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srdiamond comments on My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination - Less Wrong
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Low expectancy can be a sign that you're doing things you might be better off not doing. The impulse to procrastinate can be a sign that you're absorbed in lost purposes or inefficient low-utility activities that come from cached habits. If that's true, you may be better off not doing them at all.
In my experience, delay is best reduced by other people. Committing to hard deadlines, working in an environment where people see when you're not doing anything. Sounds low status, but is actually effective.
I'm highly suspicious of approaches that only aim at changing your psychology or perception, without changing the practical context. You can't reduce impulsivity by choosing to be less impulsive, you can't reduce delay by internally committing to a deadline if no one else checks it, there's no realistic chance of increasing value of many productive activities to the point where they would naturally compete with the best leisure activities, etc. Be careful not to waste time and wellbeing by telling yourself stories that don't actually solve the problem.
I apply this perspective to writing in the series "On the irreversibility of writing: Procrastination and writer's block" In essence, procrastination in writing often means you're not ready.
A related point—Recent research shows procrastination is promoted by the far mode. But what doesn't seem to have been understand is that this is in part because of far mode's advantages. The reason we go to far mode is that’s where our goal- and value-based thinking gains traction. What it comes up with are solutions implemented in the future because that’s the function far mode serves. Described in near mode, fine grain, these solutions are termed procrastination. In far mode, they are good example of solutions implemented in the future, at which far mode excels. To the extent we rely on our goals and values, we have few degrees of freedom with respect to the construal level at which we apprehend them.
Which is to say, procrastination is often an attempted solution to a problem, and sometimes isn't so bad a solution, although it's derogated in near-mode thinking, which tends to value output, without the far mode's regard for genuine productivity.
Procrastination is the price of the unregimented life, since habit, routine, and occasional acts of will power are the only near alternatives.