The “hierarchy of suck”

This is a concept that I named several years ago and very much comes under the heading of understanding your own behavior…


Why is it that we do what we do? 

Sometimes it is simply that we chose the task that sucks the least. I always think of the college kid who doesn’t do laundry for the first 6 weeks of school because it’s so boring and tedious. But then when it’s time to study for midterms, suddenly that’s a great time to do laundry. This kid will then spend all day doing laundry and may even clean his/her room. And it’s not that those things aren’t in need of being done and won’t help his/her ability to focus in that environment, but let’s be honest. He or she is really avoiding studying because laundry is now not at that top of the “hierarchy of suck.” Studying is. Laundry if finally the lesser of two evils.

Leave a Reply