Definition of procrastination: {voluntary delay of an intended action despite knowledge of potential harm}
Q. Surprising correlation between procrastination and mood?
A. It’s associated with more negative mood.
Q. Why is it surprising that procrastination is correlated with higher rates of negative mood?
A. You might expect that people avoiding difficult tasks with pleasurable activities would be enjoying themselves.
Q. What advice is given for strengthening goal intention?
A. Recognizing benefit of timely action
Pithy summary of why we fail to self-regulate: we “{give in to feel good}”.
Proposed implementation intention regarding aversive feelings: when I {feel negative emotions when I face the task at hand, then I will stay put and not put off a task or run away}.
Q. What kind of forecasting are we bad at? (i.e. influencing procrastination)
A. affective forecasting—i.e. forecasting our future mood
{focalism}: {the tendency to underestimate how other events will influence or thoughts and feelings in the future}
{presentism}: {the tendency to place too much emphasis on the present in our prediction of the future}
Q. Affective forecasting evidence regarding grocery shopping?
A. If we go shopping just after a meal, we will tend to underestimate how much we’ll eat in the week ahead and buy less.
Q. Affective forecasting evidence regarding drug addicts?
A. Addicts who have just ingested their drug of choice will underestimate how much they will crave the drug later.
Q. How do focalism and presentism relate to our false beliefs that we’ll be more willing to do an undesirable task tomorrow?
A. We estimate that willingness based on our present feeling (i.e. good, since we’re avoiding doing something difficult and “planning” to do something virtuous), ignoring how future events and circumstances will affect our feelings.
Proposed implementation intention regarding impulse to delay: when I {think “I’ll feel more like doing this tomorrow”, then recognize that you probably won’t and that your present motivational state need not match the task at hand}.
Q. Trouble caused by relationship between reward estimation and procrastination?
A. We discount future rewards relative to short-term rewards.
Q. Trouble caused by planning w.r.t. procrastination?
A. The planning fallacy: we assume we can get more done in less time than is reasonable.
Responses to cognitive dissonance (about procrastinating in a way which acts against our own interest):
Q. How might trivialization manifest as a rationalization in procrastination?
A. “Ah, it’s not that important.”
Q. What are some common ways I deny responsibility when rationalization procrastination?
A. Sleepiness, blaming scheduled events, “feeling scattered” etc
Q. How might self-affirmation crop up as a rationalization for procrastination?
A. e.g. “You’re trying to do really tough intellectual work that most people can’t do—it’s OK if you can’t always stay on task.”
Q. How might adding consonant cognitions crop up as a rationalization technique for procrastination?
A. e.g. (perhaps) “Most great creatives can’t focus more than a couple hours a day anyway!”
See Just get started
Contra discussion in Indistractable - Nir Eyal, makes an argument that willpower is a limited resource.