
Why We Procrastinate - canguler
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/why-we-procrastinate
======
cturner
It's an interesting idea - could we deal with procrastination by visualising
ourselves in the future position where the task is not done? I don't think
it's the full story on procrastination though.

Procrastination can be rational. If you have a difficult phone call to make,
and you can't get focus to deal with it, it's rational to not do the obvious
thing of picking up the phone and making a mess of the call.

I procrastinate when I don't feel able to get a task sufficiently into focus
that I can progress it. There's a particular struggle with sequencing steps -
working out a series of things to do to contain the task.

My technique for getting around this is to brainstorm simple things I could do
around my outcome. This could be as trivial as writing a paragraph about why
it feels hard.

After a bit of this, I can string together four or five tasks. Once I have a
sequence of things, I can get some motion. Then procrastination ceases to be a
problem.

Something else I find useful is to accept exhaustion. If I can't sequence, it
may be because of exhaustion. Go and lay on a couch with no intent, and try to
think about it with no pressure. Sometimes new ideas come here. But if I fall
asleep - it was needed. Come back after rest for another go.

~~~
ryanklee
>you can't get focus to deal with it... working out a series of things to do
to contain the task... brainstorm simple things I could do around my
outcome... writing a paragraph about why it feels hard... string together four
or five tasks... Come back after rest for another go.

This is not what I consider procrastination, and I consider myself a major
procrastinator, struggling constantly with time management issues because of
it.

What you are describing is a context of ancillary effort surrounding the task.
These are Things Being Done To Do The Thing.

Necessary but insufficient. Secondary, but nonetheless essential.

Procrastination, on the other hand, is the Absolute Evasion Of All Things
Related To The Task At Hand.

Not lead up. Not preparation. Not sequencing. Not anything.

Anything But.

Do Something, but make damn well sure it's Not The Thing That Relates To What
You Ought To Be Doing.

Email fidgeting. Netflix grazing. Guitar strumming. Water boiling watching.
But not The Thing. And not Near The Thing.

Anything But The Thing.

This is doubly hard when creative (read: conceptual, thinking, fuzzy,
ethereal, imaginative) work is The Thing To Be Done. Because sometimes Not
Doing The Thing is what Needs To Be Done To Do It.

But just as often, _oh man, do we like to fool ourselves_ into even avoiding
Not Doing The Thing Needed To Do the Thing We Need To Do by simply Not Even
Doing That.

If you pack batteries all day into tiny boxes in a warehouse filled with angry
and watchful foremen (I've done this), there's no possibility for confusion
between Getting It Done and Not Getting It Done.

But if you've got 600 words to write on how SEC New Rule 506(c) pertains to
real estate crowdfunding, who's to say that sitting on your ass and watching 7
episodes of Adventure Time isn't integral to your effort. (It's not. But
still, who's to say?)

Don't even get me started on billable hours. That's a whole nother can of
worms.

~~~
CaRDiaK
What you describe here my friend, doesn't seem to be procrastination. The
above are pretty much all the hallmark signs of resistance. An interesting
read; "The war of Art" -Steven Pressfield.

edit: care to explain the downvote?

~~~
squeaky-clean
Also not the downvoter, but I can also see why. Your comment doesn't really
give me much to understand or respond to. What do you mean by it is not
procrastination? You're going to have to explain that. The only thing I could
about resistance in the sense you use was a small paragraph on Wikipedia about
a term coined by Steven Pressfield. So it's probably not something known by
anyone who has not read that book (which does seem interesting by the way,
thank you). Even then, the way it was described, it doesn't sound like
procrastination and resistance need to be mutually exclusive.

Also looking into it (just based on the wiki blurb, not having read the book.
So it's entirely possible I'm misunderstanding it). But a "universal force
that he claims acts against human creativity" sounds cheesy. There's no
external force acting against me when I watch Adventure Time instead of
accomplishing something (I'm guilty of that too), or browse HN while at the
office. I'm just being lazy and doing something easy and enjoyable, instead of
something hard but beneficial. And that matches the definition of
procrastination pretty well.

