I noticed something recently which might be a positive aspect of akrasia, and a reason for its existence.
Background: I am generally bad at getting things done. For instance, I might put off paying a bill for a long time, which seems strange considering the whole process would take < 5 minutes.
A while back, I read about a solution: when you happen to remember a small task, if you are capable of doing it right then, then do it right then. I found this easy to follow, and quickly got a lot better at keeping up with small things.
A week or two into it, I thought of something evil to do, and following my pattern, quickly did it. Within a few minutes, I regretted it and thankfully, was able to undo it. But it scared me, and I discontinued my habit.
I’m not sure how general a conclusion I can draw from this; perhaps I am unusually prone to these mistakes. But since then I’ve considered akrasia as a sort of warning: “Some part of you doesn’t want to do this. How about doing something else?”
Now when the part of you protesting is the non-exercising part or the ice-cream eating part, then akrasia isn’t being helpful. But… it’s worth listening to that feeling and seeing why you are avoiding the action.
the most extreme example is depressed people having an increased risk of suicide if an antidepressant lifts their akrasia before it improves their mood.
I’ve also read that people with bipolar disorder are more likely to commit suicide as their depression lifts.
But antidepressant effects can be very complicated. I know someone who says one med made her really really want to sleep with her feet where her head normally went. I once reacted to an antidepressant by spending three days cycling through the thoughts, “I should cut off a finger” (I explained to myself why that was a bad idea) “I should cut off a toe” (ditto) “I should cut all the flesh from my ribs” (explain myself out of it again), then back to the start.
The akrasia-lifting explanation certainly seems plausible to me (although “mood” may not be the other relevant variable—it may be worldview and plans; I’ve never attempted suicide, but certainly when I’ve self-harmed or sabotaged my own life it’s often been on “autopilot”, carrying out something I’ve been thinking about a lot, not directly related to mood—mood and beliefs are related, but I’ve noticed a lag between one changing and the other changing to catch up to it; someone might no longer be severely depressed but still believe that killing themself is a good course of action). Still, I would also believe an explanation that certain meds cause suicidal impulses in some people, just as they can cause other weird impulses.
My mom is a psychiatrist, and she’s given an explanation basically equivalent to that one—that people with very severe depression don’t have the “energy” to do anything at all, including taking action to kill themselves, and that when they start taking medication, they get their energy back and are able to act on their plans.
Sometimes I procrastinate for weeks about doing something, generally non-urgent, only to have something happen that would have made the doing of it unnecessary. (For instance, I procrastinate about getting train tickets for a short trip to visit a client, and the day before the visit is due the client rings me to call it off.)
The useful notion here is that it generally pays to defer action or decision until “the last responsible moment”; it is the consequence of applying the theory of options valuation, specifically real options, to everyday decisions.
A top-level post about this would probably be relevant to the LW readership, as real options are a non-trivial instance of a procedure for decision under uncertainty. I’m not entirely sure I’m qualified to write it, but if no one else steps up I’ll volunteer to do the research and write it up.
I work in finance (trading) and go through my daily life quantifying everything in terms of EV.
I would just caution in saying that, yes procrastinating provides you with some real option value as you mentioned but you need to weigh this against the probability of you exercising that option value as well as the other obvious costs of delaying the task.
Certain tasks are inherently valuable to delay as long as possible and can be identified as such beforehand. As an example, work related emails that require me to make a decison or choice I put off as long as is politely possible in case new information comes in which would influence my decision.
On the other hand, certain tasks can be identified as possessing little or no option value when weighted with the appropriate probabilities. What is the probability that delaying the payment of your cable bill will have value to you? Perhaps if you experience an emergency cash crunch. Or the off chance that your cable stops working and you decide to try to withhold payment (not that this will necessarily do you any good).
Continuing on the “last responsible moment” comment from one of the other responders—would it not be helpful to consider the putting off of a task until the last moment as an attempt to gather the largest amount of information persuant to the task without incurring any penalty?
Having poor focus and attention span I use an online todo-list for work and home life where I list every task as soon as I think of it, whether it is to be done within the next hour or year. The list soon mounts up, occassionally causing me anxiety, and I regularly have cause to carry a task over to the next day for weeks at a time—but what I have found is that a large number of tasks get removed because a change makes the task no longer necessary and a small proportion get notes added to them while they stay on the list so that the by the time the task gets actioned it has been enhanced by the extra information.
By having everything captured I can be sure no task will be lost, but by procrastinating I can ensure the highest level of efficiency in the tasks that I do eventually perform.
I noticed something recently which might be a positive aspect of akrasia, and a reason for its existence.
Background: I am generally bad at getting things done. For instance, I might put off paying a bill for a long time, which seems strange considering the whole process would take < 5 minutes.
