Desrtopa comments on Working hurts less than procrastinating, we fear the twinge of starting - Less Wrong

142 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 January 2011 12:15AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2011 01:54:02PM 11 points [-]

How unpleasant work is, I believe, depends a lot on what part of your work it is.

My work is math. Making progress on math -- learning a new concept, figuring out a proof -- is not only fun, but so addictive that I can't stand to stop it once I'm doing it. Being stuck on math -- incomprehension or being stumped -- is absolutely miserable. You can't do anything but sit and think about how pathetic you are. It is probably not as unpleasant as cleaning toilets (math doesn't literally make your back hurt) but it's up there.

So in my case I think when I procrastinate I'm running away from the more unpleasant part of work (being stumped and confused). Even intellectually stimulating work can suck now and then because it's not always stimulating. A writer has fun writing from time to time -- but writer's block is no fun at all, and I suspect that writers procrastinate when they're blocked, not when they're inspired.

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 January 2011 02:38:26PM 0 points [-]

It takes a lot more than inspiration to get me writing. As with things that I consider work, I find it extremely hard to get any writing done unless someone else is imposing a deadline on me. When it comes to inspiration, I experience it more or less perpetually, but it doesn't come easily to me to make use of it of my own initiative. One solution I've tried is to provide writing for people in collaborative works, but that only works so long as the other people stick with the project.