[HN Gopher] Structured Procrastination (1995) ___________________________________________________________________ Structured Procrastination (1995) Author : rnjailamba Score : 102 points Date : 2022-02-10 21:00 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.structuredprocrastination.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.structuredprocrastination.com) | tandav wrote: | I find it extremely useful to shift focus from "I must get X | result" to what actions I can make right now, like within 1 | minute. | | Thinking about long-term results is stressful, because in reality | you only have short term buttons you can push. | | It boils down to planning route on graph of small well known | actions / api-calls. When the graph does not fit into RAM and you | can't find route for too long you feel stressed, and its better | to play with small actions just for fun. | hypertele-Xii wrote: | Enduring that stress though will develop that very brain muscle | of long term planning. I mean, that's essentially our specie's | defining characteristic: delayed gratification through logical | reasoning. We _don 't_ just do the immediate and obvious | reaction on instinct, and surely postponing decisive action | causes stress in all mammals. It's the pain of knowledge. | Having to wait for a better idea when you could just act now | for a tangible result. | MetaWhirledPeas wrote: | I believe different people have a different response to this | stressor though. In ADHD people perhaps it is greatly | magnified. | | Of course by nature it is unprovable, much like ADHD itself. | But anecdotally speaking I have always had a quite extreme | response when long-term thoughts enter my mind. Those that | fall under the "you must, or else" category can be quite | debilitating, and they never seem to lose their bite. I | remember the same response 40 years ago that I have today. I | have no problem functioning, but I "eat the elephant" the | same way the GP mentioned: one bite at a time. That | particular thought gives me great comfort. Elephants are | delicious. | tandav wrote: | When doing short term nearby things for fun I can keep that | flow state for many hours which usually gives more profit | | If I think about too far goals which I can't break down to | simple actions there is high probability I'll start | procrastinate for many hours. | | Complexity grows anyway as you learn, more advanced actions | will become single button to push. | [deleted] | xpe wrote: | > Enduring that stress though will develop that very brain | muscle of long term planning. | | This looks like a metaphor has gone too far. | | But I'm open to evidence. On what basis might this claim be | true? | | Also, I'd like you to argue the opposite: on what basis might | this false? | gms7777 wrote: | I have a post-it note in my desk drawer that reads "Don't | Prioritize, Just Keep Moving". | | With ADHD, executive function is a challenge, and the moment I | try to slow down and actually plan out an entire day or I try to | force myself to do that one thing, my brain has a tendency to | just shut down. The way I get things done is just by doing the | next thing my brain latches onto. | | Is this ideal? Of course not. But fortunately it (usually) works | reasonably well for my job, and the alternative involves being | more stressed and getting less done. That's not to say I don't | prioritize at all, but I try not to let it get in the way of my | flow. | travisjungroth wrote: | A variation of that I've had success with is prioritizing only | in a dedicated window and ideally automatically. These days | it's that I work on the most important stuff for a few hours in | the morning and drift from there. "Important" in this case will | be pretty obvious. Something more structured is I had good luck | with spending 30 minutes a day on my oldest tasks. I wrote a | script just to pop them up one at a time. It wouldn't be the | most important, but it helped make sure nothing stayed around | forever. I've also done 30 minutes a day on whatever I least | want to do. A small dedicated window is more doable than 8 or | 16 hours and is enough to keep things from getting stuck. | ngold wrote: | As an indy game dev. It is tough to keep on task. I fail | miserably all the time. But I'm better than I was. | grammers wrote: | From my experience, this works with most jobs. Keep in mind | that everybody is procrastinating - so as long as you keep | moving, you might get more done in a day with your approach | than anybody else! | gaoshan wrote: | Does medication help you? I've found that it is not actually | the magical panacea that it is often touted to be. | zuhayeer wrote: | Inspiration is the most colorful when you first come up with an | idea. Which is why the ideas we get dead in the middle of other | pressing tasks, are important to act on right away. That's why I | tend to complete my latest ideas first instead of following | chronology or any set order. | smackeyacky wrote: | Reading that essay, it sounds an awful lot like "Lean | Development"[0], although in my own work I have often found that | things that seem super urgent in one particular moment often | benefit a great deal from setting them aside as long as you can | stand, as that makes the requirements more concrete. It also | means that you don't end up doing work on things that probably | don't need doing. | | I've been putting off (for a long time) one big, complicated user | requested feature on my mobile app to do with archiving/managing | a local database on the mobile device. It turned out that the | things I thought I needed 12 months ago I don't really need at | all, so procrastinating about it actually improved the delivered | experience. | | I do procrastinate, but I think it's a useful trait when you find | yourself dealing with a big organisation that tends to throw off | useless tasks because somebody feels like if they aren't | producing requests, then they aren't being productive (middle | management disease). | | [0]https://www.planview.com/resources/articles/lkdc- | principles-... | mrjangles wrote: | I remember reading a very long time ago that someone did some | research on this very subject and found that the majority of | problems go away if you don't deal with them. They concluded | that this could be part of the reason procrastination exists - | procrastinators had a genetic advantage in saving a lot of | energy. | jll29 wrote: | Procrastination is just a way to enjoy the time passing while the | brain in the background solves the task that - on surface | observation - is avoided. | | (I really shouldn't be on HN, I should be reviewing conference | submissions and grading student exams now.) | cma wrote: | I think that people really aren't working on their taxes in the | background while procrastinating on taxes. | jpthurman wrote: | In the SOF / military community "prioritize and execute" is a way | of life. This works really well on short timelines with clearly | scoped tasks. But when timelines become fuzzy and scopes less | determinate it becomes an unwieldy mantra. The most important | things I have to do require the most consideration - so I find | that I work on them in my head - in the margins of time I have | between the grind of the day - and then when the timeline becomes | critical I have the brainstorming I needed already complete - | then it's time to execute. In the mean time I got a lot of | important things done - as the author suggests. | dang wrote: | Past threads: | | _Structured Procrastination_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24884347 - Oct 2020 (9 | comments) | | _Structured Procrastination (1995)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16941717 - April 2018 (38 | comments) | | _Structured Procrastination: Do Less and Deceive Yourself_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13617083 - Feb 2017 (78 | comments) | | _Structured Procrastination: Do Less, Deceive Yourself, and | Succeed Long-Term_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151481 - Sept 2015 (79 | comments) | | _Structured Procrastination_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2514972 - May 2011 (2 | comments) | | _Structured Procrastination - "the art of making procrastination | work for you"_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=212590 - | June 2008 (3 comments - top comment seems ironic now) | ycmjs wrote: | "Author practices jumping rope with seaweed while work awaits." | | This caption under the photo cracked me up. | cowpig wrote: | Someone close to me read this early in their career and it had a | strong impact on him. I think its effect on his professional life | was disastrous. | | He is a brilliant engineer whose work ethic is deplorable. He | only gets things done if he's either entered a state of | excitement about something, or in a state of panic. He's | completely unreliable professionally, and notoriously difficult | to work with. | | I am convinced that my friend would be much happier if he had | never read this. | | Follow the author's advice at your own peril. | SomewhatLikely wrote: | I also read this years ago and it has stuck with me to the | point I even remembered the yellow background. However, despite | being affected by the idea when I read it and still thinking | back to it from time to time I can't say it has really shaped | how I decide what to do next. For one thing, it still requires | some internal motivation to practice because whatever the next | task is will always be competing with just doing nothing | productive at all. Unfortunately I don't have an answer to | prescribe some better system. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-10 23:00 UTC)