
Procrastination is more about managing emotions than time: study - prostoalex
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45295392
======
bane
One of the counterintuitive things that I've learned is that procrastination
is often a side-effect of perfectionism -- but in cases where the "perfect"
path isn't obvious. It's better to do nothing at all until the perfect path is
understood.

Defeating this is a real challenge and requires serious conscious effort.
People who have reputation as "doers" often gain it by finding the "good
enough" target and driving towards it. Many "do nothings" are really people
who have an overdeveloped desire to "do it right" and can't overcome it.

It's absolutely a matter of emotional control.

~~~
tluyben2
Which is why I am much more productive working on bad code in projects I get
thrown into than starting from scratch. People trust me to fix things and add
features fast in codebases I have never seen before but are known as being
unmaintainable. Pays well by the way. If I have to start from scratch I can
only start if I have the perfect picture in my head or it is better to do
nothing and go hiking. The perfect picture (almost?) always emerges during
hiking/walking though.

~~~
imgabe
The trick sometimes is to write the bad version yourself first, then fix it.
Hard to do when you know there must be a better way.

~~~
stolsvik
Exactly this. Just write _anything_ , and then start improving it.

------
PeterStuer
Purely anecdotal, but observed over a long period and with many different
colleagues:

(1)I see a direct correlation between how much people care about the outcome
of something, and procrastination.

People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off,
are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never
procrastinate. People that care do. I think this goes in the direction of the
article.

(2) People that are stronger at analysis,able to grasp complex systems and the
effects of changes, are much more likely to suffer from procrastination than
those that are less apt at this. This is often confused with perfectionism. In
my experience procrastinators are not looking for perfection, but are looking
for a course of action that will have a reduced negative outcome. This would
be in line with the general 'loss-aversion' [1] bias from psychology.

Tangent: Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my
personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Procrastination is a
symptom looking for but not finding good solutions. As such it is a lot more
likely to be encountered in engaged, intelligent people. Depression can be a
consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process. So you are not
procrastinating because you are depressed, procrastination is a precursor to
depression

[1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-
choice/20180...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-
choice/201803/what-is-loss-aversion)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _People that treat their work as just something they do 9-5 then switch off,
> are detached from the outcome for the project or the client never
> procrastinate._

Yeah, I noticed that too, and always was surprised about it. I've never seen a
detached 9-5er procrastinate. In the field of programming, the only
procrastinators I know are those who show some actual interest in the field
beyond getting their paycheck.

> _Procrastination is often presented as a symptom of depression, but my
> personal feeling is that the causation is reversed. Depression can be a
> consequence of the stress built up overtime by that process._

That... resonates. It seems that it's usually prolonged procrastination that
destroys me emotionally, not bad emotional state causing me to procrastinate.

------
hfdgiutdryg
I'm definitely a procrastinator. I've noticed three things. First, I get bored
with tasks, so I make things exciting by putting them off until the pressure
mounts. Second, I have a hard time actually finishing something and being
content with it. Papers in school, for example, where I could easily turn an
essay into a life-long project, constantly tweaking it, or of course in
software with feature creep. Third, I dread the frustration that will come
from inevitable disappointment in the outcome.

The only thing that has helped me is to break tasks down and use Pomodoros to
track time. It creates some accountability and sense of progress that, I
guess, provides enough pressure to motivate me. For the disappointment, I just
have to remind myself that it almost always takes three tries to get something
really right and try to focus on taking satisfaction in learning from errors
rather than focusing on the sense of disappointment.

Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;)

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
> Some amphetamines would probably help, though. ;)

Amphetamines _can_ help. What they actually do, at least for me, is raise the
stakes. Imagine hyper-focusing on procrastinating.

------
Someone1234
Doesn't this article itself kind of undercut the study by showing that the
brain can be altered through behaviors? What I am asking is, is the amygdala
larger in procrastinators causing them to procrastinate, or did it grow
BECAUSE they procrastinated? A leads to B, or A & B go together.

As an aside, I'd love to procrastinate significantly. It doesn't make me happy
anymore. I've read the books, read the articles, tried the Pomodoro Technique,
nothing. I don't think I have ADHD, since I can concentrate fine, just never
on what I am meant to be concentrating on.

~~~
itronitron
I suggest the following as this has worked well for me in the past.

Make a list of things that interest you, that you want to get done, and break
each one down into a set of smaller tasks necessary to get that thing done. It
doesn't have to be perfect initially, just make the initial list over the
course of a day and rank order the tasks by how easy you think they will be to
accomplish.

