why do we procrastinate?

There is a difference between procastinating (9gag, clicking the top left of fb to see if anything comes up) with leisure time.

Just make sure you do what you propose to do, so you can happily chill while having lunch watching a series u like or some stream u enjoy.

some people doesn't think about the long term/ev+, they just want to do whatever makes them feel better in that moment or whatever is more interesting to them at the moment.

I like to think that the reason I procrastinated in school was because most of the assignments were pretty meaningless in the long run.

in my case I hate myself for always checking facebook lol.
really stupid and weak-willed of me, I need to get myself a stone aged phone and go back to the basic talk or text - none of this surfing bullshit on a 5 inch screen

I procrastinate because there's always other shit I want to be doing, like watching MMA or following my daily bets in various sports.

I just submitted a late essay paper today, when I could have gotten it done yesterday if the Super Bowl wasn't on.

i rack a disciprine

I have a lot of random thoughts about this topic. But a little unsure where to begin, I saw the thread, I clicked it, and things started flowing, had to get up, walk around a little, and think about the various reasons lol.

Ok, first I'll start with the Kahneman stuff. He goes in great detail about the two systems of the brain (there aren't really two systems, but to make it easier to understand, which is a bit lol, since we always favour and prefer what comes easy to our intuiton lol, what a paradox lol).

Anyway, whenever something is easily digestible, a story that sounds "ah ok, so that's how it is". Playing games, just watching stuff. It feels a lot better.

The second we need to use mental effort, dialation of the pupils, heart rate slightly increases. When we see a math question, we know we can answer if we spend a minute or two.

It drains us, and fatigues us. And makes us favour the more "fun" stuff.

I'm sure that plays a big role.


Second thing I want to bring up, I've read at least 10 - 15 self improvement books, they all pretty much talk about how we organize our lifes. Most people live like this;

- Fun stuff/leisure time
- Important stuff we HAVE to do

But almost no is stays in the category for prevention, or long term. Ok, explaining it a little bad, but u guys understand.


Third thing, especially for video games, we get these constant dopamin bursts, when that happens for too long, something happens in the brain. It blocks it, or puts on some inhibiters, so we get less dopamin, less "awesome feeling" of stuff we used to find amazing. What happens then is that other, normal stuff feels even more dull. (But I think this is when u've been an addict for too long, or been watching porn everyday for years).

Hmm, I lost my train of thought lol. Ok, anyway, I think when we are "having fun" relaxing, we are creating new habits in our brain, new synapses are forming. So when we're used to "slacking, having fun, lolling about" and we've pretty much done it 40 days or so (I think that was the time for new habits to form in the brain).

We got a lot of other stuff to deal with lol, since homeostasis and shit like that will kick in when we try to change our habit. To protect us, he wants us to go back to default, even though it's not good for us. Kinda like someone watching tv everyday, then he starts exercising, his body will now over react, almost making his puke, sweath like a pig, n feel awful. Body over reacting, trying to get him to go back to "default". It thinks it's under attack or that something is really wrong.


And last food for though, I read a lot of stuff bout what "guides" us. We go toward pleasure, and we want to go away from pain. But we're terrible at predicting what will give pain and pleassure.

Especially when it comes to food/Drugs n stuff like that.

We can eat like crazy, candy, soda, saturated fat, fried food, and we feel amazing, for uhm, 30 minutes.
And we link all that awesome good shit to what we stuffed ourself with.

But a week from there, when we're feeling fat, fatigued, tired, toothache, u name it. We don't link that pain to the food/drugs we stuffed ourself with.

Some fuckery going on there as well I think.

Ok, I think if we mash all of these together, we're on our way to solve procrastiation lol. A few more things, but I'm making food and I don't want to write anymore lol

I also think something happens when u get up, and first thing u do is put on the PC, then music, then browse, then youtube, then watch a few games, then play a few games, then watch anime. Then after a few hours, u firmly state

"OKZ, TIME TO GET SOME STUFF DONE".

No way ur gonna be able to get a lot of productive shit done now. At least that's how it's for me. And I Think most people have it like that. Probably because so much stimuli, and we were doing all the fun stuff first, things like that.

