Why Procrastinators Procrastinate
pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|
noun
the action of delaying or postponing something: your first tip is to avoid procrastination.
Who would have thought that after decades of struggle with procrastination, the dictionary, of all places, would hold the solution.
Avoid procrastination. So elegant in its simplicity.
While we're here, let's make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean.
No, "avoid procrastination" is only good advice for fake procrastinators—those people that are like, "I totally go on Facebook a few times every day at work—I'm such a procrastinator!" The same people that will say to a real procrastinator something like, "Just don't procrastinate and you'll be fine."
The thing that neither the dictionary nor fake procrastinators understand is that for a real procrastinator, procrastination isn't optional—it's something they don't know how to not do.
In college, the sudden unbridled personal freedom was a disaster for me—I did nothing, ever, for any reason. The one exception was that I had to hand in papers from time to time. I would do those the night before, until I realized I could just do them through the night, and I did that until I realized I could actually start them in the early morning on the day they were due. This behavior reached caricature levels when I was unable to start writing my 90-page senior thesis until 72 hours before it was due, an experience that ended with me in the campus doctor's office learning that lack of blood sugar was the reason my hands had gone numb and curled up against my will. (I did get the thesis in—no, it was not good.)
Even this post took much longer than it should have, because I spent a bunch of hours doing things like seeing this picture sitting on my desktop from a previous post, opening it, looking at it for a long time thinking about how easily he could beat me in a fight, then wondering if he could beat a tiger in a fight, then wondering who would win between a lion and a tiger, and then googling that and reading about it for a while (the tiger would win). I have problems.
To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much, let's start by understanding a non-procrastinator's brain:
Pretty normal, right? Now, let's look at a procrastinator's brain:
Notice anything different?
It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator's brain is coexisting with a pet—the Instant Gratification Monkey.
This would be fine—cute, even—if the Rational Decision-Maker knew the first thing about how to own a monkey. But unfortunately, it wasn't a part of his training and he's left completely helpless as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.
The fact is, the Instant Gratification Monkey is the last creature who should be in charge of decisions—he thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and he concerns himself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment. He doesn't understand the Rational Decision-Maker any better than the Rational Decision-Maker understands him—why would we continue doing this jog, he thinks, when we could stop, which would feel better. Why would we practice that instrument when it's not fun? Why would we ever use a computer for work when the internet is sitting right there waiting to be played with? He thinks humans are insane.
In the monkey world, he's got it all figured out—if you eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, and don't do anything difficult, you're a pretty successful monkey. The problem for the procrastinator is that he happens to live in the human world, making the Instant Gratification Monkey a highly unqualified navigator. Meanwhile, the Rational Decision-Maker, who was trained to make rational decisions, not to deal with competition over the controls, doesn't know how to put up an effective fight—he just feels worse and worse about himself the more he fails and the more the suffering procrastinator whose head he's in berates him.
It's a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.*
The Dark Playground is a place every procrastinator knows well. It's a place where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun because it's completely unearned and the air is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and dread. Sometimes the Rational Decision-Maker puts his foot down and refuses to let you waste time doing normal leisure things, and since the Instant Gratification Monkey sure as hell isn't gonna let you work, you find yourself in a bizarre purgatory of weird activities where everyone loses.**
And the poor Rational Decision-Maker just mopes, trying to figure out how he let the human he's supposed to be in charge of end up here again.
Given this predicament, how does the procrastinator ever manage to accomplish anything?
As it turns out, there's one thing that scares the shit out of the Instant Gratification Monkey:
The Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there's danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.
The Instant Gratification Monkey, normally unshakable, is terrified of the Panic Monster. How else could you explain the same person who can't write a paper's introductory sentence over a two-week span suddenly having the ability to stay up all night, fighting exhaustion, and write eight pages? Why else would an extraordinarily lazy person begin a rigorous workout routine other than a Panic Monster freakout about becoming less attractive?
And these are the lucky procrastinators—there are some who don't even respond to the Panic Monster, and in the most desperate moments they end up running up the tree with the monkey, entering a state of self-annihilating shutdown.
Quite a crowd we are.
Of course, this is no way to live. Even for the procrastinator who does manage to eventually get things done and remain a competent member of society, something has to change. Here are the main reasons why:
1) It's unpleasant. Far too much of the procrastinator's precious time is spent toiling in the Dark Playground, time that could have been spent enjoying satisfying, well-earned leisure if things had been done on a more logical schedule. And panic isn't fun for anyone.
2) The procrastinator ultimately sells himself short. He ends up underachieving and fails to reach his potential, which eats away at him over time and fills him with regret and self-loathing.
3) The Have-To-Dos may happen, but not the Want-To-Dos. Even if the procrastinator is in the type of career where the Panic Monster is regularly present and he's able to be fulfilled at work, the other things in life that are important to him—getting in shape, cooking elaborate meals, learning to play the guitar, writing a book, reading, or even making a bold career switch—never happen because the Panic Monster doesn't usually get involved with those things. Undertakings like those expand our experiences, make our lives richer, and bring us a lot of happiness—and for most procrastinators, they get left in the dust.
So how can a procrastinator improve and become happier? See Part 2, How To Beat Procrastination.
---------
* A lot of you are probably reading this article while in the Dark Playground.
** I spent two hours in the Dark Playground right before I drew the Dark Playground drawing, because I was dreading having to draw the signpost, which I knew would be hard and take forever (which it did).
Who would have thought that after decades of struggle with procrastination, the dictionary, of all places, would hold the solution.
Avoid procrastination. So elegant in its simplicity.
While we're here, let's make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean.
