

Low Skills Cause Procrastination - lionhearted
http://chestergrant.posterous.com/low-skills-causes-procrastination

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davidu
Strong disagree. I procrastinate out of boredom, not insecurity.

When I'm engaged, even if it's new territory, I'm on fire.

When I'm bored, it's painful to get through certain things, and it makes doing
the dishes or laundry look appealing!

For most people, procrastination is a lack of will power to do that which we
do not wish to do even though we know we must.

As an side, for just about all people, drugs like adderall and friends WILL
help you be more productive, though it comes with its own consequences (lack
of creativity in some, jitters, easily agitated, loss of apetite, etc.). And I
do mean it would help just about anyone who took it, not just those diagnosed
with ADD.

~~~
chipsy
Counterpoint: Player psychology in every video game, ever. If an overwhelming
amount of features are presented all at once, most players quit before
reaching the "good parts." Cognitive overload. I have watched players
literally squawk in distress because an otherwise simple game gave them too
much, too quickly.

Hence design strategies now tend towards ultra-gradual tutorialization with
areas of instant gratification. Designs relying primarily on player discipline
to master the content or make optimal decisions(notetaking, mapping, manual
arithmetic) have all but disappeared, leaving those mechanics that allow
success to feel intuitive and perpetually within reach.

Once basic mastery appears, something else happens: Players start willingly
doing boring, tedious things in an effort to carve out the "last bits" of
improvement. Micromanagement, speed-runs, grinding, statistical analysis, etc.
The key thing is that these aspects only appear towards the back-end of the
game's skill progression, after players already have confidence in prior
technique.

And as it happens, the same is true of most technical endeavors - building on
the fundamentals is how you grasp more complex stuff.

For me, there's usually a long period of "book study" where I nibble around
the edges before I go in and attack a learning problem head-on with lots of
practice. This process, though it has some caveats, lets me work from
preexisting relationships more easily and adds "insurance" that I can retrieve
value from all practice time.

~~~
davidu
Agreed, but what you describe and what you say you do are not procrastinating.

One observation is that procrastinators are rarely delusional about what they
(are not) doing. It's a genuine lack of willpower or a feeling of apathy.
Neither of which are symptoms of low skill.

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jrockway
The author thinks that CSS and Javascript are boring because he doesn't know
enough to get to the flow level. I disagree. CSS and Javascript are boring
because they involve a lot of task-switching and trial and error. Stuff like,
"Oh, this should be not be floating to the left" and "uh oh, the code dies in
IE with no error message".

I don't think ignorance is _the_ reason people have trouble writing
Javascript. I think it's because writing Javascript for the web sucks. (I like
node.js 1000x more than Javascript for the web. But it's the same programming
language.)

~~~
pyre
It doesn't help that there isn't some 'central' place as a resource for
Javascript (e.g. php-docs for php, python-docs for python, ruby-docs for ruby,
etc). Where are the Javascript docs?

~~~
Sargis
Mozilla developer center? <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide>

They even changed their design. I'm surprised nobody talked about it.

~~~
pyre
I know about the MDN docs, but:

\- No offline version of the documentation.

\- No distinction between Firefox-only features. (as others have mentioned)

\- No mention of Chrome/Safari/IE-only features.

Are the MDN docs _really_ seen as the 'canonical' reference to JavaScript or
are they just the most accessible reference?

~~~
vog
The MDN is of course specific to Mozilla.

If you are interested in the official standards, please have a look at my
other comment where I summarized them:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2045151>

------
dillon
I respect your reasoning but I have to disagree. As a programmer when I am
stressed or worried then I am working on the issue non stop until it's solved.

When something is easy you aren't stressed thus you aren't going to work on it
immediately. When the issue becomes something stressful, because of time,
that's when you begin working on it.

Therefore I'd have to say that we are pushed to work hard when we are stressed
whether it's having low skills or having very little time.

I'd say when you are able to finish your project in a short amount of time,
that shows you have a high level of skill, but if you have low skills and
start it immediately and give the same results that shows a high level of
skill in the form of determination.

~~~
arethuza
"I am working on the issue non stop until it's solved"

If it is a genuinely difficult problem I've found that the most productive
approach for me is to ensure I have all the facts in my head and then go and
do something else _completely_ unrelated. Usually some kind of solution will
present itself at 3am or while I'm having a shower....

Of course, this approach doesn't work with all problems but it certainly beats
hitting your head off a brick wall.

~~~
billswift
It depends on the kind of problem. Your system works great for a concept
problem; but for a detailing problem, especially a tedious one, you just have
to keep hammering.

------
kvs
Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Masterminds
Series) (Paperback) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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te_chris
I agree with this. I'm still quite new to development (around 2 years since i
began learning) and sometimes It's way easier to read another book or article
or whatever than actually do the job because I don't have the experience to
execute the task at hand so I "prepare" - whether productive or not. It's a
habit I'm trying to break and reading this helps knowing i'm not the only one.

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knodi
Maybe procrastination is just another word for planning for a programer.

~~~
jamesbritt
Was talking with some friends about conferences and preparing a talk. One
fried says that JavaOne requires slides in advance, forcing you to get them
done by a fixed deadline. "Without that deadline you just procrastinate."

My other friend replied, "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Procrastination gets a bad rap. I think of it as "late-binding for ideas".
Like late-binding in software there's some overhead and it's not always the
best choice, but demonizing it is bullshit Protestant work ethic run amok.

~~~
jtheory
I think real procrastination richly deserves the rap it gets.

If you've ever found yourself frantically slaving away at priority # 10392
while priority # 1 goes all to hell, and you're miserable because you know
exactly what you're avoiding (and what it's costing you), you'll have some
idea of why procrastination has an evil reputation.

I think your point is more that "be the labor great or small, do it well or
not at all" is absolute crap advice. I'm absolutely agreed with you on that.
There are also tasks that _should_ be delayed, because they may change or even
prove unnecessary if you put them off.

Procrastination, though... chronic procrastination (and a whole slew of
psychological defenses that grew around the basic action paralysis) has pretty
much destroyed my father's life, work, relationships, etc.. I've had my own
issues, though I do a lot better now than in the past.

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mattiask
Being bored is certainly a big reason for procrastination, when you know
exactly what needs to be done and it's just a matter of putting keystrokes to
the keyboard I tend not to be terribly motivated (a trick for these cases is
to trick yourself by having an interesting podcast or video on in the
background)

Another big reason however I've found is being in a state of "overwhelm", when
you have a too large array of problems and tasks it can easily led to
procrastination since the problem seems insurmountable. The only recipe for
this I've found is to concentrate on a small aspect of the problem/solution
and start there, then start on the next and so on

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j_baker
It seems to me that procrastination is possible in just about any quadrant of
the map except the top right. Relaxation can cause procrastination, albeit a
more pleasant procrastination than apathy or worry. If anything, I'd argue
that relaxation causes worse procrastination because of the "I've got
everything under control" feeling it gives you.

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6ren
What if your skill at learning new things is high?

I sometimes think I'm using a specific skill, when I'm really using skills of
learning that specific skill.

Once I've accepted the reality of my situation, the learning is enjoyable...
even to the point of "relaxation/control/flow".

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Aegean
Trouble is in a startup you always try new things you are not skilled at.

------
farnsworth
This is the most depressing thing to read while procrastinating.

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zackattack
I love the diagram. Z

~~~
ztan
The thing i find interesting about the diagram is that it feel like the center
point should be some sort of balance point, but in fact it is just medium
skill with medium challenge lacking a descriptive word.

