Procrastination and Falling in Love with Your Capacity to Really Fail

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I had an unusual brainstorm on Easter weekend.  Before I continue, let me type out thoughts that help me get from an unproductive state to a productive state, and then I will get into new thoughts about procrastination.

I based all this on collecting failure modes.  As you run into difficulty, add the corrective thought to the list, that corrects the failure mode you just experienced in your life.  When the list gets too long and too unwieldy, just scrap the whole thing, and start with a fresh mind, because you are probably in a different place due to new habits of thoughts and actions and new life situations.

So, in my life, recently, I added these thoughts to a list that I force myself to contemplate when I am in a unproductive or incapable state.

The First Four:

Embrace Philosophical Security - this is the peace and security of the Stoic philosophers, such as found in Epictetus.  More than a lack of anxiety, it is a positive goal.

Embrace Epicurean Delight - In my mind it is taking enthralling happiness from the commonest of physical experiences, like a breath of morning air, or a sip of cold pure water, or grass felt by bare feet while morning rays hit your shoulders.

Embrace Graciousness - Tolerance - Accommodation - for other people and outside things, offer them all graciousness, tolerance, accommodation.  Easy to imagine the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, acting naturally in this manner.  Just copy that way of being

Embrace Being Informed by Honest Work - how wonderful to enter a situation being informed by honest work.  You can speak with understanding, assurance, and earned confidence.

Two More:

Is my current action or inaction in opposition to any conceivable personal hierarchy of values and goals? You have some intuitive knowledge of all possible effective hierarchies of goals and values, so kick-start yourself into a compatible action, if you find your current coping or distracting action/inaction is utterly incompatible.

Link happiness to growth & improvement, and vice-versa. You have the right to define happiness however you wish, and to call whatever you wish happiness, so why not make happiness synonymous with growth and improvement.

The Latest Two:

Allowing yourself to drift through life without active intention is poisonous, just as if you bit into the bulb of a large mercury thermometer. Do everything in your power to avoid the thieves of intention.

Procrastination is not success postponed - be serious - the habit of procrastination is already failure.  Bouts of procrastination are hammer blows on the coffin lid.  When you procrastinate, you demonstrate that you ARE a failure.  These are all demonstratively true from first principals; procrastination is just a name for a form of anxiety that helps you preserve your ego, because you are clinging to the idea of success being postponed.  So, if you have the habit of procrastination, you will eventually have a crash, and a humiliating blow to your station in life.  Your only task left is to make this crash as soft a landing as possible, and to hopefully raise the bottom to limit the extent of the drop in status.

OK, done.  The heaviest thoughts are about procrastination.

There are two viewpoints when it comes to desire, intention, values, and goals.  There is the personal + intimate + internal + subjective + 100% inclusive view where your stated future desires are taken at full face value.  There is also the economic view which is external + impersonal + objective + cohort statistical based, where your stated future desires are given zero weight.

Procrastinators will be seen as wildly different in the two views.  Objectively, the procrastinator has distraction, consumption, amusement, and numbing as their highest goals, mixed in with some self torture (anxiety about how success is being postponed) only to preserve ego and a positive self-image.  This is an extremely negative way to view a person under the spell of procrastination, but it can be defended as demonstratively objectively true.

Procrastination is the funeral ceremony of your aborted higher self, the higher self that had the ability to accomplish those higher goals.  It is the funeral ceremony because you have demonstrated no ability to fulfill those higher goals, because the creatures that can fulfill those higher goals have no time for procrastination.  If the desire truly was there, you would procrastinate on your procrastination, and just dive right into your work, like a fish flailing on land, when it finally splashes back into the water, is too busy swimming to take time to beach itself again.  Procrastination is the signal that your higher self, whatever embryonic form it managed to manifest, is now dead.

Action is based on habit, and personal desires are the genesis of new habits, or the genesis of self-flagellation to preserve ego.  If all your personal desires just prompt bouts of self-hatred because of procrastination, and never prompt simply throwing yourself into your work, what are those personal desires there for?

OK, we talked about two views: the intimate & personal or the economic.  Your expected outcome is most likely to be predicted by the economic.  The End.

