I cannot disagree more. You can be lazy about something that brings enjoyment. Laziness is stagnation without regard for enjoyment or perceptions. In other words it is the opposite of ambition or progression. For example you can enjoy playing video games and yet become lazy about it through a lack of effort in that a decline of related goals does not necessarily translate into lower interest or participation.
Spinning the subject into something entirely unrelated, such as sensitivity or self-esteem, completely misses the point and could actually be really harmful advise. If you wish to focus upon or improve enjoyment, self-esteem, or emotional well being the do so with great deliberation but not because you have confused those with effort.
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Think of mental laziness as a lack of mental exercise. Mental exercise, such as tough decisions, actually burn more calories and impact your overall physiology. The only way to fight mental laziness is to increase your own self awareness with a goal for self improvement over time, like working out the rest of your body. Some helpful tools are reminders, taking notes, reviewing prior decisions, and advice from other people.
To fight mental laziness I recommend focusing on these criteria:
* criticality - don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek greater learning
* originality - try something new. A new approach may require a far lower effort and yet may cause anxiety. Confront and appreciate that anxiety directly as part your increased self-awareness
* empathy - empathy is the cognitive exercise of perceiving the situations of other people. Do not confuse it for sympathy, the process of sharing an emotional response. Empathy requires deliberate effort and often does not result in sympathetic state
* deliberation - own your decisions. Take credit for all decisions without fear. If you are afraid to associate a decision with your reputation then somebody will make the decision for you. It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time. A wrong decision in the short term results in learning that can result in corrective decisions that would otherwise be absent.
While I agree with everything else you said, I can't disagree with this more.
If someone else is more qualified or better able to make a more informed decision than you are, then let them! Why worry about whether it was you or someone else who made the decision, when the real focus should be on maximizing the right decisions.
Furthermore, how do you know that a wrong decision early is better than putting a decision off until a future time? While I can think of some cases where this is true, I can also think of a LOT of cases where this is absolutely untrue. Some wrong decisions can be very damaging and irreversible. There are also many decisions that don't affect anyone adversely the later they're made up until some ultimate deadline (like turning in homework when you're younger, or filing applications for an RFQ, or many other similar things); the only reason to finalize decisions for these kinds of things earlier than necessary is to ease your own cognitive overhead rather than actually being better for anyone else.
The hard part about making decisions often isn't just the decision itself, but also in understanding the risks and trade-offs of making a potentially wrong decision now, versus making a better informed decision at a later time, and deciding which is the better approach for any given decision that needs to be made.
That is called delegation of responsibility. If you are not qualified to make a certain professional decision or if such a decision exceeds your delegated responsibility then you need to bring somebody else in, possibly a supervisor. That consideration is itself a decision and it should not be delayed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegation
> Furthermore, how do you know that a wrong decision early is better than putting a decision off until a future time?
Exactly. You have no idea until you can determine the result. If you fail early and have the awareness to recognize that failure you are in a far stronger position for all forthcoming decisions. If you wait to make that decision all the time between now then remains an unknown and you also aren't completing any resulting actions. So not only does risk increase but your productivity proportionally decreases.
It makes sense to wait on a decision only when that decision is both critical and costly and even then the only advantage on waiting is to perform further investigation. There is no advantage in hesitation only for the sake of hesitation, because then you are allowing external factors to influence the conditions away from what you currently know.
> The hard part about making decisions often isn't just the decision itself, but also in understanding the risks and trade-offs of making a potentially wrong decision now
This isn't something that software developers are well equipped for. Other industries have specific processes and criteria for evaluating risk in a uniform and standard way as well as the processes to apply the proper controls. These are basic trade practices that are often affirmed through education and licensing with bodies of enforcement. Software, on the other hand, does not have a commonly recognized ethics enforcement/evaluation body to define these trade practices. In practice most of this is outsourced to security professionals, for example people holding one of the various ISC2 certifications: https://www.isc2.org/ethics/
Delegation more often happens toward subordinates than supervisors, but I don't see how that's relevant. My response here was to your statement that, "If you are afraid to associate a decision with your reputation then somebody will make the decision for you." I was pointing out that someone else making the decision for you isn't necessarily a bad thing as you seemed to be implying.
> That consideration is itself a decision and it should not be delayed.
You seem to be arguing here just for the sake of arguing, even if it means arguing against your original point. By the same logic you're using here, the decision to procrastinate can itself also be a decision, which is actually the entire point of my post.
