Interesting video about Procrastination...

[Timeless]

Check this out:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1WC6hNTONg"]Procrastination[/YOUTUBE]

It's not a typical idea, watch the whole thing. It'd be worth it.

It gets to the root of why procrastination exists in the first place, not to curb or lessen it.

I liked it.

 

[Thessaly]

This man seems to be talking about our innate distaste for anything that removes our personal autonomy. That is not procrastination. Procrastination is the voluntary delay in task completion despite expecting to be worse off for it. This whole slave/master concept is not quite accurate because of this voluntary component of procrastination.

Procrastination is essentially self-regulatory failure; an archetypal human failing. The causes of procrastination are rooted in task aversion, but not in the way the man above talks about (defiance). Procrastination is causally related to:

- Task characteristics: such as timing of rewards and punishments and task adversiveness (how unpleasant the task itself is)

-Individual differences: such as conscientiousness, self-efficacy, aptitude, depression (energy level), distractibility etc...

-Outcome: how much the individual values the consequences of their actions and their expectancy that they can in fact achieve their goal.

From this we can deduct someone will procrastinate less if you make a task more pleasurable, give them a shorter time frame (or divide a task into bits), increase one's expectancy of success, give greater incentive (value), remove distractions from work area etc...

I think I almost feel resentment towards this man for his explanation and advice on procrastination. He's suggesting that changing some defiant attitude based in our autonomous nature is the cure when that will simply not solve a thing. People need to take personal responsibility for their lives, learn to control their impulses and form beneficial habits. His video is far too airy fairy to explain and solve something complex like procrastination. You need to get technical. Intrinsic motivation is central yes, but that is just the starting point. One needs to learn how to make work rewarding, be industrious and form powerful habits.

Timeless if you're particularly interested in procrastination I can link you to the most comprehensive study done to date on it complete with a meta-analysis and theoretical formulas . Forget this video, it does not address procrastination, except perhaps in a very indirect manner.

 

[sofmarhof]

This man seems to be talking about our innate distaste for anything that removes our personal autonomy. That is not procrastination. Procrastination is the voluntary delay in task completion despite expecting to be worse off for it.

But he's saying that the reason for the voluntary delay is that distaste. He doesn't explain it wonderfully, he seems to have talked for 20 minutes before realizing "Oh wait, I'm supposed to be talking about procrastination," but I follow his argument. That doesn't mean I necessarily agree with him. (Uh oh, I'm trying to debate without picking a side again...)

You're basically asking for more hard science, right? I agree this guy is a bit... Freudian. But I think in a self-help context there is limit to the usefulness of pure science; at some point you have to make a bit of a logical leap to bring it back to the individual level, since you can't make a science out of one person's behavior.

 

[Into It]

I'll watch it later.

 

[highlander]

Hmmm.. Not sure. It may be worth a shot. It is funny to be watching a video on procrastination when in fact, you're doing it at the very moment your watching it. One of my problems is being a bit of a perfectionist and procrastinating because if I start something, I will want to do it right and know that will take a while to do.

 

[une_autre]

I did not watch the entire video and frankly, if it had been written it would have been much easier to follow, but I am not going to waste 30 minutes of my life to listen to a guy when the same stuff could have been read in 5 minutes. And secondly, after 5 minutes, it doesn't seem compelling enough.

All in all, I disagree that procrastination comes from the slave-master relationship between parents and children. This infers that everybody should suffer from procrastination. Maybe they do deep inside, maybe they don't. But it seems sort of contrived to me. I agree with Thessaly as to what the real solution to procrastination is.

 

[Thessaly]

But he's saying that the reason for the voluntary delay is that distaste. He doesn't explain it wonderfully, he seems to have talked for 20 minutes before realizing "Oh wait, I'm supposed to be talking about procrastination," but I follow his argument. That doesn't mean I necessarily agree with him. (Uh oh, I'm trying to debate without picking a side again...)

You're basically asking for more hard science, right? I agree this guy is a bit... Freudian. But I think in a self-help context there is limit to the usefulness of pure science; at some point you have to make a bit of a logical leap to bring it back to the individual level, since you can't make a science out of one person's behavior.