Am I taking things too far?  I remember that I lost my religiosity because I focused too much on an intense commitment to perform all the duties of religious faith.  I overdid it, because it is not the job of the common believer to maintain that intense commitment; I took it too far, I used a partial commitment as an excuse to dispense with all commitment.  I have mixed feelings about this, because, on the one hand, I am being honest about having a false viewpoint about religion, and, on the other hand, I cannot "rewind" my mind back to that earlier state, and I cannot say that I would prefer to be a believer again.

OK, back to the issue at hand; am I taking things too far, by calling procrastination the nails on the coffin of a higher life goal or value?

I will have to try out this viewpoint for a few days.  I will do this... Really bring into mind the feeling of realizing that my higher life goals, that I have had as constant companions for all my life, must be set aside for moving forward with more down-to-earth issues, and concentrating on preparing myself for the day when I must submit to a humiliating loss of status, and disown a big part of my past ego.  It brings things into sharp focus, and it brings home how serious is the issue of losing intention to the distractions, vices of consumption, vices of cheap amusement, vices of self-numbing.

I like this, because I cannot think of anything more fundamental than acting under intention under a moral commitment.  Forget procrastination and anything I may be procrastinating, this concentrating on action under intention is the primary important issue.

Where I am at right now

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Where I am right now is... contemplating how each day my actions tell a story about what I really care about, and how fast I really am willing to work for my stated highest goals.

And the results are not pretty - I see behind me days full of wasting time, managing my level of anxiety, managing my mood, and indulging my petty desires over working on my stated highest goals.

Can I justify not having "having my actions, right now, be consistent with a priority informed by my stated highest goals" near the top of the hierarchy of values, goals, moral based priorities for thoughts and actions.

Repeat the phrase:

...having my actions, right now, be consistent with a priority informed by my stated highest goals - now, five minutes from now, ten minutes from now, stretching out to decades from now.

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Also, speaking of my hierarchy of values, goals, moral based priorities for thoughts and actions...

There are times when I realize that the comforting habitual action I am indulging in cannot be justified by any possible effective hierarchy of values, goals, moral based priorities for thoughts and actions.

So, practice interruptions in those comforting habitual actions and thoughts.  If the energy to start a more effective action is lacking, practice meditation, and if cannot manage that, try restful sleep for 20 minutes at most.

It is disturbing that during the morning of each day, I do not have a motivating expectation of that day's level of work toward my highest values and goals.  That is another thing to practice.

It is disturbing that during the late evening of each day, I do not have a motivating expectation of the next day's level of work toward my highest values and goals.  That is another thing to practice.

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If I cannot manage to sit down to formulate a motivating expection in the morning and in the late evening, then just write down a word or two, maybe a short sentence.

How is that?  Can I hold myself to this?  I must hold myself to this.  I will practice this, and improve.  I will come back to this, regularly.

High Achiever's Gasoline is Sugar in the Gas Tank of a Slacker

Slackers (lazy geniuses) choke when given the cues of high achievement, and should concentrate on enjoyment instead.

David DiSalvo - Neuronarrative - What Zaps a High Achiever’s Performance Lights a Low Achiever’s Fire

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The study authors believe that when high achievers are primed to achieve excellence, the idea that a task is “fun” undercuts their desire to excel.  If something is enjoyable and fun, how could it possibly be a credible gauge of achievement?

Conversely, low achievers who are similarly primed with achievement words perceive a “fun” task as worthwhile. Not only is their motivation to perform improved, so is their ability.

The next paragraph is terrifying to me:

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This [...] says much about why one-size-fits-all educational strategies so often fail.  For students motivated to achieve excellence, making tasks entertaining may actually be undermining their performance. Likewise, for those not normally motivated to achieve, describing a task as urgent and serious yields the predictable result.

I am probably paying a terrible price for my attitude of looking at work as a long hard slog.

Temptation: How much energy spent to guard against it?

Nice popular science writing "Research Shows Temptation More Powerful Than Individuals Realize" ( I read it through http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159736.php ) http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2009/Nordgren_research.aspx

The study, led by Loran Nordgren, senior lecturer of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, examined how an individual's belief in his/her ability to control impulses such as greed, drug craving and sexual arousal influenced responses to temptation. The research found the sample, on average, displayed a "restraint bias," causing individuals to miscalculate the amount of temptation they could truly handle, in turn leading to a greater likelihood of indulging impulsive or addictive behavior. 8/3/2009 - The study will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science. Nordgren co-authored the research with Joop van der Pligt and Frank van Harreveld of the University of Amsterdam.

