The Procrastination Equation - a good new book, IMO

[Spalding]

I am about halfway through. And it must be helping, because today I got a good start on paying bills, instead of dallying like I do most Saturdays. I am only here for a short time for a break - honest! I have done a Leechblock "Lockout" on my favorite Internet timewaster site. At least this one is productivity-related.

The key point of the book that fascinates me is that the author says that one of the biggest causes is impulsiveness, which also sort of fits in with the ADHD that I always diagnose myself with.

Read it!

[cwoodgold]

OK, maybe I'll read it ... one of these days ... :-)

[Spalding]

OK, maybe I'll read it ... one of these days ... :-)

So have you read it yet?



How about now? :p

[mthar1]

OK, so I don't think I'll have the time to read it, but I did skim the reviews on Amazon and found a summary that gave me three good points to take away.
1) Procrastination comes from expecting failure.
2) Procrastination comes from not valuing success.
3) Procrastination comes from being impulsive.
That made a lot of sense to me, and I've made that a short checklist to refer to everytime I notice that I am procrastinating about something.

[TesTeq]

1) Procrastination comes from expecting failure.

Strange generalization. I know people who procrastinate because they expect success and more work but they don't want to work more.

[Spalding]

Strange generalization. I know people who procrastinate because they expect success and more work but they don't want to work more.

It makes sense to me. If you are unsure whether all your hard work is going to pay off, it makes you less likely to invest that work. A good example is the myriad of stupid worksheets a lot of us have to fill out at work, that we are pretty sure will not make any difference to anyone, least of all us. As an Office Space analogy, "TPS Reports".

[mcogilvie]

I know people who procrastinate because they expect success and more work but they don't want to work more.

I know lots of academics who feign incompetence at certain tasks because they don't want to do them.

[Roger]

Strange generalization. I know people who procrastinate because they expect success and more work but they don't want to work more.

In this sense, "success" looks an awful lot like failure. Not to get overly-pedantic about it.



Cheers,
Roger

[supergtdman]

People aren't afraid of more work exactly... Actually people like to get busy and our society rewards this.

There is no such thing as too much "work" because you do "work" all the time. The real problem is about making decions about what to do and what not to do.

More work means more options and more decisions to make.
People are afraid of change and uncertainty and making decisions and mistakes. Afraid to take initiative or responsibility.