~~~
CaRDiaK
Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me, I really appreciate the
feedback. I shall ensure replies are more thought out in future. Sometimes it
takes someone pointing something out to me, to allow me to course correct and
I thank you.

I guess I really connected with what you said and it was well written. You
said it in a way that would take me quite some time to get across, and
described it much better than I could. That blended pretty well with my own
experiences. I could procrastinate about procrastinating myself, it's not a
good place and a frustrating feeling. I tried to read as many books and read
about as many other people as possible to try better my understanding of why I
do it so much, so often, despite me knowing a lot of data about it. I believe
what Petsfold is trying to do is to personify procrastination to a
recongizable point, like a character, so you can consciously choose to not let
that character win. That's my main takeaway from the book. It's certainly
helped me. I still procrastinate, but I feel like I know a little more. Almost
like "what is it I'm resisting about x that's making me procrastinate so
much". This can sometimes, not always, help me identify and act on variables
that might be affecting me at that moment in time. Best of luck, and thank you
again.

------
jobu
Keith Chen has done some research about the effect of language on economic
behavior. He also did a TED talk:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_aff...](https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money)

 _What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen
introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a
concept for the future — "It rain tomorrow," instead of "It will rain
tomorrow" — correlate strongly with high savings rates._

It seems like the lack of a future tense in one's language could make it
easier for a person to identify with their "future self" (as the article terms
it).

~~~
Chinjut
How does "It rain tomorrow" not indicate a concept of the future?

For that matter, how does "It rain tomorrow" not indicate a phrase in the
original language that might as well have been translated into English as "It
will rain tomorrow"?

~~~
smorrow
It doesn't have _grammaticalisation_ of time, is what was meant.

It's obviously got at least one word for the future ("tomorrow"), which is
kind of like having a library function strcat instead of just +

Also, English doesn't have a future tense, so there's that.

~~~
lutusp
> Also, English doesn't have a future tense, so there's that.

Has happened, is happening, will happen?

[http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/future_tense.htm](http://www.grammar-
monster.com/glossary/future_tense.htm)

~~~
jacalata
[does happen, will happen], [go, will go] - notice that the active verb
doesn't change from present to future, rather there is an auxiliary added to
mark the tense. Contrast to French where you have [vois/see, verrai/will see]
and the verb itself is modified.

------
visakanv
TL;DR for the busy:

The post focuses on the fact that it's hard for us to think about our future
selves. So procrastination is the result of short-term bias, and a desire for
immediate gratification.

\---

I personally think that's irresponsibly oversimplistic. Procrastination can
get much, much more complex than that.

~~~
irremediable
> I personally think that's irresponsibly oversimplistic. Procrastination can
> get much, much more complex than that.

Well said. I find there are two main reasons I might procrastinate. Sometimes
it's because I'm working on something boring or frustrating, and I just want a
break from it. Sometimes it's because I'm scared I'll fail, whereas if I never
start, I'll never risk that.

I'm trying (with a bit of success so far) to reshape my habits to stop the
second kind of procrastination. The first kind, I don't even consider to be a
bad thing. When I was a child, I learned to program and do maths because I
found "school maths" boring. I read a lot of amazing books because I couldn't
be bothered to memorise facts in a sub-par geography class. Now I'm
(supposedly) an adult, this form of procrastination consists of deferring low-
priority but necessary tasks (e.g. timesheets, marking students' work, health
and safety reviews) and working on cool things that motivate me.

~~~
jabelk
Out of curiosity, what are some of the things you're trying to combat the 2nd
type of procrastination? I've been experimenting with habits and other
organizational systems to use my time more effectively, and it's been going
pretty well so far.

The main thing I do when I realize I'm frittering away time when there's
something pressing that I really should be doing, I think "OK. On xxx Date in
the future, you are going to be held accountable for The Thing. That date is
approaching, and when it gets here, you are either going to fail or succeed,
and the difference will likely be what you spend your time on right now."