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This led me to think about Internet and other distractions in my life - dealing with those temptations. I can see that I have relied too much on just throwing myself into familiar situations, where I have succumbed to coping behaviors instead of doing the work that will help me long term. I have to think about the appropriate amount of energy to spend on maintaining a disciplined state of mind. I can see that my judgement always erred on spending too little energy to maintain a disciplined state of mind. And it is a skill - the capability increases with practice.

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And the external appearance of discipline is important too, because the action and the feeling are linked, and the action call call out the fullness of the feeling. Even just a physiological posture can help.

Emotion - A Tool to bring Daily Behavior in congruence with Moral Goals [Rev 2]

I am struggling here, at my desk at work. I am keenly aware that my daily behavior is not congruent with what I perceive as my highest moral goals, for the short-term and the long-term. I have a lot of excuses for it. My "best" excuse is that I will have some flash of insight, and then and only then, for the rest of my life, I will effortlessly daily work in the direction of my highest moral goals.

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But I know that waiting for this flash of insight is a cop-out. There is no substitute for the daily grind of doing the best you can with your available resources, however meager you consider them to be, now. I have a friend who spoke of someday taking a few years off to meditate in the seclusion of the wilderness and really come to grips with his place in the universe, and how he would manage his future. And I felt so sad, because I know that these deep insights only come to people who are... fully engaged in life and fully engaged with the real word and fully engaged with the daily grind and fully engaged with the mundane and fully engaged with people. You get better insights when you subject yourself to the daily rigors of real world living. Any "truth" you discover in the wilderness will be hollow in comparison.

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But, if I know that to be true, are my actions consistent with that? Am I throwing myself into honest daily work? [I feel] I have to formalize immersing myself in the emotional feeling of what is at stake when we are talking about fulfilling or not fulfilling my highest moral goals, for the short-term and the long-term. Because I am terrified of days slipping away. And I cannot count on those moments of terror alone to spur fruitful effective daily action, and correct priorities towards choices about action and choices about limited resources. Also, in the past I have used over-complicating a formal system as a way to have an excuse to not do it: either, I need time to make the system more rigorous, or, the system being so laborious, that I needed to be in a very resourceful state to even be able to perform the system.

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God, I pray: please help me to utilize emotion to bring my daily behavior in congruence with my highest moral goals, both in the short-term and the long term. So, along with the prayer, what is action I can take now to help myself? The task includes asking the questions that will identify the highest moral goals in the short term and the long term - but not using the desire to be totally and rigorously comprehensive as a stalling technique. The task includes linking those goals to actions I can take now (even if that action is taking some analysis and consideration), and linking those goals to priorities towards choices about action, choices about time, choices about energy (including restorative meditation, etc.) and choices about limited resources. The priorities will suggest certain actions. Be realistic about the free hours available, and the free energy available. We are pushing past the comfort point - so pushing back on daily, habitual, typical activities. We are pushing back on activities that are inconsistent with accomplishment. Remember: We are planning for today, and making the week the smallest unit of balance. The task includes identifying a list of actions to take place in the day or the next few hours. Better too few than too many, because this activity can be done several times a day, if necessary. The actions will also be in a specific order of completion. The task includes identifying a motivating emotional trigger to each action - positive towards the successful completion of the action, and negative towards failing to complete the action. Now, complete the actions in order. If, cannot, then write out the renunciation of that driving highest goal. This is the renunciation of any and all higher goals that could lead to that action, because we want to see the choice with stark consequences. If that does not spur on action, then consider restorative activities (first consider some exercise to get the blood pumping, before laying down. A few moments to meditate is consistent with high levels of productivity and effectiveness as well.) Remember: action _IS_ emotion, emotion _IS_action, and neither is consistent with sitting and coping and wasting time and waiting. Action/emotion put off for later _IS_ action/emotion suppressed _IS_ the embryo of stress & anxiety; when we are talking about effective action. Collect these writings of goals, actions, motivating emotional triggers, and renunciations. Collect the completed tasks and the uncompleted tasks. What to do with the collection: If, over the course of weeks, the renunciations for a particular goal accumulate, then, at the least, that goal has to be discarded now. Leave aside the question of if the goal needs to be discarded permanently - it may need to be discarded several times, each at a point where an excess of capability and resources is accumulated first, and still judged to be lacking, before being discarded permanently. What to do with the collection: See if I am meeting the ideal of the week as the smallest unit of balance, from the written objective evidence. OK, looks good.

