[mr_gibbins]

When I procrastinate, it stems from the thought, 'I don't really want to do this (right now|at all)'.

So one way to jump that hurdle is consider the consequences of not doing it, and how that makes me feel. For example, learning French. I would like to speak French. The consequence of not putting in the hours conjugating verbs means I will not be able to speak French. That makes me sad. I consider that sadness, and conclude I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.

Some consequences are not obvious, but cumulative. I don't really want to go to the stand-up meeting. What happens if I don't go today? Probably not much. But what happens if I don't go for the rest of the week, or my attendance is patchy? It'll be noticed, and I'll have to explain why I am not on the calls. The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.

Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.

[SanderNL]

> I would prefer to spend the next hour reinforcing my knowledge of the passe compose of avoir. That is better than feeling sad.

But it's not better than catching up on sleep, netflix and/or a great meal with a fantastic conversational partner.

> The thought of the explanation makes me uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than going to the calls. Therefore I go to the calls.

My mind would answer: "I'll take the 10min akward explanation for 5 missed meetings mr Gibbins. No problem."

Why not go to the calls because it is your duty? If nothing else, it makes you dependable and you can be proud of your virtuous follow-through.

Doing things only to prevent the penalty feels like a negative way of looking at things and, for my monkey mind, one that is ultimately doomed to fail. Instead of aiming for the stars, my mind just gets better at dealing with the penalties. It might just be me though.

[KptMarchewa]

>But it's not better than catching up on sleep, netflix and/or a great meal with a fantastic conversational partner.

There's not a lot of pleasure of doing those things if your mind is consumed by the fact you're behind in something else.

[SanderNL]

That's true.

You're probably high on conscientiousness if that's the case though. In which case procrastination is not something you are allowed to talk about because you literally don't know what it is.

Joking of course, but I have quite a few people who score high on conscientiousness around me. I myself am not such a person. I say they have absolutely no idea what procrastionation even means. Being a day late on a minor thing will be an existential threat to them. It is amazing and I watch them as I watch magnificent wildlife. Full of awe and wonder.

[hirvi74]

Then you have people like me who have to go throw the 5 stages of grief to overcome procrastination.

1. Denial of the importance or urgency of the task, and denial of my future self also lacking desire and willpower to complete said task in the future.

2. Anger that I cannot magically will myself into not procrastinating, or anger that I even have to do the task in the first place.

3. Bargaining how far back I can push a task back a.k.a. "I'll have plenty of time to do it tomorrow."

4. Depression because I always mismanage my time, overestimate my future abilities, and seem to never learn from the past -- "why do I always do this to myself?"

5. Acceptance that I am at the end of my rope, and I have to do the task now or I will face some kind of consequences far worse than actually doing the task itself.

[imtringued]

In fact, it makes it even worse.

[mr_gibbins]

I agree, doing things to prevent a penalty is probably worse than classic positive reinforcement/conditioning, doing things to get a reward. It's not healthy in the long-term.

However some things are generally pretty awful (such as standups) and don't really have a positive outcome that's easy to focus on and identify as a reward - not in my place of work anyway, YMMV!

So yes, in this case I could go because it's my duty (and try to feel proud of that!) but arguably forcing myself to turn up by focusing on what happens if I don't is also pretty effective, and is basically just like jump-starting a car - as other commenters have noted, merely beginning the undesirable thing is the biggest hurdle.

[rjh29]

This breaks down when you stop caring about things. Say I want to learn French but ... not enough to put in the work. Give it up right? Say I want to look like a responsible and professional programmer but I still can't be bothered to show up to meetings. Why does it matter anyway? This yields a cycle of self-loathing and powerlessness.

So I prefer to focus on positive rewards for doing things instead of the consequences of avoiding them. And build from there.

[hoc]

I think the best part here is "spend the next hour" on that thing. Don't go for success or finishing anything.

Just spend that one hour right now.

It's the only thing that ever helped me with these blocking situations. Afterwards I'm usually warmed up and curious.

Thanks for reminding me, because I'll only feel the whole overwhelming abstract thing instead if the situation has gotten really bad.

[MobiusHorizons]

For me when a task is overwhelming enough that I have been procrastinating on it for a while, or have attempted to start it a few times unsuccessfully, the thought of working on it for a whole hour is usually too much. But I can usually identify some trivial first step and say to myself “I’ll spend 15 minutes on that first step”. If I can get into the task, 15 minutes can easily become hours, at least until I find some decision overwhelming again.

[hoc]

If it's just 15 minutes, I'll do that tonight :)

But I get your point. I wanted to cite the original comment, though. It's true that the entry point has to be chosen according to the individual and the task at hand... as long as that's not something that has to be chosen so wisely that I should take time to reason about first :)

[MobiusHorizons]

It’s very possible we mean different things by procrastination. I’m describing things I feel enormous pressure to complete, but also feel completely overwhelmed by. In this case I can spend time on the task, but won’t make any progress. Procrastinating is usually done out of desperation, seeking for some way to feel better to hopefully return to the task and make progress. Everything I do is pretty miserable while the task remains to be done. I’m trying to give myself a way to start. “I’ll just do it tonight” would be nearly unthinkable.

[hoc]

Nah, I meant the 15 mins would be even easier to be delayed again. Towards "tonight" right away, because it's just 15 minutes, just to re-schedule it for tomorrow when "tonight" has arrived. It's just 15 mins after all, right. "Could do it anytime..."

I'd think the definitions seem similar. The avoidance strategies usually have slightly different hotspots, though.

[prox]

Just to help you out on speaking French, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_française is pretty good. They have in person classes and you learn quickly with just a few hours a week!

