requires expending effort to stay focused;
- What? What task? Oh sorry, I was busy trying to calm myself down from an anxiety attack and completely forgot. But now you reminding me is shooting my anxiety back, so kindly please GTFO; I may or may not do the thing, depending on how long it'll take me to calm myself down again.
Etc.
"Lazy" is a pure judgement. It doesn't care about reasons - it's a statement that "this person cannot be relied on". Which would be fair if used only to manage expectations, but it's actually used as a blunt weapon - a crude attempt to make someone reliable by guilt-tripping and peer pressure.
EDIT: a few more reasons:
- Whenever I attempt this task, my mind blanks out. Don't know why. But it's so bad that I can't even break things down into smaller steps.
- Two or three times, I poured all my heart and effort into doing this, and not only you weren't satisfied with the results, you actually ridiculed me for them and accused of not caring, while at no point explaining what your definition of "good result" is. So guess what, this thing got crossed off the list of possible things I could be doing, at a subconscious level. I'm unable to recognize this is a task to be done, unless you request it directly. Which I hope you won't. Fuck you.
- (4 year old version of the above) I tried my best, you didn't even notice, told me I did nothing, and even screamed at me. I'm now experiencing a panic attack when you ask me to do it, which blanks my mind out and freezes me in place. You calling me lazy and screaming more and throwing away my toys doesn't help. Good job at parenting you're doing there.
- (with apologies to 'coldtea) The reason you see me constantly "relaxing" and "having fun" is because I'm constantly 5 minutes away from curling up on the floor and crying. There is no "fun vs. work", there is only "fun vs. pain".
All of the reasons I listed are things I've either experienced or dealt with people who were experiencing them.
That's what you say when you refer to yourself. The problem is with how that term is used by people to describe others.
And personally, I've had plenty of days when, if I didn't know better (or if I was an external observer of myself), I'd definitely say I'm too lazy to play videogames. Most commonly, this happened when, after being overwhelmed with work and responsibilities for a while, I suddenly found myself having one or more free days, like really free, completely for myself. Suddenly, all the things I wanted to do instead of working - including videogames I've been dying to play - didn't seem all that interesting anymore.
My Steam collection is full of games - good, interesting games - that I bought and then barely even played, because it turned out they only seemed fun when I was trying to force myself to focus on work, and lost all allure when I didn't have to.
>In my understanding, "lazy" literally means "one who does not do what he ought to".
Not exactly, it means "one habitually does not do what they ought to, because they'd rather relax, avoid hard work, have fun, and so on, and they're not hard-working or even just-enough working to not fall behind".
> It's a value judgment based on behavior observed.
So it's exactly what I said in the first comment - "lazy" just means "one who doesn't do what they ought to". So it's completely meaningless, except for the part of describing behavior, and cannot be used as an explanation - i.e. "he didn't do his homework because he's lazy" is a circular statement.
When I get to a point where I'm second guessing like the author ("Should I follow-up or not?") I try to go with actually listening to what the other person said. In this case, Jimmy said "please follow-up if you have questions" and I'd just assume that that was genuine and so it's fine.
And if I called he could still be like "Yeah, we went over time last time, actually I'm sorry I don't have time anymore."
And so I also try to communicate in this way, just saying things I mean and if I don't want something, I'll also say that. Makes everything much easier. (I'm German, maybe it's also a cultural thing.)
Definitely a cultural thing, but also has to do with neurodiversity; for some reason, a lot of people speak in riddles, they don't say what they mean and/or they don't mean what they say, and you're left having to make assumptions because if you don't get it, that's somehow your fault?
Another factor there is (corporate) politeness and avoiding emotional responses; the amounts of times I've had colleagues go on an angry rant / vent to us (as teammates) over a meeting they just came out of, instead of direct and use that anger during the meeting itself is a lot.
For getting back to Jimmy - I have the feeling that a lot of people default to "don't bother other people, they are busy with their lives" soo many of my friends or acquittances rarely call me or try to get in touch.
Of course maybe they just don't like me :D
But usually I just get over my "don't bother others" inner block and I call a friend or family member and then we setup a meeting for a lunch or just some longer catch up call usually - so in the end they also want or like me enough that we meet after all. But still initial hurdle has to be overcome.
These types of articles act as a kick-starter to reflecting about your own thought-patterns and antagonisms. I'm sure you've read articles or watched videos precisely about procrastination etc. just like this article -- and it did nothing to help you with your own procrastination (and the other millions of people that are procrastinating). Every such article has a goal of "be happier" "be less anxious" "stop procrastinating" etc. but what they're essentially saying is "be happy", or "don't procrastinate" etc. After stating the overall trite, they go into personal details about what worked for them to address the trite. However the details are usually highly personal and won't work for you or anyone really who doesn't have the same belief (system/thought pattern/mentality/personality) as the author. In fact the author mentioned this himself in the article by pointing out that not everyone thinks the same as you (So then: why are you telling us about the implementation details of the solution to the trite instead of really drilling into what thinking led for the implementation to be effective?) At which point do you stop drilling into your meta-thinking? It's hard to know, and it's hard to drill-down as well and as you drill-down things become more personal and not applicable to a general audience.
