I once got a letter from Ann Patchett encouraging me to keep going on the draft of a book--she heard about me through a friend and generously took my address. I did not respond. And I did not respond. And I did not respond and finally, like 3 months later, I wrote her back and it was a pitiful reply. Every night of those months I felt such shame, guilt and worthless humiliation and I was totally wallowing in my own hideous ingratitude. Avoidance and its attendant ICK is sometimes a reflection of what we feel we deserve. (At least for me.)
Love this. I think an important part is the gut level learning that feeling the discomfort results in good things. The gradual falling in love with the feeling of purification? What it seems like to me now. Still early
yes! great point. i think that's very right but takes quite a while and is also very case-specific (ie limited generalization). I'm not quite sure it's the same in this case as buddhist purification ideas, but I do think a higher level version of this skill is finding ways to bring wonder or love, etc. to the difficult experience. but that's more 201 and this is more 101 in my mind. In my head I'm slowly working up to a kind of skill tree for these things.
yeah, for me i’ve noticed sometimes i mysteriously enjoy/like leaning into uncomfortable emotional experiences, in a way that feels learned in some way? not something i could have forced. but something like, knowing that it’s good for me? when the faith is there that this is genuinely good, it seems to be something that happens…
yeah i love this. I once had a life-changing negotiation going badly and during the process sometimes found myself being like "huh this is kinda fun even though i feel like im dying"
Wow genuinely amazing post. I've touched on the emotional/trauma part of procrastination but never the sit down and stare at it for 60s method, and I like how you frame procrastination as an opportunity to retrain our response to our "landmines".
Definitely relate to the emergency sticker analogy, eventually sitting at a desk feels like being surrounded by a thousand of them, just glaring you in the face. I find thst I tend to procrastinate at the desk because it tricks my body into thinking I'm dealing with the problem while giving my mind an easy way out.
Shadow work for the modern workplace haha seriously though, one landmine (with vigour) at a time is truly the only effective approach here. You can’t pay anyone to do that work for you. I enjoyed this, thank you.
tangentially related but ever since reading your post the worst version of you is getting all the practice a few months ago, whenever i can remember this (which is maybe 70% of the time) i tracked numerous interpersonal personal professional decisions while feeling unwell and 1. i did the things 2. it made me happy like i lifted a heavy weight 3. without feeling like wow this weight is nothing in the grand scheme of things i am so weak & weight lifting will never end
thank you for your incredible lucidity + reading trailheads is like listening to my favorite teacher from high school + i was reading this while procrastinating
I love this article! So much of life becomes unbearable because we get used to being afraid of a little discomfort. When we don’t do the things we will do anyways because of discomfort, we will live extended periods of our lives in discomfort. We gotta train atleast part of this habit away, as you say.
I was procrastinating on a v important task because it brought up feelings that I didn’t know what I was doing, had made mistakes earlier, and that I’m bad at my job and I’ll never be good. Rested in the feelings for a minute, they got better, I started working. 🫡
Really great point about how the negative feelings with procrastination peak within a minute! I will try putting that into practice now. Unless we work on it, structuring our lives around avoiding negative emotions is also so easy... Thanks for this essay, I found the descriptions original!
This essay has stayed with me for reasons that have very little to do with procrastination.
We had an enjoyable exchange. You were genuinely curious about my work. You went to the trouble of finding your birth time and encouraged me to create a piece of work for you. I spent many hours doing so. Then, when I told you it was ready, something changed. The conversation stopped. Eventually I found another way to send it, and since then there has been silence.
Reading this essay, I found myself wondering whether there is another dimension to procrastination that isn't quite addressed here. The emphasis falls almost entirely on what happens inside the person avoiding the task. The emotional experience is described with real insight. But the person waiting at the other end gradually disappears from view.
From a Gestalt perspective, contact is never a private event. It exists between people. The interruption, therefore, is not simply an interruption in my experience or yours. It is an interruption in the relationship itself.
That made me wonder whether emotional maturity asks something slightly different of us than becoming more skilled at tolerating our own discomfort. Perhaps it also asks us to remain aware that our hesitation is taking place inside someone else's lived experience.
It seems to me that an unanswered email is not only an opportunity to study one's own nervous system. It is also an encounter with another human being, whose time, attention and generosity are part of the same field.
I don't say this critically so much as curiously, because I think it points toward a question even more interesting than the one your essay set out to answer.