This is moderately successful for important tasks with important consequences,
but not so helpful when I really should, say, do my laundry. But I figure that
if I can get the hard things sorted out, I'll slot the laundry in somewhere
later (textbook procrastination rationalizations, yes, I recognize the irony).

I'm also playing with todo lists to help me plan better - keeping everything
in my head is certainly not optimal. I sampled a bunch of methods: so far
Wunderlist has been the best for just straight todos. I would like to change
my habits so that when I'm too tired (physically or mentally) to do
intellectual work, I default to a less demanding task - exercise, errands,
whatever - instead of HN. But that's still a work in progress.

One other thing is that I've been keeping more notebooks. If something
happens, and after the fact I think "Hmm, that could have gone better..." I'll
jot some notes down about what I could have done instead. When the semester
starts (I'm an undergrad student) I also want to start keeping a rough weekly
plan in the notebook, like this: [http://calnewport.com/blog/2014/08/08/deep-
habits-plan-your-...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2014/08/08/deep-habits-plan-
your-week-in-advance/)

~~~
irremediable
> Out of curiosity, what are some of the things you're trying to combat the
> 2nd type of procrastination?

Yeah, like you, changing habits/organisation is a big thing. Another is that
I've set things up such that it's far easier to exile myself from the
internet. I try to restrict my leisure browsing to one VM and my work to
another VM. So on.

> This is moderately successful for important tasks with important
> consequences, but not so helpful when I really should, say, do my laundry.
> But I figure that if I can get the hard things sorted out, I'll slot the
> laundry in somewhere later (textbook procrastination rationalizations, yes,
> I recognize the irony).

I don't mind letting these things languish. If it takes me a long time to do
laundry, so what?

Thanks for sharing your findings about todo lists. My todo list is essentially
the same thing as my calendar, and I wonder if I'd benefit from separating
them a bit.

------
elicash
Relevant Calvin & Hobbes: [http://web.mit.edu/manoli/mood/www/calvin-
full.html](http://web.mit.edu/manoli/mood/www/calvin-full.html)

------
jasonhanley
TL;DR “That's a problem for future Homer. Man, I don't envy that guy.”

------
spindritf
_We humans, Parfit argued, are not a consistent identity moving through time_

Our identity is more stable at some times than others however. Supposedly,
stability peaks mid-life[1]. I wonder if middle aged people procrastinate
less.

Also, how much do people differ in their ability to identify with their future
selves? We know that people have different time preference and some people
emphasize the immediate (discount) more than others. Do they procrastinate
more, too? Is this difference innate, cultural, ideological?

Peter Frost theorizes that viewing yourself as part of this great chain of
ancestors and descendants was very adaptive (maybe even more important than
mastering agriculture) at one time and helped drive human expansion.[2] Which
would make it at least partially cultural.

Finally, some people view procrastination as a fundamentally rational way to
avoid doing work that may never need to be done, like you would a gut feeling
about someone's trustworthiness. This doesn't work in an artificial setting of
term papers but in a complex system you can simply wait things out quite
often.

[1] [http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-
stabilit...](http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-stability-of-
your-personality-peaks.html)

[2] [http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-agricultural-
rev...](http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-agricultural-revolution-
that-wasnt.html)

~~~
visakanv
Yeah, I think procrastination, like laziness, might be better described as
"work aversion". Procrastination and laziness both imply that the "problem" is
with the individual who's afflicted with it, and it also almost implies that
the environment has little-to-nothing to do with it. But there are many
'procrastinators' who actually work really hard at certain things. (World of
Warcraft strikes me as one of those things that actually requires a lot of
hard work.)

