Procrastination often seems less about avoiding things you don’t want to do, and more about failing to overcome petty obstacles that prevent you from carrying things out.
I think of this as a breadth-first pay-off assessment. I’d rather go out than sit inside and read Reddit, but at this level of the decision tree, Reddit has more immediate pay-off than putting my shoes on.
Some people may have problem with introspection (knowing what they really want, instead of what they should), some people may have problem with navigating the decision tree (choosing the path with maximum total payoff, instead of choosing highest immediate payoff at every branch), and maybe it’s often the combination of these two. Also we have hyperbolic temporal discounting of the value, difference between the experiencing self and the remembering self, and internal conflicts between different parts of our brains.
I suspect that with so many problems involved, there is probably nobody doing it right; there are just different kinds of doing it wrong (i.e. not optimally), and some of them give higher total payoff and/or seem more impressive from the outside.
I saw a study somewhere where subjects were given vouchers for fun stuff like ice cream or movies. A lot of the subjects procrastinated their redemption.
Hmm, I have nine games I haven’t finished yet where I’m sitting just outside the final mission, but that I keep putting off in favor of new games because I don’t feel like getting used to them again just to finish them.
I think this applies to me.
From my observations, this is mostly due to that cost-benefit calculation that says playing a new game is more fun and has more payoff than getting back into a previous game just to finish it. Some of the games I play (and the way I play them) are pretty costly in terms of “head-space”, and can take up to an hour at times just to re-orient myself and become once again fully aware of everything that I need (with my ways to play them) to be aware of in order to play them “properly”. Contrast with playing a new game where the awareness gets built up when it’s supposed to be, i.e. at the beginning of the game / tutorial / etc.
Building mental awareness and models of the game is also half the fun, for me and at least 25% of my gaming friends.
Sometimes I find myself putting off playing video games. Which is kind of confusing to me, because procrastination is usually done to avoid doing things one doesn’t really want to experience the doing of, but apparently it’s not that unusual for people to fail to get around to finishing games...
I sometimes fail to get around to sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.
I find it is the downsides of those things that I generally blame for not doing them, though I do own a Bon Jovi CD.
“Teacrastination”.
Procrastination often seems less about avoiding things you don’t want to do, and more about failing to overcome petty obstacles that prevent you from carrying things out.
I think of this as a breadth-first pay-off assessment. I’d rather go out than sit inside and read Reddit, but at this level of the decision tree, Reddit has more immediate pay-off than putting my shoes on.
Some people may have problem with introspection (knowing what they really want, instead of what they should), some people may have problem with navigating the decision tree (choosing the path with maximum total payoff, instead of choosing highest immediate payoff at every branch), and maybe it’s often the combination of these two. Also we have hyperbolic temporal discounting of the value, difference between the experiencing self and the remembering self, and internal conflicts between different parts of our brains.
I suspect that with so many problems involved, there is probably nobody doing it right; there are just different kinds of doing it wrong (i.e. not optimally), and some of them give higher total payoff and/or seem more impressive from the outside.
I saw a study somewhere where subjects were given vouchers for fun stuff like ice cream or movies. A lot of the subjects procrastinated their redemption.
Yeah, I went years without redeeming my “points” for donating blood.
*quick look at a notepad list*
Hmm, I have nine games I haven’t finished yet where I’m sitting just outside the final mission, but that I keep putting off in favor of new games because I don’t feel like getting used to them again just to finish them.
I think this applies to me.
From my observations, this is mostly due to that cost-benefit calculation that says playing a new game is more fun and has more payoff than getting back into a previous game just to finish it. Some of the games I play (and the way I play them) are pretty costly in terms of “head-space”, and can take up to an hour at times just to re-orient myself and become once again fully aware of everything that I need (with my ways to play them) to be aware of in order to play them “properly”. Contrast with playing a new game where the awareness gets built up when it’s supposed to be, i.e. at the beginning of the game / tutorial / etc.
Building mental awareness and models of the game is also half the fun, for me and at least 25% of my gaming friends.