Procrastination

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Doing absolutely ANYTHING to avoid doing the thing you SHOULD be doing.

Even if what you should be doing is making a single five minute phone call, or buying some stamps, or something.

Isn't it awful?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It feels like there's a very heavy object to be lifted.

By experience, you know that the object isn't as heavy as you think it will be.

But still, you'd rather not lift it until you HAVE to.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think there are various possible factors going on - certainly fear of failure, certainly a resistance to authoritarianism/the spectre of being told what to do (especially if that has been figural in one's early life), creating false drama by leaving things until the last minute to alleviate a sense of boredom, etc.

And also, as you say, a misunderstanding of the emotional or other load that the task will take, which is probably a habit that has an interrogable history.
 

luka

Well-known member
I really really didn't want to do that gag but the situation forced me into it. My hands were tied.
 

luka

Well-known member
I invented a theory that said dawdling is a way for a child to resist parental authority. A go slow. Andvthe habit is retained even once the super ego replaces the parent as ultimate hectoring authority
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Definitely - a child has to resist in order to establish separate personhood. And if it doesn't, some part of development will not be fully undergone.

Interesting what happens with non-hectoring parents. Do their offspring become super-organised and functional, immune to all but the most fleeting procrastination? I don't know many people with parents like that.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Also sometimes if you don't get around to trying something you can at least pretend that it might have worked out well. The seduction of the wistful.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I find it insane though how ANYTHING compulsory is something I avoid. Not even things that are scary or particularly hard.

I'm talking paying bills. Months of delay. Then I do it and it takes five minutes.
 

Leo

Well-known member
funny to think how I'll sometimes do a dozen other unimportant/meaningless things while I'm avoiding doing the thing that should be done. it's not as if I'm too busy and don't have time to do the thing that should be done, because I'm doing other (usually less important) stuff instead.

I know I should replace the batteries in the apartment smoke detector to save us from potentially burning to death in our sleep, but instead will goof off on dissensus for another hour.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I do it a lot. The way I legitimize it in my head, it's like I don't think of future me as the same person. Like, the consequences of my inaction will fall on some stranger, but not me. Obviously it's just some sort of cognitive bias, focusing on short term effects.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I have no problem doing things for others that I can't be arsed to do for my self. Unless they expect me to do it for them, then I'll put it off.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
I have no problem doing things for others that I can't be arsed to do for my self. Unless they expect me to do it for them, then I'll put it off.

This girl I knew who grew up on a farm told me you can never push a pig. They always push back. So if you want it go somewhere you have to entice it/make it want the thing.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
from the moment it's born you have to make the pig think you're its mother, that way it will follow you were ever you go and do everything you tell it.
 
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