I once read someone make a point (more eloquently than me) that procrastination is your brain's internal bullshit detector. For example, if a lion were to break into your room right now, you would get the fuck up and flee no matter how lazy/neet you may be. Therefore the matters you procrastinate on are a big old bag of hooey (according to your mind).
your brain is fully aware that you can just have two handful of nuts and be good for a couple of hours. Just because your brain also believes that you gotta have a proper meal doesn't matter
executives call a variation this âoptimizationâ. oh it took you four weeks instead of five? do it in four next time. give me a 300,000 dollar bonus please
As a software engineer, the trick is to never tell them it takes four weeks, you promise 5 weeks, procrastinate for 4, and do it in 2, blaming the extra on software being hard. Most execs understand that, and only being a week late is pretty good (my boss adds 2 weeks to all my estimates for his own reporting).
It's a subtle art that most contractors have perfected. Some even deliver on-time, but that's dangerous because the exec might catch on (software is never on-time).
True. I have a tendency to behave like this when it comes to work like this, and whenever I do it almost always leads to a bunch of unnecessary stress. It has genuinely made me better at solving problems on the fly, but I don't need that skill as much when I just plan a little better and actually stick to it.
Yes, It's horrible, and can lead to minimizing any responsibilities you have. Even if you consciously want to accept a new responsibility/task, and have pre-planned how to do it well; Yet, you'll struggle to keep the promise to yourself. Self-blame will only make it worse.
Near the deadline the brain has (at best) already done all the work subconsciously, and you only to manifest the thing into reality. Don't doubt this, trashing the subconscious work is the worst thing you can do to yourself in a such situation.
(I'm not 100% sure I'm talking about the same subject, but anyway.)