For me, procrastination is an _advanced step_ along the line towards getting something done. I spend a lot of my time "not even procrastinating" - i.e., not even willing to consider doing that which needs to be done. Once I'm up to the stage of procrastinating, there's hope that I might do the thing.
Insightful. I wonder about the relationship, if any, between procrastination and laziness. If procrastination “happens when you don’t want to do the thing... or you want to not do the thing," what is laziness? It seems like it could also fit that definition. I’m thinking there are factors of awareness in matters of importance (if you say you’re being lazy, like laying on the couch when you know your taxes are due in a day or so, do you really mean you’re just procrastinating?) or simply human levels of caring (if your roof is falling in and you know you just need to call someone to fix it or throw a tarp over it to keep water out for a small fix and you don’t, and meanwhile your kids trying to sleep in a rainstorm, is that laziness?). Part of me wants to know the difference because I want to be able to see my own patterns of behavior accurately. And also diagnose those of my children accurately. Which is probably impossible, but that’s sort of like washing dishes--it still needs to be done. :)
Hmm. So, first off, I think that laziness is often not a real thing and what looks like laziness from the outside is often something more like depression/anxiety or task-specific aversions, and "laziness" is a sort of cope because "I'm lazy" is easier to say than "I'm scared". So in this view a lot of things that get labelled "lazy" are often pretty much the same thing as procrastination.
To the degree that there is something that it's reasonable to label laziness in a generalised sense, I guess it's down to how much you like or dislike working hard? You can imagine a situation in which two people have pretty much the same set of skills, fears, etc. but one doesn't mind hard work and the other (while perfectly capable of doing it) really dislikes it, and I think it'd be sortof reasonable to label the latter a type of laziness, because it's a reasonably general motivation against working.
I find myself to have a strong motivation against working or doing anything unpleasant. I've stopped saying "lazy" only because it seems like it's almost triggering to people who struggle with other kinds of issues, like ADHD or depression. But I'm just kind of a Bartleby.
"Procrastination happens when you don’t want to do the thing (e.g. it doesn’t seem appealing, or it seems less important than other things you could be doing) or you want to not do the thing (e.g. it’s scary, it seems boring, you don’t feel able to do it)."
I don't want to hit my head against a wall, because it seems painful. That isn't procrastination, but it checks the box for both clauses.
Could it be rephrased: "Procrastination happens when you want something done, but don't want to do what it takes to make it happen."
If procrastination is a unconscious process, but I say that I'm procrastinating about x does that mean I'm not procrastinating?
> I don't want to hit my head against a wall, because it seems painful. That isn't procrastination, but it checks the box for both clauses.
Yes, if you don't have any reason to do the thing it's not procrastination it's just not doing the thing. I feel that's reasonably clear from context, but is also covered below.
If someone was going to pay you to hit your head against the wall and you were putting it off because it seemed painful even though you'd decided to do it, the exact same motivations would now be procrastination.
> Procrastination happens when you want something done, but don't want to do what it takes to make it happen.
No I don't think so. You can procrastinate even on things where you would enjoy doing the thing. It's much more about a conflict than an absence.
> If procrastination is a unconscious process, but I say that I'm procrastinating about x does that mean I'm not procrastinating?
No I think you can be consciously aware of unconscious processes. e.g. I can say that my heart is beating, and I can be aware of my heartbeat, but that doesn't mean I have conscious control of my heart rate (though I can dial it up and down a bit with work). Similarly emotional responses are often unconscious processes that you can be consciously aware of the results of.
The only real cure for procrastination is to align your values and energy across time spans with the goals you really want to accomplish. Who ever procrastinated in running from a bear?
For me, procrastination is an _advanced step_ along the line towards getting something done. I spend a lot of my time "not even procrastinating" - i.e., not even willing to consider doing that which needs to be done. Once I'm up to the stage of procrastinating, there's hope that I might do the thing.
Here from RadReads. Thank you!
Insightful. I wonder about the relationship, if any, between procrastination and laziness. If procrastination “happens when you don’t want to do the thing... or you want to not do the thing," what is laziness? It seems like it could also fit that definition. I’m thinking there are factors of awareness in matters of importance (if you say you’re being lazy, like laying on the couch when you know your taxes are due in a day or so, do you really mean you’re just procrastinating?) or simply human levels of caring (if your roof is falling in and you know you just need to call someone to fix it or throw a tarp over it to keep water out for a small fix and you don’t, and meanwhile your kids trying to sleep in a rainstorm, is that laziness?). Part of me wants to know the difference because I want to be able to see my own patterns of behavior accurately. And also diagnose those of my children accurately. Which is probably impossible, but that’s sort of like washing dishes--it still needs to be done. :)
Hmm. So, first off, I think that laziness is often not a real thing and what looks like laziness from the outside is often something more like depression/anxiety or task-specific aversions, and "laziness" is a sort of cope because "I'm lazy" is easier to say than "I'm scared". So in this view a lot of things that get labelled "lazy" are often pretty much the same thing as procrastination.
To the degree that there is something that it's reasonable to label laziness in a generalised sense, I guess it's down to how much you like or dislike working hard? You can imagine a situation in which two people have pretty much the same set of skills, fears, etc. but one doesn't mind hard work and the other (while perfectly capable of doing it) really dislikes it, and I think it'd be sortof reasonable to label the latter a type of laziness, because it's a reasonably general motivation against working.
I find myself to have a strong motivation against working or doing anything unpleasant. I've stopped saying "lazy" only because it seems like it's almost triggering to people who struggle with other kinds of issues, like ADHD or depression. But I'm just kind of a Bartleby.
"Need for food falls under the heading of maintenance, not problems, which means that the need for cooking can never actually be solved."
Now I'm very curious about how big a freezer you'd need to store enough batch-cooked food that you'd never need to cook again...
Things don't last that long in the freezer! Within a year or two you'll start to get very sad eating that
"Procrastination happens when you don’t want to do the thing (e.g. it doesn’t seem appealing, or it seems less important than other things you could be doing) or you want to not do the thing (e.g. it’s scary, it seems boring, you don’t feel able to do it)."
I don't want to hit my head against a wall, because it seems painful. That isn't procrastination, but it checks the box for both clauses.
Could it be rephrased: "Procrastination happens when you want something done, but don't want to do what it takes to make it happen."
If procrastination is a unconscious process, but I say that I'm procrastinating about x does that mean I'm not procrastinating?
> I don't want to hit my head against a wall, because it seems painful. That isn't procrastination, but it checks the box for both clauses.
Yes, if you don't have any reason to do the thing it's not procrastination it's just not doing the thing. I feel that's reasonably clear from context, but is also covered below.
If someone was going to pay you to hit your head against the wall and you were putting it off because it seemed painful even though you'd decided to do it, the exact same motivations would now be procrastination.
> Procrastination happens when you want something done, but don't want to do what it takes to make it happen.
No I don't think so. You can procrastinate even on things where you would enjoy doing the thing. It's much more about a conflict than an absence.
> If procrastination is a unconscious process, but I say that I'm procrastinating about x does that mean I'm not procrastinating?
No I think you can be consciously aware of unconscious processes. e.g. I can say that my heart is beating, and I can be aware of my heartbeat, but that doesn't mean I have conscious control of my heart rate (though I can dial it up and down a bit with work). Similarly emotional responses are often unconscious processes that you can be consciously aware of the results of.
Thank you for the clarifications.
The only real cure for procrastination is to align your values and energy across time spans with the goals you really want to accomplish. Who ever procrastinated in running from a bear?
I think that's called the Freeze Response