Good vs Bad Distractions

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing Nick getting distracted during lockdown. Nick, what have you been getting distracted with?

Speaker B: 00:00:26

Well, for the last few months I had this unique experiment where we've all been working at home and I think we've probably all come up with our own strategies for being productive and we certainly all had a lot less extrinsic motivation. We haven't had bosses over our shoulders watching what we do. Now, this is no different really for me. I've spent most of the five years working from home but it did make me start thinking about this whole issue of when we procrastinate, when we get distracted by things. Some of the things I've been doing I would consider quite good forms of procrastination. So, for example, some of the tasks I've been doing which aren't strictly speaking work-related have nevertheless like, for example, doing coding projects for fun but which are actually, at the end of it, I end up having learned some skills that I didn't have before. And when I've been distracted practicing the piano, for example, well, that's quite good. And in fact, sometimes going for a walk, I'll do that for a couple of hours, it's good. Those are all good forms of procrastination because I feel like at the end I've done something or something has got better and then, of course, you've got the bad forms of procrastinating which are like browsing Reddit, doing online puzzles, playing computer games. They all feel to me like bad forms of procrastination. But I mean, is that fair? Is that a fair characterization? Is it unrealistic to think that you can only do good types of procrastination? But if it isn't, how do you get yourself to do that? How can you make doing productive things a good distraction from doing other productive things?

Speaker A: 00:02:19

And also, can the absence of doing productive things be productive?

Speaker B: 00:02:22

Well, exactly. We can't be sitting there all day doing productive things. That's not very productive, I'm sure, in the long term. No, exactly. So how do we get the balance right? And obviously, if the pundits are right and we're going to be working from home more, what can we all do to make sure we're getting this right?

Speaker A: 00:02:41

But also, I think there's an issue here around definitions because a couple of things there, because you talked about distractions and procrastination, which are not the same thing, obviously. And so some of the things that you talked about there, like, for example, playing the piano, I wouldn't describe that as procrastinating. Or maybe it is if you're doing that as a displacement activity.

Speaker B: 00:03:03

Yeah, I feel like there's almost like a hierarchy of procrastination where, you know, if I've got to do a, if I've got to write, the thing that I really always, I could notice myself trying to avoid is writing a document, you know, from scratch, I've got a blank page, I've got to write a document. And that first sentence is really hard. And so, you know, I might go and practice a piece of music on the piano. Yeah, okay. Now, if someone said, you've got to practice this piece of music by next week. Yeah. Then I would, what would I do instead? I might play something. Go write that document. Yeah, I might do. But I wouldn't, I'd look for the next, the next thing. Okay, okay. It would then, then it would be, I'd probably be playing something fun on the piano or playing a computer game. You know, and if, but if someone said, we really need you to play this computer game, you know, for eight hours in a row by tomorrow, I would, what would I do then? I'd probably, you know, I'd probably find some, some, you know, start doing the washing up or the ironing or something. That seems to be how it works. There's, it seems like there's a kind of trickle down from, from the hard kind of really good things down to the things. But when something becomes something you have to do, that's when it always seems to kick in.

Speaker A: 00:04:12

Okay. I mean, I think we definitely, at some point, we need to talk about our procrastinating activities. I'm a terrible procrastinator. Well, you're certainly not alone, the evidence suggests. Yeah, yeah. Peter, anything to come in with at this point?

Speaker C: 00:04:26

Yeah, well, this, this does reach into subjects, which I know very little about, but there's sort of the ethics and morality. That's never stopped us before. Never stopped us before. Exactly. Yeah. The, yeah, the sort of ethics and morality of, of activities. I mean, you would, so there's, like, you know, you know, you kind of get a good intuitive feeling of, of what is good and right, inverted commas, when you see it. But trying to put a universal definition on things, I think is probably impossible. I don't think there are such things as sort of universal, universal sort of ethics, universal kind of virtues or vices. Because you can, you can, it's relatively easy to imagine situations where actually it's, it's entirely culturally dependent, what is, what is right and what is wrong. It's the, there's certain norms which drive certain rights and wrongs. Um, so this, this goodness, um, how, how do we define the goodness, I think is a key, the key question. Me, as a sort of, as a fairly diehard utilitarian, would say, really, it's anything that makes you kind of happy. Yeah. Um, but with, with the caveat though, that you have to bear in mind that certain short-term fixes, like, so watching that YouTube video that's got about cats might make you happy and giggle that in that moment, but that might be preventing you from doing something more long-term and more beneficial in the long run, like writing the report. Yeah. Um, so you have to be, you have to, you have to find some way of measuring how, how useful that thing is to you.

