A compassionate therapist can also do wonders for procrastination.
Many more of our blog posts and book chapters are more about the emotional side of things. Plus, we do coach people 1-on-1 in our program.
I really like a technique called the "Sedona Method" for releasing difficult emotions.
Not a criticism of the technique (since I have no idea what it involves, although I'm curious), moreso of the optics to someone searching for it. As opposed to something like the Pomodoro Technique which a search for does turn up blurbs about what it involves.
1. Could I let it go? (You can say yes, or no or anything. Saying "yes" is typical because it's just asking if it's possible. Saying "I don't know", is to be generally avoided because it doesn't let you "try it out".)
2. Would I let it go? (Same deal as question 1, but it puts you in the driver's seat in terms of would you take action)
3. When would you let it go? (It's an invitation to say, "now!", but answer honestly)
When explaining the Sedona Method they have you hold a pen and when you "let it go" you physically let it go. That's it. People protest and say, "it's not that easy", but if you do it earnestly you find you have a slight release. Then you just keep doing it over and over again and most stuff just tends to go away.
The way I think about it is that our mind can be run as a powerful emotional simulator, but all emotions are actually real. When we watch movies it's all a simulation but we have a genuine emotional reaction when we watch. The Sedona Method is a process that simulates letting go of resistant feelings that we have, but amazingly it does actually go away. It may come back but like regular exercise you keep chipping away at it bit by bit. Over time it does wonders.
what do you mean by that?
Just a guess:
> jumping straight to proposing solutions rather than working with people to understand the problem 1st. “You think you know enough to solve the problem”. [0]
[0] https://accessgranted.nz/episodes/2016/9/6/ep-98-engineers-d...
I’ve always known myself to procrastinate, but I only think about 1 and 2. In retrospect, I have done 3 in a lot of cases. I just never really thought about it. In fact, I am extremely focused on working on the other task that I’ve always wondered where the motivation comes from.
If I were merely trying to feel better I'd just go for video games or something like I normally do, but there must be something else going on that directs me to focus on simple and useful ways to feel better in the most extreme cases. It'd be nice to capture that in a bottle.
I've traced that to feelings of guilt. I can't enjoy a videogame if I feel I'm only using it to escape and make my situation worse. I can probably enjoy a TV show a bit, for a while, until my brain realizes that it's just an escape mechanism and I get more stressed. But social media in general, offer you a bite-sized escape. There's nothing wrong in taking 2 minutes break to skim comments on a HN thread, or scroll through some funny pictures somewhere. 2 more minutes won't make a difference either. 2 more? And suddenly it's been 5 hours.
So in the end, I don't do the things I have to, and I also don't do the things I want to - all because negative emotions.
(Part of my solution to this problem was just blocking certain sites (like HN) on the router during work hours.)
It's really odd and I'm better off just burning an hour or two on a more intense form of distraction and getting it out of my system. I've found it's worse when my wife is home, I guess it's an urge to keep up appearances, even if she doesn't really care? But when she's out of town I think I get more done just because I chunk time for work and play more effectively.
I've got exactly the same. I know she doesn't care, but the urge keep appearances is still there. I tend to schedule checking out videogames for those times when she takes our daughter to visit her parents - even though she would be fine with me taking a break to play games, I would feel guilty about not spending time with them instead.
Guilt is a funny thing.
HN is really the worst. With other sites I visit, I can at least honestly say it's a pure waste of time. But here, every couple weeks I'll find something that solves a tough problem I have; every year or two I find something career-altering. If I were to integrate ((value I get from HN) - (opportunity cost of time spent here)), I'm not sure whether it's even negative. My monkey brain definitely feels it's positive (magic of temporal discounting). If I spent this time on other things, maybe I'd be running a space company now. Or maybe I'd be depressed and stuck doing PHP for ridiculously low salaries.
Cleaning provides that escape. It gives you a boost of dopamine as well since you're accomplishing something. In addition to that, it's a visual activity - you immediately see progress. It's a super common procrastination activity.
[1] = https://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much-ebo...
"Behavior" here seems to be a boolean, "why we take action or not take action at any given moment", but I think many people who ask how to be more motivated or productive are asking about total output, not just about the ability to begin a task. They might be able to sit down at their desk and start working, for example, but not be able to continue long even after doing all the tricks.