> Exactly. You have no idea until you can determine the result. If you fail early and have the awareness to recognize that failure you are in a far stronger position for all forthcoming decisions. If you wait to make that decision all the time between now then remains an unknown and you also aren't completing any resulting actions. So not only does risk increase but your productivity proportionally decreases.
Your reasoning seems to rely on the premise that you can only learn by making a decision, which isn't true at all. You can also learn by research, which you have more time to do by delaying a decision. Even without research, there are many things you can learn just by allowing more time to pass and more events to unfold without any deliberate action on your part.
An example of this could be something like submitting an application that's ready today for an RFQ from a large potential customer that isn't due for another month. Then, 2 weeks from now you find out from an acquaintance who used to work for that customer that they always valued some other piece of information being included in the RFQ submissions they review. I can't tell you how many times I've run into similar situations, and procrastinating improved the quality of the final result.
Similarly, most of the time, you'll only ever have more information available to make decisions the longer you wait, not less.
> It makes sense to wait on a decision only when that decision is both critical and costly and even then the only advantage on waiting is to perform further investigation. There is no advantage in hesitation only for the sake of hesitation, because then you are allowing external factors to influence the conditions away from what you currently know.
You're arbitrarily asserting here that external factors can only influence the conditions away from what you currently know. External factors can also influence conditions toward what you currently know. Furthermore, the longer you wait, the more you'll know, which means the more informed your decisions will be.
> This isn't something that software developers are well equipped for. Other industries have specific processes and criteria for evaluating risk in a uniform and standard way as well as the processes to apply the proper controls. These are basic trade practices that are often affirmed through education and licensing with bodies of enforcement. Software, on the other hand, does not have a commonly recognized ethics enforcement/evaluation body to define these trade practices. In practice most of this is outsourced to security professionals, for example people holding one of the various ISC2 certifications: https://www.isc2.org/ethics/
I have know idea what point you're trying to make here or how it's at all relevant.
At the end of the day, I've had enough good decisions come as a result of waiting to make them when I can to know that what you're prescribing isn't a universal truth, which was the point I was trying to make clear.
I've also had plenty decisions turn out to be the wrong decisions, which I would have known if I'd waited another day or two to make them, further reinforcing that quick decisions aren't always better than delayed decisions. Again, the hard part is figuring out when it's better to make a quick decision and when it isn't.
When a subordinate lacks sufficient delegated responsibility they need to call in a supervisor. Delegation flows downward from an authority. When the delegated responsibility is exceeded the authority needs to be involved.
> Similarly, most of the time, you'll only ever have more information available to make decisions the longer you wait, not less.
In my experience that is a commonly believed blanket assumption that rarely occurs in practice. Risks tend to increase over time in the absence of controls enforcement.
> Your reasoning seems to rely on the premise that you can only learn by making a decision, which isn't true at all.
There is a lot of psychology on this. Yes, you can learn some things from books, but the ability to apply what you learn almost entirely takes practice and repetition. There is a world of difference between reading a right answer from a reference and formulating that right answer as a spontaneously novelty from experience. I am not discounting the value of education, but you would never hire a medical doctor who has never touched a scalpel or a trial lawyer who has never performed at trial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_learning
> Furthermore, the longer you wait, the more you'll know, which means the more informed your decisions will be.
This is a logical fallacy called reaffirming the consequent. You cannot know if a decision will be more well informed by waiting unless you have waited and reflected upon that delayed decision. This is a reckless line of thinking since a given risk profile with change during that period of waiting regardless of whether the assertion holds true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
> I have know idea what point you're trying to make here
Assuming risks are an unchanging constant and that the only thing that changes is the information you receive and also assuming there is never cost associated with a delay then yes it would make sense to procrastinate on many decisions, as much as possible, in the hope you will become supremely well informed, but this is extremely unrealistic.
> isn't a universal truth
Its a matter of making better decisions and reducing risk over time. Its not about universal truths. That's what religion is for.
Yes, exactly. You originally described delegation as flowing upward toward authority (so the opposite) when you said, "That is called delegation of responsibility. If you are not qualified to make a certain professional decision or if such a decision exceeds your delegated responsibility then you need to bring somebody else in, possibly a supervisor."
> In my experience that is a commonly believed blanket assumption that rarely occurs in practice. Risks tend to increase over time in the absence of controls enforcement.
Agree to disagree then. I've found that this occurs frequently in practice. I've already given examples.