So again, for the people who do struggle with procrastination in their own
lives, figuring out how to do something about it (if they want to do something
about it at all!) requires a very thorough self-examination.

~~~
electromagnetic
I've always wondered where the notions of procrastination and laziness came
from. No one actively compromises their survivability through either.

To me it seems like the notion came from our history of servitude. Of course a
Lord is going to pressure his peasants to work harder. So of course the head
of a hide is going to be pressuring his nephews to get working.

Laziness and procrastination only become negative in the concept that we have
to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm sure the generation before Henry
Ford reduced work hours to 8 hour days and work weeks to 5 days thought their
kids were lazy. Who wouldn't when you're working 12 hour days 6 days a week!

My son might be of the generation working 4 hour days 4 days a week. He might
be of the generation where mandatory work is a thing of the past.

~~~
vidarh
> I'm sure the generation before Henry Ford reduced work hours to 8 hour days
> and work weeks to 5 days thought their kids were lazy.

I doubt it... At the very least you need to go much further back than Ford.

While Ford was one of the earlier industrialists to willingly accept and
embrace the 8 hour day, it was by no means his doing. AFL and other unions had
been fighting for working hours reductions for decades by then - with loss of
life on more than once occasion - , and gradually started getting concessions.

The first widespread demands for an 8 hour day in the US happened 30 years or
so before Ford was even born.

The first attempt at introducing 8 hour working day for federal employees
passed in 1868, when Ford was 5.

New York got partial 8 hour working days (for certain traides) from 1872.

In 1889, the Second International agreed with the AFL to make May 1st 1890 a
day for demonstrations in commemoration of the Haymarket massacre, and in
support of the 8 hour working day. And so, the US unions fight for the 8 hour
working day is actually directly responsible for May 1st as the international
day for labour demonstrations.

It wasn't until 1914 that Ford cut working hours from 9 to 8, at a point when
millions of workers in other industries had already achieved it. At that
point, 8 hour working day had been a labour demand for 2-3 generations
already.

------
andy_ppp
I've always found every time I make the difficult choice, the next difficult
choice get's slightly easier. It's a dangerous belief as the opposite might
also be true.

------
agumonkey
I will assume being a suffering procrastinator, but wanna add something.
Sometimes procrastinating feels like the 'creative high', except it's
obviously twisted. I will jump into playing music because I suddenly have an
'idea'. Or will delve into a programming language for the same reason.

It's like a parallel choreography of desires ending being counter productive.

Fight it. (I wish I was taught courage patience and application earlier)

------
prestadige
Considering one's future self as a different person could have the opposite
effect. We might then _sympathise_ with that person, and take measures not to
be mean to him, in the same way we wouldn't be mean to a friend.

But it's a nice idea. Another tendency we have is to shed our skins and not
remember what it was like to be a child. This effects the way we interact with
children.

~~~
visakanv
Some severe procrastinators, I think, also sort of hate themselves and their
future selves, and see themselves as unworthy and undeserving of anything
substantial. The procrastination might be a symptom of depression, etc.

------
istjohn
An interesting solution to procrastination that I just came across is
Beeminder [1], which lets you set a goal and a matching consequence for not
staying on track to meet your goal. If you fall off track, you pay the
consequence.

1\. [https://www.beeminder.com/](https://www.beeminder.com/)

~~~
tokenrove
But the research cited in the article indicates that people are more willing
to submit their future self to consequences that they wouldn't want in the
short-term. That's consistent with my experience with approaches like the site
you cited, which is that it doesn't help me procrastinate less, but vastly
increases my stress and panic associated with a deadline as the consequence
approaches, when it's too late to work effectively.

~~~
istjohn
Actually Beeminder gets around that problem by making you quantify your goal
and then defining a roadmap to reach the goal. If you go off the "yellow brick
road," the penalty comes into play. It's like breaking your overall goal into
a bunch of little goals, but the actual implementation is a little more subtle
than that.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _That 's consistent with my experience with approaches like the site you
> cited, which is that it doesn't help me procrastinate less, but vastly
> increases my stress and panic associated with a deadline as the consequence
> approaches, when it's too late to work effectively._

That GP's quote describes my exact experience with Beeminder. I lost a bit of
money there, while procrastinating even more because of huge amounts of stress
related to failing the task and losing money I can't really afford to lose.

------
rubiquity
Whenever the topic of procrastination comes up I always like to refer to pg's
essay on it:
[http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html](http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html)

Procrastination comes in all various sorts and forms. We have to remember that
things other people perceive as productive, but we know aren't productive to
what we need to accomplish, is procrastination as well. Of course, there's
also the form of procrastination that represents fear of failure.

------
bjt
The examples in the article sound more or less like a wild re-explanation of
the economic concepts of present value and discount rate. With all the
literature available there, it's a shame the article doesn't make that
connection.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_value](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_value)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertemporal_choice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertemporal_choice)

