pianoforte611 comments on Stupid Questions February 2015 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Gondolinian 02 February 2015 12:36AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (198)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Grothor 03 February 2015 06:42:38PM *  4 points [-]

I have this issue with motivation. I need to clean my house, but I have a difficult time getting myself to do it, unless I think I can finish it all at once. For example, based on past experience, it takes me around three hours of focused effort to get things from where they are now to satisfactory, but I only have ninety minutes. While I could get half-way there now, and finish up sometime later in the week, I imagine myself working hard for 90 minutes, and still having a messy house. Then I do something else instead, unless I'm in a state where cleaning seems less unpleasant than usual.

Does anybody have advice for combating this problem?

(edited for a typo)

Comment author: pianoforte611 03 February 2015 06:58:41PM -1 points [-]

One of the most popular LW posts ever is on this topic:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/

Comment author: Grothor 03 February 2015 07:07:31PM 1 point [-]

Yes, I've read that. Thanks for the reminder.

I think I'm having trouble with the 'expectancy' part of the equation. That is, I know that I will fail to complete the task now. Or, maybe you would say that the immediate value is almost zero.