Speaker A: 00:06:05

This is, it sounds close to, and we've talked about this before, pleasure versus happiness as well. Quite pleasing looking at that cat falling off a thing, but does it bring you happiness in the long term? Yeah. Just getting that report done and earning mega bucks because of it. I don't know, something like that.

Speaker B: 00:06:21

Yeah. Now that seems to me like the, that's what it feels like subjectively. It feels like you're trading off pleasure, um, against actually satisfaction in life. The other way round, rather. You're choosing to, choosing the pleasure option at the, knowing that it's going to be costly to your satisfaction. It's what, sorry.

Speaker C: 00:06:40

Yeah. I think, I think this sort of, I wonder, I mean, I'm sure the ethicists have thought about this, but I think I've got a sense that this sort of sense of morality, the sense of this feels like a more virtuous thing to be doing than this is actually a, some sort of mechanism that we have evolved to force us to do those things, which are actually more long-term beneficial. So you can imagine a situation where, well, I could just go and scoff the berries from that tree over there. It's easy. Or I could go and hunt an animal. So hunting animals is harder. It's more, oh, it's, you know, it's going to take longer, but actually it's going to be more beneficial in the long run because we'll.

Speaker A: 00:07:19

Also there's that sense of, uh, how you feel at the end of, let's say binge watching or something. There's that sense of, you know, when you've been procrastinating it, when during it, and certainly afterwards where that sense of unease.

Speaker B: 00:07:33

I call it the Sunday night, the Antiques Roadshow problem. Yeah. It's because whenever you watch the Antiques Roadshow, it's going to be about homework, isn't it? Yeah. And now when the Antiques Roadshow theme starts, my gut goes, starts coiling up and saying there's homework you haven't done. Definitely. Always Sunday night. Yeah. And, um, uh, yeah. I mean, that's, that's the, um, I think the issue of like how we judge, I mean, I think the most virtuous thing everyone agrees is, um, to do the thing that you're meant to do and to, and to spread it out in a nice, sensible way. So you get given something which is due in six weeks. We all know we have to do one sixth of it each week. And that's, we know that's, everyone accepts that's what, you know, a goody two shoes would do. And no one, no one does it. I mean, no one does that. Um, not even people who aren't procrastinators do it like that. Um, and, um, so, I mean, but the, the evidence is that procrastination is really, really common. Like, you know, people do do it all the time and it's not something that he should feel bad about or ashamed of particularly. Um, having said that, uh, I mean, I've also, there is, there are, I mean, there's, there's evidence that there are people who are chronic procrastinators. So this is sort of, I've seen some studies that say there's 20% of people are, um, are people who will put things off to the point where it's really destructive. I think this is me. Well, so these are, these are people who will put off, um, starting an essay, for example, until beyond the time when they can conceivably finish it. And it will either end in, uh, you know, almost nothing, um, or will flunk out because they can't, they can't actually get around to doing the things they know they want to do. And I, um, I'm not like that, thankfully. I mean, I, I hate, hate procrastinating, but let's all do it. But, but I do get things done, right? So I look back and I go, right. I did do that. I'm not quite sure how, but I did do it, you know? Um, but some people don't, some people don't never get to that and it's hugely damaging to their, to their life prospects. Um, and, um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, so, so the, I mean, the evidence is that procrastinators, and here's the key issue really, that procrastinators have lower stress while they procrastinate, but they pay for it in terms of much higher stress later on. Um, and, uh, it's actually weirdly not that well-studied, procrastination. It's only in about the last 20 years that, that academics have seriously looked at it. There's loads of self-help books out there. Well, maybe they just took ages to get around to it.

