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Interesting Article on Procrastination

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This is an interesting article. I am unsure about its accuracy however. The item, "a failure to think about thinking is kind of iffy. But I am sure it provides some useful insight about procrastination in general.

The Misconception: You procrastinate because you are lazy and can’t manage your time well.

The Truth: Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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Thank you very much for posting this. I do not think about procrastination at all since I believe I manage my time well and this should change.

Best quote from article:

You must be adept at thinking about thinking to defeat yourself at procrastination.
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

He really lost me in his comparisons.

Especially the Netflix one about how most people have hundreds of movies in their queues they'll likely never watch.

I think the most I've ever had was 30. Right now I have seven.

Even if I had a bunch of movies in my queue would it really be procrastination if I didn't get around to them? Most people I know put stuff in their queues so they don't forget about them- not as a to do list like "mop the floor, laundry, do dishes, clean cat-box".

And what does preference in entertainment have to do with procrastination anyway? (The Mask vs Schindler's List vs Sleepless in Seattle experiment)

He's comparing procrastination and delayed gratification and that doesn't make much sense either.

Then again, I just glanced over the article quickly, maybe I'll read it more thoroughly later.

But probably not.

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He really lost me in his comparisons.

Especially the Netflix one about how most people have hundreds of movies in their queues they'll likely never watch.

I think the most I've ever had was 30. Right now I have seven.

Even if I had a bunch of movies in my queue would it really be procrastination if I didn't get around to them? Most people I know put stuff in their queues so they don't forget about them- not as a to do list like "mop the floor, laundry, do dishes, clean cat-box".

I think the point was simply that most people's intentions about their future actions end up not resembling those future actions very closely at all.

And what does preference in entertainment have to do with procrastination anyway? (The Mask vs Schindler's List vs Sleepless in Seattle experiment)

Schindler's list was put forth as an example of a movie that most people feel they "should" watch at some point, rather than a guilty pleasure movie; the point being that most people's imagined future selves do what they know they "should" more often than people's actual, present self when the future actually rolls around. He's saying you have to plan around that, if you want to beat procrastination you have to know that when that future time comes, you'll still feel like slacking off or watching a guilty pleasure movie, so if you expect yourself to be better in the future, you should try to trap yourself into it somehow. Drive to a library far away from your computer in order to work, or pay for the movie you "should" watch ahead of time or something, and you'll be able to better hold yourself to your future plans and intentions.

It's an interesting argument. I struggle with procrastination a lot, so it's definitely something I think about.

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