Procrastination

Procrastination is a single, monumentally important “keystone” bad habit. Change it, and a myriad of other positive changes will gradually begin to unfold. It’s easy to feel distaste for something you’re not good at, but the better you get at something, the more you’ll find you enjoy it. You can’t compete in math if you just cram at the last minute. We procrastinate about things that make us feel uncomfortable. Mathphobes appear to avoid math because even just thinking about it seems to hurt. The pain centers of their brains light up when they contemplate working on math. It was the anticipation that was painful. When the mathphobes actually did math, the pain disappeared. The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself. You delay practice and on a critical exam day, you choke because you haven’t laid the firm neural foundations you need to feel comfortable with the material.

Procrastination is like addiction. It can even become a source of pride as well as an excuse for doing poorly. Procrastinators put off just that one little thing. They do it again and again, gradually growing used to it.

You cannot rely on long-term consequences and rewards to motivate the Present Self. Instead, you have to find a way to move future rewards and punishments into the present moment. You have to make the future consequences become present consequences. This is exactly what happens during the moment when we finally move beyond procrastination and take action.

For example, let’s say you have a report to write. You’ve known about it for weeks and continued to put it off day after day. You experience a little bit of nagging pain and anxiety thinking about this paper you have to write, but not enough to do anything about it. Then, suddenly, the day before the deadline, the future consequences turn into present consequences, and you write that report hours before it is due. The pain of procrastinating finally escalated and you crossed the “Action Line.” There is something important to note here. As soon as you cross the Action Line, the pain begins to subside. In fact, being in the middle of procrastination is often more painful than being in the middle of doing the work. Point A on the chart above is often more painful than Point B. The guilt, shame, and anxiety that you feel while procrastinating are usually worse than the effort and energy you have to put in while you’re working. The problem is not doing the work, it’s starting the work.

Incorporating a planner approach can be helpful. The following steps incorporate the parts of the Ivy Lee Method (Clear 2016).

1. Write down a weekly to-do list of twenty or fewer items.
2. Each night, create the next day’s daily to-do list, from the weekly to-do list, of important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. (No more than 6 items.)
3. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
4. Completion of an item may be measured by time (product oriented) or specific goal (process oriented). When using the Pomodoro Technique, focus on the process.
5. Try not to add to the list or swap items.

Big tasks need to be translated into smaller ones that show up on your daily task list. Set a quitting time. Those who are committed to maintaining healthy leisure time along with their hard work outperform those who doggedly pursue an endless treadmill. (Oakley, 2014)