Speaker A: 00:10:10

There's, there's loads of self-help books out there. Yeah. I think one was good. Isn't one called, there's one, The Chimp Paradox or something like that. And what you pay with there, like the stress thing, because you've got the, I forget the correct terms. You've got something called like, let's call him the distraction monkey, for example. Yeah. And he's the one who's always in your mind going, hey, let's go in and sort of watch videos of kittens. Tim Urban, Tim Urban. Yeah. And it'll be much more fun. And you go, okay, let's do that. Um, and then the only thing that scares off, and there's, let's say there's something else called the sensible thing. The panic monster, I think it's called. So yes, the panic monster is the only thing that scares the chimp. Yeah. And that's when your essay is due sort of in, you know, in six hours and you've done nothing on it. Yeah. I think, I think that there's a Tim,

Speaker B: 00:10:49

the Tim Urban essay, which I think, I think is now a book. It might be the one you're talking about. Yeah. I think it must be Tim Urban then. Um, on his blog, Wait But Why, it's the single best sort of description of what it's like to be a procrastinator. It's not scientific. It's not drawing on, you know, psychological evidence per se, but it's a really good subjective description of how procrastination feels. And it's exactly like that. It's the sort of, um, even though I know this is bad, I'm doing it anyway. And he calls it the dark playground, which is the set of activities you find yourself doing, um, which you hate. You sit there, you know, like playing a computer game, um, and knowing, knowing that actually this is, you should be doing something else. And it's, and you sit there thinking, I'm not enjoying this at all, but you keep doing it. Right. So that's, that's the big problem. So look, where'd we go with here?

Speaker A: 00:11:37

We've just talked a little bit procrastination. We talked about what it is, talked a little bit, why about maybe a little bit about why we do it. Um, but I think one thing I'm interested in is, is this question we started out at the beginning is can it ever be a good thing? And is there a kind of procrastination? I'm not, I try this. I mean, you, you distract yourself and, and it's a form of procrastination. You've got to write that document, but you end up playing the piano, but you do that so much. You start to come develop, you know, your piano skills just go through the roof. Yeah. Therefore it has become a good thing. Is that possible or, or, or, or because that happens, does that stop it from being, it's no longer procrastination because it becomes something else. So there's a question in there somewhere. Yeah. And then you become a professional pianist

Speaker B: 00:12:19

and you have to practice that piece by next week, but you, and then you go on the other

Speaker A: 00:12:23

sort of rollercoaster down. Yeah. Um, and I guess let's talk about that a little bit. Maybe, maybe you have examples or yeah, take it whichever way you want to go. Do you want to go first?

Speaker C: 00:12:33

Yeah. So I think it is possible for it to sort of be good. Uh, and I, I'll, I'll try and, I'll try and describe a, uh, example from my own life. So, so YouTube, you guys have probably heard of it. Heard of it. Yeah. Um, it's kind of always there. Whenever you search for something on Google, it pops up. So the temptation is immediate and ever present to sort of get stuck into some sort of superficially, uh, relevant YouTube videos that ends up being two, three hours later and you're watching kittens on kittens falling off logs or something. Yeah. Um, the, but the, but I think I, I found YouTube to be increasingly useful kind of general research tool and information source. Um, so I, and I, the way, the way I've done this is I've imposed a sort of discipline. That's a strategy on myself where I will have a curated list of YouTube content creators who are actually informative, good, and sort of what, you know, well-produced. It's not just anything. And I will, whenever I'm find myself slipping down the YouTube rabbit hole, I will preferentially try and go for one of those videos that I've not seen yet. So I'm thinking of things like Smarter Every Day, Vsauce, the kind of the user ones that

Speaker A: 00:13:52

you've got a predetermined way, a pre you've got a plan that's of how to head off. Yeah. So by

Speaker C: 00:13:59

having, by having yet still kind of satisfied by subscribing to those ones, they, they're more likely to appear in your feed and, um, they're more likely to sort of, uh, appear in the sort of playlist. So that sort of saves things. And because they, they, they're good inverted commas curators, I'm usually learning something as well. So I feel satisfied that although this is not immediate, the immediate task that needs to be done, it's not inherently all bad because I'll learn something on the way. Um, so I've sort of engineered the environment to help me do inverted commas, the right thing, whatever that is. Um, so, uh, I think it is. So, and so I now YouTube's now replaced, uh, most, I don't read newspapers anymore. If I need, if I need tech news, there's a couple of YouTube curators I go for, for tech news. And that's all the only place I really get it. Um, uh, and so just watching the odd YouTube video while I'm supposed to be doing a report, uh, is actually me just getting some, getting some news. It scratches the procrastination itch. Yeah. But in a kind of, in a positive way. And I like that. Um, just before

Speaker A: 00:15:06

you come in Nick, cause I know what you guys are about is, and in fact, what we do with this podcast about analysis and decision-making. Well, boom, there you go right there. It's a bit of and a bit of decision-making regarding your own procrastination habits, um, to a positive end.

