Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Another HN procrastination topic, yay! I'm late to the discussion, but maybe someone will still answer:

I've been a procrastinator for as long as I remember, and have the following problem I struggle with: whenever I try to force myself to do a task - like any task that isn't fun or just following curiosity - I feel this strong emotional block. The more I force myself, the stronger it gets, quite often turning into powerful anxiety, and sometimes even physical pain. Usually the mental pain itself is powerful enough to dumb me down to the level I am not smart enough to complete the task at hand (perils of working with one's head instead of hands...), which means the work won't get done anyway.

Is this normal? Is this just lack of discipline, as some would suggest? Does lack of discipline manifest itself with debilitating levels of anxiety? Do people here, who overcame procrastination, suffered from something similar at the beginning and don't suffer from it now?

I ask because I've tried the usual tricks - from pomodoros, through commitment schemes (hello Beeminder), imagination exercises, GTD, DeepWork planning, edw519's A/B mode of work... and everything eventually lost to the emotional pain. It's a small miracle that I'm able to get enough stuff done to make ends meet, but I look at how much more I could be doing if I weren't procrastinating that hard, and the very thought of years wasted makes me feel bad.

(#HNTherapy once again, I guess.)

If I remember https://sideways-view.com/2017/02/19/the-monkey-and-the-mach... right, it suggests that this sort of problem comes down to a misalignment or mistrust between your conscious agency and the rest of your brain -- that is, the 'deliberator' and the 'monkey'. If whatever you're doing isn't getting the monkey enough bananas over time, it doesn't care how effective you are at getting Zorkmids or whatever such nonsense you consciously value (nonsense from the POV of the monkey), and it will intervene. The most obvious intervention feels like I-don't-wanna -- find something else to do -- anything else.

Tactical interventions ultimately fail because the monkey, not the deliberator, has its hands on the levers. The monkey can learn that letting the deliberator do its thing and earn zorkmids will ultimately also bring in plenty of bananas, but that has to be true for it to work in the long run.

(I may be adding a few of my own thoughts about how this monkey-and-machine business applies to procrastination -- I don't remember if those were on that long page.)

That was quite a good read, thanks! Among the couple of insights, the concept of getting two conflicting optimization systems to agree by making them trade was something... new to me, at least expressed in that form.

No, it’s not a lack of discipline, it’s not normal, and I think you answered your own question why with your last sentence. It sounds like when you first start a task, you subconsciously decide how likely you are to complete it, based on how fun and interesting it is. For boring tasks, you figure there’s no way to finish it, and that will make you feel bad, and that causes the emotional pain now. The more you push yourself, the worse you feel that you are putting in all this effort and will still end in failure.

A suggestion: do the smallest part right now and then look at that as a success. Meaning, don’t worry about planning the whole thing out, with pomodoros and imagination exercises. Those are hurting you because they are keeping your focus on what your mind perceives as a huge mountain of work. Instead, ask yourself, “what is the most stupidly small thing I can do right now?” Have a task to write a new website? First task is to log into your laptop. Once that’s done, next stupidly small thing? Open your text editor. Start with ‘<html>hello</html>’ saved in “index.html”. Keep just doing to most obvious, tiny thing.

Then afterwards, the hardest but most important part: perspective. Don’t look at how much more you could have done if you weren’t procrastinating —- look at how much you got done over a baseline of doing nothing. Hey, I got rails stood up saying “hello world”, but with postgres behind it and it all checked into git. That’s several more things done than if I had done nothing at all. Go me!

> Is this normal?

Completely!

Have you tried meditation? It sounds like you are over identifying with your thoughts & emotions. Putting some distance between them and the observer (the third eye, so to speak) has allowed me to recognize something as being anxiety inducing, but not have a panic attack over it. Also, try to reframe things that terrify you as challenges. It changes the narrative from victim to hero.

I also enjoyed reading "the war of art" and still find solace in its musings when I am faced with resistance.

> Have you tried meditation?

Mindfulness, to some extent. Much less than I'd like. So far I found it useful in toning down anxiety attacks.

> I also enjoyed reading "the war of art" and still find solace in its musings when I am faced with resistance.

Seen this book recommended a couple times on HN already; adding to my toread list. Thanks!

I timebox and listen to music. Put on some deep gritty blues and sometimes freestyle along for fun. Then just do it.

You're not going to escape the pain, but you can control its duration usually ("OK, I'll do this for 5/10/20/40 minutes then I promise myself a break")

Ever read "The Now Habit"? It talks about the angst & guilt from being a perfectionist about execution. At the end of the day if you are providing yourself and/or family a living, then that is quite a good thing.

On a spiritual note, I find the more I pray and study the Bible, the less I am burdened (anxious) about the outcome of things with no eternal consequences.

> You're not going to escape the pain, but you can control its duration usually ("OK, I'll do this for 5/10/20/40 minutes then I promise myself a break")

Tried that, and - like many tricks - worked for a while. Eventually ended up in a state where starting something is nigh-impossible, but if I somehow manage to do it and survive 15 minutes, then things flow well for the next couple hours.

It sounds like you aren't toning your willpower. I am similarly disposed. It is a constant struggle.

I found that the more I have left things "unfinished" or "waiting on" clarity or resource, the dreaderer it feels to approach anything at all in my life. That has to go.

Finish things. Dox and wrap them up for later, if you have to. Don't leave things out, do make the bed, if something takes 15 minutes do it right now and forget, all that jazz.

The first three weeks of that are excruciating, and you should expect them to be. But the benefits will keep you going after day one. Just keep a tally of what's been done on any given date, and don't make it hard for yourself by putting off preparing for something until it's actually needed. Running shoes for tomorrow morning go by the door. Tonight.

Sometimes I think to myself, 'I'll do just 5 or 10 minutes before I start' and that helps to take the pressure off.

Or if it's mundane, find and focus on aspects that appeal more; can it be done quicker? is it possible to create a better way of doing it?

And for fairly simple tasks, sometimes the right music or radio station or podcast takes the boredom away and passes the time too.

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