Akrasia can strike anywhere, but one place it doesn’t seem to strike too often or too severly, assuming you are employed, is in the work place. You may not want to do something, and it might take considerable willpower to perform a task, but unless you want to get fired you can’t always play Solitaire.
Akrasia struck all the time back when I was working at (gasp!) Burger King. There were employees and managers that would follow this behavior. “Well, I should do this because it is what my employer wants, but...” The trick is to do as little as possible without getting fired. Lying helps.
This is the biggest issue I have with some of the punishment/penalty systems suggested in the comments is that they teach people not to get caught instead of doing whatever it was they were supposed to be done. The clock Alicorn linked to is a minor example, but the workaround is to turn the clock off and sleep anyway. Most punishment systems have similar problems.
In fact, it’s probably better not to set goals that you are not going to keep in the first place, then to get in the habit of ignoring them. I make it a point now not to set my alarm clock, if I don’t have to be up by particular time. Similarly, I try not to set a schedule for things I don’t need to do at a particular time, I make a list and work on something from the list (unless something gets near a deadline). I found that having the list also helps me to avoid spinning my wheels thinking about what to work on.
In fact, it’s probably better not to set goals that you are not going to keep in the first place, then to get in the habit of ignoring them.
True, but when something like exercise is important to your mental and physical health you can only ignore it for so long before things start mattering. Something like an alarm clock is there to make me get to work on time but my laziness kicks in anyway. No tricky alarm clock can overcome that. (Except maybe that one that turns on and starts rolling around underneath the bed.)
Personally, I find it easier to set the alarm clock on Saturday so my body/mind begins forming the habit of getting up at the same time. If I sleep in on Saturday it knows and on Monday will be whining, “But on Saturday I slept until noon!”
I think this is another area where we need to be careful of other-optimizing. I say what works for me, you can say what works for you, and between all of us hopefully the next person in line gets just the right tip.
True, but when something like exercise is important to your mental and physical health you can only ignore it for so long before things start mattering. Something like an alarm clock is there to make me get to work on time but my laziness kicks in anyway. No tricky alarm clock can overcome that. (Except maybe that one that turns on and starts rolling around underneath the bed.)
At my last job my trick was to place two tablets of modafinil and a bottle of energy drink on top of the alarm clock, out of reach of the bed. Since my barely awake self knows it doesn’t need to get up just yet, taking the modafinil and energy drink is easy on even the laziest of days. Then I slept for another 45 minutes and woke up alert and rearing to go!
This is something I’ve noticed, too. In my GTD system for a long time I let past due actions sit, on the theory that eventually I would do all these things that went past due because I would feel the pressure. Didn’t work. What does seem to work, though, is negotiating realistic due dates with myself. If I set a date by which I want to do something and it doesn’t get done by that date, then either I need to do it right now or it was something that really could have waited until later, so I renegotiate the due date with myself. I’m not a total expert at this yet, since I tend to do a lot of renegotiation, a task which should in theory be rare, but so far it seems to provide a real help in that I’m not constantly looking at things that don’t actually need to be done right away.
Akrasia struck all the time back when I was working at (gasp!) Burger King. There were employees and managers that would follow this behavior. “Well, I should do this because it is what my employer wants, but...” The trick is to do as little as possible without getting fired. Lying helps.
This is the biggest issue I have with some of the punishment/penalty systems suggested in the comments is that they teach people not to get caught instead of doing whatever it was they were supposed to be done. The clock Alicorn linked to is a minor example, but the workaround is to turn the clock off and sleep anyway. Most punishment systems have similar problems.
In fact, it’s probably better not to set goals that you are not going to keep in the first place, then to get in the habit of ignoring them. I make it a point now not to set my alarm clock, if I don’t have to be up by particular time. Similarly, I try not to set a schedule for things I don’t need to do at a particular time, I make a list and work on something from the list (unless something gets near a deadline). I found that having the list also helps me to avoid spinning my wheels thinking about what to work on.
True, but when something like exercise is important to your mental and physical health you can only ignore it for so long before things start mattering. Something like an alarm clock is there to make me get to work on time but my laziness kicks in anyway. No tricky alarm clock can overcome that. (Except maybe that one that turns on and starts rolling around underneath the bed.)
Personally, I find it easier to set the alarm clock on Saturday so my body/mind begins forming the habit of getting up at the same time. If I sleep in on Saturday it knows and on Monday will be whining, “But on Saturday I slept until noon!”
I think this is another area where we need to be careful of other-optimizing. I say what works for me, you can say what works for you, and between all of us hopefully the next person in line gets just the right tip.
At my last job my trick was to place two tablets of modafinil and a bottle of energy drink on top of the alarm clock, out of reach of the bed. Since my barely awake self knows it doesn’t need to get up just yet, taking the modafinil and energy drink is easy on even the laziest of days. Then I slept for another 45 minutes and woke up alert and rearing to go!
This is something I’ve noticed, too. In my GTD system for a long time I let past due actions sit, on the theory that eventually I would do all these things that went past due because I would feel the pressure. Didn’t work. What does seem to work, though, is negotiating realistic due dates with myself. If I set a date by which I want to do something and it doesn’t get done by that date, then either I need to do it right now or it was something that really could have waited until later, so I renegotiate the due date with myself. I’m not a total expert at this yet, since I tend to do a lot of renegotiation, a task which should in theory be rare, but so far it seems to provide a real help in that I’m not constantly looking at things that don’t actually need to be done right away.
In grad school also it’s perfectly possible to play solitaire all the time (depending on your particular field/situation, anyway).