

How to Be a Better Procrastinator - georgecalm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443537404577579033271214626.html

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ScottBurson
Years ago, I was eating dinner at a restaurant one evening, at a table by
myself, and overheard a conversation at another table. "It's my N - 1 theory
of work," someone was saying. "You always do the second most important thing."
It was so true I burst out laughing.

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anusinha
Another relevant article on procrastination:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procras...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procrastination/)

This is one of the original sources on structured procrastination:
<http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/>

~~~
rrmm
The author of <http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/> is the author of the
linked wsj article.

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rdudekul
I liked the advice: First, don't listen to most of the advice offered to
procrastinators. Second, don't sit around feeling bad because you lack
willpower. Third, avoid perfectionism.

Sometimes procrastination happens because you are not prepared enough to do a
specific task or achieve a goal. The article has some concrete suggestions to
address those situations as well.

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jack-r-abbit
Thanks. Totally bookmarked this to read later.

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yellow
Commenting so I can remember to bookmark later.

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nydev
Maybe people who get around to publishing articles in the WSJ aren't really
procrastinators.

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dkarl
Yeah, the universality of certain experiences can tempt people to think
they're afflicted with something when they just have a normal human allotment
of it. Things like procrastination and anxiety may not be (or may be)
distributed according to a perfect bell curve, but they are distributed on a
continuous distribution. Advice from one part of the continuum isn't
necessarily helpful on to people on other parts.

The most helpful and self-aware non-advice I ever got was in Little League. I
asked an older kid how to remain calm when batting in a crucial situation. He
said, "Just think of all the home runs you've hit, and how good people think
you are. They don't think that for nothing. Think of how nervous the pitcher
must be to be pitching to you. If he's scared, why should you be?" He was a
wise-ass, but he had a point. Why should I expect him to have answers that
were applicable to my (very different) situation?

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vectorbunny
It isn't procrastination if by putting it off you might get out of doing it
entirely.

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fotoblur
Love to know when I'm already ahead of the curve:
[http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-
successfully-...](http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-successfully-
procrastinate)

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dredmorbius
OK, good read.

Now, raise your hand if you've ever had a manager who responded to your N - 1
theory of work protocol by eliminating all tasks other than N.

And how did that work for you?

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j_baker
I would imagine such a manager wouldn't have to eliminate all tasks but N. The
simplest solution would be to make N the least important task.

~~~
dredmorbius
Are you hiring?

;-)

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RyanMcGreal
My thoughts on procrastination:
[http://quandyfactory.com/blog/1/productivity_and_procrastina...](http://quandyfactory.com/blog/1/productivity_and_procrastination)

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drharris
Pro tip: if you read this article right away, you've already failed.

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tankbot
But I read this article instead of working so...

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pav3l
Procrastination seems to be a hot topic on HN lately

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rwhitman
Probably because its the reason everyone is here

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se85
Wow,

The whole article read like a description of my day to day life.

I'm a procrastinator and didn't even realize it till now!

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itmag
Has anyone here had success with reducing procrastination using Neuro-
Linguistic Programming?

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tvorryn
There is fairly strong evidence that NLP is not effective:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-
linguistic_programming#Sc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-
linguistic_programming#Scientific_evaluation)

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BerislavLopac
Now I simply _must_ go read the Wikipedia article on Tajikistan...