No, "avoid procrastination" is only good advice for fake procrastinators—those people that are like, "I totally go on Facebook a few times every day at work—I'm such a procrastinator!" The same people that will say to a real procrastinator something like, "Just don't procrastinate and you'll be fine."
The thing that neither the dictionary nor fake procrastinators understand is that for a real procrastinator, procrastination isn't optional—it's something they don't know how to not do.
In college, the sudden unbridled personal freedom was a disaster for me—I did nothing, ever, for any reason. The one exception was that I had to hand in papers from time to time. I would do those the night before, until I realized I could just do them through the night, and I did that until I realized I could actually start them in the early morning on the day they were due. This behavior reached caricature levels when I was unable to start writing my 90-page senior thesis until 72 hours before it was due, an experience that ended with me in the campus doctor's office learning that lack of blood sugar was the reason my hands had gone numb and curled up against my will. (I did get the thesis in—no, it was not good.)
Even this post took much longer than it should have, because I spent a bunch of hours doing things like seeing this picture sitting on my desktop from a previous post, opening it, looking at it for a long time thinking about how easily he could beat me in a fight, then wondering if he could beat a tiger in a fight, then wondering who would win between a lion and a tiger, and then googling that and reading about it for a while (the tiger would win). I have problems.
To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much, let's start by understanding a non-procrastinator's brain:
Pretty normal, right? Now, let's look at a procrastinator's brain:
Notice anything different?
It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator's brain is coexisting with a pet—the Instant Gratification Monkey.
This would be fine—cute, even—if the Rational Decision-Maker knew the first thing about how to own a monkey. But unfortunately, it wasn't a part of his training and he's left completely helpless as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.
The fact is, the Instant Gratification Monkey is the last creature who should be in charge of decisions—he thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and he concerns himself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment. He doesn't understand the Rational Decision-Maker any better than the Rational Decision-Maker understands him—why would we continue doing this jog, he thinks, when we could stop, which would feel better. Why would we practice that instrument when it's not fun? Why would we ever use a computer for work when the internet is sitting right there waiting to be played with? He thinks humans are insane.
In the monkey world, he's got it all figured out—if you eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, and don't do anything difficult, you're a pretty successful monkey. The problem for the procrastinator is that he happens to live in the human world, making the Instant Gratification Monkey a highly unqualified navigator. Meanwhile, the Rational Decision-Maker, who was trained to make rational decisions, not to deal with competition over the controls, doesn't know how to put up an effective fight—he just feels worse and worse about himself the more he fails and the more the suffering procrastinator whose head he's in berates him.
It's a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.*
The Dark Playground is a place every procrastinator knows well. It's a place where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun because it's completely unearned and the air is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and dread. Sometimes the Rational Decision-Maker puts his foot down and refuses to let you waste time doing normal leisure things, and since the Instant Gratification Monkey sure as hell isn't gonna let you work, you find yourself in a bizarre purgatory of weird activities where everyone loses.**
And the poor Rational Decision-Maker just mopes, trying to figure out how he let the human he's supposed to be in charge of end up here again.
Given this predicament, how does the procrastinator ever manage to accomplish anything?
As it turns out, there's one thing that scares the shit out of the Instant Gratification Monkey:
The Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there's danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.
The Instant Gratification Monkey, normally unshakable, is terrified of the Panic Monster. How else could you explain the same person who can't write a paper's introductory sentence over a two-week span suddenly having the ability to stay up all night, fighting exhaustion, and write eight pages? Why else would an extraordinarily lazy person begin a rigorous workout routine other than a Panic Monster freakout about becoming less attractive?
And these are the lucky procrastinators—there are some who don't even respond to the Panic Monster, and in the most desperate moments they end up running up the tree with the monkey, entering a state of self-annihilating shutdown.
Quite a crowd we are.
Of course, this is no way to live. Even for the procrastinator who does manage to eventually get things done and remain a competent member of society, something has to change. Here are the main reasons why:
1) It's unpleasant. Far too much of the procrastinator's precious time is spent toiling in the Dark Playground, time that could have been spent enjoying satisfying, well-earned leisure if things had been done on a more logical schedule. And panic isn't fun for anyone.
2) The procrastinator ultimately sells himself short. He ends up underachieving and fails to reach his potential, which eats away at him over time and fills him with regret and self-loathing.
3) The Have-To-Dos may happen, but not the Want-To-Dos. Even if the procrastinator is in the type of career where the Panic Monster is regularly present and he's able to be fulfilled at work, the other things in life that are important to him—getting in shape, cooking elaborate meals, learning to play the guitar, writing a book, reading, or even making a bold career switch—never happen because the Panic Monster doesn't usually get involved with those things. Undertakings like those expand our experiences, make our lives richer, and bring us a lot of happiness—and for most procrastinators, they get left in the dust.
So how can a procrastinator improve and become happier? See Part 2, How To Beat Procrastination.
---------
* A lot of you are probably reading this article while in the Dark Playground.
** I spent two hours in the Dark Playground right before I drew the Dark Playground drawing, because I was dreading having to draw the signpost, which I knew would be hard and take forever (which it did).
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I was trying to work and then I said to myself "Well it's tuesday, let's check wait but why !". Damn Monkey
ReplyDeletejust realized how reading this article caused me to procrastinate.
ReplyDeleteMy wife sent this me with the comment "it's YOU." She was underselling.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the unnecessary masturbation Food court??
ReplyDeleteI remembered that my grandmother recently learned that this blog existed and knows how to access it.
DeleteHahaha... thats a pity!
DeleteThe Instant Gratification Monkey is a Bonobo.
Delete"unnecessary" masturbation? I don't follow.
