I generally only find the act of working less painful than procrastinating when I’m right up against a deadline… I’m also quite terrible at creating self imposed deadlines.
One method with which I have had some success is to employ a friend to blackmail me into completing work by a deadline. The blackmail may be monetary or otherwise. A crucial element is that for ongoing tasks, deadlines must also be ongoing. Cf this bunch of posts.
Blackmail in what sense? Do you reveal potentially harmful information to them and tell them to reveal it if you don’t complete the task? Promise to give them money if you don’t complete it?
Blackmail in the sense of giving them money in an envelope with instructions to keep it (or donate it to your least favourite cause?) if you fail, or in the sense of an embarrassing story or picture.
Stakes shouldn’t be too high, but they do need to be high enough that there is a strong preference in favour of not failing. Obviously this should be (1) someone you trust, (2) someone who would be hard to sweet-talk into non-action in the event of your failure.
There is a web site that does that for you for those who don’t have a nearby friend that fits the criteria. It’s called http://stickk.com, created by a couple of Yale Professors. I have no connection except that I used it to start my exercise habit last year.
Don’t forget http://beeminder.com—still in private beta but Less Wrong folks interested in commitment contracts can jump the queue for a beta account with the invite code LESSWRONG.
I think Beeminder more directly addresses Eliezer’s observation that the problem with procrastination/akrasia is having our decision-making distorted in the presence of immediate consequences. Cf http://lesswrong.com/lw/33s/antiakrasia_reprise/
One method with which I have had some success is to employ a friend to blackmail me into completing work by a deadline. The blackmail may be monetary or otherwise. A crucial element is that for ongoing tasks, deadlines must also be ongoing. Cf this bunch of posts.
Blackmail in what sense? Do you reveal potentially harmful information to them and tell them to reveal it if you don’t complete the task? Promise to give them money if you don’t complete it?
Blackmail in the sense of giving them money in an envelope with instructions to keep it (or donate it to your least favourite cause?) if you fail, or in the sense of an embarrassing story or picture.
Stakes shouldn’t be too high, but they do need to be high enough that there is a strong preference in favour of not failing. Obviously this should be (1) someone you trust, (2) someone who would be hard to sweet-talk into non-action in the event of your failure.
2 months of regular exercise so far. :)
There is a web site that does that for you for those who don’t have a nearby friend that fits the criteria. It’s called http://stickk.com, created by a couple of Yale Professors. I have no connection except that I used it to start my exercise habit last year.
Don’t forget http://beeminder.com—still in private beta but Less Wrong folks interested in commitment contracts can jump the queue for a beta account with the invite code LESSWRONG.
I think Beeminder more directly addresses Eliezer’s observation that the problem with procrastination/akrasia is having our decision-making distorted in the presence of immediate consequences. Cf http://lesswrong.com/lw/33s/antiakrasia_reprise/