[loceng]

It could be food-related. Look into an elimination diet ... Also, look into innerchild / regression therapy. There's usually an underlying reason why our behaviours lead to procrastination. Good luck.

Edit: Oh, and yoga's good too. You can train the mind to be more focused. Everything takes practice to get good at it ... focus isn't any different - though with computers and multi-tasking, we sometimes think we're "focused" because we're working, but really we're not focused on any one thing.

[zwegner]

> Also, look into innerchild / regression therapy. There's usually an underlying reason why our behaviours lead to procrastination. Good luck.

I guess I've sort-of known this, though it's nice to hear someone else confirm it... I know that my procrastination and perfectionism are quite interrelated, as whenever I try and work on a project, my mind manages to find zillions of problems with it, I don't get any real stimulation out it, and I return to distracting habits that give more immediate pleasure (damn you HN!).

Perfectionism, in turn, has its roots in childhood stress (at least it does for me). Not getting enough positive feedback for so many years, not believing in myself, etc. It seems so simple in retrospect, but I didn't realize how much emotional stress I had built up my whole life until maybe a year or so ago. Incidentally, I noticed this when I was reading about the causes of RSI, which turned out to be caused by psychosomatic effects (TMS, again, at least for me). So these stresses, left unresolved, can turn into real physical pain.

The human brain is fucking weird.

[nivekastoreth]

I'll grant you that for the most part that's true, but for someone that actually has attention or hyperactivity disorders, telling them to "train the mind to be more focused" is equivalent to telling a depressed person to "train to be more happy". It's good advice, but positive willpower isn't always capable of battling the chemical/receptor imbalances that are the root cause of the issue.

[xijuan]

But by doing yoga and other psychological therapy, your neurochemistry may be changed. That is how cognitive behavioural and mindfulness therapies work. I think in the end, your neurochemistry needs to be changed in order for the therapy to have an effect. But using drugs are not the only way to change your neurochemistry. In short, I don't think he is suggesting that the author of the article to use willpower. He simply suggests that maybe he can try some psychotherapy.

[nivekastoreth]

As I said, it's good advice. But the waters here are much more murky than that. That approach alone won't work for everyone, that's the only point I wanted to make.

[james4k]

You might be right, but it's possible considering all of the modern distractions and passive entertainment we have that it really is a matter of mental conditioning (or something like that).