I’ve found that I put things off whenever I can do so without immediately paying a price for it. When time pressure increases at the last minute, I have no problem motivating myself—but of course that’s not ideal for a variety of reasons and sometimes results in a reduction in quality.
Creating artificial pressures that can’t just be disarmed acts as a motivation amplifier for me. It’s something like setting an alarm clock that’s sufficiently loud and unpleasant as to make sleeping through it not worthwhile, and placing it out of reach so that it can’t just be turned off without getting up.
Disciplining the undermind is difficult, but very important. Set up costs for not starting projects at the proper time and ensure that you’ll pay them—either by enacting will or by enlisting external agents to help.
Whenever I set mental deadlines for myself I’m much more likely to get things done. It seems that when my brain queries TimeToGetThisDone(), if I set no mental deadline, it’s apt to return “plenty of time” or the due date. Of course, for time management reasons, it’s better to get stuff done well before the due date so you have enough time to get everything done (e.g., 3 papers due on the same day). If I set an earlier mental deadline, I’m less apt to procrastinate because “time pressure” is (artificially) increasing.
This doesn’t always work though, primarily because it’s hard to get the mental deadlines set. It seems that my procrastinate mode won’t let my planning mode take over and think about when things should be finished. In fact, I often catch myself thinking “but if I think about when to do stuff, I won’t be able to procrastinate...”
I do this with other things too. For example, when I’m about to make an impulse buy, I’ll start to think “is this really worth $20 to me?” but then I’ll think “I better not do the cost-benefit calculation, because then I won’t buy it.”
It’s as if there are 2 agents battling for control of my brain. Is there a term for this? Does anyone else have this problem? What about a solution?
You realize that there is a cost to making a cost-benefit analysis, but not sure if that cost is worth it (meta-cost-benefit analysis?). Faced with alternatives that have more or less equal outcomes, I choose not to do a CB analysis and pick an option at random. The expected benefit of choosing the best alternative minus the benefit of choosing the worst alternative is smaller than the cost of a CB analysis. Choosing between eating a hot dog, hamburger, or burrito are a good example for when I am best off just choosing something at random immediately.
You realize that there is a cost to making a cost-benefit analysis, but not sure if that cost is worth it (meta-cost-benefit analysis?).
Of course, though I still run into analysis paralysis for inconsequential choices like your example. Another thing to work on.
However, the choices I was referring to above are choices where my decision is overdetermined, and it’s quite likely that I’ve already performed (a good approximation of) the cost-benefit calculation beforehand and only need to call the answer. I.e., I don’t play MtG enough to justify spending $4 on another booster pack. The only reason to ignore this calculation would be to show that the approximation is bad in this case, i.e., do the calculation for this specific case. However, I end up neither doing the calculation or using the approximation to determine my decision.
For example, when I’m about to make an impulse buy, I’ll start to think “is this really worth $20 to me?” but then I’ll think “I better not do the cost-benefit calculation, because then I won’t buy it.”
So don’t buy it! If you are thinking that doing the calculation will cause you not to buy it, you have already concluded on some level that you are better off not buying it.
Listen to that side of yourself. It will only be hard the first few times, then you’ll see yourself rejecting the impulse buy before you have to agonize.
You do see the difficulty though, don’t you? When I’m about to make that impulse buy, I’m in impulse mode, and this mode seems to be sabotaging any attempts by calculating mode to take control. Saying “don’t buy it” is just like telling someone with a weight problem “stop eating so much.” It’s extremely difficult to muster the willpower to pull that off, and my efforts are probably better spent elsewhere anyway, like studying for finals.
There are methods that work, of course, and they all seem to involve preventing impulse mode from taking control in the first place. If I don’t go to the video game aisle, I won’t be tempted to buy the latest incarnation of Civilization. If I don’t go into Wal-Mart, I won’t be tempted to buy a lot of things. However, these only go so far, and sometimes I just want to look… then I just want to touch… then, dammit, impulse mode has taken control again and I walk out $50 poorer with a game I don’t have enough time to play anyway.
We have a very limited and weak amount of willpower. If we have a big project to finish, counting solely on willpower is futile. Instead, we should put ourselves in a position where the amount of willpower necessary is dropped. Like what Annoyance described, with time pressure, suddenly it is easier to get working (would make a nice discussion to see what tricks others use to minimize their required willpower).
