I model procrastination entirely differently. When I procrastinate, I seem to be temporarily unaware of my priorities. Whatever I do instead of what I should be doing eats up my attentional resources and pushes out elements of my rational reasoning for why I should be doing what I should be doing.
And this is why forcing myself to go cognitively idle (e.g. five minutes of mindfulness meditation), which frees up attentional resources, helps me stop procrastinating. If procrastination was (always) caused by internal conflict, freeing up attentional resources shouldn’t help, but it does.
My personal experience is that things that easily eat up a lot of attention, i.e. reddit, are much more likely to draw me into procrastination mode than highly rewarding things that do not need as much attention, i.e. masturbation.
I model procrastination entirely differently. When I procrastinate, I seem to be temporarily unaware of my priorities. Whatever I do instead of what I should be doing eats up my attentional resources and pushes out elements of my rational reasoning for why I should be doing what I should be doing.
And this is why forcing myself to go cognitively idle (e.g. five minutes of mindfulness meditation), which frees up attentional resources, helps me stop procrastinating. If procrastination was (always) caused by internal conflict, freeing up attentional resources shouldn’t help, but it does.
My personal experience is that things that easily eat up a lot of attention, i.e. reddit, are much more likely to draw me into procrastination mode than highly rewarding things that do not need as much attention, i.e. masturbation.
Are you sure it’s not the reverse? i.e., that you procrastinate in order to “eat up” those attentional resources?
Data point: I’m on LW right now in order to not think about something that I’d otherwise have to think about right now. ;-)