Realized that if akrasia doesn’t respond to “try harder”, maybe I should try “quit not-doing the thing you’re procrastinating on and do something else.”
But “try harder” is extremely seductive. “Surely I can get tons of stuff done if I just try a little harder” might be more problematic than “no way I will be able to do this”, because the former feels a lot nicer and therefore I’m less inclined to fight it.
I’ve had success by reframing these decisions from “crap, this is too hard (probably because I’m bad), I should give up” to “interesting, this isn’t working, what’s the best way for this to not work.”
Realized that if akrasia doesn’t respond to “try harder”, maybe I should try “quit not-doing the thing you’re procrastinating on and do something else.”
But “try harder” is extremely seductive. “Surely I can get tons of stuff done if I just try a little harder” might be more problematic than “no way I will be able to do this”, because the former feels a lot nicer and therefore I’m less inclined to fight it.
I’ve had success by reframing these decisions from “crap, this is too hard (probably because I’m bad), I should give up” to “interesting, this isn’t working, what’s the best way for this to not work.”
I’ve heard this called “constructive procrastination”.