Deleteyes this
DeleteThis is a great post ... EXCEPT ... equating depressions with apathy is really, really far afield. Kind of frustrating to a person (me) who struggles with it a lot. A person with depression may give the appearance of apathy, but that's not the whole story. It's kind of like saying a procrastinator is getting a lot done: look at them checking the fridge! checking their email! drawing pictures of their IG monkey!!!
DeleteMany of us depressed folks feel like we care a lot more than the people around us do. Sometimes I even find myself wanting to withdraw (therefore appearing apathetic) just to avoid (what appears to me at that moment to be) the shallow, self-serving apathy of others.
Please note the parentheses and don't flame me. :)
Oops ... put that don't-say-we're-apathetic post in the wrong place ... sorry.
DeleteAm I the only one who needed to look up "bonobo?"
Deletebo·no·bo /bəˈnōbō/ n: bonobo; plural: bonobos 1. a chimpanzee with a black face and black hair, found in the rain forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).
[Kimberly: Quelle coïncidence. I registered for "Blogger" just last night in order to respond to this blog. I wondered why some people have photos by their replies and happened to click on yours first. What are the chances the first profile I happen to explore belongs to a person who attended the same university I happen to be attending? Weird. Small world. I'm a senior in Accounting/Finance, by the way. Also, per the topic of this blog (I'm not kidding), this is my fourth year as a senior. It's okay, though. I only have one year left.]
@Anonymous: "...'unnecessary' masturbation? I don't follow."
DeleteWalking my dogs one day, listening to my Sansa Clip FM radio, NPR's Splendid Table did a show on "leftover wine." By the time I got home, I was so confused I googled the phrase (with quotes).
Wikipedia said, "Leftover Wine is a live album released by Melanie in 1970." That made the confusion worse, so I dug deeper. I found a few jokes about "spare change," and a reference to punk rock group, "Leftöver Crack," but nothing to explain what NPR meant by "leftover wine."
I used to think I was smart, but that episode truly broke me. Some mysteries I just can't solve.
"So how can a procrastinator improve and become happier? That's the topic of next week's post."
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there. :)
As a career procrastinator, I simply found that line amusing. That's part of the self-loathing thing, though. You learn to recognize what might appear to be excuses for the type of behavior you yourself own, and get that certain little twinge of guilt at knowing that you may just use that line in as a defense.
In any case, I thought it a very cogent article. I've only recently become less of a procrastinator. It might be chemical, it might be age, it might be the stresses of being a father for thirteen years - whatever it was, I highly value the level of patience and perseverance I've recently been able to attain.
I can't stress any more than you already have, however, that procrastination isn't something someone intentionally "does" as much as it is who they "are". Brilliant point there, I have to say.
Looking forward to next week's installment.
This Blog has become part of my dark playground...I have to slap my monkey! ;-/
ReplyDeletelove this so much. Literally wait for this all tuesday for it to enter my dark playground!
ReplyDeleteGuilty as hell! Definitely in the dark playground!
ReplyDeleteI am the total opposite of a procrastinator, but I feel for you - that is not a fun place to be at all - thanks for explaining it in such a coherent way. Also, you might spend lots of time in the dark playground, but your posts are brilliant and I look forward to them every week (or almost every week ;-)
ReplyDeleteOk if u are no procrastinator how did u got this far in this particular article? 2nd thought - if u do it for somebody else maybe u sent him/ her just hte article
DeleteYou forgot about reddit highway built nearby your dark playground!
ReplyDeleteReddit takes up a huge percentage of my dark playgound time.
DeleteSo right on about the procrastinator. I'm typing this comment sitting in my bed with a list of things-to-do, and thinking about YouTube-ing last night's X-Factor.
ReplyDelete"* A lot of you are probably reading this article while in the Dark Playground."
ReplyDeleteSo busted...
Oh, and I work from home. My entire life is the dark playground.
plus 1..!
Deleteyou have best blog ever! I hang onto every word.
ReplyDeletehttp://theinternetandtheunicorn.blogspot.com/
I read this article with the voice of the Panic Monster. My panic rose with every paragraph as I tried not to glance over at the project that is due later today.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Brilliant!! I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while.
ReplyDeleteI totally climbed the tree in college and didn't come down. I want somebody to chop down the tree and kill the monkey.
ReplyDeletemy procrasturbation is at dangerous levels - so much so i'm lost in a weak fountain of nothing
ReplyDeleteCurrently trying to stay out of the Dark Playground. Not being all that successful seeing as how I'm at work...Tomorrow will be better. Yeah, tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteThis blog is everything that I am.
ReplyDeleteThis is easily the best blog on the internet....if I was creative enough to write like this, I probably would be writing about 75% of the topics that you have touched on. So spot on, can't wait for next week. Let's see if I can get some work done on MY thesis this week!
ReplyDeleteIt's like you're in my head, calmly observing my instant gratification monkey while he does his thing, keeping my life a constant exercise of extinguishing fires only as a result of the tireless efforts of my panic monster (who is woefully overworked).
ReplyDeleteKudos on an excellent post. That you are able to churn out these wonderfully written, thought provoking and entertaining posts as regularly as you do is a testament to how far you have come. Good on you. The follow through is an obvious and marked departure from the worst kind of procrastinator. You're in much better shape than some of us out there.
As to the omitted over-indulgent-and-excessive-masturbation-that-makes-you-question-your-own-sense-of-sexual-propriety tea cup ride, I find it usually sandwiches both sides of the depressing nap action slingshot as well as being disproportionately interspersed throughout the measure of time spent in the dark playground, often built into travel time from one productivity wasteland to another.
Thanks for brightening my day and being a constant beacon for the monkey to steer towards.
I just signed onto the mallist and, in view of today's post, was HIGHLY amused to find that it is managed by "MailCHIMP" (emphasis inserted).