Speaker C: 00:15:18

I like that. Yeah. Uh, so to put some general principles on that, the way I did that, yeah, I suppose you could say I reduced the barriers to the inverted commas, good things by making them a bit more likely to appear in the feed, et cetera. Um, and I also did the opposite, decreasing the, the, uh, increasing, sorry, the barriers to the bad things. So if I'm, if I've, if I have a new computer game that's in my steam library, I'm likely to play it instead of doing something I should do. I'll just uninstall it. Uh, cause I can always like reinstall it later on, but, uh, just the barrier of that sort of 20 minutes or so waiting for it to download. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:15:55

Can be enough for me to actually not do it. Yeah. I like it. I wish I could be not for the first

Speaker B: 00:16:00

time, Peter, I wish I could be more like you. There's a, that, that's a chimes in with actually a lot of the kind of self-help advice, which is not again, not all of it. Most of it, I'd say, isn't particularly founded on scientific research, but certainly subjectively, you know, a lot of the things that people advise sound very sensible and people report they work. And one of them is reducing the barriers, like Peter says, reducing the barriers to do the, um, to do the things that you would normally try and avoid, uh, which would, you know, say for example, going to sleep in your exercise clothes so that you wake up and that, that small barrier of having to get changed to go to the gym or go for a run is removed, you know, and the, and obviously removing, um, temptations. So just as Peter's saying, he's uninstalled steam games. If he's feeling overly tempted to play them, you know, uninstalling social media apps from your phone, for example. Um, now I, what the one app that I'm cannot remove is Reddit. I just, it's just, you know, when I've got 10 minutes, it's the, it's always, it's, it just gives me that, that information high. But, uh, yeah, I mean, there is a more general problem. And I think something, why, why the internet has thrown this into sub sharp relief is because obviously it provides so many distractions for creatures like us who really like consuming information and particularly, you know, I mentioned social media, but that's a particularly sort of pernicious form of, um, uh, information, sort of information temptation, because obviously we're also wired to be interested in what other people are doing, particularly our friends. So, um, and, and, and of course not wanting to be left out of things, all of those combined, all those social pressures, which before, you know, 30 years ago, if you were stuck at home and waiting to, you know, trying to find something to distract you from writing an essay, you wouldn't have been able to do them. Those are things that you simply didn't have access to before. Now it doesn't mean you're necessarily more likely to write an essay or, or indeed, you know, instead of do the essay, write a sonata or solve Fermat's last theorem or something, you're not going to do that instead necessarily, but you might've done slightly more productive things with your time. You know, you might've done something a bit more creative. Um, yeah. So, so, so a lot of that's, that's a big

Speaker A: 00:18:20

recommendation that, that people give. Um, okay. I'm actually quite surprised we've zipped along. Um, there's definitely a question I want to ask at the end, but, um, Nick, just coming back to you. I mean, one of the things that Peter talked about there was, um, he's found a way to positively procrastinate. What about yourself? I mean, is there anything, can you give me some concrete examples? Um, or do you have similar methods to, to, to what he's talked about? I, I don't,