The next morning pick one task off the top of the list and either work on that
task or think about how to better define the task to make it easier, this will
often involve breaking it further down into smaller tasks. Some of the tasks
will be easier to work on in sets, and some will be dependent on others. You
can also pick a different task if you want, it is totally up to you.

As you finish a task, move it to the bottom of the list, mark it as complete,
and make notes on what you did and additional paths to pursue. Typically this
step will inspire additional things that you would like to get done, so add
those as new tasks to the top of the list and reorder those tasks at the end
of the day.

To make this easy for yourself, you will need to reserve 20-30 minutes at the
end of each day to update the list, marking and describing accomplished tasks,
adding new ones, and sorting the list.

Windows Sticky Notes is the perfect thing for this as it auto-saves (still
backup though) has minimal editing features and is always there for you :)

~~~
pmoriarty
If you're making lists of tasks and then actually doing those tasks you're not
really procrastinating, are you?

~~~
itronitron
The trick is that while you are procrastinating you add items to the list, or
add more detail to the existing items, so that they are easier to get started
on. Maybe you could call that taking a break from procrastinating :)

------
elorant
What helps me from procrastinating is writing excruciating detailed notes on
tasks breaking them down to the smallest detail. Then all I have to do is sit
down and start coding. It helps me a lot because my mind stays focused on the
task at hand without the need to start analyzing things which most times means
I lose focus. Furthermore, nothing seems daunting when you compartmentalize
it, which I guess is the reason most of us procrastinate in the first place.

The one thing that really does the trick though is to get something out there
and start having paying customers. Then you know that if you procrastinate
you'll lose them and that the best motive to do the work that anyone can find.

~~~
goshx
The detailed notes is one of the principles of Getting Things Done (GTD). I
started using it to help me with procrastination and it is really effective.

~~~
amstown
I love the extensive note taking. I began doing it in high school; I just
write down every single word in a textbook or video about what I will be learn
in class the next few days. It makes class so much more engaging and the
homework is way easier, so I don’t want to put it off as much. I highly
recommend it if you have the time.

------
TeMPOraL
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.)

~~~
abecedarius
If I remember [https://sideways-view.com/2017/02/19/the-monkey-and-the-
mach...](https://sideways-view.com/2017/02/19/the-monkey-and-the-machine-a-
dual-process-theory/) 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.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
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.

------
tonystubblebine
Tim Pychyl is my favorite procrastination researcher and this article is so
good. It’s the most I’ve ever highlighted a Medium article.

[https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-
solve...](https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-to-use-psychology-to-solve-the-
procrastination-puzzle-6e6a56cdd535)

He calls it short term mood repair. Once you realize that, there are a lot of
interesting ways to beat it.

------
bertr4nd
Where I struggle most with procrastination is when making talks or writing
academic papers. I rarely or never procrastinate on coding. I think the key
difference is emotional: if I’m writing something for a computer it just had
to work. If I’m writing something for a human it has to be judged interesting
or worthwhile according to some nebulous criteria that exists in the minds of
the readers.

------
danschumann
I find procrastination is like trying the walk a cat. The cat rebels, making
it as difficult as possible. The cat being your inner child. Ask it what it
wants, apologize to it for being a tyrant, offer it some rewards and then
don't you dare skimp on the deal. It'll turn more dog-like. "Heal the boy and
the man will appear" -Tony Robbins

------
chmike
Emotions are involved, but is it the root cause of procrastination ?

My understanding is that fear related emotions are closer to the root cause.
Fear of failure, fear of imperfection, fear of wasting time and energy, fear
to be rejected, ... I don't think that emotions like Anger, love or sadness
are root causes.

Fear can worsen through time with new painful experiences. But fear can also
be tamed.

One way is by adopting the development mindset. Failure is normal when we
learn and practice. It is through practicing, and thus some failures, that we
get better. No one is borned perfect at something. (See Dr. Dweck's book
"Mindset").

Another way is by analyzing and identifying the root cause of fears. I could
for instance fear to go in kitchens. That would be very disabling. By
searching the root cause, I could find out that I got burned by touching an
oven when I was a toddler. Or I could deduce that the kitchen is not dangerous
in itself. Only the sharp knives and a hot oven are dangerous. One can then
enter the kitchen and avoid the real dangers. Etc.

