> The easiest antidote for procrastination is boredom.
From my experience with young people, the worst procrastinators will often choose boredom over the task they're avoiding. Doing nothing at all is less painful to them than doing the work they're avoiding.
This is even more true for the perfectionist procrastinators: They are avoiding some exaggerated hypothetical pain that might come from failing at a task. If they never finish the task, they can't experience that disappointment. Some of them will happily do nothing at all, walk around, or daydream to avoid even engaging with their computer, because engaging with the computer would remind them that they're procrastinating, which would remind them that failure to deliver is also imperfection.
> Of course, this requires some discipline and self-awareness.
Unfortunately, the people with the worst procrastination problems are in their situation largely due to a lack of discipline and self-awareness in some variation.
Agree with this, from personal experience. The conventional idea of “boredom” doesn’t fit well, because we have everything we need and love already in our head, which makes leaving it painful and staring at a wall for hours a great time. Incidentally my “bad boss” was my father, who had two emotions; Preoccupied and angry.
This is further complicated by things like demand avoidance, ADHD, burnout (autistic people may have difficulty even recognizing that they are chronically stressed and anxious to the point of shutdown, until they just crash completely) or other executive function related pathologies, of which there are likely multiple involved if there is a noticeable problem.
The point is, I guess, the worst procrastinators don't choose boredom, they choose some mindless but not boring activity like endless scrolling through social media.
Thank you, that was my point but I should have been more precise.
I heard that some boredom may be "good" to "reset" dopamine systems and try to fix procrastination issues (especially since I have diagnosed ADHD.
So I tried to get bored. And I observed that being really bored is incredibly hard when you have a smartphone (or a laptop or …).
The point of my question is that I often physically looks like I’m bored but actually if i have a screen in front of me, I’m never bored. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the people that looks like they prefer boredom are really bored or a just look like they are.
From my experience with young people, the worst procrastinators will often choose boredom over the task they're avoiding. Doing nothing at all is less painful to them than doing the work they're avoiding.
This is even more true for the perfectionist procrastinators: They are avoiding some exaggerated hypothetical pain that might come from failing at a task. If they never finish the task, they can't experience that disappointment. Some of them will happily do nothing at all, walk around, or daydream to avoid even engaging with their computer, because engaging with the computer would remind them that they're procrastinating, which would remind them that failure to deliver is also imperfection.
> Of course, this requires some discipline and self-awareness.
Unfortunately, the people with the worst procrastination problems are in their situation largely due to a lack of discipline and self-awareness in some variation.