> I am not discounting the value of education, but you would never hire a medical doctor who has never touched a scalpel or a trial lawyer who has never performed at trial.
In typical hospital settings, patients are assigned to doctors, and they can have little experience; it's called residency. Secondly, are you saying you'd rather work with a doctor with no education than one with no experience? There is a reason that doctors and attorneys with little experience are allowed to practice, but doctors and attorneys with little education are not.
This does not even include the fact that doctors and attorneys are _constantly_ reading and researching from studies (for diseases and treatments) and case law (for precedents), respectively, for which they have little to no experience.
> This is a logical fallacy called reaffirming the consequent.
No, it's not. What I said has nothing to do with reaffirming the consequent. I don't even know how to respond to this non-sequitur.
> You cannot know if a decision will be more well informed by waiting unless you have waited and reflected upon that delayed decision.
Yes I can, because I'm constantly learning. At any given point in time, I have more information than I did at any prior point in time. So, everything is always more informed the longer I wait. How much more well informed, or how relevant the additional information varies.
> This is a reckless line of thinking since a given risk profile with change during that period of waiting regardless of whether the assertion holds true.
Reckless means with a lack of caution or consideration for consequences. My original response concluded with, "The hard part about making decisions often isn't just the decision itself, but also in understanding the risks and trade-offs of making a potentially wrong decision now, versus making a better informed decision at a later time, and deciding which is the better approach for any given decision that needs to be made."
I would argue your advice is more reckless, since it's advocating less critical thought on a per-decision basis by prescribing a one-size-fits-all methodology for decision making in your original statement that, "It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time."
> Assuming risks are an unchanging constant and that the only thing that changes is the information you receive and also assuming there is never cost associated with a delay then yes it would make sense to procrastinate on many decisions, as much as possible, in the hope you will become supremely well informed, but this is extremely unrealistic.
Whether risks are constant or variable doesn't change whether or not a decision should be made quickly or delayed, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. Constant high risks could mean a quick decision is better, while constant low risks could mean a delayed decision is better. Likewise increasing risk could mean a quick decision is better, while decreasing risk could mean a delayed decision is better. Either scenario could go either way, which is exactly why my original point was that you should evaluate on a per-decision basis which is actually better, instead of following a dogma that one is always better than the other.
I also already gave examples where delayed decisions made sense, and they did not involve any of the assumptions you claim to be requirements for a delayed decision to make sense. There doesn't need to be no cost, there can be little cost. You don't need to be supremely well informed, you can just be better informed.
Yes, your reductio ad absurdum argument (speaking of logical fallacies) would be extremely unrealistic as you pointed out. Thankfully, none of those things are necessary for a delayed decision to potentially be better than a quick decision.
> Its a matter of making better decisions and reducing risk over time. Its not about universal truths. That's what religion is for.
The one-size-fits-all prescription to decision making in this original statement is the universal truth I was objecting to:
> It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time.
I was pointing out that this isn't always true (i.e. not a universal truth).
Instead, reframing your goals in terms of serving an intrinsic goal (e.g. 'I do this because it is interesting', or 'I do this because it helps my community') has been shown experimentally to improve longer term persistence at achieving those goals [0].
I'm going to read some of the other comments as well. I must confess, I'm a little bit scared now.
And from personal experience, people who are ambitious in video games are mostly able to transfer that ambition to other areas of life. There was even a paper [1] that compares managing a successful WoW raid guild to managing a company. I had many meetings with both, guild/raid leaders and managers of multinational companies and would confirm that many personality traits are similar.
However, the average gamer probably tends a bit more to the "lazy" side of things but probably the area of application (e.g. job/computer games) is not the right category to explore/define mental laziness.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228773214_Leadershi...
However, I think it's very likely GP has a much more pernicious problem. That is, he is afraid to make mistakes.
The sentence that highlights this for me is -- "I have realized that I easily give up when I face a hard problem."
If you're afraid of making mistakes, you won't be willing to ask questions (in case it makes you look stupid). And, you won't be willing to try something new (because learning something new leads to mistakes).
This fear of making mistakes is often rooted in an extrinsic desire to be perfect. And, based on GP's description, this desire likely came from his demanding upbringing (read: parents).
GP, I highly recommend Carol Dweck's book 'The Growth Mindset'. It's not just OK to make mistakes -- it's often a GOOD thing because it means you're on the path of progress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance
I suspect for some persons perfectionism is a problem, but the frequency with which mental laziness occurs and the rarity with which perfectionism occurs suggests there are different or multiple motivating factors. Perhaps a common answer is that many people are unknowingly willing to sacrifice flexibility and freedom for familiarity and predictability. This is even evidenced by how people write software.