You're not missing anything, I forced myself to read it knowing that if I put it off I never would. It's just a small amount of rambling about how to write comedy routines. There's really nothing relevant to the HN community in here even if you squint really hard.
Aside: maybe people should stop upvoting things hoping someone will summarize the content in the comments?
I didn't want to read the article, so I finally did that other thing I didn't want to do.
I think that's the secret to doing the thing I'm avoiding; think of something you dread more. Ideally that sacrificial chore is unimportant, or eventually something that can be delegated away or something someone else can be hired to do.
Given the number of people who comment/vote on articles without reading them (everywhere, not just on HN), this seems like a great use case for LLMs. Probably if there was a short summary of every article directly under the title, discussion quality would improve.
The article explores the concept of reevaluating ideas we consider bad and highlights the importance of questioning our assumptions. The author shares a personal experience of interviewing Jimmy Fallon and initially hesitating to request a follow-up call for additional information. However, when the author finally reached out, Fallon expressed appreciation and saw it as a sign of thoroughness rather than a burden. This interaction made the author question other ideas they had deemed bad. The article suggests asking simple questions to challenge our assumptions: Why do I think it's a bad idea? How do I actually know it's a bad idea? Am I the only one who thinks this? What's the worst that can happen if I'm wrong? The author encourages seeking social information and considering others' experiences before making a decision. They also share a personal realization about asking for favors, discovering that it can strengthen relationships instead of burdening others. The article concludes by encouraging readers to take risks, embrace possibilities, and engage with the world to gain experiences and potentially benefit others. The author also refers to a previous newsletter about focusing on one's strengths rather than trying to do everything.
The article encourages questioning ideas deemed bad, sharing a story about Jimmy Fallon appreciating thoroughness. It suggests asking simple questions, seeking social information, and taking risks to gain experiences. It concludes with a reference to a previous newsletter on focusing on strengths.
As someone who's felt both, I can say that this is absolutely not true. The things I've done and regretted have had real, lasting effects and the things I've regretted not doing are only hypothetical.
We regret things we did (some marriage that didn't work out and destroyed our lives, some business decision that was bad, drinking and partying when we should have been getting ahead instead now we're at an AA meeting, spending sprees that left us broke, getting that tribal tattoo in our forehead while drunk, and so on) all the time...
I bought the 52x90 poster where each square is a week of your life. I've filled in significant events. It helps me ensure I keep working on making those events coming.
Finishing homework before a deadline is a great idea, everyone agrees, and it'll cause career issues if your grades slip too much. However, most people still struggle to motivate themselves to do it. Useless.
A better tip is to at least review or read boring work everyday until it's done. Tasks are easier to start if you planned them the day before and don't need to think to start.
Think about how much you do for others. Your family, your community, your workplace.
You have to make you a priority. Pay yourself first I think is the phrase.
What's helped me is making a "shift" for me. Depending on how busy I am, it can be a hour a day all week or if it's slower just pick a single day and hammer it all out. No clocking out early to! :)
This article is not about procrastination, it is not about challenging your preconception of what is a bad idea.
For example, you need to do the dishes, and you don't. This is procrastination, you know it is a good idea to do the dishes, that it has to be done eventually, etc...
But the article is more about say, finally using that dishwasher despite having some preconceived idea that it is bad at its job.
I think people who procrastinate haven't developed project management skills. It's crucial to teach kids from an early age to break down tasks and map it out until the next deadline, wether it be an essay or a test. This way the anxiety greatly diminishes because doing even small amount of work each day will lead to great results over time.
Alison Stout from Bell Tone Synth Works, a synthesizer repair shop, shows the guts and theory of operation of the Mellotron, along with some restoration and repair tips if you own one.
This strikes me as very reductive. Anxiety or executive disorder is usually a better description for a lot of my deadline problems than simply thinking it's a bad idea. Ruminating on the process that makes me anxious about some great task usually makes it worse.
I did the things I was avoiding by finally getting an adhd diagnosis and stimulant medication. Life changing so far, so much easier to do what I want in personal and work life.
If you get to work one day, and there's a frog on your desk, and a job assigned to you to eat the frog, you're going to have to get it done. You can let it sit there and sit there there, but sooner or later you're going to have to eat the frog. Might as well get that job done with and move one to the next, more enjoyable, thing.
We don't eat frogs at work, but we do get many a job you'd rather put off to later.
Search function on HN? Scroll to the very bottom and there is a search box. It doesn't seem intuitive. It seems like it should be at the top of the page.
So one way to jump that hurdle is consider the consequences of not doing it, and how that makes me feel. For example, learning French. I would like to speak French. The consequence of not putting in the hours conjugating verbs means I will not be able to speak French. That makes me sad. I consider that sadness, and conclude I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.
Some consequences are not obvious, but cumulative. I don't really want to go to the stand-up meeting. What happens if I don't go today? Probably not much. But what happens if I don't go for the rest of the week, or my attendance is patchy? It'll be noticed, and I'll have to explain why I am not on the calls. The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.
Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.