A while back, I read about a solution: when you happen to remember a small task, if you are capable of doing it right then, then do it right then. I found this easy to follow, and quickly got a lot better at keeping up with small things.
A week or two into it, I thought of something evil to do, and following my pattern, quickly did it. Within a few minutes, I regretted it and thankfully, was able to undo it. But it scared me, and I discontinued my habit.
I’m not sure how general a conclusion I can draw from this; perhaps I am unusually prone to these mistakes. But since then I’ve considered akrasia as a sort of warning: “Some part of you doesn’t want to do this. How about doing something else?”
Now when the part of you protesting is the non-exercising part or the ice-cream eating part, then akrasia isn’t being helpful. But… it’s worth listening to that feeling and seeing why you are avoiding the action.
the most extreme example is depressed people having an increased risk of suicide if an antidepressant lifts their akrasia before it improves their mood.
I’ve also read that people with bipolar disorder are more likely to commit suicide as their depression lifts.
But antidepressant effects can be very complicated. I know someone who says one med made her really really want to sleep with her feet where her head normally went. I once reacted to an antidepressant by spending three days cycling through the thoughts, “I should cut off a finger” (I explained to myself why that was a bad idea) “I should cut off a toe” (ditto) “I should cut all the flesh from my ribs” (explain myself out of it again), then back to the start.
The akrasia-lifting explanation certainly seems plausible to me (although “mood” may not be the other relevant variable—it may be worldview and plans; I’ve never attempted suicide, but certainly when I’ve self-harmed or sabotaged my own life it’s often been on “autopilot”, carrying out something I’ve been thinking about a lot, not directly related to mood—mood and beliefs are related, but I’ve noticed a lag between one changing and the other changing to catch up to it; someone might no longer be severely depressed but still believe that killing themself is a good course of action). Still, I would also believe an explanation that certain meds cause suicidal impulses in some people, just as they can cause other weird impulses.
My antidepressant gave me a sweet tooth.
Interesting. Are you sure that is going on when antidepressants have paradoxical effects?
Not absolutely certain. It’s an impression I’ve picked up from mass media accounts, and it seems reasonable to me.
It would be good to have both more science and more personal accounts.
Thanks for asking.
My mom is a psychiatrist, and she’s given an explanation basically equivalent to that one—that people with very severe depression don’t have the “energy” to do anything at all, including taking action to kill themselves, and that when they start taking medication, they get their energy back and are able to act on their plans.
Good observations.
Sometimes I procrastinate for weeks about doing something, generally non-urgent, only to have something happen that would have made the doing of it unnecessary. (For instance, I procrastinate about getting train tickets for a short trip to visit a client, and the day before the visit is due the client rings me to call it off.)
The useful notion here is that it generally pays to defer action or decision until “the last responsible moment”; it is the consequence of applying the theory of options valuation, specifically real options, to everyday decisions.
A top-level post about this would probably be relevant to the LW readership, as real options are a non-trivial instance of a procedure for decision under uncertainty. I’m not entirely sure I’m qualified to write it, but if no one else steps up I’ll volunteer to do the research and write it up.
I work in finance (trading) and go through my daily life quantifying everything in terms of EV.
I would just caution in saying that, yes procrastinating provides you with some real option value as you mentioned but you need to weigh this against the probability of you exercising that option value as well as the other obvious costs of delaying the task.
Certain tasks are inherently valuable to delay as long as possible and can be identified as such beforehand. As an example, work related emails that require me to make a decison or choice I put off as long as is politely possible in case new information comes in which would influence my decision.
On the other hand, certain tasks can be identified as possessing little or no option value when weighted with the appropriate probabilities. What is the probability that delaying the payment of your cable bill will have value to you? Perhaps if you experience an emergency cash crunch. Or the off chance that your cable stops working and you decide to try to withhold payment (not that this will necessarily do you any good).
I’d be interested in reading it.
Continuing on the “last responsible moment” comment from one of the other responders—would it not be helpful to consider the putting off of a task until the last moment as an attempt to gather the largest amount of information persuant to the task without incurring any penalty?
Having poor focus and attention span I use an online todo-list for work and home life where I list every task as soon as I think of it, whether it is to be done within the next hour or year. The list soon mounts up, occassionally causing me anxiety, and I regularly have cause to carry a task over to the next day for weeks at a time—but what I have found is that a large number of tasks get removed because a change makes the task no longer necessary and a small proportion get notes added to them while they stay on the list so that the by the time the task gets actioned it has been enhanced by the extra information.
By having everything captured I can be sure no task will be lost, but by procrastinating I can ensure the highest level of efficiency in the tasks that I do eventually perform.
Thoughts?
I suspect it’s just a figure of speech, but can you elaborate on what you meant by “evil” above?