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A comment on Procrastinatory Doom Loops. Parent comment

Re:Procrastinatory Doom Loops by beaconstudios on Friday January 07, 2022 @10:27AM (#29840199)
100% this. I've commented similar elsewhere in the thread with a similar position - essentially, there's something you need to do that you're avoiding, some problem you need to resolve, and it's emotionally uncomfortable. Many of us have learned to avoid discomfort, but often times you need to go through it to make progress. It's best if you can minimise that discomfort in order to make headway, and simply breaking down what needs doing in your head can help make it less stressful.
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Re:Procrastinatory Doom Loops by PebblesRox on Friday January 07, 2022 @07:59PM (#29847350)
I definitely agree. Procrastination is a feelings problem and it took me a long time to realize that.

Often when I actually do the thing, I realize it is harder or feels worse than I was consciously feeling. It makes me think, "Oh yeah, no wonder I was putting this off. This is hard."

An example of this is decluttering, which sounds easy but in reality involves making a lot of difficult, often emotional decisions (i.e. coming to terms with the fact that I'm not actually going to use something any time soon so it would be better to get rid of it than keep it hanging around taking up space).

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Re:Procrastinatory Doom Loops by beaconstudios on Friday January 07, 2022 @09:18PM (#29847897)
Yeah, hard agree - procrastination is about avoiding emotional pain. The saddest part is that we usually create the emotional pain for ourselves by pushing ourselves slavishly or not acting with kindness towards ourselves, and this leads to some kind of inner rebellion. Like TFA says they procrastinate when things are overdue and they guilt and pressure themselves over it. That's totally unnecessary, we don't need to be cruel to ourselves for making very human mistakes.

I'm in the middle of a big declutter at the moment (actually not only decluttering but moving rooms around) so I can totally relate. Remembering things you once wanted to do but ended up on a shelf, can really suck, especially if the conclusion is "actually I'm never going to do it, so might as well donate it".

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