Beating Procrastination with Self-Imposed Deadlines 213
castironwok writes "Procrastination attracts us because of hyperbolic time discounting: the immediate (guilty) rewards are disproportionally more compelling than the greater delayed cost. Procrastination is the reward itself. An MIT professor found that when he allowed his students to give themselves their own homework deadlines, they would artificially restrict themselves to counter procrastination. However, they did not set deadlines for optimal effectiveness. I am personally a huge procrastinator and it's always a pull between rational logic (giving yourself the most time by choosing end dates as the deadline), and your past experience saying you will put it off so force yourself to start early."
Re:It's inefficient to start early (Score:4, Interesting)
So, I impose deadlines on my team. Usually they are fairly aggressive, but we always meet them. Two days before the last deadline, my team was all working frantically trying to get things done. One of the guys asked, "Why the hell did you make the deadline so early? Why not just push it out two more months?"
My answer was the same as always: "If I had pushed this deadline out two months, we'd be going through this same exact crunch time, just two months later."
It's just a fact, if we have six months to do a job, we'll finish in exactly six months. If we're given 12 months to do the same job, we'll finish in exactly 12 months.
Procrastination (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's inefficient to start early (Score:5, Interesting)
The way you're going you'll end up with a burnt out team that thinks you're a tyrant.
Field notes from the field in question (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, there's always something you're supposed to be doing. If you have three assignments for a class due at the end of term, you'll definitely have more important things to get done all term, and then you won't have enough time at the end of term to do the assignments. Even if you didn't do anything fun all term, you'll have procrastinated by getting more of each of the assignments for other classes done than you would have had you worked on the end-of-term assignment earlier. It's really hard to give up on an assignment that's due tomorrow because you haven't started on the one due in two months. It's not just that you have a more immediate reward if you procrastinate the stuff that's not due tomorrow; the reward is calculated and reported to you in advance in percentage points, and you definitely lose those points if you don't go after them immediately.
Also, assignments are designed for maximizing the standard deviation, which gives the most detail for grading. This is achieved by having the average be 50. This, in turn, means that, if you're doing fine, you could do twice as much work and still not get everything done. And you could check over your answers if you really wanted to, and take even more effort. So it's not like you're ever done with all your upcoming assignments and have time to work on the long-range ones.
Also, the main risk isn't doing badly in classes or failing them, it's going insane. If you pass any of your classes (or even if you don't, really), you're better of than if you have to take a term off. So doing something fun and relaxing can actually be quite important. I heard claims that sleeping at night sometimes helps, too, but I didn't try that. Relaxing when you need to is always on a shorter deadline than the end of the term, so it takes precedence.
And, of course, every class has something or other due at the end of the term (or a final just after classes end). You're in trouble if you've got three things due for this class at the same time as every other class has some project or exam.
So the optimal strategy is probably to choose deadlines around when your other classes have big assignments and exams, and stick to those deadlines, but tell the professor you'll have everything in at the end of term (but then forget that you didn't specify your deadlines).
The thing I'd find most interesting is how many students chose to have the deadlines at the end of term, but then turned in the first assignment in the first half of the term.
Re:Anxiety (Score:5, Interesting)
Allen's theory is that stress comes from "open loops" -- things you have to keep in your head, and worry about. As you get further and further in the hole, the open loops accumulate, and your stress level goes up.
Allen's answer is to put everything into a system, and get it ouf of your head. You don't have to remember anything, because it's all written down and recorded.
The idea is that you don't have to worry about it because you can trust the system. Once you record it, you can be confident that it will get taken care of, because the system is robust, and you know that it works. So at any given time, you just think about what's on your plate at that moment, and tune other stuff out.
Re:Divide and conquer (Score:3, Interesting)
Leaving the hard stuff until the end is one of the major signs of a project that is going to implode spectacularly. (I've seen this particular pattern a few times now)
(I also can't believe that I actually got around to posting this
How I beat procrastination (Score:3, Interesting)
When I want to beat procrastination I cut down the task in smaller sub-tasks with their own deadline.
