Overcoming procrastination

BW2112

BW2112

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Joined
Aug 18, 2009
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I believe this has to do with mental health so I think its appropriate to put it here. In my depression thread, I briefly mentioned procrastination as one of the things that made me depressed. I was looking on youtube for videos dealing with this subject, and of all people, Stefan Molyneux, made a video about this subject.

YouTube - Procrastination... from Freedomain Radio

I feel like what he said was very insightful, and felt better after watching his video, but I'd to hear other peoples thoughts and maybe get advice on this particular problem I and many other people have.

Procrastination seems to me to be the core of why I can't do the things that I have to do in order to be happy, and get away from depression. But after seeing Stefan's video, I don't have to do anything. It has to be a want.
 
I'm the worst procrastinator ever (is that a word?)!! To do a 10 page paper, I wait until the day before it's due to start it. If I have to do a paper that is 5 pages or less, I wait until the morning it's due to start it. I wait until a couple days before my midterm/final exams to try and cram in half a textbook of reading. I'm a terrible student, lol. I wasn't this bad two semesters ago. I used to actually try. I just have senioritis. I'm about to graduate, so I stopped caring. I know, it's so bad.
 
Natalie said:
I'm the worst procrastinator ever (is that a word?)!! To do a 10 page paper, I wait until the day before it's due to start it. If I have to do a paper that is 5 pages or less, I wait until the morning it's due to start it. I wait until a couple days before my midterm/final exams to try and cram in half a textbook of reading. I'm a terrible student, lol. I wasn't this bad two semesters ago. I used to actually try. I just have senioritis. I'm about to graduate, so I stopped caring. I know, it's so bad.
Click to expand...

You're just like I was in school. But really, who can blame these young people when they get spoon-fed boring, irrelevant nonsense from 9 to 3, only to go home and be asked to do even more busywork in their free time? It's no wonder kids rebel; school sucks.

Really, in hindsight, I don't think I learned a single thing in school, besides rudimentary arithmetic and language, that was of any import to me at all. All the really *neat* stuff I know (like Austrian Economics and the freedom philosophy), I picked up in the real world! In fact, I'm grateful I escaped when I did, before the school system got so closely tied in with Big Pharma. Who knows what "learning disability" they would have diagnosed me as having?

"When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all"

--Paul Simon

/rant
 
BW2112 said:
I believe this has to do with mental health so I think its appropriate to put it here. In my depression thread, I briefly mentioned procrastination as one of the things that made me depressed. I was looking on youtube for videos dealing with this subject, and of all people, Stefan Molyneux, made a video about this subject.

YouTube - Procrastination... from Freedomain Radio

I feel like what he said was very insightful, and felt better after watching his video, but I'd to hear other peoples thoughts and maybe get advice on this particular problem I and many other people have.

Procrastination seems to me to be the core of why I can't do the things that I have to do in order to be happy, and get away from depression. But after seeing Stefan's video, I don't have to do anything. It has to be a want.
Click to expand...

This video was very insightful. He is able to arrange his ideas, which have root in eastern philosophy, into an argument that is relevant to a western audience. I'd be careful in saying that procrastination is the "core" obstacle to happiness. Procrastination, as he argued, is the result or problem, not the cause. From this video alone, I draw the conclusion that unhappiness stems from our own enslavement of ourselves. We learn to be slaves from our parents/teachers/etc. And we forget any other way of living. Therefore, we are constantly looking and reacting to the world and our thoughts/emotions/sensations (they really are just one thing) with our slave mind.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few."
Shunryu Suzuki

If you are really interested in doing away with procrastination/slave mind/depression/pain, then you've got to unlearn what you've been taught. Just as many of us had to unlearn Keynesian economics by learning Austrian economics, you will need a method, a practice, in order to "free your mind."
 
I have had this thread open in a tab but I haven't watched the video yet. I will very soon
 
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I feel like what he said was very insightful, and felt better after watching his video, but I'd to hear other peoples thoughts and maybe get advice on this particular problem I and many other people have.

Procrastination seems to me to be the core of why I can't do the things that I have to do in order to be happy, and get away from depression. But after seeing Stefan's video, I don't have to do anything. It has to be a want.
Click to expand...

I have decided to cure this by using simple willpower. In other words, I'm treating this as a bad habit I have to break. The way I've always cured other bad habits of mine was to simply stop doing them -

So far it's working fine. :)
 
I think procrastination is seen differently by someone who is depressed than someone who isn't. I think people who are depressed don't procrastinate because they don't want to do it but because they just don't care whether it is done or not. And some even have a fear to actually do whatever they are procrastinating about. I think depression paralyzes a person to the point where they don't do anything and eventually shut themselves off from the rest of the world.
 
I watched and understood this video a long time ago, but I'm still as unproductive as ever. Maybe I'm just naturally lazy, and or the question needs to be re-framed to say that people like me aren't "procrastinators" per say they just lack "will power" and have a "high time preference".
 
Last edited:
It's hilarious that he mentioned "You don't have to get a new driver's license..." because I realized about 6 months ago I was driving on an expired license - that had expired three years ago! - and I have pretty much decided that I am not going to renew it until I feel like it.... and I still haven;t felt like it! :D
 
BuddyRey said:
Some very helpful insights here.
Click to expand...

I agree, I've never been a huge procrastinator but I was lucky enough not to have horribly overbearing parents.. I mean they wanted me to do well, but they weren't constantly bugging me about school work because they were happy with how well I was doing based on my own decisions.

I never really put it all together like Stephan just did, but I've actually gotten even better over the years since I moved out of my house and I have taken his attitude that everything I do is my decision and it has been quite helpful.
 
Original_Intent said:
It's hilarious that he mentioned "You don't have to get a new driver's license..." because I realized about 6 months ago I was driving on an expired license - that had expired three years ago! - and I have pretty much decided that I am not going to renew it until I feel like it.... and I still haven;t felt like it! :D
Click to expand...

Don't go to AZ, you'll be deported :eek:
 
Vega said:
I think procrastination is seen differently by someone who is depressed than someone who isn't. I think people who are depressed don't procrastinate because they don't want to do it but because they just don't care whether it is done or not. And some even have a fear to actually do whatever they are procrastinating about. I think depression paralyzes a person to the point where they don't do anything and eventually shut themselves off from the rest of the world.
Click to expand...

Procrastination is a symptom of something else. Regardless of what that "else" is. Pain in the left arm could mean a pulled muscle or a heart attack. As a depressed person who has tried to rid himself of procrastination, I can tell you that it doesn't work. You have to treat the cause. The point the guy was trying to make in the video gets covered over because he only touches on his point very briefly. Most of the video he's trying to win the viewer's sympathy and understanding.
 
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