The Lure of Tomorrow

This is like the concept of Presence, in The Power of Now and A New Earth. Our thinking brain controls us, but who is doing the thinking? When we become aware that we are not our thoughts, that awarenss gives us power. Being in the present and not thinking all the time ends procrastination.

Okay, I'm 62 and have now perfected the art of procrastination! Here's my (usually) best "reason"... I have to prioritize everything I do, lest I find myself actually doing something that ...OMG...is less important than something else on my extensive "to do" list. Others may view this as the familiar "paralysis through analysis", and I think that partially accurate. I'm now semi-retired and now have more time to prioritize my now VERY lengthy to=do list. Hmmm, which task to put at the top? Hmmm, what's number 2? Ahh, procrastination perfected!
/John

"Put your feet in motion and the mind will follow them ! ". The most difficult thing, for me, is overcoming inertia. I was told long ago that when faced with and assignment, first pick up the pen and write the date and title. Now I'm into action and have made a start. I use this for things I want to do around the house. I make a list, with the date, and have eeven the most mundane things listed. By the time I am finished with the list, I have figured out how to knock off most of it in a very short time. Once I take care of the mundane, I am free to concentrate on the more complex projects, free of the clutter, in my mind.

This saying has usually helped me: "Nothing to it but to do it." Quit thinking about it. Quit talking about it. Quit beating yourself up because you haven't done it yet. Just do it. And if you're not going to do it, ESPECIALLY quit those things.

Does the experiment imply that we tend to procrastinate because we see the tasks as vague or our plan is not clear yet? I will try now to treat vague situations as "board game which I need to give time limit to go to the next move.

Thank you Wray, I will start working on my procrastination tomorrow, or maybe next month since I archived the article to read later.

Thank you Wray, I will start working on my procrastination tomorrow.

As with anything having to do with human behavior there are multiple contributors. Just before reading this article I read two articles relating to eating problems. One article showed properties of chemical addiction to sugar and another the other showed that some eating problems might be avoided by better eating habits earlier in life. There's rarely one simple answer to explain it all.

In this article on procrastination I think there is a mixture of issues. I think the delay in getting the email responses had more to do with the relative effort required to answer abstract questions rather than concrete ones. But if we are all getting $20 to participate in a study and it takes 5 minutes answer a bunch of "what" questions and 5 hours to answer "why" questions then I don't doubt that people would respond to the more concrete "what" questions faster. On the other hand many people do find that making a list of tasks to do makes the activities more concrete in their minds and easier to start. And there is also a certain sense of accomplishment from being able to see the list getting smaller as you complete tasks. So in that respect I think there is some truth to his concrete vs. abstract theory.

As with anything having to do with human behavior there are multiple contributors. Just before reading this article I read two articles relating to eating problems. One article showed properties of chemical addiction to sugar and another the other showed that some eating problems might be avoided by better eating habits earlier in life. There's rarely one simple answer to explain it all.

In this article on procrastination I think there is a mixture of issues. I think the delay in getting the email responses had more to do with the relative effort required to answer abstract questions rather than concrete ones. But if we are all getting $20 to participate in a study and it takes 5 minutes answer a bunch of "what" questions and 5 hours to answer "why" questions then I don't doubt that people would respond to the more concrete "what" questions faster. On the other hand many people do find that making a list of tasks to do makes the activities more concrete in their minds and easier to start. And there is also a certain sense of accomplishment from being able to see the list getting smaller as you complete tasks. So in that respect I think there is some truth to his concrete vs. abstract theory.

For jeffn111, it seems like you may be stretching the results of the studies you mentioned. You said "that taking time before performing the tast [sic] ... improves your response." So, these results seem to address how allotting a rest period before a task affects performance, not how level of comfort with a task affects performance. There doesn't seem to be an explicit connection between the two.
It seems the studies did not specifically address why people would take time before doing something. The subjects may have been told to take time, so who knows if they would have consciously and purposefully done that anyway? If they weren't told to take time, then the study may be a correlational study, and, of course, "correlation does not imply causation." But, you do bring up a good point; using common sense, it does seem that level of difficulty would, in some way, affect how people approach a goal.

PS... I don't intend to sound like I'm making a mean attack on your opinion; I just want to point out how your arguments come across. I do partially agree with your point, if that means anything.