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: Before I'd read your post yesterday (24+ hours ago), I'd never heard of "MailChimp." If you'd asked me, I'd have wagered the words "mail" and "chimp" were syntactically incongruous, and had likely never been used in the same sentence together, ever, in the entire history of the English language, much less used together in the same compound word.
DeleteThen, as I was working last night, listening to the same classical radio station I've listened to a thousand times before, what do you think I heard? You guessed it: "Tonight's program brought to you in part by MailChimp..."
Isn't that cool? No? Maybe we should look into this...
You'd think I’d learn to expect the unexpected. Fortunately, humans are surprisingly adept at overlooking inconvenient data, such as evidence that our existence is fully comprised by a quantum web of universally interconnected inevitability that if acknowledged would invalidate not only our concepts of choice, self-determination, and dignity, but also any notions of right and wrong, hope, or anticipation. Did I say "fortunately?" In truth, such acknowledgement would also have advantages, such as neutralizing fear and shame, and all perceptions of loss, regret, sadness, and despair. That might be a profitable trade, depending on how my day was going.
William James (father of Pragmatism as a movement in philosophy) once wrote, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” Would William James have commented on MailChimp’s sudden brand-proliferation? Perhaps the dual appearance of MailChimp in my world only SEEMS to indicate the existence of a universal interconnected web of cosmic inevitability. If we presume the universe is infinite, we may safely also presume that anything is possible. Whew! Don’t bother checking my math. If I've overlooked anything significant, I assure you I would have noticed. [See what I did there?]
Similarly, Albert Schweitzer (theologian, physician, and medical missionary) wrote this: "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory." If that's true, then I thank my lucky stars I haven't learned to expect the unexpected. Let's I hope I never do. Except for stock market crashes (if I ever own stocks). Or pedestrians entering the roadway when I’m operating a motor vehicle. There’s nothing wrong with defensive driving. Right?
What about "defensive living?" What if MailChimp is an NSA surveillance platform? Should I fear this possibility, or overlook it? Perhaps I’ve already overlooked it in the past, and I've been happier all this time because I’d forgotten. Wisdom and happiness may be incompatible. Let’s overlook that possibility. Entertaining dangerous ideas is procrastination in the extreme.
I'll stop now. Carry on.
Just happened yesterday when I had to give a presentation for university and haven't started until … the night before? Also - haven't started writing my bachelor thesis until 2 days before deadline (and yes, I managed it, and yes, I scored okayish). Y U DOING THIS INSTANT GRATIFICATION MONKEY
ReplyDeleteYou captured it perfectly. Now I understand the phrase "monkey business"! With that kind of insight I'd love to hear your thoughts on "ok, what now?".
ReplyDeleteBusted. Accurately, totally, unquestionably busted.
ReplyDeleteim scared...i need to shoot that motherf****** monkey
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving me a language to describe my vicious cycle. You actually described it so perfectly that I am a little pissed off that I have to wait til next week to hear the end of the story. Which then makes me wonder...did you put it til next week because the monkey says its okay? =)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, this might have changed my life. Thank you so much.
The worst part for me is postponing doctors' appointments.
ReplyDeleteI have so many I should visit and I never get around to it. I think one of my moles is about to turn into skin cancer, seriously.
Why do you make us wait until next week for part 2????
Procrastination is a luxury. It is very mich a firstt world issue.
ReplyDeleteNo it's not
DeleteDear know it all, I don't live in a first world country and trust me we procrastinate here too... Also it's not a luxury. You didnt' get the article at all.
DeleteGenius
ReplyDelete4 papers due in 2 days. Instead here I am reading this. I am dead.
ReplyDeleteWait you're going to make me wait a week before telling me how to fix my life?!
ReplyDeleteActually, I couldn't agree more. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteAs a lifelong procrastinator, I loved this post. But now that I'm into my mid-40's, I've discovered that the reason I procrastinate is because I can. I'm generally smart and creative enough that I can crank out an acceptable product in flurry of last-minute activity. Sure, I could spend 3 or 4 days working on it and tweaking it until it's done, but whenever I've done that I've found that the difference between it and the stuff I do at the last minute is negligible.
ReplyDeleteAs a result, I can pretty much goof off 3-4 days a week (like reading this site), work in short bursts, and still be considered one of the more productive people at my office. I'm sure if I weren't as creative and/or intelligent, I would HAVE to do things differently, because whatever I would do at the eleventh hour would suck and I would suffer the consequences (bad performance reviews, firings), which eventually would cause me to change my behaviors. But as it stands...
I procrastinate because I can.
This is so brilliant! Bravo! Looking forward to next week's post!!
ReplyDeleteI have to go to a meeting as a national representative in 15 minutes, and haven't finished my prep reading. But I read this ;) Damn you, monkey!
ReplyDeleteThis is my dark playground.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am at work.
I knew you were a kindred spirit, judging by your shifting subtitle - and "new post every Tuesday" is probably perfect, because posting twice a week at this quality would probably kill you (or, as tragic, your monkey).
ReplyDeleteJust make sure you give the monkey its due: you'll never see a non-procrastinator dream up anything as inventive as this blog, because it's impossible to dream if you're a one-dimensional doer. (The trade-off, as you've said, though, is that the potential will probably never be actualized so the procrastinating creative will probably never achieve peace of mind.) As they say: the Instant Gratification Monkey giveth, and the Instant Gratification Monkey taketh away.
Can't wait for your thoughts on how the hell to tame him.
Hi, my name is G and I'm a procrastinator.