In my experience, there is some sort of "mental energy reserve", and as that is exhausted it becomes increasingly difficult or maybe impossible to do any further productive work. If you are doing a strength training workout in the gym, no amount of "motivation" is going to let you continue lifting heavy weight indefinitely. I haven't seen much research to quantify that "mental energy reserve" or quantitatively measure how different tasks exhaust it.
There also seems to be some task-related inertia.
A simple technique to reset it is to activate the "sigh reflex". You just breathe in twice at a normal pace and then slowly exhale through the mouth.
Another more powerful reset is to do yoga nidra for 10-20 minutes. Yoga nidra, once you figure it out, will actually deactivate the prefrontal cortex and simulate sleep. Which has a huge boost for your cognitive abilities.
Both of these techniques will increase serotonin and dopamine in the brain which will decrease norepinephrine. Once norepinephrine is no longer saturated you can become energized by it again.
For example, imagine a football team winning the super bowl. They've been pushing 110%. Suddenly, they're jubilant and jumping all over the place. The dopamine and serotonin pushes out the norepinephrine allowing to return and become effective again.
And yes, I realize "mental energy reserve" isn't a scientific term, it's just a term I'm using for lack of something better to label something I experience.
Re: the football team though, no matter how energized they are, that team will not be able to lift more than their 1RM (1 rep max), they won't be able to lift their 10RM (10 rep max) more than 10 times (maybe a few more on a good day). Eventually there are physical limits to their ability. Similarly if that team had not slept for 48 hours, or had done non-stop math problems for 18 hours and was asked to continue doing them.
I want to challenge your thought experiment. Consider Navy Seal training. Pushing through via sheer force of will isn't possible. There needs to be a cycling and restorative process that enables above and beyond grit.
Clip of Prof Huberman on "quitting behavior" such as quitting a long bout of work. (Note: Noradrenaline is norepinephrine. It's a weird historical thing where two teams discovered it and nobody agreed on the real name)
https://podclips.com/ct/y4Ucji
Good Joe Rogan with Huberman.
That's exactly what I'm saying. I'll check out the link.
What I'm saying is that you can't push your way through Navy Seal training by trying harder. But you can significantly increase your output and down regulate the process around "quitting" by using other techniques that will trigger the norepinephrine reset.
I think many of us on HN are familiar with being able to work 10-12 hours if we're feeling like we're on the track to success. However, even then, at 10-12 hours, eventually the brain gets tired. That's something that I'm also interested in learning about.
https://www.learningstrategies.com/Home.asp
No affiliation, just a happy customer.
He's got this one guided meditation called 15 minute memory super charger, or some such, I think it's this one:
https://www.learningstrategies.com/Paraliminal/Memory.asp
It gets me nearly every time. I'd say 7 out of 10 times I listen to it I enter an altered state of relaxed alertness, somewhere between awake and and sleep, where I'm aware of my body and mind, but not fully present. Observers say I looked like I was asleep because I start twitching like I'm about fall asleep, but you're aware of what's happening.
Do it a few days in a row and the change in mental / emotional resilience is nothing short of phenomenal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine...
It's a similar way to describe budgeting mental energy reserves, and how some activities lose spoons while others replenish them.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46579000_Ego_Deplet...
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/01/29/another-blow-for-ego-de...
The idea (grossly simplified) is to take those observations of negative thoughts and build a rational response to those thoughts (cognitive part). Then you build a habit of noticing those thoughts and responding with the rational response. It’s far easier said than done, and perhaps best dispensed by a therapist. But these mental tools have been crucial to improving my own mental health.
Some great books on that go into more depth than I ever could include Feeling Good by Burns or Byrne, Overcoming Anxiety and Overcoming Depression.
- how much of society is related to driving up or enforcing overcoming these avoidant reflexes
- the negative feeling is often due to a social obligation that may be distorded. You could renegotiate smaller chunks or different terms.. the idea is that in a different context you might approach it with lot more will.
ps: my current gig is in a national office and I could very well rebrand it as land-of-the-procrastinator. It's an endemic disease where nobody wanted to do things (the way they were asked), any newcomer will be dragged down, ensure a good status-low.
This is the recipe for procrastination (according to us):
1. Think about a task - "I have to do _____."
2. Have an automatic negative reaction
3. Procrastinate - Do something else to feel better.Procrastination is all about escaping negative emotions.
Something makes you feel bad, you do something else to feel better.
Feeling better (reduced discomfort) is the short-term reward engaging in procrastination.
That's why procrastination can become addictive and automatic)