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stillyslalom comments on The Power of Pomodoros - Less Wrong
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I feel like this comes close to the definite proof that I should stop paying attention to articles about procrastination on less wrong, because you are all talking about a completely different problem than I have. (Plausible because I'm definitely neurologically weird.)
But just in case: can somebody explain to me how this isn't completely circular? If I knew how to implement the instruction "Work on one thing for that 25 minutes, nothing else." as an atomic action, I wouldn't have a procrastination problem. I notice that I'm confused and I'm not sure that I know what the word "procrastination" commonly refers to anymore.
For me, pomodoros help to overcome the initial feeling of "This task is too nebulous-what am I even doing?", or "A few more minutes of browsing won't matter". The technique seems to lower my activation energy by providing a visible short-term goal, along with positive reinforcement when the timer rings. I've been forcing the issue by making a Beeminder goal for daily Pomodoros, with a $5 sword hanging over my head should I fail.
Interesting. I'm familiar with the "This taks is too nebulous-what am I even doing?" but it isn't a source of procrastination for me exactly. Usually it's a cause of spending well over 25 minutes stuck in thought loops trying to figure out what to do, and what I actually need to do is talk it through with somebody or at least think out loud.
"A few minutes of browsing won't matter" matches procrastination for me, but even your short comment suggests a different context for the quoted phrase than I experience. For me "A few minutes of browsing won't matter," isn't part of the problem, it's a symptom of it, or even an instinctive attempt to solve it. You are implying that thinking such things causes you to browse instead of starting the task. For me I say that in order to guilt myself into not starting a longer-more immersive fun activity, thus giving up on the task.
For me procrastination consists of cycles of (look at website-try to start task-attempt fails-stare at nothing until boredom requires me to seek a stimulus-seek stimulus in something like browsing where the attention chunks are smaller so I'll be able to try again sooner-look at website...)
Is this not the usual phenomenon? To clarify "attempt fails", what failing looks like is this, my mind seeks to give the command to do the first step of the task, but afterward I notice my muscles have not moved.