ReplyDeleteI graduated uni with a GPA of 0.95 because half way through the course I stopped responding to the Panic Monster and started shutting down before due dates. As a result I failed and had to redo more than half my subjects and ended up with uni fees multitudes more than what normal people pay. I have a job now but nothing has changed. I don't know it it ever will.
thankyou for this post, its has really helped me realize my pattern of thinking. thankyou.
ReplyDeleteYour procrastination is my profit... say youtube, facebook, wimp, twitter, tumblr.
ReplyDelete99% of the content on these sites is the "Dark Playground" for us...
This is a really healthy exploration. You are on the right path.
ReplyDeleteTakes a wee bit longer for all those electron thingies to get down the wire to Western Australia, so I don't get this till now....Thursday night, then it's golf on Fridays, then the weekend, so it's Monday before I can put any of this stuff into practice and by then I've forgotten anything I might have read 4 days ago. Not sure if that's what you'd call procrastination but it frustrates the shit out of me.
ReplyDeleteProcrastination pretty much derailed my life. I became increasingly immune to the spurs panic monster and got stuck in that tree for endless night after endless night. Basically, after several excruciating three years of gradual deterioration, I ended up failing a Bachelor of Arts I'd started with straight distinctions because I simply couldn't submit work. Whenever people asked me why I was struggling, I'd say depression or anxiety in the hope they'd take me seriously rather than just assume I was lazy. Depression and anxiety eventually came too, but they were both products of that vicious cycle. Your description of it is spot on. Thanks for talking about this as the serious, crippling issue it is for some people rather than just a quirky annoyance.
ReplyDeleteI would love to understand our reason for letting the monkey take control. For me, it was being overwhelmed and intellectually over-challenged at an elite US engineering school after coming from a small town college in Europe. I only got into the extremely fancy university because I can present myself very well and had a super-prestigious fellowship for the same reason. Obviously, that did not help me with research or classes. Seeing most people around me understanding the material while I was sitting there just not getting it made me very frustrated. I started procrastinating. However, I do not procrastinate when I love what I'm doing. I only do it, when I hate my work or job - like right now. It's quite irrational really. After all, one does not really enjoy the time on the dark playground as the panic monster could wait for you behind every corner. As described in the article, I'm always half scared on the dark playground. It would be so much better just to get the darn work done and then go to the real playground without the monkey.
ReplyDeleteMaybe an exploration in the psychology of what caused the monkey to appear in the first place would be in order. Maybe some people can throw the monkey over board when they find the reason how he made it there.
I'd love to know what your monkey's reasons are to appear on your deck in the first place? Again, my monkey jumped on board when I landed in elite-university harbor with my little fishing boat between all the sailing frigates.
Felt like I was reading about Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) which has much in common with chronic procrastination. You are brilliant. (Another ADD commonality). Very curious what next week's post will bring... ;)
ReplyDeleteExactly! This is largely describing the ADD brain. I'm surprised more people did not make that connection. For ADD, procastination is the symptom of the distraction. And we have to learn to hyper-focus when the panic monster comes out. The monkey relating to instant gratification is a fun way to look at it. However, the ADD brain is not significantly connected to gratification as much as just a monkey bouncing around creating static in the brain. Either way, I hope tomorrow brings good tips on handling both the static and the procratstination!
DeleteAbsolutely loved it! My monkey took full charge of my life during my first year of grad school. It was excruciatingly difficult for me to take charge of my life again, but I did it. Even now I often spend a lot of time in the dark play ground and absolutely hate it. But I try to push myself a little harder every time, and sometimes, I beat the monkey without the help of the panic monster. Thanks for the wonderful post. I am Eagerly waiting for the next post.
ReplyDeleteHi. Yes, you are brilliant. Yes, are extremely creative. Yes, these attributes contribute to your problem. Yes, it is a real problem. I am a Feuerstein trained psychologist who knows how to help people with issues such as yours. For starters, you have a cluster of traits that would make you an excellent psychologist. As far as remediating your deficiencies, you need to work on such skills as prioritizing, categorizing, and planning behavior. In a nutshell, you need to follow the advice of Rabbi Avigdor Miller: Just say "no" to yourself. IT IS NOT EASY. IT IS NOT FAST. BASICALLY, IT REQUIRES AN EXTREME AMOUNT OF SELF DISCIPLINE. YOU DO HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO IT. YOU DO USE SELF DISCIPLINE WHEN YOU FINALLY WORK ON A PROJECT. Learn to plan ahead in baby steps. Do it in the smallest steps you can possibly imagine. It is the way to break any habit. Give yourself a huge amount of credit for any progress you make and forgive yourself for failing. This is a huge long term project. Actually, it is a great skill to be able to live in the present. It's probably a more difficult problem than planning ahead. Good luck.
ReplyDeletecorrection of "It's probably a more difficult problem than planning ahead." Not being able to live in the present is probably a more difficult problem than not knowing how to plan ahead in an efficient way.
ReplyDeletethis is my favorite thing ever written in the history of the written word. thank you for articulating (and illustrating!) the inside of my brains. i'm glad i'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteFirst footnote: yup.
ReplyDeleteSecond footnote: kudos on ever getting your thing done. You give me hope for myself!
...
*stares blankly at this page for like 15 minutes, thinking about stuff and things*
...
Screw it, I'm gonna go home and take some Ritalin. Panic Monster's been making me hide instead of running lately so I'm pretty much useless unless pumped full of drugs >_<
I thought you were amazing when I read your GYPSY post, but you've outdone yourself this time!
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI love the Panic Monster, as an ex-procrastinator on the mend I could really relate to it. I'll look forward to your next post, but I hope you'll also cover some psychological backgrounds...Besides just our personality types, there are usually family history etc reasons underneath procrastination.
