Talk:Overcoming Procrastination

Forking Wikipedia
Comment from Kernigh: Overcoming Procrastination started out as a copy of Procrastination. Wikipedia was not credited, so it was an obvious violation of the GNU Free Documentation License. Also, as a fork of a Wikipedia article, it was against What is Wikibooks. Thus, I and other users voted to delete it.

However, Wikipedia decided to remove much of the content from its Procrastination article. Thus, I now recopy the last Wikipedia version before removal from Wikipedia. This means that I discarded the old version at Wikibooks instead of doing a merge. (There was not anything substantial to merge.) As Overcoming Procrastination is now an expansion of the Wikipedia article, the reason for its deletion is obsolete, so I removed the vfd tag.

In the coming days, I hope to split this book into subpages, add Authors and History pages (to replace the temporary History section at the top of the book now), provide a PDF version, and remove remnants of Wikipedia. --Kernigh 20:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Found this in the wikipedia article. Doesn't fit there, but it might fit there. Cheers.--P-Chan 17:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Realizing that brain is a complex system and its architecture is a factor contributing to difficulty associated with overcoming procrastination. Concepts like "it's because you are lazy, there's nothing more to it" indicate misunderstanding of the underlying issue, still they are common in population (and prevent success in dealing with procrastination).
 * Identifying procrastination as a systematic factor in one's life causing problems. Imagining life without procrastination and identifying possible positive benefits of overcoming procrastination. Decision to begin working systematically on overcoming procrastination to get into the advanced "level" of life.
 * Distinguishing clearly between "I know", "I want", and "I enjoy".
 * Stopping thinking in terms of "I must" and starting thinking in terms of "I want to". For example no one has to complete a university exam. The student has always a free choice whether to complete an exam or not. However if the exam is not completed, the student gets kicked out of the university. Because he wants to complete the university, he actually wants to complete the exam.
 * Identifying truly and realistically individual problems caused by procrastination.
 * Proposing a solution to these problems and identifying a "theoretically optimum" behaviour.
 * Establishing a TODO list mechanism (a software or a notepad) and considering the act of scratching over a completed entry a magic ritual indicating success in overcoming procrastination.
 * Writing things into TODO list as soon as they come into mind and then freeing mind from them.
 * Breaking down difficult complicated tasks in the TODO list into smaller, easier units.
 * Abstaining from perfectionism.
 * Defining two formal states of person: "behaving optimally" and "procrastinating". Mentally associating positive outcomes with the "behaving optimally" state and negative outcomes and problems with the "procrastinating" state. Then, in course of day, spotting the transition from the "behaving optimally" into "procrastinating" state and asking oneself, if he wishes to continue remaining in the "procrastinating" state despite all the problems associated with this state and all the pleasurable things associated with the "behaving optimally" state.
 * Systematically scheduling pleasurable activities in certain reasonable ratio into the activity stream. This makes sure that after completion of a boring activity, a pleasurable one will eventually come, and motivates the person to complete the boring activity.

The ironic part is...
I'm reading this when I should be working.70.25.138.179 03:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I was about to comment and say the same thing. Theanphibian 04:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to read it, but I'm procrastinating too much (also hurray for Wikimedia, long may it's monopoly on monopoly-free knowledge reign)


 * I feel like this would help me but I have a deadline in 4 hours and a report to finish. I need help...--Grimwall (talk) 13:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)