Paul Graham - Latest Comments in Good and Bad Procrastination

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Aimable NiyiKiza — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 06:02:10 -0000

Excellent essay. Indeed, the danger of type-B procrastination is that you barely know that you are procrastinating.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Because I Can Do It! — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:25:08 -0000

I really love the idea in this article. In fact, I am firmly convinced that sometimes procrastination can be intuition in disguise. Here's a great article covering this subject: http://t.co/8PHxXVdY7p

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Airsoft Guns — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:52:01 -0000

Definitely important to understand the difference between both. It's okay to procrastinate sometimes but when something important needs to be done, just do it. Get it over with.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Yogmaya — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 06:15:52 -0000

I really like this article, I accidentally hit upon this ...and I can't put in words how exhilarated I am after reading this. Now I have a justification to my good procrastination. I am so thankful to you. Till Till date I used to feel guilty of not cleaning cooking..errands on time, though I always gained from this. But now I am happy..I was right...you can't do everything...for a big cause we have to ignore less important things.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Mary — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:55:17 -0000

Other than working on my Real Estate Blog I procrastinate in almost every part of my life.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Brenda Avadian — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:07:57 -0000

Great article with nuggets of wisdom--3 types of procrastination and how a two-person entrepreneurial team loses their edge after getting funding to hire more people. However, a long article to digest, which lead to my procrastinating in a not so healthy manner. I'm going to try to get back to work.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Nikoya — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:23:12 -0000

It makes sense - particularly the point about guys in an apartment building a start-up - procrastination is strongest when there are more avenues, variables and responsibility. It's not always bad.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Keith Junor — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:12:31 -0000

I should be working out right now but instead I am reading about procrastination.
www.behealthyandslim.com

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Keith Junor — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:11:43 -0000

www.theselfimprovementcoach...

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Keith Junor — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:11:20 -0000

for some of us procrastination is another word for lazy

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Jason Riggs — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:51:44 -0000

I would like to propose type (D) of procrastination: procrastinating by reading this article instead of doing other work. Not sure it fits into the other categories.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Lottie — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:21:54 -0000

Phew! i needed to find this currently i have 4 big assignments to write but i don't actually enjoy my subject..

They'll have to be done sooner or later i guess, so somehow i'll get them done.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Noelle Ibrahim — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:46:06 -0000

I'm putting something off while reading this article....it must be important :)

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Guilherme Carvalho — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 04:28:34 -0000

I have a little tip about procrastination and to-do lists. Like in the military, I rank them "primary objective", "secondary", etc.
So at the end of the day if I finish everything but my primary objective, I feel like a looser. If I finish just the primary, I feel more or less good. If I finish the primary plus the next most important ones, I feel on fire. :)
The best part of it is that feeling on fire reinforces the desired behaviour (attacking the primary) in the next days.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

David @P2PEngagement — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:59:25 -0000

What you're describing here is the tremendous power of following your bliss, your passion. Aren't the big projects the ones you'd be most passionate about, - answering the big questions?

What about the serious procrastinator, who can't do the basic tasks that primarily sustain his life, like work projects to get paid or academic assignments, to be in a position to work on the big questions in a given field, in the first place?

This level of real procrastination is clinically speaking, a real life-interfering tendency. It costs in dollars, emotional, physical and spiritual well being, heck, it costs in lost years of life!

The real way to stop this kind of life-harming procrastination is as simple as it is counterintuitive. It's about learning how to borrow motivation from the things we love doing and do everyday, and transferring it over to the important tasks we don't like doing and avoid.

Harnessing and transferring motivation, is what cures clinical depression better than medication. It's what cures autism and helps a stroke victim quickly recover.

The part people miss out on, is that the natural process of brain rewiring is driven primarily through external motivators.

I'm passionate about helping people improve their lives by really showing them how to overcome procrastination.

Thanks for this incredibly thought provoking article!

Gratefully,
Duddy (Professional, Counselor/Behavior-Change Consultant)
from: http://procrastinationfreel...

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Laura Horton — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:11:19 -0000

oops it's actually

thedailybother.com

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Laura Horton — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:05:47 -0000

I like how you categorize different tasks. I myself struggle with getting things done like the thank you letters, rsvp's, extra projects due to being bogged down by the day to day stuff. I even started my own website to be held accountable to do something that I've bee putting off every day.
thedailybother » doing things that bother me everyday.
Thanks again for your article...very inspiring!

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Markav — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:39:59 -0000

This essay completely expresses what I‘ve been thinking about lately, but I couldn‘t have said it any better. Great!

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Jomaga41 — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:52:18 -0000

these essays are damn good.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Iliana — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:33:22 -0000

Great article. All the to-do-list advocates should read this.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Seb Brantigan — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:10:52 -0000

I like the idea of this - putting off minor tasks such as shaving to make bigger things happen. Definitely worth doing.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Romraidr — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:52:28 -0000

Procrastination is my shame
It causes me much sorrow...
I simply must stop doing it,
In fact, I'll start TOMORROW !!! :)

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Bethany — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:27:12 -0000

So true. . .

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Sundar — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:10:48 -0000

Nice essay about procrastination. As Larry wall said - Procrastination (Good procrastination) is one of the qualities of a good programmer.

Re: Good and Bad Procrastination

Teashop_013 — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:18:17 -0000

This was a great article, but one thing really stuck out to me. You said to take the big project indirectly and I myself have tried this a thousand times and it's never really worked but today, as a generally stubborn person I took it on directly mentally. Surprisingly it worked! I don't what happened but i just would not allow myself to lose.