From: sl4.20.pris@spamgourmet.com
Date: Wed Sep 19 2007 - 22:05:07 MDT
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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