🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (14 tweets)
a hypothesis: • outgrowing anxiety = UNLEARNING [the anxiety strategies] = FAST • outgrowing procrastination = LEARNING [to process emotions] = SLOW removing code is faster than adding code
@ChrisChipMonk Fixing your relationship with anxiety is self-rewarding with pretty much no cost. You just... stop feeling bad. Procrastination creates self reinforcing loops. It feels better to stay in bed than to do laundry, and procrastination-"debt" blocks the reward until it's resolved.
@ChrisChipMonk Maybe bug framing works 🤔 if you can point to a bug (source of anxiety), fixing it’s straightforward. But if the system just sometimes slow and there are no logs - making it behave well will take a long
@ChrisChipMonk Procrastination = avoiding awareness of problems, (including the problem you're trying to solve by doing the thing you're procrastinating on!) but especially problems reflecting on one's self-esteem. This isn't ONE piece of code, since ANY insecurity can trigger it.
@ChrisChipMonk In addition, the general pattern of suppressing awareness (or suppressing one's motivation to act on observed problems) can be another level of code. (Learned helplessness, reflexive inhibitions, etc.) I think there's some possibility for increased leverage on this level, though.
@ChrisChipMonk I’d posit an alternative, Different feedback loops. Anxiety has a much shorter feeback loop vs. procrastination. After all, the easiest things to procrastinate are the ones where there is no immediate consequence.
The time between the behavior (anxiety) and consequences (I feel like shit, this is unpleasant or whatever) is very immediate When you procrastinate (behavior) the consequences don’t happen till much later. E.g. I don’t want to study for my test next week ahead of time doesn’t really have any consequences until the night before the test.
I also think it is structurally & energetically easier change anxiety. Unlearning is super tough - but substituting is much easier. Anxiety is often driven by a belief or chemically, Those are easily modulated. Procrastination is not as well mapped (at least, to me) - hence why I just looked for the feeback loop.