Welcome reader, yes u made it to the actual bottom of this thread. If this should not be the bottom of this thread anymore the great procrastination monkey god is asking u to write a good post. U can only avoid to write a post by not reading on those comments. The great Monkey God is furhter willing to do You, dear reader, a great favour. If u brush ur teeth and lie into Your bed he wants to let You sleep immidietly. Should You have found this text before 23:00 and would normally go to bed at 3:42 the great Monkey god is willing to let u sleep anyways. Good night...nighty night... (yes this is supposed to be a poemic stop-codon)
ReplyDeleteThis article is a riddle. The answer to the question of how to rid of or work with the monkey is hidden within the article itself. Right?
ReplyDeleteHow to get rid of the monkey? procrastination.ca
ReplyDeleteI'm just gonna say it: I love you.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Gained more insight from this than I did a recent counseling session set up solely to find out how to overcome this monkey. The counselor has an adult brain and no monkey. Looking forward to Tuesday's continuation.
ReplyDeleteThis. Is. Me. It's like you read my past or something. And spun it into something hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI completely saw myself in this! And it really freaked me out... Thank you for delivering this message in a light-hearted comic-like medium, and softening the blow, or I might have gotten rather depressed : P. To fellow compulsive procrastinators out there, have any of you managed to deal with your procrastination, and win against it? I'm getting concerned, because for many years now I've had serious issues with procrastination--and now, those well-worn habits are threatening to jeopardize my career as a graduate PhD student. If something doesn't change soon, I could very well get kicked out the program! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
ReplyDeleteAnd in reading this I have procrastinated further. On the plus side it has energised me to get some work done... after a short stint on youtube. Then facebook. Then youtube again. Looking forward to next week's article for obvious reasons. x
ReplyDeleteIt's all so painfully true
ReplyDeleteYou, my friend, are fucking awesome.
ReplyDeleteI am still a chronic procrastinator and will always fight the trait, but 20 years ago I managed to actually study for my graduate school oral exams for a period of 6 weeks by taping this sign over my TV screen: "Discipline is remembering what you want." (I passed). Today with the Internet, it's much harder.
ReplyDelete"Discipline is remembering what you want." That is so good I came back to dig through the comments to find it and copy it down. Thank you, Anonymous. I have to tape that over my ipad screen.
DeleteThis is a great post ... EXCEPT ... equating depressions with apathy is really, really far afield. Kind of frustrating to a person (me) who struggles with it a lot. A person with depression may give the appearance of apathy, but that's not the whole story. It's kind of like saying a procrastinator is getting a lot done: look at them checking the fridge! checking their email! drawing pictures of their IG monkey!!!
ReplyDeleteMany of us depressed folks feel like we care a lot more than the people around us do. Sometimes I even find myself wanting to withdraw (therefore appearing apathetic) just to avoid (what appears to me at that moment to be) the shallow, self-serving apathy of others.
Please note the parentheses and don't flame me. :)
"A lot of you are probably reading this article while in the Dark Playground."
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. Oh God, why....
u;re right. only a true procrastinator will understand this. totally. shite.
ReplyDeleteIm eagerly anticipating your next post.
ReplyDeleteit's Tuesday, where is the post?
ReplyDeleteI procrastinated throughout the week, so it won't be up until tonight.
DeleteI was hitting the refresh button for the last half an hour at work. Thanks for replying. We are waiting.... with our monkeys on our shoulders. Oh-the-pressure! Good luck! :)
DeleteWhy not post it at all? Amazing how angry procrastinators can make others. I have in the mean time gone elsewhere on the web in search of how procrastinators answers for this problem - there seems to be only attempts by people who think they know... So do you? If you did, then the article would have been finished.
DeleteYour comment: "Of course, this is no way to live." - You live like this...
Also is it interesting that in the 3 reasons you give on why the behavior has to change are all self-centered. You totally forgot about how irritated others get because they cannot rely on you. We'd like strive toward predictability and you are screwing this up. You are unpredictable.
As per your reason 1 you know that this was going to be unpleasant.
We need the second chapter very much)
ReplyDeleteI want some magic trick
ReplyDeleteThe "I procrastinate because I can" guy here.
ReplyDeleteI guess maybe I don't understand something. To me "procrastination" is when you unnecessarily put something off and instead let the IG monkey drive, but eventually (usually at the last minute) you get that something done. That's what I do. I still get things done and they're typically of good quality....I just do them in a hurried rush right before they're due.
What I see expressed often in these comments is something entirely different. When I see "procrastination ruined my life" and similar comments, the only way I can see how that happens is if you put things off, but then don't do them. In my mind, that's not procrastination; that's being irresponsible.
IOW, "procrastination" = "puts things off until the last minute"
"Irresponsible" = "puts things off and never does them"
See the difference? In "procrastination", the key word is "until". Yeah, it's at the last minute and you caused yourself a lot of undue stress by waiting, but you still got it done. If you never get it done, you're not procrastinating; you're just irresponsible.
So even though I'm a chronic procrastinator, it would never even occur to me to simply not do things. And btw, my co-workers are now calling me "the personification of the instant gratification monkey". Yep, I'm that guy who comes into your office and says, "You gotta see this!"
I think you have this backwards - if you think about it it's pretty irresponsible to put things off till the last minute, assuming you don't have to.
DeleteI'm already ashamed of my procrastination thanks - I don't need to be shamed about it more.
I love this, its nice to know I'm not the only one. In case any of you haven't already seen this Hyperbole and a Half post, it also will probably make you nod sadly in recognition:
ReplyDeletehttp://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
I just wanted to say that you drew a fantastic signpost.
ReplyDeleteGreat!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. This hit home.
ReplyDelete"Discipline is remembering what you want." Well said, comrade.
