Fire and Motion, for small companies like mine, means two things. You have to have time on your side, and you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win. All I managed to do yesterday is improve the color scheme in FogBUGZ just a little bit. That's OK. It's getting better all the time. Every day our software is better and better and we have more and more customers and that's all that matters. Until we're a company the size of Oracle, we don't have to think about grand strategies. We just have to come in every morning and somehow, launch the editor.
I finally made my peace with procrastination when I stopped fighting against it. Now my secret to productivity is to load several projects onto my agenda so that I end up getting work done as a way of avoiding getting other work done:
Reading that essay was a revelation. It provided a name and an explicit description of what I was already doing - albeit in an ad hoc, guilt-ridden manner.
It wasn't until I decided to accept my temperament and make it work for me that I became comfortable with how I get things done.
This is a common, but interesting angle on procrastination. eliminating distractions, time boxing and counting are all valuable elements not only to overcoming procrastination but also to improving the underlying element, motivation.
In the middle of the article above, the author mentions what I think is the root cause of both procrastination and in turn, motivation in general:
"Cultivate strong habits and build a routine"
I think that habits are the foundation of success. If you develop good habits and work to enforce and refine those habits to meet your goals, you will succeed.
This (simplistic) theory is echoed by almost every self-help resource available. Some say associate yourself with those who have good habits, while others think that progressing through a number of repeatable steps is the secret to success. Personally, I think that it's different for everyone, but everyone that I know who truly "gets stuff done" simply has developed good habits professionally, personally and recreationally.
I can't even begin to tell you how right you are. Habits are inevitable; everyone has them and is controlled by them to a certain degree. I see habit as a steady, silent, inexorable force that pulls you through life. Realizing this and pouring almost all my energy into shaping my habits has completely changed my life.
I procrastinate because I read too many blogs posts about getting things done and procrastination avoidance. I procrastinate because I'm procrastinating my way to perfection.
Even worse is the fact that most of these blog posts just seem to be rehashes of previous blog posts about getting stuff done. Avoid distractions, declutter, pomodoro technique... I don't know how many of these posts I've seen on HN.
I think procrastination is not the problem. It is an effect rather than a cause.
I procrastinate waiting until I feel I can focus on the problem. Removing distractions won't help much. When I feel I can focus, nothing can distract me.
Probably what should be tackled is how to maintain focus, and regain focus quickly.
I think the crux lies in the habits you cultivate. If you know how make a habit out of something (if you have the habit of deliberately creating good habits) all the other pieces should fall into place.
As the saying goes: thoughts become actions, actions become habits and the habits define your character.
Larry Wall once said that language designers have huge egos, perhaps hackers do too. Perhaps it's the guts and ego that shouts out "I don't care" cause I have bigger things to think about or for that matter hack about. Hacking is always the numero uno priority hence procrastination in my humble opinion will always be a feature amongst hackers and not a bug :)
Nonetheless I do vouch for the Pomodoro technique, specially the one written by Staffan. When cries of things to do can no longer be ignored, it's time to wind up that clock!
One resource that I've gotten some good mileage out of recently is "The Procrastinator's Digest". It's a comprehensive but concise look at what the current research says and how you can apply it. I re-read it when I find myself slipping into my procrastination habit, especially the "I'll feel more like doing this later, tomorrow, after a nap, etc." rut I tend to get most stuck in.
Sometimes the job is so deep and so wide and so tall, there seems to be no way to do it, no way at all. 25 minutes on an egg timer isn't going to cut it.
I need to be in the right mental condition to make headway then. No, just getting started doesn't help. If I'm not sharp, I'm just staring at that editor screen, fooling with the formatting.
Then a bike ride, a run, a nap is more productive. I'm SO glad I work for myself, and I can do that.
The third paragraph (which is referenced in the title) makes an excellent point. I wish he had expanded on this more.
The fact is that modern western culture strongly values timeliness over quality. Thus, we are often penalized for "taking the time to do it right". (For all you Myers-Briggs fans: Our culture strongly favors the J preference, which can be rough on those who are more inclined toward the P side.)
That does not mean that we all need to start valuing timeliness more. But it does mean that it is a good idea to remember that we will usually be evaluated, rewarded, etc., based on a value system that attaches great importance to timeliness.
For bigger, important tasks give your friends or family some money and tell them not to give it back unless you finish the task in time. The key is to make the amount of money significant enough to warrant not procrastinating.
It's funny how every article about productivity and anti-procrastination is effectively costing productivity and makes people stay away from what they thought they should be doing just a little bit longer.
If the number of people that changes their minds after reading this multiplied by the time they would procrastinate otherwise is larger than the total amount of time people spent on reading these articles it is a net win.
Of course I had to go read the article...
@ryan: typo in the second paragraph, 'live' instead of 'life'.
I know what you mean, and "productivity porn" can definitely be a problem. I used to read 43 folders and other sites like that, but I mostly avoid it now. I might listen to podcasts on productivity when I have time that I can't otherwise use very well (like running, for example), but I try not to spend a couple hours a day reading how to be more productive :)
Assume there are things you do not procrastinate on (because you enjoy them when doing them, and in advance when looking forward to them).
Also take from your post that you enjoy this work when you get going on it, but you don't enjoy it in advance, looking forward to it.
So what's the difference? If you aren't predicting enjoyment for something that you will actually enjoy at the time it happens, then your prediction circuits are badly calibrated.
If you aren't predicting enjoyment, and you are avoiding doing something (procrastinating), you are probably predicting something bad happening as a result of doing or not doing it, which you force yourself past fighting every time.
What am I talking about when I say 'predicting'? Feelings. How you feel about it. Do some role playing imagination for:
- If I don't start this now, how do I feel?
- If I never get this done, how do I feel?
- If I do work on it now, how do I feel?
- If I do finish this, how do I feel?
(that is, deliberately imagine yourself in each of the situations as if it was really happening, and pay attention to what your brain feeds back to you as you do so by way of noticing how the imagination-model makes you feel).
Compare between something that you don't procrastinate on, and something that you do. I'm guessing for something you easily do it will go "if I don't do it, no big deal, if I do, pride and happiness", and for something you procrastinate on it will be "if I don't do it, oh no I feel ashamed, and if I do, just another trudging turn of the grindstone".
Can I justify this from your post? Maybe:
The things I really care about are things that I want to be perfect, so I put off doing them. Pretty soon, I’ve turned a small, simple task into a huge project and the burden of accomplishing it is just too large, so I put it off. Do I really care about this redesign? Yeah, I care way too much about it.
Ask yourself what it is that you care about, specifically. It's not really the redesign itself, is it? The "burden". People don't describe things they enjoy doing and look forward to as a burden, they describe onerous miserable/unpleasant but obligatory tasks as burdens.
You beat yourself up with Fort Knox lockdowns, mental discipline and framing it as something you will have to "fight forever" and then write a blog post about how to change yourself so you stop procrastinating by keeping yourself the same and changing the world around you - as if that actually could work. As if having an egg timer near you is the change that stops you procrastinating. As if changing your watch is the fix for bubblesort being too slow.
NB, I'm procrastinating by writing this instead of working, but don't dismiss this because of my failings, only dismiss it if it's not useful.
From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html
Fire and Motion, for small companies like mine, means two things. You have to have time on your side, and you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win. All I managed to do yesterday is improve the color scheme in FogBUGZ just a little bit. That's OK. It's getting better all the time. Every day our software is better and better and we have more and more customers and that's all that matters. Until we're a company the size of Oracle, we don't have to think about grand strategies. We just have to come in every morning and somehow, launch the editor.