[procastatron]

But at the same time, it seems unless there's a physiological difference in people like me, we should be able to condition ourselves into working more.

What I'm doing with my extra time is not productive by any measure and although it makes me really good at producing random facts at dinner parties....I can't see much else gained by the time I waste.

[yungchin]

> unless there's a physiological difference in people like me

I think there is: different people have differently tuned reward-centres in the brain.

The book "the procrastination equation" by Piers Steel tries to capture those differences in equation form. Although it's probably faux-math, the key idea seems good to me: procrastinators are more sensitive to the time-until-reward dimension of a given rational choice.

And of course, being physiologically different is not an excuse to procrastinate away. Once we understand the nature of the beast, we can game our brain (as the book describes), and (I hope) we can then maybe benefit from brain plasticity to get better at this stuff over time.

[skrebbel]

>we should be able to condition ourselves into workin more.

Very disciplined people might be able to. You can't discipline yourself into being more disciplined. Accept that first.

[Millennium]

Except that it is, in fact, possible to instill discipline in a person. Armies the world over do it by the hundreds.