Re:The Psychology of Dreaded Tasks
by tomerv on Tuesday June 12, 2018 @08:32AM
(#17292619)
I have a similar trick. When I need to write something (code, email, etc.) that I don't know how to start, I tell myself that right now I'm only writing a draft. It might turn out to be a final revision later, but right now it's just a draft. This reduces the stress and allows me to experiment. The problem is that it doesn't work for things that I can only do once, like talking to someone about a difficult topic.
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Many people rehearse difficult conversations beforehand. Would that approach help?
Re:The Psychology of Dreaded Tasks
by notduncansmith on Thursday June 14, 2018 @02:41PM
(#17314221)
I’d like to add onto this a bit. The point of rehearsing beforehand is not to come up with a speech to recite, but to give yourself a chance to edit your communications. Often, the brain’s first pass at articulating something is suboptimal, and it takes some critical analysis to refine that into something that fully communicates the desired signal with minimal noise.