Why Procrastinators Procrastinate

[Mkoll]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but- ... _ref=false

No one "builds a house." They lay one brick again and again and again and the end result is a house.

[kirk5a]

That was great, thanks! Hilarious and insightful.

[Weakfocus]

Terrific, thanks for sharing Mkoll. There is so much truth in this excerpt [taken from How to Beat Procrastination]

No one "builds a house." They lay one brick again and again and again and the end result is a house. Procrastinators are great visionaries—they love to fantasize about the beautiful mansion they will one day have built—but what they need to be are gritty construction workers, who methodically lay one brick after the other, day after day, without giving up, until a house is built.

Nearly every big undertaking can be boiled down to a core unit of progress—its brick. A 45-minute gym visit is the brick of getting in great shape. A 30-minute practice session is the brick of becoming a great guitarist.

The average day in a wannabe author's week and a real author's week looks almost the same. The real author writes a couple pages, laying a brick, and the wannabe author writes nothing. 98% of their day is otherwise identical. But a year later, the real author has a completed first draft of a book and the wannabe author has...nothing.

It's all about the bricks.

And the good news is, laying one brick isn't daunting. But bricks do require scheduling. So the final step in planning is to make a Brick Timeline, which slots bricks into the calendar. The slots are non-negotiable and non-cancellable—after all, it's your first priority and the thing that matters most to you, isn't it? The most important date is the first one. You can't start learning to code "in November." But you can start learning to code on November 21st from 6:00 - 7:00pm.

Reminds one so much of the struggles faced in doing the daily meditation practice. Also, breaking down 'difficult' or uninteresting tasks to 10-15 minute activities is very effective way to deal with procastination, I have noticed this myself.

[binocular]

I think people procrastinate because deep down, they know that that which they are supposed to be doing, isn't really worth doing, at least not for the reasons they are supposed to be doing it.

What's wrong with desiring instant gratification? The greatest instant gratification is in being sure that that which one is presently doing is in fact worth doing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with desiring to have surety, at all times, that that which one is presently doing is in fact worth doing.