[P-Nuts]

J’aimerais bien trouver un cours en classe. J’en ai ras-le-bol de la formation sur internet. Malheureusement l’Alliance Française la plus proche est a 2h de chez moi. Je m’étais inscrit à un cours intermédiaire d’une autre organisation locale, mais il a été annulé car il n’y avait pas assez d’étudiants.

[Rels]

As-tu essayé italki ? J'utilise ça pour apprendre le japonais.

(BTW awesome French, no weird sentence structure or obvious mistake apart from the missing accent on "est à 2h")

[P-Nuts]

Non, je ne l’ai pas encore essayé. Je suppose que ça devrait être ma prochaine étape, mais je n’aime pas parler en visio.

Pour l’instant, je suis content de lire des livres et d’écouter des podcasts.

[BitwiseFool]

>"des podcasts".

Uh oh!

"Cessez d'écouter des “podcasts”, préférez l'audio à la demande" https://actualitte.com/article/7421/distribution/cessez-d-ec...

I don't speak French but I find the official aversion to anglicisms endearing and amusing.

[monsieurgaufre]

As a french speaking Quebecer, we use "podcast" or "Balado" (short for baladodiffusion https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/... ).

Please do not think that French is only in France. We use words here that french people won't understand and they do the same. And the aversion to anglicisms varies a lot depending on the person (ie "footing", a non-existing word in english in the sense used, is used in France to say "jogging").

[P-Nuts]

I think the official language authorities are fighting a losing battle on that one!

[prox]

C’est trop mal.

Actually I can’t speak or write it fully, but I can understand you for the most part. I didn’t reach that B1-2 proficiency because I got hired around that time.

[P-Nuts]

Probably “c’est dommage” would be more idiomatic for “it’s too bad”.

I got into relearning French during the pandemic. I did learn it at school (age 11-16) but that was well over 20 years ago.

[dboreham]

Quel dommage ?

[mr_gibbins]

Thank you, this is news to me, I've been using the 'Learn French with Alexa' series on YT, plus a French dictionary and some magazines etc. I'll check it out!

[prox]

Great! The nice thing is that the teachers are often French and you can make friends and practice the language at the same time.

[abosherid]

Is there an Italian version of this?

[prox]

I have looked online a little bit, but apart from some cultural centers around embassies not that I can see. They have an official cultural center, but only 80 worldwide vs 1000+ of Alliance Francaise.

Maybe just language centers or local people offering classes might be your best bet. Maybe an Italian aficionado can chip in on this one.

[agumonkey]

The weighting you describe is very interesting, I follow the same process semi consciously. I'm dealing with that right now on multiple front (job, family) and I'm curious to see what it yields to push things around as I see fit.

All this makes me wonder about the art of negotiating.. at the existential level. You only have to do things you didn't refuse in a way (figure of speech). Too often I said yes without asking more details, or said yes to things I didn't really like..

[PreachSoup]

This doesn't work for me or probably some other ppl. My brain's attention would be dragged to the consequences and still won't do the work.

What I find useful is the vomit writing technique. I will just drag myself to get started no matter how horrible the work I am doing in the beginning. But once I started doing, I won't feel so bad. This basically solved my problem.

I just need to start doing and do a shit job, then improve it to be less shitty.

[pxoe]

maybe another way around it is, 'do I really need it' -> 'and what that need is? how do I create a need for it?'. for language, that could be - applying that language. finding something that you do want to apply it to, that really gets you going and gives you joy. like, talking to someone, watching someone, listening to them talk, watching a stream, trying to talk to someone on that stream, reading, watching some piece of entertainment, in that language. and creating that 'need' for a 'want', and a 'want' itself - 'i want to watch those things and interact and chat with people - so i need language knowledge for that.' and maybe that could move it a bit closer. finding those bits that you might 'want' more readily - and then have those things move your goals into more of a 'need and want' zone, where you'd be both feeling a need of something more tangibly, and feel the joy in those things and possibilities of them more acutely and have that draw you in to do something.

and maybe it's also eh, it's counterproductive, but maybe it's fine to just have those curiosities - and have them just be that. even if it's kinda 'non-committal' - maybe that's just kinda the dynamic for it, and that's alright. maybe some knowledge of language is just fine, and it's gonna be enough for watching or chatting, and it could be just those little bits of 'knowledge gain' where you look something up (like a word, definition, etc.) as you come across it, and amass some knowledge that way. this - does not help with 'how to do the thing', but hey - maybe there's also isn't really a need to beat yourself down over it either, over some 'thing about it you don't really want to do' when maybe it's just fine without it. (cause maybe that thing could be a buzzkiller that sucks the joy out of it, only further deterring you from it)

[AnimalMuppet]

> Where this technique is powerful is that it enables me to filter out those activities where there is no obvious consequence of not doing the thing, which means the activities that remain on my daily list are generally pretty important.

This filtering is important. Doing X with a block of time means not doing Y, or Z, or any of A through W. I can do anything with this next minute, but that means that I am not doing all the other things with that minute.

So there are a pile of things that I "should" do that I am not doing. Which ones should I get to (even if that takes finding a way to defeat my avoidance), and which ones do I not need to get to, ever? In fact, which ones should I avoid, because they're going to take the time that should go to other things? I need some way to think about those questions.

[golergka]

That's also the thought process that makes people come through with suicide.

[dTal]

Antidepressants also sometimes give people the get-up-and-go to commit suicide. But in general it's good to have motivation to do things.

[darkerside]

Are you speculating, or is there a source for this? I'm genuinely curious

[golergka]

First-hand experience.

[darkerside]

I can relate. Don't forget that there will be moments that make it worthwhile.

Negative consequences are one important class of reasons not to do things. Positive consequences exist, too.

Sorry if this is annoying. I hope it might help anyone that is down this path.