Emotion - A Tool to bring Daily Behavior in congruence with Moral Goals

I am struggling here, at my desk at work. I am keenly aware that my daily behavior is not congruent with what I perceive as my highest moral goals, for the short-term and the long-term. I have a lot of excuses for it. My "best" excuse is that I will have some flash of insight, and then, for the rest of my life, I will effortlessly daily work in the direction of my highest moral goals. But I know that waiting for this flash of insight is a cop-out. There is no substitute for the daily grind of doing the best you can with your available resources, however meager you consider them to be, now.

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

I have a friend who spoke of someday taking a few years off to meditate and really come to grips with his place in the universe, and how he would manage his future. And I felt so sad, because I know that these insights only come to people who at engaged in life and engaged with the real word and engaged with the daily grind. You get better insights when you subject yourself to the daily rigors of real world living. Any "truth" you discover in the wilderness will be hollow in comparison. But, if I know that to be true, are my actions consistent with that? Am I throwing myself into honest daily work? [I feel] I have to formalize immersing myself in the emotional feeling of what is at state when we are talking about fulfilling or not fulfilling my highest moral goals, for the short-term and the long-term. Because I am terrified of days slipping away. And I cannot count on those moments of terror alone to spur fruitful effective daily action, and correct priorities towards choices about action and choices about limited resources. Also, in the past I have used over-complicating a formal system as a way to have an excuse to not do it: either, I need time to make the system more rigorous, or, the system being so laborious, that I needed to be in a very resourceful state to be able to perform the system.

Image via Wikipedia

God, I pray: please help me to utilize emotion to bring my daily behavior in congruence with my highest moral goals, both in the short-term and the long term. So, along with the prayer, what is action I can take now to help myself? The task includes asking the questions that will identify highest moral goals in the short term and the long term - but not using the desire to be totally and rigorously comprehensive as a stalling technique. The task includes linking those goals to actions I can take now (even if that action is taking some analysis and consideration), and linking those goals to priorities towards choices about action, choices about time, choices about energy (including restorative meditation, etc.) and choices about limited resources. The priorities will suggest certain actions. The task includes identifying a list of actions to take place in the day or the next few hours. Better too few than too many, because this activity can be done several times a day, if necessary. The actions will also be in a specific order of completion. The task includes identifying a motivating emotional trigger to each action - positive towards the successful completion of the action, and negative towards failing to complete the action. Now, complete the actions in order. If, cannot, then write out the renunciation of that driving highest goal. If that does not spur on action, then consider restorative activities (first consider some exercise to get the blood pumping, before laying down. A few moments to meditate is consistent with high levels of productivity and effectiveness as well.)

Image by xiu×5 via Flickr

Collect these writings of goals, actions, motivating emotional triggers, and renunciations. If, over the course of weeks, the renunciation for a particular goal accumulate, then, at the least, that goal has to be discarded now. Leave aside the question of if the goal needs to be discarded permanently - it may need to be discarded several times, each at a point where an excess of capability and resources is accumulated first, and still judged to be lacking, before being discarded permanently. OK, looks good.

Self-satisfaction is a primary human trait

From my experience, even in a relationship with very high leverage (an employer working with an employee), it is practically impossible to motivate somebody to work on any relative deficits, even if the rewards would be considerable.

Self-satisfaction is a primary human trait.

To a first approximation, in a western democracy, the best we can do is corral and socialize humans until the age of 16 (sometimes the age of 20), and hope they pick up the habit of motivating and improving themselves. If that doesn't happen, then corral them for 50 more years, in institutions differentiated by the tiny amount of liberty they allow.