Is this another one of those research findings that propagated into a book but failed to survive peer replication?
This attitude seems to overlook that there can be a tension between present and future fulfilment. There are things you can do (or avoid doing) now that will make your life a lot less enjoyable later on. Activities that 'make you a better person over time' often require effort, discomfort, or sacrifice of some kind in the present (exercising, studying, therapy, etc...).
I don't think it is a good idea to maximise pleasure in the present - at least not at the expense of future pleasure - but to maximise the total pleasure you get out of your life, which will often mean doing something right now that you don't find intrinsically rewarding.
Future happiness holds more value for you personally for whatever reason - this is great! i am happy for you.
an alternative view point which is also sometimes correct is that future happiness holds zero value as you may never get it.
I don't know whats really going on but i basically agree that laziness is not a thing. whether its explained by different weighting of future values or different weighting of the value of doing nothing (also highly rewarding) i think is a moot point.
The advice given by the original comment to me holds true regardless. Also the way it is stated is especially important (as i think anyone who has benefited from such advice would see): step 1: beating yourself up doesn't work, you need a logical argument against that to help your brain adjust, step 2: find a way into doing things without a set end goal in mind, this is to learn the pleasure of doing the thing, not getting to the goal.. that way you are triggering different value / reward calculations in the brain.
Please note i firmly believe there is no one explanation that will work for everyone, you have to factor in their view points and biases while finding the specific language that will fire the right neurons for that person... we are all hear to share perspectives in the hope that they are of value to someone else.
I realise the answer will be personal and only I can provide it but I'm consistently failing and it's impacting my mood
IMO this is the best advice here. The root issue seems to be anxiety, self-love, and judgment.
if your experience of love as a child was conditioned on performance metrics, then any time you go to solve a problem you have to deal with a whole ocean of emotion and trauma that others don't have to deal with.
It will take some work to understand and get past it, and my advice would be not to go it alone. Perhaps find a professional therapist who can help to get started.
When we are physically ill or have an acheing tooth, we seek help from professionals and I bet unless it's a chronic disease, these professionals always have a way of treating it by:
1) Doing a check up,
2) Applying a short term solution (comforting medication, cleaning the infection etc),
3) Giving good advice for long term well-being.
The mind deserves the same level of attention and care. We don't need to wait for a crippling depression to finally act. Depression is the disease of not being able to act afterall.
Living a normal life itself is an enough reason to see a therapist.
I don't believe a god or participate in any religion. But I admit that there was a time when more people went to see their religious community leaders to seek help, even for very basic problems. That was a kind of proto-therapy at its infancy. We lost that with modern civilization and contemporary psychology is still considered a luxury instead of a necessity.
"Lazy" can also be a way of saying you're not doing something _YOU_ think you should be doing.
I agree that other people calling you "lazy" is a projection of _their_ priorities, but the term is also applicable in you describing _yourself_.
I agree that habits are key to success, but I've also found that habits are extremely hard to change. That's why they are so powerful. Once you're in a habbit of doing something it's very hard to fall off that track. This goes both ways too, because once you have a bad habbit, life can get miserable.
I found this book interesting, "Tiny Habits". The author does a much better job of explaining this than I probably can.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0358003326/
(Also note that one of the common definitions of addiction is where you want to do things but cannot because of some habitual behavior. Only you can judge whether that's the case or not, but I would think that's a different type of problem than regular habits)
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Have you met me ?
So two pieces of advice. First, stop judging so much. Do what you love doing and don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Second, find things you love doing that generally make you a better person over time and do those things. This might require trying out new things every weekend for a while. Once again, don't judge yourself; instead find things you truly love that you feel are also good for you. There are plenty of these things for everybody, and each person has his own mix. Never feel like you have to have somebody else's.
A lot of commenters here are using the mountain metaphor. I'd like to say the same thing a different way. Stop being so goal focused and instead become habit focused. You don't want to accomplish some big goal, all you want to do is do fun stuff that makes you a better person. As a result of that, you'll probably accomplish some cool goals. But you'd never do that if you started from zero and tried to guilt yourself into striving towards some goal you couldn't care less about.
Habits are easy to change. The trick is to try new things and start with really, really small changes. Most of life is Zen anyway. You either enjoy doing things and die or you suffer and die. It's your choice.