~~~
posterboy
I don't think it's fear as much as being spoiled. Sure a student dreads
failing an exam, but there's a lot of machinery starting up every time that
fear is invoked, to find apologies and calm, soothing prospects on how it's
going to work out eventually. That machinery existing, not even running
through to a satisfying result, is comforting enough to overrule the fear. The
oversized emotional attachment the article mentions must relate to the
activities done instead of the thing which apparently too little emotion is
attached. What is called Fear of Missing Out.

------
EZ-E
Procrastination comes from anxiety (for me)

When I'm anxious about a task it's usually because I don't know where to start
OR I'm because afraid I'll be dissapointed by how the result will be.

------
eberfreitas
Are there any (legal) drugs that helps to focus or "inhibit" the amygdala or
something in order to be more productive?

~~~
agumonkey
I'd love to avoid drugs. My very limited experience hints at meditation (just
the simple calm, slow, breathing exercise, thoughtless relaxation nothing
more) is very potent. Not enough though but more than enough to keep digging
this trail.

~~~
hinkley
Try taichi or qigong. They can teach you to meditate while standing up, which
makes it a lot more practical in daily life. Just having something invisible
you can do ('work on your standing') in place of fidgeting or getting stressed
out when get stuck waiting for something is remarkably effective.

Anxiety and trauma tend to manifest in disassociating your mind from your
body. Working to bridge that gap can help a lot in dealing with uncomfortable
situations.

Also, just stoop to bribing yourself. If I finish doing my taxes today I'll
get those headphones or the fancy chocolates or my favorite ice cream. Lots of
small wins, even contrived ones, gives you confidence for bigger ones. I have
done this small annoying thing ten times. I can do this moderately annoying
thing twice.

~~~
agumonkey
I did taichi in college (part of a wushu class) and it was damn amazing.

i did the self bribing, it works but not a lot. Hard to be judge and party.
For bureaucracy I'm often more proactive to use the system against itself,
namely giving them willfully stupid forms so they curate the required data,
fill half of it and give me clear directions for the remaining part.

------
afarrell
For me at least, one of the biggest causes is writing and part of that is
having multiple experiences of asking for help and being told to “just write
the thing” or “stop overthinking it” in response to my questions. I’ve gotten
much better since developing the confidence to say to myself “no really. I
need to get the answer to this question.”

So if you are procrastinating, consider the possibility that your subconscious
still remembers that you need some information but some other part of you is
blocking you from getting it.

------
nopinsight
On a related topic, I would add that managing energy is often more important
than managing time, especially if your line of work is fairly intense.

------
hourislate
The following book helped me immensely. I'm sure many of you are familiar with
it. I can't say enough about how great this book is.

The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

[http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf](http://a.co/d/dEjPUgf)

If you need some help with procrastination and not moving forward, a must
read....

~~~
VladimirGolovin
Seconding this recommendation. I just read "The War of Art" and "Do the work"
(another book by the same author), and I wish I'd read them earlier. As a
bonus, these books are a great example of how to write without fluff.

------
hal-eisen
I can't believe no one has mentioned [https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-
procrastinators-procrasti...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-
procrastinators-procrastinate.html) yet

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-
driven_development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development) can
solve procrastination for software developers

~~~
mmirate
(when writing new code)

------
blarg1
I often don't want to write any code before I can think of a good solution,
but at the same time I can't come up with a good solution until I've tried a
bunch of bad solutions.

------
eric24234
People who were procrastinators and have found a trick or technique that has
worked in the long run and have who have made lots of progress please share

------
ISL
The closing lines: "You do have the time. You just need to make it." are
demonstrably false.

One cannot simultaneously conduct Nobel-caliber research, train as a top-tier
professional athlete, be deeply involved with running a serious business, and
spend a fulfilling/requisite amount of time with family. There is not enough
time.

For me, the critical part of dealing with procrastination/perfectionism has
been mastering, and executing upon, prioritization.

The rest of the tips in the article are useful, but that last one, I couldn't
abide (and hence have been delayed by ~5 minutes doing the things I _want_ to
do today).

~~~
sdegutis
At the same time, I look back on how much time I wasted by constantly moving
the goalpost for any given project, or even about what projects I should spend
my time on. And a _ton_ of this was due to me worrying about how to make
money, and which projects would make the most money, and all kinds of useless
questions like that.

But historically, the projects of mine that got the most positive feedback and
have the most users, are ones I did purely because I wanted to, because I saw
a need and knew how to fill it and knew it would be an interesting and
satisfying challenge.

So the other night I decided to go back to that. I've got a _super cool_ new
app that will make Mjolnir/Hydra/Phoenix/AppGrid look like stone age tools,
that I plan to dedicate serious time to. I've also started re-typesetting a
very fascinating public domain book printed in 1885, which I found on
archive.org, and got Tesseract to do most of the work for me last night in
about an hour flat.