Comment prompted by Arnold Kling in Econlog: Goldin and Katz and Education Policy Failings in Historical Perspective

Compensation, Management, Motivation (Again)

You are Paid, Managed, Motivated by:

• Results
• Future Results

Obviously, nobody has a perfect handle on future results. Mistakes will be made. The principal is:

• Salary
• Other forms of compensation and motivation - all you have is Trust and Commitment - the watchwords are "Avoid Violating Trust and Commitment" - so under-promise and over-deliver.

If you risk losing people because you under-promise, then raise the salary, or raise the committed monies to make sure the commitment is delivered. Because if you have a Violation of Trust and Commitment, then you wipe away all the good will built up before, and you will have to deliver double in the future to get half of the good will. People are very slow to forget a Violation of Trust and Commitment. OK, lets go over this list again - these are the components of Compensation, Management, and Motivation:

1. Results - Historical evidence of meeting objectives: like bookings of a salesman
2. Data on activities that have a "causal" relationship to the desired objectives: like number of meetings and follow-up activities with decision makers
3. Data on activities that have a presumed, perhaps tenuous causal relationship to the desired objectives: like hours spent researching a possible new product offering. There is a significant chance of complete failure with a new product offering - that is why the causal relationship to the desired objectives is tenuous.
4. "Positive" human factors: I sometimes eat at a cafeteria salad restaurant. The cafeteria trays are handed out by a handicapped man. Part of his salary is due to the restaurant living its stated values. (But it isn't all "altruism", he brings value, he is the voice of the restaurant's handicapped patrons). Note - What isn't a "positive" human factor - keeping someone in a job because you feel sorry for them is not a "positive" human factor - it has everything to do with a manager who finds it easy to be generous with other peoples' money, who cannot deal with the anxiety of terminating someone for cause, and who would not hesitate to terminate that person during an economic downturn, which is the exact time they would find it hardest to find a new job.
5. "Negative" human factors: the percentage of salary that is based on kissing up, is another example.
6. Market Forces: if the work is directly or closely aligned with pricing in an economic market, a component of compensation/management should be based on the market price: like a "free-agent" in baseball, or upper management in a publicly traded company, some component of compensation/management has to be based on the market price
7. Relevant Sub-Categories of Market: "inter-market based compensation" - If the whole market sub-category goes down, but inside that sub-category, market share and profitability goes up, the compensation should reflect that. You will be in a good position when the sub-category reverses the downward turn, compensation, today, should reflect that, or you risk losing good people.

Components of Compensation and Management

Thinking more last night about components of compensation and management (and motivation). There is Intrinsic and External motivation. You need a mixture of both. Men are judged by their salary compared to their brother-in-law, but, also, money alone cannot effectively motivate. A healthy percentage of motivation has to be intrinsic (the problem with intrinsic motivation is that it can be irreparably damaged by a violation of trust (I will write more about this some other time). (How the heck does Intrinsic and External motivation relate to below? Beat me. Still puzzling it out.) Anyway, I remembered that I should add "Market Forces" to the compensation and management factors. Exact components of compensation and management you would desire.

1. Historical evidence of meeting objectives: like bookings of a salesman
2. Data on activities that have a "causal" relationship to the desired objectives: like number of meetings and follow-up activities with decision makers
3. Data on activities that have a presumed, perhaps tenuous causal relationship to the desired objectives: like hours spent researching a possible new product offering. There is a significant chance of complete failure with a new product offering - that is why the causal relationship to the desired objectives is tenuous.
4. "Positive" human factors: I sometimes eat at a cafeteria salad restaurant. The cafeteria trays are handed out by a handicapped man. Part of his salary is due to the restaurant living its stated values. (But it isn't all "altruism", he brings value, he is the voice of the restaurant's handicapped patrons). Note - What isn't a "positive" human factor - keeping someone in a job because you feel sorry for them is not a "positive" human factor - it has everything to do with a manager who finds it easy to be generous with other peoples' money, who cannot deal with the anxiety of terminating someone for cause, and who would not hesitate to terminate that person during an economic downturn, which is the exact time they would find it hardest to find a new job.
5. "Negative" human factors: the percentage of salary that is based on kissing up, is another example.
6. Market Forces: if the work is directly or closely aligned with pricing in an economic market, a component of compensation/management should be based on the market price: like a "free-agent" in baseball, or upper management in a publicly traded company, some component of compensation/management has to be based on the market price