Of course, it takes a bit of willpower to set up artificial pressures, but is worth it for chronic procrastinators.
I’ve found that I put things off whenever I can do so without immediately paying a price for it. When time pressure increases at the last minute, I have no problem motivating myself—but of course that’s not ideal for a variety of reasons and sometimes results in a reduction in quality.
Creating artificial pressures that can’t just be disarmed acts as a motivation amplifier for me. It’s something like setting an alarm clock that’s sufficiently loud and unpleasant as to make sleeping through it not worthwhile, and placing it out of reach so that it can’t just be turned off without getting up.
Disciplining the undermind is difficult, but very important. Set up costs for not starting projects at the proper time and ensure that you’ll pay them—either by enacting will or by enlisting external agents to help.
Whenever I set mental deadlines for myself I’m much more likely to get things done. It seems that when my brain queries TimeToGetThisDone(), if I set no mental deadline, it’s apt to return “plenty of time” or the due date. Of course, for time management reasons, it’s better to get stuff done well before the due date so you have enough time to get everything done (e.g., 3 papers due on the same day). If I set an earlier mental deadline, I’m less apt to procrastinate because “time pressure” is (artificially) increasing.
This doesn’t always work though, primarily because it’s hard to get the mental deadlines set. It seems that my procrastinate mode won’t let my planning mode take over and think about when things should be finished. In fact, I often catch myself thinking “but if I think about when to do stuff, I won’t be able to procrastinate...”
I do this with other things too. For example, when I’m about to make an impulse buy, I’ll start to think “is this really worth $20 to me?” but then I’ll think “I better not do the cost-benefit calculation, because then I won’t buy it.”
It’s as if there are 2 agents battling for control of my brain. Is there a term for this? Does anyone else have this problem? What about a solution?
An excellent beginning. The next step is to ask why you want to buy the thing anyway. What’s bad about not buying it? What’s good about buying it?
You realize that there is a cost to making a cost-benefit analysis, but not sure if that cost is worth it (meta-cost-benefit analysis?). Faced with alternatives that have more or less equal outcomes, I choose not to do a CB analysis and pick an option at random. The expected benefit of choosing the best alternative minus the benefit of choosing the worst alternative is smaller than the cost of a CB analysis. Choosing between eating a hot dog, hamburger, or burrito are a good example for when I am best off just choosing something at random immediately.
Of course, though I still run into analysis paralysis for inconsequential choices like your example. Another thing to work on.
However, the choices I was referring to above are choices where my decision is overdetermined, and it’s quite likely that I’ve already performed (a good approximation of) the cost-benefit calculation beforehand and only need to call the answer. I.e., I don’t play MtG enough to justify spending $4 on another booster pack. The only reason to ignore this calculation would be to show that the approximation is bad in this case, i.e., do the calculation for this specific case. However, I end up neither doing the calculation or using the approximation to determine my decision.
So don’t buy it! If you are thinking that doing the calculation will cause you not to buy it, you have already concluded on some level that you are better off not buying it. Listen to that side of yourself. It will only be hard the first few times, then you’ll see yourself rejecting the impulse buy before you have to agonize.
You do see the difficulty though, don’t you? When I’m about to make that impulse buy, I’m in impulse mode, and this mode seems to be sabotaging any attempts by calculating mode to take control. Saying “don’t buy it” is just like telling someone with a weight problem “stop eating so much.” It’s extremely difficult to muster the willpower to pull that off, and my efforts are probably better spent elsewhere anyway, like studying for finals.
There are methods that work, of course, and they all seem to involve preventing impulse mode from taking control in the first place. If I don’t go to the video game aisle, I won’t be tempted to buy the latest incarnation of Civilization. If I don’t go into Wal-Mart, I won’t be tempted to buy a lot of things. However, these only go so far, and sometimes I just want to look… then I just want to touch… then, dammit, impulse mode has taken control again and I walk out $50 poorer with a game I don’t have enough time to play anyway.
Agreed,
We have a very limited and weak amount of willpower. If we have a big project to finish, counting solely on willpower is futile. Instead, we should put ourselves in a position where the amount of willpower necessary is dropped. Like what Annoyance described, with time pressure, suddenly it is easier to get working (would make a nice discussion to see what tricks others use to minimize their required willpower).
Of course, it takes a bit of willpower to set up artificial pressures, but is worth it for chronic procrastinators.