ReplyDeleteMy cousin sent me the link to this blog article (which appears to have been written only 12 days ago), as well as the link to the follow-up to it (Part Two). My cousin said the descriptions were spot-on, and that I'd really enjoy it. I knew from experience that both of these opinions would be validated: I knew the blog would be spot-on, and I knew that I'd enjoy it, because my cousin knows me like few others, and his opinions may be trusted.
HOWEVER: unlike those of you who look forward to the weekly thoughts of this very talented thinker, I was unfamiliar with his/her work, and rather than fill a paradigm of Dark Playground for me, this blog and the other one (which I haven't read yet) for me primarily represent the archetype of "Something I'm Supposed to Be Doing." Therefore, though I received these links from my cousin two days ago, I'm not reading them until now, which is a victory of sorts, because if I'd waited any longer, I most likely would have never gotten around to it at all. Still, let's not celebrate until I've read both parts, which is in no way guaranteed.
By the way, I did read fairly closely all the comments made up to this point. One of the best forms of procrastination for me--my favorite, truth be told--is to turn simple tasks into forms of rocket science, thereby creating the illusion of “thoroughness,” which most would say carries a connotation of “productivity,” which thereby delays the total collapse of my self-esteem another hour or two. For example, I tried very hard not to post a response, because I knew I would get carried away and write waaaay too much, and then feel bad later for making bad decisions. Yes, I tried very hard not to post a response, and succeeded in delaying having posted this response by an estimated 40 seconds.
FURTHERMORE: meanwhile, I'm feeling terribly guilty for not reading the draft of my good friend's novel that he sent me two months ago--another project that I know I'll enjoy--ONCE I GET STARTED. Unfortunately, since reading my friend's novel draft is on my official To-Do List, it automatically becomes associated in my brain as yet another Something I’m Supposed to Be Doing (instead of as something I make willing sacrifices to experience as soon as possible). Thus associated, reading his novel becomes yet another valuable project I instead willfully put off for fear that I'm forgetting something else I'm "supposed" to be doing, or for fear that it won't be as good as I thought, or for fear that it will be so good that I'll feel bad for not writing a novel myself, etc., etc.
What’s my point? I have two. FIRST, I would say that procrastination has destroyed my life, except that I am 100% certain that procrastination is a symptom of the conditions that did the damage, not the cause in and of itself. To wit, as one of the commenters mentioned above, other factors in our pasts are as much to blame as any of us individually. [And since my full post just got rejected for being too long, I shall continue this in reply to myself. In case you’re curious, the limit is 4,096 characters. You can see why I’ve never used my Twitter account.]
[Cont’d from above, due to character limit. Great. Now my character is even more limited.]
DeletePermit me to expound upon my first point. These days, "personal responsibility" seems vogue to propone, but for anyone with even a passing understanding of brain chemistry and emotional development, "personal responsibility" should be obvious as simply the modern version of a phenomenon far older than even written history itself (and we know this because the earliest writings we have already refer to it as ancient). The phenomenon is that of the village scapegoat, better known nowadays as "blaming the victim." Since any manageable rubric of life requires some modicum of unquestioned optimism, all humans who aren't patently suicidal are living on some unconscious level with the axiomatic belief that the "universe" (if not outright even God Her- or Himself) is on some level "just," meaning that "justice" is somehow an inherent characteristic of existence. Humans by and large ARE capable of believing that life is NOT ALWAYS fair, but we are fundamentally INCAPABLE of believing life is NEVER fair.
Humans are unable to entertain seriously the notion that "fairness" is a concept with no reality outside of necessary human conceptualization. Even I, myself, here and now, can talk and write about existence as being devoid of inherent justice, but if I truly believed that, I would stop typing right now, because that would mean that any attempts toward human communication and empathy are absurd and futile. Am I right? Can I get a witness?
Didn’t I have a point? Didn’t I have two? Fine, if you insist, here’s my first point in a nutshell: humans necessarily live with hope that we can control our destinies, even at the expense of the dignity of those among us who are failing to do just that. If you’re failing to live on your own terms; if you’re failing to determine your own destiny (as I am); you needn’t get too discouraged (as least not immediately). Despite how we may sometimes see ourselves, and despite how others may sometimes see us, the evidence indicates that people like us are in fact NOT moral degenerates without self-control or sense of propriety. That would be reprehensible. We’re much better than that. We’re just plain-old vanilla losers.
[Are you laughing? Aren't I a riot? I was more fun at parties before I quit drinking, so if anyone finds this depressing, they are free to blame it on my sobriety from alcohol (four years this past July 9th). Better yet, let's blame it on the caffeine, Wellbutrin, and Adderall I'm on right now, because if I weren't hopped up on stimulants, I'd have long ago died of sedative overdose. Better yet, let's blame it on the doctors who prescribed them, or on the mother who sent me to the doctors, after she screwed me up as a child with her misdirected, pathological resentment of my absent, clueless father. Ah, yes, that's it: the father. Let's do blame the father, shall we?]
My SECOND (and final) point is this: since I only now am reading this blog, written 12 days ago, then I won't have to wait a week to read the follow-up. See? Procrastination is good; procrastination is not only the filter by which we discover what truly matters, but also our insurance that we'll never be embarrassingly early to parties that don’t require our attendance.