Yeah, there seems to be a common sense answer to the question of why someone would procrastinate. But it seems to me that Mr. Herbert was just trying to share current research. Scientific research allows us to make more definite and concrete statements, whether they're small or big. Also, keeping research current and keeping up with current research affords us the an up-to-date understanding of how our world works.
Mr. Herbert may have just framed his article in a way that would attract readers - hence the headline's offering "how to stop delaying". What writer doesn't want to have as many readers as possible? So, the headline may have just been a device to attract readers because it suggests a solution to a common and bothersome problem, which must have piqued your interest.
If you feel you have enough common sense to figure out why people procrastinate, perhaps that common sense would help you infer the solution that Mr. Herbert is suggesting. Article Recap: some research suggests that thinking about goals in an abstract and distant way tends to inhibit the actual accomplishment of those goals; the research also suggests that thinking about goals in a more concrete way, thinking about goals in terms of actual steps, tends to help us accomplish the goals. So, there's your solution: think about goals concretely, think about what steps you have to take and when. Again, that does seem to be a common sense issue but, again, having current scientific research to back it up allows us to explain it more definitely and confidently than if we were to just rely on common sense alone. Also, if common sense adequately helps explain this issue, should you really expect a long, protracted answer? Although, in my opinion, Mr. Herbert may not have done much harm in offering maybe at least another paragraph with an explicit explanation of the results and the suggested solution, I feel that someone with common sense and decent deductive reasoning would be able to see what Mr. Herbert was getting at.

Yeah, there seems to be a common sense answer to the question of why someone would procrastinate. But it seems to me that Mr. Herbert was just trying to share current research. Scientific research allows us to make more definite and concrete statements, whether they're small or big. Also, keeping research current and keeping up with current research affords us the an up-to-date understanding of how our world works.
Mr. Herbert may have just framed his article in a way that would attract readers - hence the headline's offering "how to stop delaying". What writer doesn't want to have as many readers as possible? So, the headline may have just been a device to attract readers because it suggests a solution to a common and bothersome problem, which must have piqued your interest.
If you feel you have enough common sense to figure out why people procrastinate, perhaps that common sense would help you infer the solution that Mr. Herbert is suggesting. Article Recap: some research suggests that thinking about goals in an abstract and distant way tends to inhibit the actual accomplishment of those goals; the research also suggests that thinking about goals in a more concrete way, thinking about goals in terms of actual steps, tends to help us accomplish the goals. So, there's your solution: think about goals concretely, think about what steps you have to take and when. Again, that does seem to be a common sense issue but, again, having current scientific research to back it up allows us to explain it more definitely and confidently than if we were to just rely on common sense alone. Also, if common sense adequately helps explain this issue, should you really expect a long, protracted answer? Although, in my opinion, Mr. Herbert may not have done much harm in offering maybe at least another paragraph with an explicit explanation of the results and the suggested solution, I feel that someone with common sense and decent deductive reasoning would be able to see what Mr. Herbert was getting at.

There is also a rational reason for proscratinating over the more abstract difficult tasts. Studies have shown that taking time before performing the tast (including time not consciously thinking about it) improves your response. I think people know this, even if they do not consciously articulate it. When they are not comfortable with what they are going to do, they give themselves some time before responding.

The headline promised "how to stop delaying" and there was one measly, trying-to-be-funny para on it. The reasoning as to why people procrastinate also ended up to be what anyone with some common sense would have told you --- amongst other reasons, people delay doing tasks that are hard. Is that so difficult to understand? Does it need a psychologist to tell us that? Oh, well. Take care.

I'll read this tomorrow...

I'll read this tomorrow...

I found this to be a fasciinating article that helped me to postpone studying for my final for a few more minutes! On to the next article!

I bookmaked this article to my favorites - to read later.

Maybe some of it also has to do with whether each of us prefers the 'task' to the 'thought behind the task'. I, for one, definitely prefer to think about the abstract, and have issues with acting on the tasks that support the strategy. While others, as cited in this article, gravitate to the task. In this article, it seems to be more about our preference for strategic/abstract thought versus action/tasks, and less about the real reasons that we don't do things. The first step is always the hardest.