Theories of Procrastination (2014)

For people interested in this, I recommend Nick Winters book "The Motivation Hacker" which gives a practical strategy to 'hack' the procrastination equation.

It works, however I feel there are often deep psychological problems and/or health issues causing low 'expectancy' for many people... these reasons differ, are hard to identify, and require hard work to address.

My own procrastination boils down to this: fear of looking stupid.

From the outside, I've been praised on my "thoroughness", my "attention to detail" but those are all positive byproducts of avoiding the visceral feeling of being rejected. Nowadays, whenever I feel the procrastination or analysis paralysis feeling sneak in, I try to switch into "ship ASAP" mentality. Otherwise, it's easy for me to fall into the trap of doing anything but the real task at hand.

Anecdotally, I (and others I know) often break out of procrastinating because of a perceived threat (eg. lower grades, reduced social status). This negative reinforcement can be represented in the equation as value = "lack of punishment", however I'm curious if there's more to it than that.

Well. I am often bored... so I avoid doing things. I have yet to encounter a job without boring stuff to do. Once in a while a nice challenge comes along and my motivation is through the roof again.

Also rebelliousness fits the bill very nicely for me. Combine that with boredom. Et voila.