From: Jey Kottalam (jeykottalam@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Sep 20 2007 - 12:08:09 MDT
http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
Interesting and entertaining essay on the topic of procrastination.
-Jey Kottalam
On 9/19/07, sl4.20.pris@spamgourmet.com <sl4.20.pris@spamgourmet.com> wrote:
> The problem of procrastination.
>
> The more unstructured your work is, the higher the probability of
> procrastination. Work that requires a high IQ typically is
> unstructured, after all, it wouldn't require high IQ if there was a
> simple sequence of steps you could follow to complete it. So, it is a
> consequence that some percentage of people working on the singularity
> are probably struggling with procrastination. Hence reducing the
> degree of procrastination will help accelerate the singularity.
>
> Indirect effect: A lot of people interested in the singularity are
> probably higher-than-average IQ. Even if they don't work directly at
> relevant research they may be financial contributors(donors). If you
> consider that these people are making less money(I wonder how much
> less) than they could due to losses caused by procrastination it would
> only make sense to increase the productivity of these people in order
> to increase donations. Also some may be procrastinating the act of
> donation itself.
>
> Furthermore reducing procrastination could be done without spending
> that much money itself, IE just by providing good information on how
> to reduce procrastination the above-average intelligent people reading
> and applying it could hopefully increase their productivity.
>
> I think procrastination has a lot to do with singularity related
> topics like: evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology.
> Furthermore procrastination could be classified as a
> cognitive-behavioral bias. Reducing this bias could be as important as
> working on the cognitive biases that affect reasoning.
>
> Any good solutions to reduce procrastination? I know, there are a lot
> of websites out there dealing with this issue, but I wonder what the
> smart minds in this list could come up with.
>
> What are your personal experiences dealing with procrastination? There
> are some very bright people on this list and I'm sure there must be
> quite a bunch who had issues with procrastination the one way or the
> other. So tell us what did work for you.
> Don't be ashamed to admit it, even famous intellectuals suffered from this:
> http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/casestudies.php#Adams
>
> Spending one week solving the procrastination problem could well be
> worth it if you consider the weeks gained by this on the long run. Of
> course this assumes that a good solution will be found.
>
> Thanks for your time and please don't procrastinate answering this! :)
>
> Roland Anderson
>
> PS: I operate by "Crocker's Rules".
>
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