Speaker B: 00:18:47

I, I don't think it's enough of a problem for me, for me to have, uh, needed to evolve strategies necessarily about it, but I have noticed there's certain things which I've noticed, um, do make a difference on my feeling of wellbeing, like after I've done them. So forms of distraction, which feel good to me, one, and particularly actually the re the, what I get, what I've noticed I, I put off always is that the number one thing is writing something, not emails. That's no problem at all. I don't get, I don't get, I don't have, you know, procrastination problems about replying to emails or, or doing any kind of, um, even admin. I don't tend to put off admin. Like, I mean, if anything, I try and get it done. I enjoy doing it because it's easy. What I put off is having to use, you know, like system two bits of my brain, having to think hard about how I'm going to approach something, you know, empty spaces, open questions. Those are the things that I tend to avoid. And, um, but, but when, when I do, when I distract myself with things, the things that I, um, always feel better about are where there's a task that gets done. Right. So if I, if I procrastinate by doing the washing up at the end of it, I can say, I have finished the washing up and it's done. If I distract myself by thinking, I want to write this piece of code that does that thing. Once it does that thing, I've finished, or I want to, you know, practice that piece of music. Once you've got the hang of that piece of music or go for a walk, they're all things that have an end point. And when you finished you go, well, actually, I feel a bit more motivated now. And you're more likely to go and, you know, attack that thing that, that was, that you were trying to distract yourself from. I would say that bad procrastination is where you get sucked into something that has no end. You know, you, where you can't say there's a completion, you know, like, um, online puzzles, for example, where you can just do one and then another and then another, or, um, or Reddit, it's the worst, or Facebook with their, with their eternal scroll. You know, it's not even a page anymore where you have to click next page, next page, you just keep going down. Um, and forever, you know, at no point do you go, right, well, I've done that now time to get on with something else. And, and you get stuck in this sort of, um, vortex, you know, where, where it just, the cost of stopping doing it is always higher than the cost of carrying on or the benefit of carrying on, you know? Um, so, um, yeah, so that's my own sort of personal, what I've noticed is that, is that if, if I get distracted, the very best thing to be distracted by is a task which can be completed. Um, and, and actually horrible admin jobs are great for that because they, they don't involve any kind of high level thought. And, and you know, when you've done them. Yeah. Okay. But no, I think we haven't just, I thought it'd be worth just having a quick whiz

Speaker A: 00:21:38

through the psychological evidence. Yeah. Well, this is what I was gonna say, let's finish, I mean, um, and then we can talk about what the, yeah, you get your last points in and then, um, and then we're going to wrap up with some fun stuff. So what were you, what did you say this

Speaker B: 00:21:51

about the psychology? Yeah. So, I mean, just sort of, obviously people have, um, generated quite a bit of sort of theory about, um, you know, why, why we procrastinate. There's a sort of economic framework for analyzing it, which is to do with, um, essentially it's to do with having a utility function, which is, um, very much favors the present, you know, so that a small, a small, um, a future benefit is going to be worth less than, you know, than, than the small cost you have the, what would seem to be a large cost now of having to, you know, make a start on

Speaker A: 00:22:26

something. So that's the problem of why it starts, why it happens, right? Yeah, it's almost a

Speaker B: 00:22:29

description. I'd say it's not really, that's not, the economic approach doesn't really say, you know, it's not a causative analysis, but it's just saying that, um, this is a statement of the problem is, is that we discount the future too heavily. Um, and, and so, you know, small cost, and it's that, it's the same problem that we have all sorts of things like giving up smoking. It's this exact same problem. You know, this one cigarette that you have now is going to be nicer than the, you know, the, the, the, whatever that future benefit of not, of not smoking in the future is going to be. So you're always going to go for the cigarette now. And that's where the dark playground comes in. It's always nicer than the, that, that perceived effort of, of starting something. Um, no, I think the interesting thing, just touching on something Peter mentioned is, is this, this question of whether procrastination represents some kind of evolutionary adaptation. And I, and I, I suspect it does, which is why it's so hard and so prevalent. Um, so there's this one study, um, Chen and Chang, who said that, um, well, if you look at the kinds of things that procrastination is correlated with, it's all those sorts of things like impulsivity and risk-taking, um, and, you know, discounting the future, which, you know, again, supports the same view that the sort of economic analysis would, would, uh, would say. Um, but that this is a perfectly viable strategy in the evolutionary environment, but actually favouring present rewards means that you do get those berries. You don't go off to hunt, hunt the mammoth and then, you know, fail to find it. And by this hunt coming back, somebody else has eaten the berries, you know? So it's, it's, uh, the idea is it's an ad, it's an adaptation, but like a lot of other, you know, fundamental adaptations is it, we, we gradually designed a world where that can, you know, where there's such things as planning for the future and careers and things that didn't exist to our, you know, hunt together ancestors. And so, um, yeah, so that, that's it really. It's sort of, you could, I think some people would say it's a farming, a sort of farming ethics problem. Yeah. That farming culture has imposed a, a kind of necessity to think about the future in a way that we're not evolved to do. Yeah. Hence, you know, stopping it is hard because it's so fundamental.