So yeah, I can get a lot of really cool stuff done in a very short amount of
time, as long as I _stop worrying so much_ about how things will be provided
for me and trust in Divine Providence to take care of that. That's how all
those other cool projects were made anyway, so I have even more evidence
against my worrying and overthinking it.

~~~
annywhey
There's a lot to be said for a "keep moving" approach to project work. I'm a
worrier with a perfectionist streak, but I do better with multiple projects
because I ruminate less on each one: If I cycle through them over the course
of a day, I forget what I was worried about and just focus on accomplishing
something I had put in the to-do, which levels things out and lets me do more
work at less than 100% when it's called for. When I do work at 100% it means
I'm destroying myself trying to calculate every possible option. The 100% work
only needs to come out some of the time.

------
DoreenMichele
Yeah, I figured out years ago that dealing with my feelings first is the more
efficient path forward, basically.

------
dboreham
Already well known in the literature.

~~~
jarmitage
Then cite it

~~~
dboreham
Fair point. So far I haven't found the underlying papers (Google isn't great
at turning up papers I know I've read about in books, it turns out..) however
the Internet's non-scholarly literature on the subject consistency identifies
procrastination as essentially an anxiety disorder, not one of poor time
management skills. e.g. :

[https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-
the-s...](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-
behind-procrastination)

[https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-
been-t...](https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/6-myths-you-ve-been-told-
about-procrastination-productivity-n763571)

[https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/](https://finishyourthesis.com/procrastination/)

One of the leading researchers in this field is Tim Pychyl. I learned most
about the subject by reading his books and listening to all his podcast
interviews with fellow researchers. It is possible the papers I'm thinking of
are listed on his group's web site. The paper titles tend to be hard to parse,
unfortunately:

[https://www.procrastination.ca/](https://www.procrastination.ca/)

If and when I track down the source research studies, I'll follow up here.

------
mmanzhos
TL;DR Emotions are somewhat studied in terms of how to deal with them, check
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Check out Feeling Good by Burns[1], there are
specific chapters addressing perfectionism. And his podcast on this topic "“I
don’t feel like doing it!” Quick Cure for Procrastinators""[2] (suggest to
find it on iTunes[3]/Spotify to listen with 1.5x speed, episode 053)

I'm going through a stage in my life when I don't enjoy doing things anymore.
Obviously, if a task is considered somewhat hard and I know I will barely
enjoy it, there is very little internal emotional support (motivation?) for
doing it, thus procrastination.

I did an exercise from the book which was to list tasks I did during the day
and mark a satisfaction rate as well as an efficiency rate. All the tasks are
like 10% satisfaction, 99% efficiency. Seems like a mismatch. Then I asked
myself a question "What would a person who does useful and efficient things
tell himself to feel that miserable? What would he think about?".

I got the following, which goes really deep into my internal motivations and
fears: "All these tasks are worth nothing. I shouldn't be happy with them
because I can forget that I don't grow and don't accomplish much in general. I
may end up being a silly guy who only chills and has fun but in fact, has
nothing meaningful going in his life. I shouldn't forget that things are not
that good at the moment and it's too early to relax, to enjoy small
accomplishments. A person becomes weak if he always enjoys what's going on
around."

So if you experience a huge mismatch between satisfaction and efficiency
(paradoxically I naturally have lots of fun doing things I am like 0%
efficient in because I don't know yet how perfect result looks like), I
suggest you to ask the same question "what thoughts could make a person that
miserable?".

After listing advantages of believing the above and deep appreciation of my
beliefs, it became clear that some of them are crazy self-sadistic. Even
though they have the best intentions in the universe (making my life better)
what they in fact achieved was getting me to the verge of having suicidal
thoughts. And now I am doing exercises mentioned in the book and the podcast
to give up these beliefs.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-
Therapy/dp/03...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-
Therapy/dp/0380810336) [2] - [https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-
david-i-dont-feel...](https://feelinggood.com/2017/09/18/053-ask-david-i-dont-
feel-like-doing-it-quick-cure-for-procrastinators/) [3] -
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-
tea...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/feeling-good-podcast-team-cbt-the-
new-mood-therapy/id1171155453?mt=2)

~~~
mmirate
> A person becomes weak if he always enjoys what's going on around.

For any person not retired or similar, this is a _true statement_ , not a mere
sample of "internal motivations and fears".