I think he had some interesting commentary, but I'm not going to give him points for saying that people don't get things done right away because they don't particularly want to or a task isn't 100% their own choice.

I don't think I would call psychology pure science either. Yes, make it personal, but you're not going to get anywhere without understanding exactly what is at work.

Perhaps I'm a bit critical since I research assist for an industrial psychologist who is internationally recognized for this topic

 

[Timeless]

This man seems to be talking about our innate distaste for anything that removes our personal autonomy. That is not procrastination. Procrastination is the voluntary delay in task completion despite expecting to be worse off for it. This whole slave/master concept is not quite accurate because of this voluntary component of procrastination.

Procrastination is essentially self-regulatory failure; an archetypal human failing. The causes of procrastination are rooted in task aversion, but not in the way the man above talks about (defiance). Procrastination is causally related to:

- Task characteristics: such as timing of rewards and punishments and task adversiveness (how unpleasant the task itself is)

-Individual differences: such as conscientiousness, self-efficacy, aptitude, depression (energy level), distractibility etc...

-Outcome: how much the individual values the consequences of their actions and their expectancy that they can in fact achieve their goal.

From this we can deduct someone will procrastinate less if you make a task more pleasurable, give them a shorter time frame (or divide a task into bits), increase one's expectancy of success, give greater incentive (value), remove distractions from work area etc...

I think I almost feel resentment towards this man for his explanation and advice on procrastination. He's suggesting that changing some defiant attitude based in our autonomous nature is the cure when that will simply not solve a thing. People need to take personal responsibility for their lives, learn to control their impulses and form beneficial habits. His video is far too airy fairy to explain and solve something complex like procrastination. You need to get technical. Intrinsic motivation is central yes, but that is just the starting point. One needs to learn how to make work rewarding, be industrious and form powerful habits.

Timeless if you're particularly interested in procrastination I can link you to the most comprehensive study done to date on it complete with a meta-analysis and theoretical formulas . Forget this video, it does not address procrastination, except perhaps in a very indirect manner.

Why not?

I'm open to everything and won't shoot down it. If I don't like it, then I'll shoot it down.

Goody!

 

[highlander]

I'm going to try what he says - at least for a little bit. What's to lose?

 

[yenom]

What he said does make kind of sense, but you don't have total freedom over your life.
If you don't do anything, the boss won't pay you and without money, you live in the streets or starve to death.

 

[Asterion]

I've noticed that many people who look like they get things done and don't procrastinate have lower self esteem than those who do procrastinate. I started a huge argument about this with my family over a really simple task today, but I couldn't get anywhere with my point because it's so complex... there's no practical solution to it that I can try to get across. It's hard to get my ideas across when my parents believe that no matter what, they are right... *sigh*

 

[Mole]

The Divided Self

There is nothing nicer than doing what we want to do. We can do it with our whole self. And almost anything we do is pleasurable. But doing what someone else wants us do is another kettle of fish. It divides us against ourself.

But worse, when we are small we are told it is for our own good. And indeed if we do it, we are good. And if we don't do it, we are bad.

But as we grow older we discover that everyone has been told the same thing. And so having a divided self is normal. And naturally we want to belong, no one wants to be weird, and so we accept our divided self as an good thing and as a necessary thing. Indeed we even become proud of our divided self.

And so we are left with: what we do, and how we feel. And the two are not the same.

Indeed we are absurd but everyone around us is equally absurd so we don't notice.

But just below the level of consciousness, the two parts of the divided self scrape against one another and it hurts. So we try to drown the hurt in alcohol or pot or sex, or even exercise or TV.

But nothing helps for we can't escape from ourselves, our divided selves. So we have children and a divorce and produce more divided selves.

The odd thing about it is that it all seems so normal.

And the important thing about it is that our institutions can't function without our divided selves.

So you can see, as they put us into our grave, that it was all for our own good - or if not for our own good, at least for the good of our institutions.

 

[Thessaly]

Why not?

I'm open to everything and won't shoot down it. If I don't like it, then I'll shoot it down.

Goody!

This is what I like about you ENTPs. Always so level headed about receiving new information....well maybe not always Here you go:

http://my.ilstu.edu/~dfgrayb/Personal/Procrastination.pdf