Speaker A: 00:24:44

Yeah. Um, by the way, maybe we should have asked this at the beginning. Um, out of interest, how big of a procrastinator are you? So from 10 disastrous, always sort of, always procrastinating essays due yesterday to one, you're perfectly functioning machine and just get it all done. So where do you think you are on that scale? Uh, I'm going to take it, Peter, I reckon you're about

Speaker C: 00:25:04

a three or a four probably. It really depends. I mean, it's a mood and sort of, uh, fatigue driven. Um, if you know, you wake up and you're sort of didn't sleep well, or you're slightly hung over, that will be a procrastination day. But if you sort of wake up motivated, sort of done a bit of exercise in the morning, then you, then I find it much easier not to, to avoid it. It's just a general sense of this much easier to park that stuff. So yeah, I'll watch those YouTube videos, but I'm going to do it later. I think you generally, I'm sure you're, you're probably

Speaker A: 00:25:33

like a three or four. Yeah. On average, probably three or four. Yeah. Nick? Well, yeah, no,

Speaker B: 00:25:39

it's interesting Peter said that because one of the sort of conclusion of the psychological research is that it's not a productivity problem. It's not a behavioral problem. It's a mood problem. That's the reason people procrastinate is because they are trying to repair negative mood and they're doing it with the first kind of thing that comes along, whether it's eating a cheese sandwich or, you know, doing something, but just avoiding. So it's essentially that people have a mood, a kind of negative attitude towards task and they fix that through things that are kind of pleasurable in the short term. And, and so it makes a lot of sense that mood has a big impact on the extent to which you do it. And that's certainly definitely the case with me. Yeah. I, you know, if I'm, as Peter says, I can, I can only, I can only start things in the morning. Yeah. I really, you know, I have to make sure that other annoying things I have to do are out of the way. You know, if it's the afternoon is that's when I'm going to

Speaker A: 00:26:41

procrastinate. Yeah. I've got to start something in the afternoon. I just can't do it. So you were about six. I know, because I know, because actually I still don't think this answer the question because if it's about moods, but some people are more prone to moods and to emotional disturbance than others. What are you then a six or seven? Yeah. I mean, I, I think, I think I'd,

Speaker B: 00:27:03

I'd rate myself. I don't know if this is part of the issue. I'm not trying, not trying to avoid the question. I think I'd rate myself like a six or seven, but I suspect that proper procrastinators would think I was more of a three or four. You're just an amateur. Yeah. Because I do get things done when things do get done. And I think partly the fact that I hate procrastinating so much is probably why I get unduly anxious about it and why I do try and make sure I'm not doing it too

Speaker C: 00:27:32

much. I think there's a, I think there's a sort of a wider sort of wider tip that, you know, if you're, unless you're chronically procrastinating, just forgive yourself because you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to sort of, Oh, you know, had I not been procrastinating in my twenties, I could have achieved so much more. But then, you know, you had a good time. And you might have had,

Speaker B: 00:27:52

yeah, you might, you might have had a miserable life. Yeah. I mean, I reckon I'm about a nine and a half, I think. Yeah. But at the same time, you've still done things. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, because I know that you get things done. I mean, your podcasts get edited. They do. They

Speaker A: 00:28:04

do. Yeah. And I know there are some people I know who think I'm really go ahead and get stuff done. I certainly don't think that about myself. And I think maybe that goes back to what you were

Speaker B: 00:28:13

saying, Peter, about being easier ourselves. Well, no, I mean, actually, that's, that's what a lot of the advice, I would say sort of the high quality advice, the advice that's based on actual studies is, and I'm not really sure what it means. But it but giving yourself forgiveness, as Peter says, and self compassion, apparently, people who are more self compassionate, more forgiving of their own foibles are less likely to procrastinate. So So that's, that's good. I mean, but maybe maybe sort of being rating yourself more highly as a procrastinator is part of that. It's like, well, you know, yes, okay, I'm a nine. But, you know, maybe I just needed to give

Speaker C: 00:28:50

myself a one. And just be a utilitarian moral relativist and everything's fine. I've always

Speaker A: 00:28:58

driven to be that whatever that is. Okay. By the way, there's a phrase you used earlier on I really liked, which was information. Temptation. Yeah, information temptation. I like that. Listen, look, just to finish off, we're actually way over time. Yeah, I'm intrigued to hear about people's worst if you can identify your worst ever bit of procrastination, and what that led to.

