Don’t sell your reflexes short. Our brains were executing complicated plans for millions of generations before acquiring explicit reasoning, i.e. language. Lately I’ve been leaning towards the Elephant and Rider model of decision-making, or drawing from this pithy tweet by Stephen Kaas. In your case, I think, your elephant wants to surf the web, and it has a lot more brainpower than your goal-setting rider who wants to finish the paper.
In a practical sense, I think this means you want to put yourself in situations where success is the default, expected result. Use your conscious mind to set up the system, once, then the full power of your brain will work towards your goal, rather than have your “seek cheap entertainment” drive fighting your “finish my paper” drive. (Easier said than done!)
Paul Graham has two computers, one online and the other disconnected from the Internet, and his rule is “you can waste as much time as you want, as long as it’s on the other computer”. That works for him. Scott Adams’ rule is “go to the gym five times a week” even if that means walking through the doors and then walking out immediately. He says, “losers have goals and winners have systems.”
Don’t sell your reflexes short. Our brains were executing complicated plans for millions of generations before acquiring explicit reasoning, i.e. language. Lately I’ve been leaning towards the Elephant and Rider model of decision-making, or drawing from this pithy tweet by Stephen Kaas. In your case, I think, your elephant wants to surf the web, and it has a lot more brainpower than your goal-setting rider who wants to finish the paper.
In a practical sense, I think this means you want to put yourself in situations where success is the default, expected result. Use your conscious mind to set up the system, once, then the full power of your brain will work towards your goal, rather than have your “seek cheap entertainment” drive fighting your “finish my paper” drive. (Easier said than done!)
Paul Graham has two computers, one online and the other disconnected from the Internet, and his rule is “you can waste as much time as you want, as long as it’s on the other computer”. That works for him. Scott Adams’ rule is “go to the gym five times a week” even if that means walking through the doors and then walking out immediately. He says, “losers have goals and winners have systems.”
This is a little like “burning the boats.”
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/06/andreessen-media-burn-boats/