I once got a letter from Ann Patchett encouraging me to keep going on the draft of a book--she heard about me through a friend and generously took my address. I did not respond. And I did not respond. And I did not respond and finally, like 3 months later, I wrote her back and it was a pitiful reply. Every night of those months I felt such shame, guilt and worthless humiliation and I was totally wallowing in my own hideous ingratitude. Avoidance and its attendant ICK is sometimes a reflection of what we feel we deserve. (At least for me.)
<3 real
Love this. I think an important part is the gut level learning that feeling the discomfort results in good things. The gradual falling in love with the feeling of purification? What it seems like to me now. Still early
yes! great point. i think that's very right but takes quite a while and is also very case-specific (ie limited generalization). I'm not quite sure it's the same in this case as buddhist purification ideas, but I do think a higher level version of this skill is finding ways to bring wonder or love, etc. to the difficult experience. but that's more 201 and this is more 101 in my mind. In my head I'm slowly working up to a kind of skill tree for these things.
excited for the skill tree!
yeah, for me i’ve noticed sometimes i mysteriously enjoy/like leaning into uncomfortable emotional experiences, in a way that feels learned in some way? not something i could have forced. but something like, knowing that it’s good for me? when the faith is there that this is genuinely good, it seems to be something that happens…
yeah i love this. I once had a life-changing negotiation going badly and during the process sometimes found myself being like "huh this is kinda fun even though i feel like im dying"
Wow genuinely amazing post. I've touched on the emotional/trauma part of procrastination but never the sit down and stare at it for 60s method, and I like how you frame procrastination as an opportunity to retrain our response to our "landmines".
Definitely relate to the emergency sticker analogy, eventually sitting at a desk feels like being surrounded by a thousand of them, just glaring you in the face. I find thst I tend to procrastinate at the desk because it tricks my body into thinking I'm dealing with the problem while giving my mind an easy way out.
Shadow work for the modern workplace haha seriously though, one landmine (with vigour) at a time is truly the only effective approach here. You can’t pay anyone to do that work for you. I enjoyed this, thank you.
"Shadow work for the modern workplace" is a strong contender for my new byline :D
Maybe I’ll pitch that as a PD workshop to my boss (I work in HR)
tangentially related but ever since reading your post the worst version of you is getting all the practice a few months ago, whenever i can remember this (which is maybe 70% of the time) i tracked numerous interpersonal personal professional decisions while feeling unwell and 1. i did the things 2. it made me happy like i lifted a heavy weight 3. without feeling like wow this weight is nothing in the grand scheme of things i am so weak & weight lifting will never end
thank you for your incredible lucidity + reading trailheads is like listening to my favorite teacher from high school + i was reading this while procrastinating
omg this is so epic. thank you so much for sharing!! :D
I love this article! So much of life becomes unbearable because we get used to being afraid of a little discomfort. When we don’t do the things we will do anyways because of discomfort, we will live extended periods of our lives in discomfort. We gotta train atleast part of this habit away, as you say.
Excellent post!
This is 🔥, thank you for writing! Was useful already today.
yeah? do tell
I was procrastinating on a v important task because it brought up feelings that I didn’t know what I was doing, had made mistakes earlier, and that I’m bad at my job and I’ll never be good. Rested in the feelings for a minute, they got better, I started working. 🫡
hell yeah. thanks for sharing! :)
Really great point about how the negative feelings with procrastination peak within a minute! I will try putting that into practice now. Unless we work on it, structuring our lives around avoiding negative emotions is also so easy... Thanks for this essay, I found the descriptions original!
This essay has stayed with me for reasons that have very little to do with procrastination.
We had an enjoyable exchange. You were genuinely curious about my work. You went to the trouble of finding your birth time and encouraged me to create a piece of work for you. I spent many hours doing so. Then, when I told you it was ready, something changed. The conversation stopped. Eventually I found another way to send it, and since then there has been silence.
Reading this essay, I found myself wondering whether there is another dimension to procrastination that isn't quite addressed here. The emphasis falls almost entirely on what happens inside the person avoiding the task. The emotional experience is described with real insight. But the person waiting at the other end gradually disappears from view.
From a Gestalt perspective, contact is never a private event. It exists between people. The interruption, therefore, is not simply an interruption in my experience or yours. It is an interruption in the relationship itself.
That made me wonder whether emotional maturity asks something slightly different of us than becoming more skilled at tolerating our own discomfort. Perhaps it also asks us to remain aware that our hesitation is taking place inside someone else's lived experience.
It seems to me that an unanswered email is not only an opportunity to study one's own nervous system. It is also an encounter with another human being, whose time, attention and generosity are part of the same field.
I don't say this critically so much as curiously, because I think it points toward a question even more interesting than the one your essay set out to answer.