For example, if it is 1 January and I have to write a paper until 31 December, then I will try to estimate how long the paper should be and of what parts it should be composed. If I find that I need to write about 10000 words and that the paper should be divided in 6 parts, then I will try to estimate how long each part ought to be. Suppose I find out that 1000 words should go in part 1, 3000 in part 2, 1000 in part 3, 2000 in part 4, 2500 in part 5, and 500 words in part 6.
Then I will attempt to guess the requirements that should be met before writing each part, for example part 2 may require some extensive research before I sit down typing, and part 4 may need to wait until the results of a computer simulation are available. The research may require some reading on my part, so I will have to know how many books I must read and how long or difficult these books are.
If I can calculate the prerequisites for writing the different parts, then I assign deadlines to the completion of each part. I continue breaking the subtasks into smaller and smaller tasks, until I can create weekly or daily schedules. Then I use my PDA, timesheet software, or a personal wiki for tracking my progress.
Another important technique for cutting down procrastination is to minimise startup time/costs. If I need to power up my laptop before typing my essay, then I just leave the laptop open at all times.
Finally, for people who have to spend their days in multiple locations within each day, it is imperative to maximise your mobility. For example, I want to learn some Python, but I have little formal time for investing in it. What I did was to load PythonCE on my HTC Universal [wikipedia.org] PDA (which, by the way, has a QWERTY keyboard and broadband Internet access), so while I commute to work and university I spend the time reading Python tutorials over the Internet and typing programs into the Python interpreter. The fact that this runs on an always-on PDA (with an extended 8h battery and nearly always-on Internet connectivity, too) means that it is very easy to start from where I left even between days (there is no frequent shutdown-bootup cycle in PDAs).
Another example I can give for increased mobility is with e-mail: I was using a POP email server which made life difficult when I couldn't access my mail which was stored on my home's hard disk because I was away from home. What I did was to switch to using my own IMAP server. Combined with RoundCube Webmail software, this really created an environment where I can access my email, including my drafts, from anywhere in the world and with any IMAP client I have in hand.
Other tips for mobility that I know from experience is using laptops with cellular Internet access such as Flybook [flybook.biz], and using Web-based tools on your own Web server instead of desktop applications (sometimes I had to write my own Web tools in PHP) so that you are not tied to one particular machine. Use of SSH/VNC with an always-on broadband connection at home is also useful if you need to access your home PC when you travel (assuming you do leave your PC open 24/7 as in my case).
Of course, in actual practice, procrastination still occurs and the planning isn't always reflective of reality, and sometimes you just need to accept this fact and stop worrying too much (especially if you are a Type A [wikipedia.org] personality).
We are human, lest we forget! (Score:2, Interesting)
'Free your mind' like the great Morpheus said..
Re:Big problem for me (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, this is often counterproductive. When I check a task off of the list it makes me feel that I deserve to reward myself for having finished a task, so it makes me want to slack off for a bit. That usually leads to doing something like taking a quick glance at slashdot, where an interesting discussion will catch my attention and I'll spend two hours reading and posting, or playing a quick little game... which I find I don't want to stop playing, or putting a few minutes into a personal project... which turns into a couple of hours, or... you get the idea.
Honestly, I've decided that only two things work well for me: intense interest or intense pressure. If I'm really interested in a task, because it involves learning or doing something cool, I have a built-in motivation to do it and there's no problem. If the task isn't intrinsically interesting, though, the only thing that motivates me is pressure. If I'm not being pressured externally (which is what really works the best, even though it's unpleasant), I have to try to create my own pressure, via arbitrary deadlines, which I then have to convince myself are real.
I explain this to whoever I'm working for on a given project, and ask them to apply the pressure I need, or, alternatively, give me tasks I think are cool enough that I want to do them. It usually works out pretty well for everyone.
Re:Real deadlines... use a doomsday device! (Score:2, Interesting)
Write down an easy deadline on a twenty dollar bill and commit to tearing it up (!) unless you meet it.
Keep the $20 in front of you as motivation till you finish and then put it back in your wallet.
Pick things that nothing but procrastination could prevent you from completing on time, and have an exemption for unforeseen emergencies.