How to Teach Your Brain to Hate Procrastination

post by 10xyz (10xyz-coder) · 2024-10-21T20:12:40.809Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

Contents

  Make Good Tasks Easier and Bad Tasks Harder
  Make Good Tasks More Worthwhile, and Bad Tasks Less Worthwhile
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The Human Brain is hard-wired to survive. So much so, that in fact, it does more harm than good.

 

The Human Brain is inherently lazy. This laziness allowed them to survive some hundreds of thousands of years. It was this primal laziness that made ancient humans realise that using a wheel would make their lives easier, that using a tool instead of their hands would make their lives easier, that using currency instead of bartering would make their lives easier etc. You get the point.

But in today's modern era, this laziness has done way more harm than good. When was the last time you decided to scroll a bit on social media, and ended up doom-scrolling for hours? (For most of us, it would be pretty recent)

What actually happened: Social Media is designed to grab our minds. It is extremely easy to just scroll down to another short; it takes less than a second. Each short is just short enough so that your brain thinks it's easy to do, and just long enough to actually make it worthwhile.

This inherent tendency to perform tasks that the brain perceives as worthwhile, while being easy enough to execute causes procrastination. 

This is the main idea behind what I'm going to be sharing in this article. The brain wants to do the thing easiest to perform, while also going for the things which are the most worthwhile. And what just so happens to fit all these criteria? You got it, Social Media!

So, how can one combat this? Well, it's pretty simple! Just exploit this tendency to get to your goals!

1. The Brain wants to do the easiest task: Make tasks that you want to do easier, and tasks that you don't, harder.

2. The Brain wants to do the thing it finds most worthwhile: Make tasks you want to do connected to something of value, and task that you don't with something of lower value.

    

Make Good Tasks Easier and Bad Tasks Harder

It sounds pretty simple, and it is, in fact. One can find many rules spread across the internet, such as the 20-second rule, the 5-minute rule, the x-rule etc., in which you make good tasks easier by x, and bad tasks harder by x.

For example, suppose you want to read books more often, and view less social media. You could make it easier to read by creating a dedicated book area near your desk. You could make scrolling on social media harder by putting your phone in another room, turning off notifications, or even disabling the raise-to-on feature^[1].

Make Good Tasks More Worthwhile, and Bad Tasks Less Worthwhile

Now this is easier said than done. To successfully implement this, you need to create a reward-punishment model. (or anything else similar) You will associate good tasks with rewards, which could be intrinsic or extrinsic, and bad tasks with punishments, or even absence of rewards.

For example, in the previous case, you could set a system wherein if you read books for half-an-hour, you can get 10 points. 15 points will mean a treat, (icecream, chocolate whatever). However, scrolling on social media for 10 minutes would make you lose 15 points. If your points are in negative, you cannot go and buy a treat (or any other reward), which in itself, is a punishment.

Slowly, your brain will associate good tasks with rewards and hence dopamine, and bad tasks with punishments or no dopamine. This will make it easier for you to do a good task with less discipline, as dopamine would be controlling you in the right path. (Of course, assuming that the dopamine released on performing a good task is more than that given by the bad task)

Another method is delayed gratification. It involves pushing your brain towards longer-term happiness, and surprising the dopamine released by short-term events, like social media, but that's big enough of a topic for another article.

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In the end, it's all up to you. Whether you use this information as motivation to fulfill your goals and your prophecy, or as yet another blob of test amidst the masses.

If you liked this post, you could also read How to Beat Procrastination [LW · GW] by @lukeprog [LW · GW]. It's a nice article, and covers a lot more ideas.

1. ^{^}

   This is the feature in most modern phones that turns the phone on when you lift it up.

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