[janjan]

This is not true for myself at all!

Actually I think in my case all the stuff you read about procrastination does not really aplly to my procrastination:

I think I am one of the worlds worst procastinators and it took me about 10 years to figure out what might be the main reason for my behaviour. It has nothing to with all the stuff you read in all these procrastination books. It's not about the fear of failing, it's not about the fear of winning, it's not some kind of rebellion against some outside force as you pointed out. It's something completly different:

I never learned to do (unpleasant) stuff!

When I look back on my childhood now, it's very obvious what went wrong: I grew up as a very very spoiled kid which never had to do anything "unpleasant". Did not want to clean up my room? No problem. Did not want to help my parents with preparing lunch? no problem. Did not want to do homework? no problem.

From all those years growing up I can remember only one occasion at which my mother tried to force me to do something. But since I was already 12 or so that this time, she gave up after 10 minutes.

I never learned to endure the "stress" or "pain" of all those unpleasant things I have to do (washing clothing, cooking, ...) so it's very hard for me to do them intstead of just browsing the internet and get instant satisfaction.

In combination with some above average intelligence and a very big portion of luck I was still able to study with good grades and I'm currently in my second year of a PhD thesis. For me it's hell on earth! Giving lectures, preparing papers, filling out forms, applying for grants, ... I postpone all of this stuff all the time not because I am afraid i could not do them or because they are pushed on me from the outside. I postpone them because I never learned to actually _do_ unpleasant stuff.

Does this makes sense? English is not my first language and the topic is quite hard to describe.

[Jem]

I grew up having to pull my weight. I'm one of 6 - it was just not possible for us all to get the attention we "deserved" without helping out. I was cooking meals at the age of 9 and helping out with the laundry shortly after. I cleaned my room, helped look after the pets, babysat younger siblings, etc.

And yet I STILL hate having to wash clothes and cook for my family. I know that they need doing, but I too will often procrastinate instead. I would rather be at my computer than at the cooker, at my daughter's side than at the dishwasher...

Is it my mother's fault? Did she push me too hard, or not enough? No, it is MY laziness that is the problem.

Stop looking for a cause, looking for someone else to blame: you are responsible for your own path.

[janjan]

> Stop looking for a cause

Actually I stopped looking for the cause a few years ago because I found it ;)

For me, finding the cause was very important, because for years I only knew what I did wrong but not why. I read a lot of books and articles about procrastination and never felt any connection to the explanations given there. Am I afraid of failure? Certainly not. am I presured from the outside into doing stuff I do not like? Yeah, sometimes, but this only explains 10% of my procrastination. There are a lot of explanation but none of those I read about did fit my specific behaviour.

Only after I found the explanation I gave in my original post, everything felt in place and I understood why I am procrastinating. This was a very liberating moment since everythin suddenly made sense and enabled me to work on changing my self.

[__rkaup__]

How are you changing yourself, now that you know this?

[Jem]

Sounds to me like everything fell into place because you shifted the blame to someone else; absolved yourself of responsibility. IMO this achieves nothing in the long run.

But whatever makes you happy, I guess...

[Tichy]

Can you learn to do unpleasant stuff? What does that mean - that your will is broken? Unpleasant stuff is after all unpleasant.

I managed to see some positive things, for example when I do the dishes I enjoy the clean state of the room afterwards. Or in general I try to see cleaning as a workout. But you can only trick the mind to a degree...

If procrastination really is there to prevent us from doing stupid tasks, maybe it is not desirable to learn to do unpleasant stuff. It would mean circumventing that protection.

Thinking about it, maybe the way to learn doing unpleasant stuff is really to look at the bigger picture and why it makes sense to do the unpleasant stuff. If it doesn't make sense, not doing it might be the right decision.

[timwiseman]

Can you learn to do unpleasant stuff? What does that mean - that your will is broken?

I would say that it generally means the opposite, that your will is strong.

Getting yourself to do something unpleasant can be difficult, even if you know the long term benefits are there. It takes a strong will to make yourself do something unpleasant without the threat of an external punishment hanging over you in the short term.

[Meai]

Yes, although I think procrastination (just like any psychological problem) is very complex, and I fear that we waste too much time trying to analyze these, therefore making the saying "just do it" or "suck it up" an appropiate response, which as you rightly discovered, got lost on modern parents. Sure, there may be some combination of emotional and logical constructs that will perfectly explain why I'm procrastinating..but then what? If logical reasons could convince us to work, we'd all be working at our top performance.

[janjan]

"[...] therefore making the saying "just do it" or "suck it up" an appropiate response, which as you rightly discovered, got lost on modern parents"

I had a discussion with my mother about this. To make a long story short she raised me this way because her father was a very very strict person. She had to work all the time in the household and therefore did did not have a nice childhood at all.

When I was born she decided that i should have a much better childhood... The result: I had a perfect childhood (from the viewpoint of a child) but now I am plagued with some serious procrastination problem. In contrast my, my mother is one of the most organized and reliable persons I know.

[markyc]

It's never too late to start being proactive. It's tempting to find scapegoats when things get tough, but that's actually of little help. Better to take control and start doing. (it sounds like oversimplifying it, but actually industry breeds industry, while laziness breeds depression).

So start small, and do one proactive thing right now :)

[usedtolurk]

I would be careful about jumping to that conclusion. Perhaps you would procrastinate just as much if you had been forced to do unpleasant chores. No way of knowing for sure.

[nametoremember]

Sorry but I don't see how you got through a degree (and a masters) without having to do unpleasant stuff.

[janjan]

I think there are some reasons for this:

- I am always very lucky. Even if I put almost no effort in any kind of project it always comes out at least ok.

- My bachelor course was more or less a joke. The description of the single classes always sounded totally impressive but in the end most it was just rubbish and very easy.

- The master course I attended was a pure joke. If I had put any effort in it it would have been possible to pass it with almost perfect grade.

- I got my PhD position through pure luck and some personal connections.

- I am VERY good at pretending that I am actually working

So all in all I just perfected the art of procrastination. For example, when I was in the military service (not US), I more or less had to smuggle myself into a local military base for a few weeks because I was just to lazy to get a new id card.

[georgieporgie]

when I was in the military service (not US)

So, how did you make it into the military service without learning to do unpleasant things?

[janjan]

I totally forgot about this: This whole military thing itself was just the result of procrastination.

Getting in the military was not the problem. Not getting drawn and doing something alternative was just too much effort for me at that time.

[mantas]

You know, in some countries you're still drawn into the service, no questions asked

[TeMPOraL]

I'll second janjan's comment. I can completely believe that you can get through a degree being a total procrastinator.

Somehow during the course of my university I've perfected my skills of presenting projects. I recently realized that I can get even a totally half-baked, barely working project to get a good grade, just by talking and spending an hour more on design than everybody else[1]. It wasn't until recently that my friend pointed out that I've learned to subconsciously depend on this and thus not working hard on anything.

Also, I find doing presentations, talking, doing design touches, or implementing weird things (like animations in MATLAB[2]) - pretty much anything except what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment - much more pleasant, much more fun. And I see that you can get far this way at university...

[1] - it's not about faking things, etc. - it's that people really underestimate how much depends on the general 'look and feel' of software, and the way it's presented.

[2] - did you know that MATLAB plot can give you stable 60FPS? ;)

[personlurking]

Makes perfect sense to me. Those who have an inflated "Id" grew up either spoiled or neglected. Being spoiled, you get to do what you want. Being neglected, no one tells you what to do (or what not to do).

[patricius]

I agree completely and feel exactly the same way.