~~~
cauterized
You're confusing a subconscious psychological mechanism with a rationally
applied economic concept.

------
ambler0
Discounting the future self is only one of many possible reasons for
procrastination, which is a complex subject. If you want to listen to a
podcast that reviews the many different lines of inquiry into the subject,
including several branches of science and also philosophy, check out the
iProcrastinate podcast with Dr. Tim Pychyl.

[http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/](http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/)

~~~
roskilli
Listening to a Podcast about procrastination instead of coding on one of the
rare days I get to the office before 8am... interesting suggestion you make
mon frere

------
courtf
In a physical sense, future you _is_ someone else. All the atoms that make up
our bodies are replaced within some timeframe. Sympathizing with future you
shouldn't be predicated on that person having your personality anyway: we are
all more than capable of sympathizing even with complete strangers. Perhaps
we've been procrastinating much worse than we realize on that.

------
sliverstorm
My personal theory is that my lizard-brain procrastinates in the hope that
some percentage of the things it puts off doing, will eventually not need to
be done. (Either they take care of themselves, or turn out to be unimportant)

Basically, procrastination is a rational manifestation of laziness, which as
has been discussed in the past is a survival trait (avoid expending energy if
possible)

------
diminoten
Is there a relationship between one's ability to emphathize with others, and
one's ability to plan for the future?

If we think of our future selves as other people, maybe the folks who can't
think of other people's feelings very well also have a hard time planning for
their future selves.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I think its more of the ADHD never think about the future at all issue.

------
plainOldText
I recommend the book "The Now Habit" to anyone interested in fixing
procrastination. It's a decent read, and you'll learn a thing or two about how
to deal with procrastination.

------
poolcircle
I think in many cases its just a fear or making a start, and possibly failing

------
jonsen
So suicide is in fact serial murder.

~~~
weddpros
I had the clojuresque thought "I'm immutable" too... and it made me rethink
this design choice: maybe I should version myself, to keep in mind that future
me is also me!

~~~
devoidfury
I do this.

Every year or two, I get a tattoo representing an idea or a defining point in
my life. There are a few that aren't in line with the current _me_ , but
they're a permanent visual reminder of who used to live in this skin, so I
love them just as much. Sort of real-life version tagging.

------
personZ
I've written about something similar --
[http://goo.gl/SbveOA](http://goo.gl/SbveOA) \-- though in that case I was
about making proclamations on behalf of future you.

In some ways the theories are at odds. My argument is that people often view
their future selves as the identical person that they are today, just in the
future. That they can't identify that the future person is, in effect, a very
different person. This article posits that people view future person as a
separate person altogether, and screw them anyways.

It is a fascinating topic that you can waste away a day contemplating. Ah
well, future you can do what you were supposed to do today.

------
weddpros
TL;DR for the busy: GO read it. NOW! Not because your future YOU will feel
better, but because this future you IS YOU

~~~
weddpros
I was downvoted for what I think is a fun illustration of what the article
says. I really enjoyed this article.

It was an epiphany... for me. I guess my downvoter didn't see it that way

~~~
visakanv
I relate to how you're feeling. Different communities have different
expectations of what good content is. HN is a tough crowd. Lurk more, read
more.

It's okay to have epiphanies, the challenge is to communicate them in a way
that your audience appreciates.

------
adtelect
I'll read this later.

------
zak_mc_kracken
Looks like an interesting article, bookmarked to read it later.

