
On Putting Things Off - pepys
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n17/robert-hanks/on-putting-things-off
======
visakanv
I'm very passionate about the problem of procrastination, having suffered
terribly from it all my life. For some people it's a relatively minor thing,
but for others it's debilitating– ruining educations, careers, relationships.

What has been blowing my mind lately– and I'm always doing all the reading and
experimentation I can about this– is how much of this is PHYSICAL. Hanks talks
about headaches and stomach disorders– for me, it's always been anxiety and
loss of appetite. Which leads to low/volatile blood sugar, which leads to
mental fogginess, inaction, and worsens the cycle of procrastination.

If I could go back in time to my teenage days and change one thing, it
wouldn't be scheduling, prioritization, visualization, environment-management,
monotasking, and breaking down tasks into little chunks. (Though all of those
things are very helpful.)

It would be to eat a hearty breakfast every morning. I'm thoroughly convinced
on hindsight that it makes the biggest difference. You need a clear mind to do
all of the hard, messy work of dealing with reality, and to have a clear mind
you need to eat, hydrate, sleep and exercise.

~~~
afarrell
If I could tell my freshman year self one thing it would be that the folks who
say "sleep is for the weak" are full of shit.

~~~
nextos
I attribute my success as a _CS_ undergrad to this, and to not having Internet
connection at home.

A fresh mind and not having the whole world a click away makes wonders. My
home kind of promoted long sleeping hours, no late computing and always
refused to give me access to Internet.

I studied with books and did programming assignments offline. Virtually
everyone else was online already at the time (mid 00s). Even my 80 year old
neighbour.

I missed one discrete math deadline that got changed because I did not check
my email. The prof. couldn't believe my excuse, no Internet at home.

I ranked top 1 of my country. Now I'm happily surfing the web, and being a lot
less productive.

------
toothbrush
“It seems to me that Hughes wanted to be a writer more than he wanted to
write; the difference isn’t always obvious, even to the person doing the
wanting, and talent, which you feel ought to be a clue, may be a red herring.”

Wow, that sounds like me and research!

“Some see procrastination as a rational preference: the procrastinator has
chosen immediate over deferred gratification, pleasure over work. But
generally the failure to work goes along with a failure of appetites: a lot of
the time I’m chained to my desk as a ghost is chained to the spot they haunt.
It doesn’t even have the glamour of writer’s block.”

So much this—instead of working hard during the day then doing something fun
in the evening, one procrastinates all day doing half-fun things (like reading
low-brow internet news sources, _ahem_ ), then spends the evening wallowing in
self-flagellating guilt, and angst, since the deadline slowly comes ever
closer! How to break the cycle? The next time i write a paper, my time
management will be better, i promise! The next review will be in on time,
really! Who is being deluded? The habit must change. That sounds like the
self-flagellation phase, cue the coda!

------
aytekin
"Reading as a way of putting off thinking; thinking as a way of putting off
feeling."

Poetic ending.

~~~
pzone
Perhaps... but it's also psychological science. People routinely play out that
exact pattern.

------
ak39
The article is written with great humility and self-effacing humour and is a
confession of Robert's battle with a condition we all suffer from: a
universally human problem of procrastination. That alone makes this writing
magnanimous.

There is so much humanity and compassion in Robert Hanks's appreciation of
this aspect of his life - and ours. We all wish we could say that's cure
enough though! Self-forgiveness & confessions aren't going to fix the problem
of chronic procrastination ... but what they do is make us _feel_ better. And
that's always a start. Feeling better is Stage 1 of fixing any of our
problems. Starting to fix the real thing, like making lists and ticking things
off and doing Coveyian shit is always going to be Stage 2.

------
draw_down
I put off lots too, but I think I am more like Bartleby. There is just an
endless array of stupid, boring shit that I do not feel like doing. And it
doesn't matter how hard I try to screw up the gumption to power through
tedious shit - I really would prefer not to. I suppose on some level I feel
that it is wasted time either way, so, might as well enjoy wasting it in some
modicum of comfort.

~~~
keithpeter
Just don't complete non-central tasks until someone shouts at you. Then you do
it. Can cut out a fair chunk of the 'boring shit' that most large
organisations ask for. Over time - like a bit of machine learning - you
develop criteria that enable you to identify the 'boring shit' that will lead
to shouting, then you do that first.

