Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban

Youtube has successfully identified me as a procrastinator so it sent me this.

The problem

It didn't took long for me to find what I have been for maybe several years.

Procrastination is a habit cultivated through growing, cause I still remember times when things are much more ordered. Once it kicks off, however, it's just gets overwhelming over time.

I feel kind of guilty to list things I've been stalling but it's gonna be a super long list.

The analysis

I try to come up with a remedy by looking back on my 'achievements'. It turns out nearly every long time goals realized is through a long-term effort self-sustained enough to carry on with itself. By sustaining, I mean the sense of periodical achievement and fun made up enough for the effort needed. Yes, I technically failed on almost everything else.

The interesting field to me, i.e. design and programming both draw huge amount of sense of satisfaction from art and automation.

Well, automation is art too - practical art to save effort, which generates pleasure as art does.

The desire for knowledge, on the other hand, isn't quite self-sustained when there is no direct application or achievement.

There are but seems to be two exception: Physics and English. No application, no achievement, not art, nor automated.

The trick on Physics is the desire to understand how things works CLEARLY. Part of it was to generate an automated procedure to describe how things works. It's a more specific field of knowledge whereas looking into a civil engineering code book doesn't count. (I feel sorry for Prof. Moehle as he clearly has tried to put things organized.) Programming automated design process counts though.

There leaves the only exception then: English. It turns out English itself was the dark playground. The most successful English learning has been from video games, novels, and podcasts. See, no work, all play.

The conclusion

Then I realized that all my 'achievements' actually came from my dark playground. I have NEVER winned a singel battle since confrontation against procrastinating.

It's not frustrating though as when you realize there is no solution, you kinda feel harmony by letting it go.

The solution

I was kidding. Procrastination needs to be fixed.

De facto: The dark playground of art and automation shall persist as there's no way to get away from my nature.

I found long ago, that any kind of art is not going to be my profession as the way it works, your job is evaluated by peoples' sense of art rather than logic, and you'll basically be limited to other peoples' expectation by doing a 'good' job.

The tempt to become a professional programmer lingers on, but I bet I'll one day see programming as a basic skill mastered by everyone, just like Math. After all, the innovation was done by the ones who proposed the concept of programming, and everyone else are justing using it as a tool rather than innovating real new things.

I'll transform to Mechanics as it's basically brach of Physics. There are new theories to be proposed, tested, and programmed into production. It will be my day when I combine all these knowledge together.

More dark playground!

I'll make an automated list checking procedure to track my progress. So long for procrastination.