Ohh, and another thing I think is pretty important. All that research on willpower, I don't remember the details, but it goes a little something like this:

Willpower can be seen as a muscle, and the more we use it, the strongest more durable it gets. The less we use it/indulge in instant gratification and such, the weaker it gets.


Something like that, don't quote me on it lol.

If that's the case, always giving in, always going for the maximum comfort, enjoyment will make it weaker and weaker. And I guess that makes us procrastinate a lot more.

(Also worth noting, if we quit smoking or something, then we're all proud, but instead we started taking another drug, or started drinking soda like crazy. We didn't really achive much, same "muscle", we just replaced it with something else).

Oh Oh, I read a little about this in filebos, one of them Socrates, plato or one of them fuckers. They keep talking about pleasure. First one dude is like, we should go for maximum pleasure, then another dude, no, real pleasure is understanding reality intellectually, not indulging. Then the third fucker came along with a clever middle road, we should seek pleasure intelligently, but not in excess, since we're damage ourself in the long term. Something like that. Not really 100% relevant, but pretty cool nontheless

Oh, ok last thing. Some new random thoughts came in my head, dunno if it's accurate. But I think our prefrontal cortex, which is the evolved super awesome, clever part of us, understand and knows what we should do, and what will "take us places". Long term stuff.

But the limbic system, is much more powerful, so when we get temptation, we give in. That's the primitive system, that wants us to indulge in all kinds of instant gratification n what have you lol.

Our minds as we know them are based overtop of more basic primitive brain structures. On a base level our primitive brain tells us to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Since it is uncapable of understanding delayed gratification or accomplishments it prefers instant gratification. We get a neurochemical stimulus when we do things from which we get immediate happiness; that makes us feel good that makes us want to continue to pursue those activities.

fear. Low self concept in main activity. Being overwhelmed with information or options. Lack of goals and plan. Lack of motivation. Better stuff to do/motivated to do something else. Habits. Low neurotransmitter levels leading to loss of control etc.

plus you know, decisions are made emotionally not logically, people with only rational brains and the irrational emotional part damaged need to e.g take hours just to pick cereal at the supermarket and find it hard to live a normal life.

if u procrastinate you are just not hungry enough imo

On February 05 2013 07:36 eestwood wrote: if u procrastinate you are just not hungry enough imo

So throw out all ur food, and starve mother fucker, starve!!

we live in a world where everything is a "drug" aka dota 2, superbowl, mma, etc. which conflicts with responsibilities and path to greatness

One thing that I've found that works is just realizing procrastination is nothing more than making poor choices/taking poor actions. This is not always true, however. It's more about always striving to be honest and realistic. If you kinda know a paper is gonna take x hours and it doesn't really matter if you get a C, or B, or A yet there is some fun to be had in a bar with some friends and some attractive women you just gotta figure out what has to be done and do it. You gotta get to the point where it just works out that if it's important you'll handle it, if it's not it isn't. I would say that most of the time golf, billiards and going out with friends should be a priority over most things shitty. Never let stupid shit encroach on that (within reason). Playing video games and mindlessly surfing the internet are pretty horrible choices at pretty much any point in life. Missing golf, billiards or friends to do some shitty homework/reports b/c you made poor choices in video game playing and internet surfing is pretty heinous and a failure. Man up! Figure out how much time you have to budget for shitty tasks, swallow the fucking frog, and Just Do It!!! The more you practice and stay disciplined the easier it becomes. Worse comes to worse go find the largest Japanese Knife you can find and take it to your belly and might as well kill yourself right there, hari kari, if you are that shameful that you are ok with being that big of a pathetic vagina you should consider ending it right there. Unfortunately, You won't end it and Unfortunately, You won't have a true samurai present to save you from further shame with an expert decapitation. Yeah, my rhetoric might be a little ridiculous in this post including the one long paragraph block of text but I don't give a fuck. Just Do It!!! I am judging you. We are all judging you. Everyone in the world is peering into your window while you masturbate to shitty streaming porn instead of taking actions to improve your life!!!

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