PS: Although I had the original, sincere intention of jumping straight to Wait But Why for the answer to avoiding procrastination, the above commentary (1,139 words, or 6,506 characters, including spaces) has now taken over three and a half hours of my prime procrastination time. Besides, 210 minutes of uninterrupted typing/editing on any couch--even a comfy one like mine --becomes terribly uncomfortable, and may even result in injury, without a dedicated period of abstention. Therefore, I'm leaving now at 2:38AM Pacific Time to walk my wonderful two aging dogs through the dark, damp streets of my suburban neighborhood, while listening to my Sansa Clip set to FM radio, which, at this very moment, is playing the Divertimento in E flat, K 563, by Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, as performed (according to the station's website) by Henning Kraggerud (violin), Lars Anders Tomter (viola), and Christoph Richter (cello). EQUALLY IMPORTANT: I cannot overemphasize the profound effect upon one's priorities, and in turn upon one's habits of procrastination, of a task being moved from the status of something one does INSTEAD of what one is "supposed to be doing," to the status of being on the Official To-Do List. Now that I've made this post--I'm NOT joking—the task of reading and responding to the follow-up blog (the next Wait But Why) is now "Something I'm Supposed to Be Doing," and therefore a prime object of procrastination. I’m sorry, seriously, if you enjoyed anything I've added, and had been perhaps hoping for more. I guess you’ll just have to (wait for it, wait for it)—I guess you'll just have to...er...wait. As one of the commenters pointed out, the price paid by the procrastinator is compounded by the chaos, inefficiency, and frustration that We Procrastinators inject into the lives of others. The Good News, if you were hoping for more, is that it is now 3:00AM Pacific Time exactly—the proverbial “middle of the night”—and chances are good that by the time you read this, what had been my Dark Playground will have already manifested an opportunity for your continued self-ruination.
DeleteReading this at 745a Monday morning instead of starting work.
ReplyDeleteAWWWW YEAAAAAAHHHHHH
Forget LOL, this was so hilarious I laughed so hard I cried! You gotta share this with Conan O Brian for the greater good! The drawings are priceless.
ReplyDeletePrognosis is bad: took me 16 days to unfreeze this tab from my Chrome tab-tree and read this.
ReplyDeleteYikes! That hit home!
ReplyDeleteWhat's missing here is for me is the fear factor BEFORE the panic monster gets involved. Part of the reason why I don't want to do a piece of written work is because I know what I produce will be judged by others. Anticipating that feeling and imagining that person reading my work and potentially finding it lacking often works alongside the instant gratification monkey to stop me writing anything. I've found that being less of a perfectionist and writing down whatever is in my head at the time is a great way of making progress rather than expecting everything that goes down on the page should sound great first time. I've been thinking this way since reading a book about procrastination which argued that procrastinators are at heart perfectionists which is why they don't get anything done (presumably until fear of failing to hand in anything at all outweighs fear of being 'found out' as a bad writer/poor student). This fear of being 'found out' also helps to explain under achievement of procrastinators because they are afraid that their efforts will be judged and come up wanting. Do these ideas fit in with the model outlined above or can they be included in some way?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of this article since I first read it. Your analogies are fucking genius. I've come to realize that the Instant Gratification Monkey is actually the id, the rational decision maker = the ego and the suffering procrastinator who berates him = super ego.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who is *THE* perfect procrastinator. It frustrates the living crap out of me when I'm left waiting for HOURS for him just to get something done. Every Christmas it's the same thing - everyone gets here... I have to call him up a little bit later. I try to be understanding, but seriously, it feels like he's expecting me to wait around for him which infuriates the living crap out of me...
ReplyDeleteNo one ever thinks of the henchman's family....
This is me. I am this. We are one.
ReplyDeleteI put off going back to college until I was 50. I put off graduating until I was 56. I put off finishing going to school until I turn 61....next year. How did you get inside my head?
ReplyDeleteSigh.... if this wasn't so horrible it would be funny. Most of my life is spent in the Dark Playground and it took me days to even read this article. I would open it up and then the stupid monkey would remind me of some interesting video on Youtube or that I might have something I'm watching on Ebay end without bidding on it. I think he realized that my realization that I'm not just lazy, I'm a chronic procrastinator and it's all his fucking fault might put his life in jeopardy. At any rate, I'm glad to see I'm not alone. Though, I wish my teachers would have cut me some slack. My panic monster is present, for sure, though it doesn't like to show up until the very last second which is usually too late. He screams like there's time, though, scaring the shit out of the monkey, me, and anyone unfortunate enough to be in my general vicinity. Is there really any hope in beating this? Really? I opened up Part 2 and immediately went back to Part 1 to read the comments.
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth you've to make it clear with a monkey? It's so disappointing to consider a monkey in my head! Because I'm a procrastinator too!!! Damn it. But I'm getting recovered from this site....lol
ReplyDelete:) I am a procrastinator but with the panic monster in role from time to time :)
ReplyDeleteMy panic monster has been working overtime this past year lol!
ReplyDeleteI got so much accomplished all of a sudden.
I have been like this since childhood and the cause was not a monkey, it was fear of not doing things perfectly or fear of not being liked-in the case of lack of participation.
DeleteWriting my life with your words. Seriously. I laughed, I cried and I feel thankful for the realisation that I am not alone in having this issue. Allo my life and it's incredibly depressing. It's like having no impulse control. I head to my office and find myself walking upstairs to my room instead to play yet another stupid game on my iPad. I sit down at my desk and start working, but even when I am incredibly motivated I find myself INCREDIBLY bored after only a few minutes. I have wondered whether I have adult ADHD. The anxiety and panic attacks I get as a result of not being able to get out of the Dark Playground are beyond horrid. They wake me at 2am and propel me down the stairs back to my desk to work on something that should really only take 2 hours but ends up taking me all night. It's shocking. Please keep writing about how you are addressing this - god knows it's great to laugh at oneself but this year, I would really like to kick the Monkey in his fat, furry little face and get on with feeling like I am genuinely worthwhile and I actually have talent, instead of feeling like I am faking all the time!
ReplyDelete