procrastination

[knitware]

I suffer from the above and have done since an early memory. I must have been aged 5 and the class were asked to copy words from the black board, I stopped writing the word ‘because’ as it was too long and I couldn’t be bothered and it’s been like that through school and into adulthood.

If I’m tinkering with my bike or doing DIY or car washing etc, I have to keep going until its finished but when it comes to doing a more mundane task I can’t seem to get going, this includes work…

If I’m given a task to complete with a week’s deadline say, instead of starting right away I’ll think ‘great, I have a week so today I can mess about’ instead of, ‘great I have a week so I’ll get started.’

Does anyone else suffer from this?

[surveyor]

Yup. That's why I'm on here now, but will be working until midnight tonight....

[Tonsko]

Completely. It's got a little better now, but at university I had it chronically. To the point where I started writing up my dissertation 6pm the night before it was due in at lunchtime. Got it in with 5 minutes to spare.

This is a nice little write-up about it, and has helped me in the last few years of spotting it happening and getting on with st. Also somewhat entertaining read.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-...
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrast...

Seeing as you've reminded me about it, the irony of reading it again while I've got other things to do is however, not lost.

Edited by Tonsko on Monday 6th October 15:23

[ging84]

you make it out like procrastination is a disorder

basically you don't want to do things unless you are really into them
a lot of very talented and highly motivated things are like this to an extreme degree, they have just managed to get into a position that they are focusing their energy into doing what they love and have the support of people around them to help them hold it together

[madbadger]

I will never say the word "Procrastinate" again,

I'll never see myself in the mirror with my eyes closed.

[Magic919]

Sounds like laziness to me.

[Mighty Flex]

Magic919 said:

Sounds like laziness to me.

This. I'm lazy when it comes to many things. As above, it's often easy to focus your energy on something you want to do (because you want to do it, oddly enough). If you are not interested, the motivation is not there until the imminent threat of something you really don't want will happen.

Dressing it up as anything else, a "disorder" or otherwise, is a really stty excuse and an insult to people who have real problems.

ETA : My post seems thoroughly miserable, although that was not the intention. Bit of discipline helps. Chance are you know how long something should take, but will only start until that long before it has to be done. This is a dangerous game

Edited by Mighty Flex on Monday 6th October 15:50

[THX]

Jesus f*cking Christ.

Admitting that you're fairly lazy isn't a grand confession of some abhorrent crime. I'm massively lazy - once I get my skates on I can grid a job down like the best of them, but getting my skates on is, often, the hardest part. It's just part of who I am, it's a fault, but it's there. You work on it and improve as best you can (maybe we all suffer this 'fault'? But most just get on with things without moaning about it? How would you ever know that? Well, by asking the question. The answer to which is NOT going down that persons throat for asking in the first place)

[Spare tyre]

i suffer fr


i'll finish this off later

[Otispunkmeyer]

Procrastinate massively and I need to stop. I should find a way to ban this place. There must be a chrome app that blocks websites!

Thing is, I don't think it dents my work output too much. When I get something to do that I am either interested in or needs doing right now, I end up blasting through it. Or often in the former case, not blasting through it, but doing it really methodically and experimenting with different things. I've sat for hours many times doing jobs like this, getting really into them and getting a lot done. Then I realise I haven't eaten or had a drink or stood up and moved about in the last 6 hours. Sometimes it feels like I have forgotten to blink as well!

So work gets done in intense bursts, spread out with a lot of idling. I'll often use that intense work period not to do the actual work, but to do something that will make the work easier and quicker the next time. I end up writing lots of macros or matlab scripts in order that the job can then be done in a few minutes rather than hours. Really, the script writing is interesting... the actual job isn't. But you can't substitute like that all the time.