Mark Taw on Procrastination
Submitted by Merlin on January 19, 2005 - 11:04am.
Mark Taw has written a terrific article about procrastination that gets to the core problems that cause people to get derailed, distracted, and off-target. From low blood sugar through Skinnerian reward hacking, Mark unpacks the range of real-world problems most of us face in trying to attach ourselves to our work as well as find and maintain flow.
Although I’ve never seen Nanny 911 it sounds like a good metaphor for the occasional need to hide our treats and remove the shiny objects at the edges of peripheral vision.
Where in your life are you randomly reinforcing negative behaviors? Where do you need tough love?
So what do these nannies do to turn around all this negative behavior? They take away all the rewards. When the rewards are always available, there’s no need to do the work. They take away television privileges, and make the kids and parents go cold turkey with any negative habits they may have (like pacifiers).
Procrastination is the reward for not doing work.
Don’t miss this piece (as well as your accompanying new home page). Smart, thoughtful stuff.
- Merlin's blog
- 6010 reads
May I propose Thomas Barriot...
May I propose Thomas Barriot as a patron saint of procrastination?
He wrote one of the first accounts of natural life in North America in 1585. He looked at the moon and sun through a telescope before Galileo in 1610. He made significant contributions to algebra and physics. And yet, ‘he struggled to put the final touches on his research. He stalled, tinkering with details… A friend tried to appeal to his ego, writing to Harriot that his procrastination “hath rob’d you… of glories.’ But he still had difficulty completing projects.”
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0305/resources_who.html