Speaker C: 00:29:20

Who wants to go first? Peter? Yeah, go first. So confess, confess, say confessions of a procrastinator. So it's not a one particular sort of thing I had to do or piece of work I had to hand in or something. But around the early 20s, my career, my career aspiration was to join the army. And I and I suffered injuries while training in the army. And I think partly, I have a suspicion in my mind that partly I wasn't ready physically to join the army. Because I spent I did I was training and I was cycling and running and swimming and trying to get fit. But there was always this nagging feeling that I wasn't quite doing enough because I was still going to the pub with my mates and having a good life and scumbag and just just, yeah, just doing too much boozing and not not not really taking it seriously enough. And I think had I trained a bit harder, I wouldn't

Speaker B: 00:30:16

have suffered the injuries that I did. But then you wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be here today. You'd be some major stuck behind a desk. I'd be some past over colonel here.

Speaker A: 00:30:27

Okay, okay, good. No, nice. Actually, my one goes to my early 20s as well. So this is interesting,

Speaker B: 00:30:33

Nick. Yeah, well, I my life is absolutely full of tasks that I sort of feel like I ought to get on with. I mean, I'm my in tray is way, way bigger. And this is my own psychological in tray. It's way, way, way bigger than I could ever achieve in my life, right? Because I think I'd be great to do that someday. And I've just learned to live with that. You know, I've got loads and loads of ideas about things I'd like to do. And I just I could, you know, I can, I can do about maybe one 10th of them, realistically. So so but but I think every task you sort of take on and don't finish, sits there. And it's like an open tab in a browser, like a weight around your neck, like an open wound. And the one that I think I'm conscious of it really having bothered me was when when I was working as an economic advisor in MOD. I went for this meeting with what is one other economist and some guy from the department, the procurement team, the procurement area of MOD. And he like wanted us to do this study into the how you could measure the value added, I think of like, of like what the procurement people were doing and whether or not smart procurement was going to add value compared to something else. And, you know, we talked about it, I thought, well, yeah, it sounds kind of kind of interesting. And it could be quite a major bit of work. And, yeah. And then, and then, you know, I sort of thought I really ought to get started on that. And I think we probably exchanged a couple of emails. But there wasn't really a task. There wasn't a kind of we need this done by this certain deadline. There was interest in it. And, you know, I had loads of other things to do. And then weeks went by and months went by. And eventually, I just completely ignored it. And, and, you know, it went away. Right? Now, you might think, well, that's not a problem, then. But it's okay. This day, it bothers me that I'd said I was going to do this thing, and I never got around to it. But it but that's like, because it would it would have been quite a major bit of work. And I just didn't deal with it. And I would now I would, you know, within if it was sort of two weeks, three weeks that I'd left it, I was supposed to have done something. There's no these days, I just say, look, you know, I think this is going to be a bit challenging. You know, do you need this by a certain amount of time? Or can we put it off? Or should we agree to revisit it? I would deal with it now. And it really bothers me that I just let it sit there doing nothing. I've got to let's just do it. Like,

Speaker C: 00:33:01

let's let's do this. Yeah, let's do a podcast on it. Or a blog post and then just hand it to hand it over to him. So sorry, it's a bit late. I've been doing some thinking. And your years of suffering

Speaker B: 00:33:14

can come to an end. Yeah, let's get it done. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember. I can't remember what

Speaker A: 00:33:17

s. No, I'd been about: 1920

Speaker B: 00:36:24

first. So in the long run, it was all fine. It was all fine. Well, maybe I mean, from a theological perspective, perhaps you were, you know, you were put there as a kind of trial. And and he then had to overcome that trial. And he was better off as a result. Exactly that. I'm what Buddhists call

Speaker A: 00:36:44

one of life's teachers. You know, the rest of the world calls an arsehole. So yeah, so that guy to this day, he's never Yeah, that guy really intensely dislikes me. Let's see if we keep that in. All right. Um, yeah, we'll finish there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.